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Graham Family
There are a great number of people in Coryell County who are descendants of Elder Jessie and Martha Jane Fannin Graham. Elder Jessie was
the son of John and Mary Graham of Surry County. North Carolina. Martha Janes' parents,
Middleton and Delphia Ann Moore Fannin were from Franklin County, Tennessee.
Harrison Graham and his wife, Martha Ann Hubbard Smith Graham
The Graham family first moved to Jackson County, Alabama. It was here in 1827 that Elder
Jessie met and married Martha Jane. They had eleven children, and all but two of these
were born in Alabama. In 1849 the family moved to Rusk County, Texas.
Curtis Beason Graham was the third son of Elder Jessie. In 1855 he met and married
Elizabeth Thornton, daughter of Harrison Thornton of Alabama, and that same year they
moved to Coryell County. along with his parents. Elder Jessie established the first
Primitive Baptist Church in Coryell County. In later years his son, Curtis Beason, also
became a Primitive Baptist minister.
Curtis Beason and Elizabeth had nine children and their second child was my
great-grandfather, Harrison M. Graham. He married Martha Ann Hubbard Smith (She had been
married to a Jim Smith and had two children by him.) Harrison and Martha Ann had 12
children, but only seven of these survived. One of these children was John Henry Graham,
my grandfather. He grew up in the part of Coryell County that is now a part of the army
camp.
In 1917 he married Una Mae Hopson in New Hope. Because my grandmother had infantile
paralysis as a child, she was only able to have one child, William Lee Graham, my father.
He went to the Antelope schools and spent his early years in the communities that were to
become the army camp. In 1939 he met and married Doris Eva Mierzwik of Killeen. They spent
their honeymoon with my father's uncle, C.C. Graham. The house that he lived in at that
time is one of the few that remains today on the army post. It is used today as quarters
for one of the commanders.
After moving around for several years, in 1954 my parents bought a farm in the Harmon
Community where they raised their children: Theda Ray, Jimmy Don, and myself.
-- Patsy Lee Graham Gibbs
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