Graham, Jesse

(1804-1887) Noted Coryell County pioneer and pastor Jesse Graham was born in North Carolina. He moved with family to Tennessee and then to Alabama, where he married Martha Jane Fanning and became a Primitive Baptist minister. By 1850, the Grahams, who would have twelve children, were in Texas. In 1855, they moved to Coryell County, settling along Brown’s Creek. The next year, Graham organized Sugarloaf Baptist Church, which he pastured. He also helped establish Rainey’s Creek Baptist Church. Elder Jesse Graham served as a circuit riding preacher to a large portion of central Texas. After his death, he was buried in Graham Cemetery before being reinterred in Restland Cemetery. (2008)