Linus Graves, 1815 – 1897

            Linus Graves was born in Williamstown, Vermont on April 2, 1815, one of eleven children born to Calvin and Fannie (Robinson) Graves. The Graves family was one of the oldest in the United States. Linus’s ancestors first came to England from France in the year 1060, and then his ancestors immigrated to the United States in 1640, settling first in Connecticut, then in Massachusetts in 1660.

            In 1836, Linus moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he began teaching school and studying law. It was while living in Springfield that he became good friends with Abraham Lincoln. In fact, at the news of Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, it was reported that he wept like a child. Linus then moved to Waynesville, DeWitt County, IL and started his first mercantile business with Dr. Rogers and John Maris of Washington, IL. It was here that he met and married his first wife, Eveline Sampson. Sadly, Eveline, along with their two children, died in 1843.

            In 1847, Linus married his second wife, Virginia Frances Haden, in Bloomington, to where they moved in 1849. Virginia was born in Kentucky on July 19, 1829, the only child of pioneer parents James Crenshaw Hayden and Rebecca (Sweet) Hatfield. Virginia was a teacher and taught at the first Bloomington private school in 1845. She always studied current events and was considered the best informed person in the city, relative to Bloomington’s growth and expansion. Virginia was very active in church work and was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

Linus and Virginia settled in their first house on the northeast corner of Center and Jefferson streets, until it was sold to give place to a brick business block. They had moved just across the street, but in 1854, were once again forced to move in order to give place to a hotel structure, which was first named “The Ashley,” then “The Windsor,” and finally, “The Illinois.” Linus was allowed to move the house from that property to 1109 E. Grove Street. In 1857, the family moved to a small farm one mile east of the center of town, on which their relatives resided until 1908. The Graves had six children: Fannie, wife of Joseph C. Means; Walter, a student of John Wesley Powell; Linus R.; Arthur, an Illinois Wesleyan University alumnus and prominent figure in civic affairs and lodge work; and two other daughters who died in infancy.

After Linus and his family moved to Bloomington, he opened a mercantile business with his brother Oliver. This business was located on Washington Street and was a grocery, dry goods and millinery store. The Bloomington Intelligencer reported that the Graves’ store had everything from “delicacies of the table to every kind of agricultural implement.” He then headed the businesses Graves, Story & Co. and Graves, McClun & Co. Linus also began working in real estate, making connections with Judge David Davis in real estate transactions that earned him 1,000 acres of land, which equals about 1.6 square miles. Linus was well-known as a pioneer businessman who always searched for new ways to progress further than other merchants, to the extent that customers came from twenty to thirty miles away to deal with him.

In 1859, Linus and 15 other prominent Bloomington men went to Pike’s Peak, Colorado during the gold rush. He acquired possession of a mining claim, which later became possessed by a claim “jumper.” He returned to Bloomington in 1860 after this unprofitable venture and turned his attention back to his real estate dealings, at which he has always been successful.

On February 16, 1857, the Bloomington Cemetery Association was founded by Linus Graves, James Robinson, David Brier, William Allin, and William Graves, and was created to be a profit-making venture. The Weekly Pantagraph published the charter of the Association, which stated that the “object of said Association shall be exclusively and solely to lay out and enclose and ornament a plat or piece of ground…to be used as a burial place.” Linus acted as secretary, superintendent, and treasurer for the Association throughout the rest of his life. His land was the foundation of the new cemetery, named Evergreen Cemetery.   He gave $9,000 worth of land, which would equal about $220,576.60 today. After his retirement, he devoted a great deal of his time to the beautifying and improvement of his cemetery for thirty years.

Among his many businesses, Linus was also an active Methodist and was one of the first trustees and founders of Illinois Wesleyan University in 1850, along with several other well-known Bloomington residents such as John McClun, Samuel Gallager, and James Robinson. He also helped establish the first public library in Bloomington, later named Withers Library. He was an Odd Fellow and a member of the Remembrance Lodge.

Linus also actively participated in politics. He was originally a member of the Whig Party until that party dissolved. He then became a member of the newly formed Republican Party, which held many of the same ideologies and principles as the former Whig Party. As a firm Republican and one of its organizers, he supported abolitionist Owen Lovejoy in his bid for Congress and was part of the Republican Convention Central Committee in 1856. Linus was also nominated to the McLean County Republican Convention in Bloomington to receive the nomination for office of Illinois State Representative in the next Legislature.

Linus also donated land to the Bloomington Depot on the Illinois Central Railroad (previously known as the Peoria, Bloomington and Lafayette Railroad Company). In 1853, he was appointed one of 25 delegates by the Railroad to visit Peoria to solicit their cooperation in building a road from the State line in the direction of Lafayette, IN to the foot of the Grand Rapids on the Mississippi River.

In 1867, Linus, along with other prominent men of Bloomington, helped send John Wesley Powell, a U.S. soldier and explorer, to the Colorado Rockies, where Powell planned to lead an exploratory expedition. When Linus and the fifteen other Bloomington men had first went to Colorado in search of gold at Pike’s peak in 1859, Linus had built a cabin which served as headquarters for himself and the other men from Bloomington on the expedition.  In 1867, Powell would follow this group’s same route along the Platte River and explore many of the same mountain areas on his expedition. Despite encountering many hardships, including dangerous rapids and the loss of many crucial supplies, the expedition arrived in Denver, Colorado on the evening of July 7, 1867 and became known as the Powell Geographic Expedition.

            Linus Graves died on January 18, 1897, at Deaconess Hospital after an illness of six months. Although he had been in excellent health, he suffered a sudden stroke of paralysis in July 1896 after working in Evergreen Cemetery earlier that day. He was admitted to the hospital and remained in good spirits throughout, even though one side of his body was paralyzed. He even had someone take him out to the polls so he could vote the Republican ticket.

Linus’ funeral was held at his daughter’s home, with music furnished by a choir from Deaconess Hospital. The internment took place in his own cemetery. After his death, his son Arthur J. Graves took over as secretary of the Bloomington Cemetery Association as well as manager of the cemetery and the adjoining Maplewood Greenhouse until his death in 1938.

In the 1960’s, the care fund of the Cemetery was transferred from the Bloomington Cemetery Association to the Peoples Bank and then finally, to the City of Bloomington. The City immediately began cleaning up the cemetery, which dramatically improved under its new township control. Not long after this, the City of Bloomington merged the City Cemetery, which was adjacent to the Evergreen Cemetery, to create Evergreen Memorial Cemetery.