William M. Graham (September 8, 1819

Minisink The Minisink or (more recently) Minisink Valley is a loosely defined geographic region of the Upper Delaware River valley in northwestern New Jersey (Sussex and Warren counties), northeastern Pennsylvania ( Pike and Monroe counties) and New York ...

Orange County, New York Orange County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 401,310. The county seat is Goshen. This county was first created in 1683 and reorganized with its present boundaries in 1798. Orange ...

– November 13, 1886 Middletown, Orange Co., NY) was an American banker, convicted felon and Democratic politician from New York.

Life

In 1841, he began to work for the Middletown Bank, first as Teller, and from 1844 on as Cashier. He was Treasurer of Orange County from 1855 to 1860. In 1860, he became President of the Wallkill Bank, later the Wallkill National Bank. He was a member of the New York State Senate (10th D.) from 1868 to 1871, sitting in the 91st, 92nd, 93rd and

94th New York State Legislature The 94th New York State Legislature, consisting of the New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly, met from January 3 to April 21, 1871, during the third year of John T. Hoffman's governorship, in Albany. Background Under the provis ...

s. In 1872, the Wallkill National Bank went bankrupt. An investigation showed that $256,000 of the bank's funds and more than $100,000 worth of securities deposited in the bank were missing, the money having been "dissipated in Wall Street" by Graham and Cashier Charles H. Horton. (In total, the cash and securities were worth over nine million dollars in current money.) Horton fled to Europe, but Graham was convicted of fraud and embezzlement, and sentenced to ten years imprisonment at hard labor. He served about four years in Clinton State Prison and was pardoned by President

Rutherford B. Hayes Rutherford Birchard Hayes (; October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 19th president of the United States from 1877 to 1881, after serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and as governo ...

in 1877. Afterwards he worked as an attendant at the

Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital (also known as Middletown State Hospital or Middletown Psychiatric Center) was a hospital for the treatment of mental disorders located in Middletown, New York. It opened on April 20, 1874, and was the fir ...

. In the spring of 1886, Graham attempted a political comeback when he was the Democratic candidate for Justice of the Peace, losing by a narrow margin. In November of that year, however, Graham died of

Bright's disease Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that are described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. It was characterized by swelling and the presence of albumin in the urine, and was frequently accompanied ...

Sources

''The New York Civil List''
compiled by Franklin Benjamin Hough, Stephen C. Hutchins and Edgar Albert Werner (1870; pg. 444 and 555)
''Life Sketches of the State Officers, Senators, and Members of the Assembly of the State of New York in 1868''
by S. R. Harlow & S. C. Hutchins (pg. 87f)
''TWEED AND GRAHAM''
in NYT on May 23, 1877
''A CHECKERED CAREER ENDED''
in NYT on November 15, 1886 {{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, William M 1819 births 1886 deaths Democratic Party New York (state) state senators People from Minisink, New York American bankers Politicians convicted of embezzlement Deaths from nephritis American politicians convicted of fraud Recipients of American presidential pardons New York (state) politicians convicted of crimes 19th-century American legislators 19th-century American businesspeople