Ancestors

William Addison Graydon

William Graydon was born in South Carolina in 1793. The FamilySearch collaborative tree gives the date as 11 June 1793 and the place as Edgefield District, and adds the middle name Addison. He was a son of Thomas Graydon of Laurens District and his wife Sarah Camp. His brothers and sisters were John, Sterling, Drury, Mary, Kizia, Winiford, Mahala, Elizabeth, Lydia and Nancy.

He married Elizabeth, whose maiden name is unknown. The FamilySearch collaborative tree gives the date as 12 November 1818, in Laurens. Their eldest son was Thomas O. Graydon. In March 1818 he was in Laurens District among the Dunklins: on 26 March a William Graydon witnessed a deed by James Dunklin there. He probably went to Alabama two months after the wedding, with the South Carolina train that founded Greenville in January 1819. By 1825 they were certainly in Butler County, where their daughter Emily was born. The county had been organised in 1819.

His father died in Laurens District in 1840 without a will, leaving about 407 acres on the Reedy River. His brothers and brothers-in-law filed a bill in the Laurens Court of Equity to divide it, naming every child and the widow. William, in Alabama, was beyond the limits of the state, and the absent heirs were made defendants. In December 1840 the Court of Appeals in Equity sent the partition back because the absent heirs had not been properly made parties.

On 19 November 1842, in Butler County, he signed a power of attorney. A power of attorney authorised another person to act in a man's name, here to collect money he could not travel to collect himself. He named his son Thomas O. Graydon to receive what was due to him "from the estate of Thomas Graydon deceased late of Lawrence District in the State of South Carolina." John Bolling and Wm. McKane witnessed it, and it was proved before A. McKellar, justice of the peace. The paper was filed with the Laurens equity case, where it still is.

The 1850 census of Butler County found him at fifty seven, born in South Carolina, with Elizabeth, fifty three, and their children Emily, William, John, Jane, Henry, Nancy and Walter. Jane is Lucinda Jane, who married John W. McCoy in 1857.

On 23 February 1854 he and Elizabeth mortgaged property to E. H. Blackmon for $125. He signed Wm Grayden. The witnesses were his son Wm A. Graydon and his daughter Mary E. Grayden.

He died in 1866 without a will. In March 1868 his widow petitioned for a homestead, calling him "William Graydon late of said County decd," meaning Butler County. She asked for forty acres in Section 21, Township 11, Range 15. The collaborative tree gives his death as 13 July 1866 in Lowndes County. The year is in the record; the day and the county are not.

In October 1907 his unmarried daughter Nancy M. Graydon gave a deposition at the Graydon home near Greenville, so that the family's forty acres could be sold. She had lived on the land about thirty seven years. It was sold at the courthouse door on 18 November 1907, and she bought it for $150. She died at Greenville on 2 April 1908.

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Cite: Heirology, "William Addison Graydon (1793-1866)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/william-addison-graydon-1793-1866-b21fdd.