Sacramento
County
Biographies
JOHN A. GRAHAM
John A. Graham, the genial host of the
American Exchange Hotel, in Folsom, is a native of Tippecanoe, Harrison County, Ohio, being born there March
23, 1849. His father, John Graham, a pioneer of this
State, was a native of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, educated there, and moved into
Ohio about 1842, where he married Sarah J. Dicks, a native of that State, whose
parents settled there when it was a wilderness.
John Graham was a justice of the peace in Tippecanoe, and made his home there until 1849,
when he came overland to California.
He mined on Feather
River, near
Oroville, Accumulated a little fortune, returned to Ohio in the fall of 1850,
and in 1863 brought his family here by water, landing in San Francisco December 17. He went to the mines in El Dorado County, where he owned some valuable ditch
property, and engaged in keeping hotel, conducting it as long as the mining
camp continued there—four years. Then he
purchased the hotel called the White House, on the Wire Bridge and Placerville
Road, and kept that hostelry twelve years, or up to within a short time of his
death, which occurred April 5, 1873, when he was aged fifty-eight years, and
engaged in the live-stock business. His
wife died in 1869. In John Graham’s
family were nine children, of whom seven are now living, all residents of this
state. John A. Graham, our subject, was
four years old when brought by his parents to this State in 1853. When of age he attended the San Jose
Institute, then clerked in a dry-goods and grocery
store in Yonntville, Napa County, for R. K. Berry, two years. Upon the
death of his father he returned home and took charge of the estate. For the ensuing thirteen years he conducted
the hotel at Shingle Springs, El Dorado County.
Next he went to Lake
Tahoe and
invested in a resort there, which proved unprofitable, and he came to Folsom
and leased the American Exchange Hotel, the leading commercial and family hotel
in the place. He is a whole-souled, accommodating and kind host, thoroughly understanding
how to make his guest comfortable and contented. His patronage is steadily increasing. As to the fraternities, he is an Odd Fellow
of ten years’ standing, being now a member of Cosumnes
Lodge, No. 63, of Latrobe, El Dorado County; and at the last session of the Grand
Lodge held at San
Francisco
he represented his lodge. He was married
in 1877 to Miss Amelia Meyer, a native of Shingle Springs, and they have four
children: Albert Herman, Edwin Laurin, Ira Morrill and Hazel Rae.
Transcribed by Karen Pratt.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An
Illustrated History of Sacramento County,
California. Page 518-519.
Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
©
2005 Karen Pratt.