The history of the Graff family in America presents an interesting story. Early records indicate that a number of Graffs migrated from Germany in the early 18th century and settled in Pennsylvania. Most prominent among them was a man named Jacob Graff, a brick layer and merchant in Philadelphia. His claim to fame, other than being a very prosperous business man, is that he rented two furnished rooms in his home on the outskirts of Philadelphia to Thomas Jefferson when the inner city became too distracting for Mr. Jefferson to concentrate on his task to pen the first draft of the Declaration of Independence.
The Jacob Graff House, originally built in 1775, was destroyed but was authentically reconstructed in 1975 and today is known as The Declaration House in the Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Jacob Graff produced two sons, Jacob Jr. and one named Henry.
John Henderson Graff was born to Henry and Elizabeth Graff in 1826 at Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. It is unclear if his father is the same Henry that was the son of Jacob Graff, but the time lines are about the same.
Whether he was or was not, John Henderson Graff migrated from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, to current day West Elmore County at Robinson Springs in the City of Millbrook some time between 1860 and 1865. He is documented in the 1860 United States census records of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, as 23 years of age and employed as a clerk.
There is no record of his motivation to “remove” to Alabama, but one could surmise it was to continue his ancestral family tradition as successful merchants, since Robinson Springs at that time was prime territory for a successful business. On the other hand, he could have sided with the Confederacy when the Civil War broke out, as he is listed as a confederate veteran on the Confederate Veterans Memorial Monument on Monument Drive and Main Street at Robinson Springs.
At any rate, Henderson Graff established a store and sold goods to pioneers in and around the Robinson Springs area. The exact location of the store is unknown today but is thought to have been just north of present day Thornfield, the old McKeithen plantation home, on County Road No. 7.
Henderson Graff and his wife, Anna, produced several children, including a son, Thomas, who carried on the family tradition as a merchant by establishing a grist mill on Keena Creek, north of present day county Road No. 7 and Highway 14 that intersects in the heart of Robinson Springs.
George Edwin Graff, Thomas’ son, was also a merchant and a farmer. George Graff established a grocery store and gasoline station at historical Robinson Springs on the east side of Main Street, across the way from the present day Dixie One Stop, which he also built before his death in 1975.
I can remember in my youth riding by the old store and seeing the dispenser. Gasoline was first pumped into a clear glass holding tank before being dispensed into an automobile or maybe a tractor in those days. Many people in the area depended on “Mr. George” to support them through the depression years of the 1930s and early 1940s by carrying their grocery tabs until “pay day.”
George and Mrs. Dorma Graff produced three sons: George Everett, James Edwin and William. The union of James Edwin and Mamie Graff resulted in the birth of three daughters: Judy, Joan and Jane.
I was fortunate to marry their middle daughter, Joan.
When Mark Waldo, Jr., the rector of St. Michael and All Angels’ Episcopal Church, which is located next to the great springs at Robinson Springs, was searching for a millstone to establish a water feature in the courtyard of the church, I remembered the perfect one. My father-in-law, Edwin Graff, had inherited one of the old millstones from his grandfather’s gristmill on Keener Creek.
The Graffs gladly donated the stone in honor of the Graff family of Robinson Springs and later as a memorial to their daughter and my dear deceased wife Joan, a communicant of St. Michael and All Angels’ Episcopal Church.
The millstone fountain is not only a beautiful appointment for the church and a memorial to Joan Graff Johnson but also a remembrance of the many contributions the Graff family made as founders and community leaders in Elmore County, Millbrook, and especially to the Robinson Spring community. I am proud to be a part of this family.
