Berkeley County, West Virginia Biography of Jasper L. GRAVES This biography was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 323 JASPER L. GRAVES, a native of Berkeley County, is one of the prosperous young business men of Martinsburg. He began acquiring experience in mercantile lines before he left school, and has built up a satisfactory business by steady application and industry. Mr. Graves was born on a farm near Jones Springs in Berkeley County, son of John M. Graves, a native of the same county and grandson of William Graves. William Graves was of early English ancestry, and on leaving Penn- sylvania located in Berkeley County, on a farm on Stuckey Ridge. He married Sarah Stuckey, of a pioneer family of that community. Both were stricken with diphtheria and died a week apart, leaving two small children, the daughter Barbara dying at the age of five years. John M. Graves was only five years old when his parents died, and he was cared for by his uncle, Michael Stuckey, with whom he lived until he was twenty-one. As a young man he did farm work, later bought a small tract of land near Jones Springs, was a tract farmer for several years, and on leaving his farm and moving to Martinsburg, was employed at Bishops Mill and lived at Martinsburg until his death at the age of fifty-two. On December 85, 1878, he married Sarah Catherine Albright, who was born on a farm in Berkeley County, daughter of Lewis Grantham Albright, a native of the same county, and granddaughter of William Albright, who is said to have been of Pennsylvania-Dutch ancestry. Lewis G. Albright learned the trade of shoemaker, when all boots and shoes were made to order, and he followed that trade in connection with farming. He married Sally Shimp, and both lived to a good old age. Mrs. Sarah Catherine Graves is a resident of Martinsburg. She became the mother of the following children: William Lewis, James Franklin, Nellie Gertrude, Jasper L., Ernest Cleveland and Andrew J. The son Andrew died at the age of twenty-two, while attending a training camp at Morgantown during the world war. William L. is a machinist by trade, and is now a foreman in the Southern Pacific Railroad shops at Oak- land, California. He married Grace Arvin, and they have three children, named Lester, Francene and Howard. James Franklin Graves lives at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, is a Pennsylvania Railroad conductor, and by his marriage to Alice Gift has children named Marvin, Virginia, Sarah, Jasper and Learie. Nellie Gertrude is the wife of I. F. Hyle, foreman at the Kelly Island Stone Quarry and has a daughter, Catherine, now a student in the Martinsburg High School. The parents of these children were both active members of the United Brethren Church and reared their family in the same faith. Jasper L. Graves at the age of fourteen began clerking in a grocery store, doing that work after hours and on holi- days. After leaving the city schools he continued clerking until 1911, then he engaged in the grocery business on his own account, and with a very small stock of goods. He now has one of the leading stores of the kind in Martinsburg. He lives with his mother. Mr. Graves is a member of the United Brethren Church and has been prominent in the church in various official capacities, having been a member of the board of trustees, is a teacher in the Sunday school and has served as president of the Christian Endeavor Society.