GRAFTON, a township in the S.E. part of Worcester county, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Pop. (1905) 5052; (1910) 5705. It is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford, and the Boston & Albany railways, and by interurban electric lines. The township contains several villages (including Grafton, North Grafton, Saundersville, Fisherville and Farnumsville); the principal village, Grafton, is about 7 m. S.E. of Worcester. The villages are residential suburbs of Worcester, and attract many summer residents. In the village of Grafton there is a public library. There is ample water power from the Blackstone river and its tributaries, and among the manufactures of Grafton are cotton-goods, boots and shoes, &c. Within what is now Grafton stood the Nipmuck Indian village of Hassanamesit. John Eliot, the “apostle to the Indians,” visited it soon after 1651, and organized the third of his bands of “praying Indians” there; in 1671 he established a church for them, the second of the kind in New England, and also a school. In 1654 the Massachusetts General Court granted to the Indians, for their exclusive use, a tract of about 4 sq. m., of which they remained the sole proprietors until 1718, when they sold a small farm to Elisha Johnson, the first permanent white settler in the neighbourhood. In 1728 a group of residents of Marlboro, Sudbury, Concord and Stowe, with the permission of the General Court, bought from the Indians 7500 acres of their lands, and agreed to establish forty English families on the tract within three years, and to maintain a church and school of which the Indians should have free use. The township was incorporated in 1735, and was named in honour of the 2nd duke of Grafton. The last of the pure-blooded Indians died about 1825.
GRAFTON, a city and the county-seat of Taylor county, West Virginia, U.S.A., on Tygart river, about 100 m. by rail S.E. of Wheeling. Pop. (1890) 3159; (1900) 5650, including 226 foreign-born and 162 negroes; (1910) 7563. It is served by four divisions of the Baltimore & Ohio railway, which maintains extensive car shops here. The city is about 1000 ft. above sea-level. It has a small national cemetery, and about 4 m. W., at Pruntytown, is the West Virginia Reform School. Grafton is situated near large coal-fields, and is supplied with natural gas. Among its manufactures are machine-shop and foundry products, window glass and pressed glass ware, and grist mill and planing-mill products. The first settlement was made about 1852, and Grafton was incorporated in 1856 and chartered as a city in 1899. In 1903 the population and area of the city were increased by the annexation of the town of Fetterman (pop. in 1900, 796), of Beaumont (unincorporated), and of other territory.
GRAHAM, SIR GERALD (1831-1899), British general, was born on the 27th of June 1831 at Acton, Middlesex. He was educated at Dresden and Woolwich Academy, and entered the Royal Engineers in 1850. He served with distinction through the Russian War of 1854 to 1856, was present at the battles of the Alma and Inkerman, was twice wounded in the trenches before Sevastopol, and was awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry at the attack on the Redan and for devoted heroism on numerous occasions. He also received the Legion of Honour, and was promoted to a brevet majority. In the China War of 1860 he took part in the actions of Sin-ho and Tang-ku, the storming of the Taku Forts, where he was severely wounded, and the entry into Peking (brevet lieutenant-colonelcy and C.B.). Promoted colonel in 1869, he was employed in routine duties until 1877, when he was appointed assistant-director of works for barracks at the war office, a position he held until his promotion to major-general in 1881. In command of the advanced force in Egypt in 1882, he bore the brunt of the fighting, was present at the action of Magfar, commanded at the first battle of Kassassin, took part in the second, and led his brigade at Tell-el-Kebir. For his services in the campaign he received the K.C.B. and thanks of parliament. In 1884 he commanded the expedition to the eastern Sudan, and fought the successful battles of El Teb and Tamai. On his return home he received the thanks of parliament and was made a lieutenant-general for distinguished service in the field. In 1885 he commanded the Suakin expedition, defeated the Arabs at Hashin and Tamai, and advanced the railway from Suakin to Otao, when the expedition was withdrawn (thanks of parliament and G.C.M.G.). In 1896 he was made G.C.B., and in 1899 colonel-commandant Royal Engineers. He died on the 17th of December 1899. He published in 1875 a translation of Goetze’s Operations of the German Engineers in 1870-1871, and in 1887 Last Words with Gordon.
GRAHAM, SIR JAMES ROBERT GEORGE, Bart. (1792-1861), British statesman, son of a baronet, was born at Naworth, Cumberland, on the 1st of June 1792, and was educated at Westminster and Oxford. Shortly after quitting the university, while making the “grand tour” abroad, he became private secretary to the British minister in Sicily. Returning to England in 1818 he was elected to parliament as member for Hull in the Whig interest; but he was unseated at the election of 1820. In 1824 he succeeded to the baronetcy; and in 1826 he re-entered parliament as representative for Carlisle, a seat which he soon exchanged for the county of Cumberland. In the same year he published a pamphlet entitled “Corn and Currency,” which brought him into prominence as a man of advanced Liberal opinions; and he became one of the most energetic advocates in parliament of the Reform Bill. On the formation of Earl Grey’s administration he received the post of first lord of the admiralty, with a seat in the cabinet. From 1832 to 1837 he sat for the eastern division of the county of Cumberland. Dissensions on the Irish Church question led to his withdrawal from the ministry in 1834, and ultimately to his joining the Conservative party. Rejected by his former constituents in 1837, he was in 1838 elected for Pembroke, and in 1841 for Dorchester. In the latter year he took office under Sir Robert Peel as secretary of state for the home department, a post he retained until 1846. As home secretary he incurred considerable odium in Scotland, by his unconciliating policy on the church question prior to the “disruption” of 1843; and in 1844 the detention and opening of letters at the post-office by his warrant raised a storm of public indignation, which was hardly allayed by the favourable report of a parliamentary committee of investigation. From 1846 to 1852 he was out of office; but in the latter year he joined Lord Aberdeen’s cabinet as first lord of the admiralty, in which capacity he acted also for a short time in the Palmerston ministry of 1855. The appointment of a select committee of inquiry into the conduct of the Russian war ultimately led to his withdrawal from official life. He continued as a private member to exercise a considerable influence on parliamentary opinion. He died at Netherby, Cumberland, on the 25th of October 1861.
His Life, by C. S. Parker, was published in 1907.