BIO: James Hutchinson Graham, Cumberland County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Bookwalter Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/ ______________________________________________________________________ History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania. Containing History of the Counties, Their Townships, Towns, Villages, Schools, Churches, Industries, Etc.; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; Biographies; History of Pennsylvania; Statistical and Miscellaneous Matter, Etc., Etc. Illustrated. Chicago: Warner, Beers & Co., 1886. http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/beers/beers.htm ______________________________________________________________________ PART II. HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY. PENNSYLVANIA. CHAPTER XXXVIII. BOROUGH OF CARLISLE. 376 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. JAMES HUTCHINSON GRAHAM, LL.D. The subject of this sketch was of Scotch-Irish descent. He was born September 10, 1807, on the paternal domain granted his great-grandfather Jared Graham, by Thomas and Richard Penn, in 1784. James Gra- 377 BOROUGH OF CARLISLE. ham, the grandfather of James H., built the log house on the site of which the latter was born, and which was used as a refuge against the Indians by the early settlers. James Graham had five sons: Jared, Thomas, Arthur, Isaiah (the father of James H.) and James. Isaiah Graham was a man of very strong mind, a leading politician of the State, and for many years a ruling elder in Big Spring Church. He was elected to the Senate in 1811, and re-elected. He was appointed associate judge by Gov. Findlay in 1817, and filled the position until his death in 1835. James Hutchinson Graham received his preparatory training for college at Gettysburg Academy under Dr. McConaughy, entered Dickinson College as a member of the junior class and graduated with honor in 1827. He studied law with Andrew Carothers, Esq., then the leader of the Carlisle bar, and was admitted to practice in November, 1829. He was a careful and laborious student, patient and painstaking in his investigation of questions, and he soon acquired a large and lucrative practice. In 1839 he was appointed deputy attorney-general for Cumberland County, a position he filled for six years, declining a reappointment. In 1850 he was elected, on the Democratic ticket, president judge of the Ninth Judicial District composed of the counties of Cumberland, Perry and Juniata, and re- elected for a second term in 1860. His service on the bench during a period of great political excitement marked him as one of the foremost jurists of his State. In 1862 Dickinson College conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws, and he was chosen professor of law in that institution, a position he occupied at his death in 1882. Judge Graham was a very useful man in the community in which he lived. He was one of the earliest members of the Second Presbyterian Church of Carlisle, and was for many years president of its board of trustees. He was a director and president of the Carlisle Deposit Bank until his elevation to the bench, and filled many trusts with scrupulous fidelity and honor. The high esteem in which he was held by the bar is well expressed in the resolution presented by Hon. Lemuel Todd at the meeting of the bar on the occasion of his death: "That the purity and consistency of his life in all its relations, his firm and conscientious performance of all personal, professional and judicial obligations, and his modest and unpretentious conduct and deportment were so marked and real as to challenge and possess the respect and esteem of the bar and all who were associated with him." Judge Graham left a large family to survive him, among whom are Lieut. Samuel L. Graham, United States Navy, Frank Gordon Graham of the Kansas City Times, and Duncan M. Graham, Esq., of the Carlisle bar.