Rev. William I. Graham Biography


	This biography appears on page 1832 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	REV. WILLIAM I. GRAHAM, D. D.- Crowning the advanced and 
admirable scheme of popular education in the state of South Dakota arc 
several excellent institutions of higher learning, of which the subject 
of this sketch was the honored and efficient president for a full 
decade, while he still remains a member of its faculty, having devoted 
thirty years of his life to educational work and being a man of 
recondite talents.

	Dr. Graham is a native of the old Buckeye state of the Union, 
having been born on a farm in Noble county, Ohio, on the 22d of June, 
1844, and being a son of David and Jane Graham. He passed his boyhood 
days on the home farm and received his rudimentary education in the 
district schools, making such use of his advantages that he became 
eligible for minor pedagogic honors, having taught for a number of 
years in the public schools, both before and after entering college. In 
1869 he was matriculated in the Ohio Wesleyan University, in the city 
of Delaware, where he completed the classical course and was graduated 
as a member of the class of 1873, receiving the degree of Bachelor of 
Arts. In 1876 his alma mater conferred upon him the degree of Master of 
Arts, while in 1896 Baker University, at Baldwin, Kansas, conferred 
upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. From 1873 to 1876 Dr. Graham 
was principal of the high school at Logan, Ohio, and in the meanwhile 
had completed a course of ecclesiastical study and been ordained to the 
ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church. In the autumn of 1876 he 
assumed the pastorate of the church of this denomination at Kirkville, 
Iowa, becoming a member of the conference of that state, and remaining 
identified with the same until 1879, when he accepted the chair of 
ancient classics in Baker University, at Baldwin, Kansas, where he did 
most effective work during the following ten years, at the expiration 
of which he went to the south and passed four years in educational work 
in Fort Worth, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia. He then, in 1893, came to 
South Dakota and accepted the presidency of Dakota University, being 
inducted into this executive office in August of that year and at once 
entering vigorously upon the discharge of his official duties, to which 
he continued to give his attention for the following ten years, giving 
a most able administration and advancing the interests of the 
institution in all departments. In September, 1903, he resigned the 
presidency in favor of Rev. Thomas Nicholson, D. D., and has since 
occupied the chairs of philosophy and Greek, remaining one of the 
prominent members of the faculty and being held in the highest esteem 
by all who know him.