I was inspired to research Meshic S. Graham when I read a 1931 obituary for William H. Mills claiming that “as a young man [Mills] learned the barbering trade with Mesh S. Graham, working for [Graham] until 1871 when [Mills] opened a shop of his own and for sixty years [1871-1931] plied his trade in Bellefonte.” My interest was further piqued when I found the following obituary for Mesh Graham, published in the July 28, 1905 edition of the Democratic Watchman: 

GRAHAM.—Mesh Graham, one of Bellefonte’s best known and most esteemed colored residents, died at the home of Benj. Williams, on Penn street, early Tuesday morning [July 25, 1905], of diseases incident to his 78 years of age. He was a barber by trade, and followed his profession up until a year or so ago when failing health compelled him to sell out and retire. 

Five children survive, namely: Mrs. George Freeman, Bellefonte; Mrs. Melissa Palmer, Asbury Park; Mrs. John H. Riley, Newark, N.J.; Sarah E., and George. 

The funeral was held yesterday afternoon, interment in the Union cemetery. 

During the funeral yesterday afternoon, all the barber shops in town were closed as a mark of respect to a man who, notwithstanding his race, so lived and moved among his fellow-beings that he was honored by all. 

As with Charles Garner Sr. and some other mid-nineteenth-century Bellefonte residents I have researched, Meshic Graham’s origins are obscure. He appears to have been uncertain of his birth date, judging from his inconsistent reports to census enumerators over the years, suggesting he might have been born anytime during the period 1822-1827. The furthest outlier is his claim to a census enumerator in 1900 that he had been born in August 1836. That date appears highly unlikely in light of his previous claims to enumerators. It is also at odds with the following report in the August 18, 1893 edition of the Democratic Watchman: “Mesh Graham, whose barber shop is in the basement of the old Conrad house, is the oldest barber in town, being in his 69th year [i.e., born circa 1824]. He has worked at his trade in Bellefonte for forty-five years [i.e., since circa 1848] and is one of our most industrious citizens.”     

I suspect Mesh’s Christian name was a variant of the Biblical name conventionally spelled “Meshach,” and pronounced “MEE-shack.” I have not learned the significance of the purported middle initial “S.” Mesh’s first name was spelled a variety of ways in newspaper articles and other records. Those spellings include “Missich,” “Meshach,” “Meshec,” and “Mesheck.” Because he was also referenced in some newspaper articles as “Mesh” and “Mish,” he and others might have pronounced the first syllable of his Christian name “mesh,” rather than “meesh.”    

Mesh consistently reported to census enumerators that he had been born in Pennsylvania. The first time he reported his parents’ birthplaces—to a census enumerator in 1880—he indicated they had been born in Virginia when it was a slave state. He repeated that assertion in 1900. Assuming his parents had been born in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries, it is likely they had been enslaved from birth. 

Mesh was not identified by name in any federal census enumerations prior to 1850. If he had been born around 1824, he would have turned 21 around 1845. The August 18, 1893, Democratic Watchman article cited above indicates that he began working as a barber in Bellefonte around 1848, when he was in his mid-20s. If he had been born locally, he might have been a son of a Moses Graham enumerated in 1830 as the head of a six-person “free black” household in Centre County’s Halfmoon Township. Moses was the only “free black” Graham enumerated anywhere in the county in 1830. He was not enumerated there during the next federal census, in 1840, nor were any other POC with a surname similar to “Graham.” 

I suspect that Mesh and a relative (possibly a brother) briefly owned a town lot in Milesburg (two miles north of Bellefonte) in the mid-1840s. By a deed dated November 19, 1844, two men identified as Milesburg residents Meshic Graham and Jethro Graham acquired from Cato Linderman and his wife Angeline a property identified as Lot 168, in consideration of $75 (Centre County Deed Book 84:238). Insofar as the names “Cato” and “Jethro” were typically given to Black males during this period, I suspect this conveyance was between men of color. I have not found any additional biographical details concerning either Cato Linderman or Jethro Graham. To add to the mystery, the November 19, 1844, deed was not recorded until 1906. 

Meshic and Jethro Graham owned Lot 168 in Milesburg only six months. By a deed dated June 17, 1845, they conveyed it to Milesburg resident John G. Hall in consideration of $50 (curiously, a third less than the amount the Grahams had paid for it a half-year earlier) (Centre County Deed Book 14:536). Both Meshic and Jethro signed the deed by scratching an X, which a clerk labeled “his mark.” I have not learned anything else about the November 1844 and June 1845 conveyances involving Meshic and Jethro. It might be significant, however, that the Meshic Graham who operated a barber shop in Bellefonte for over half-a-century reportedly began working as a barber in the Borough around 1848. 

Mesh was living in Spring Township, across Spring Creek from Bellefonte, on August 28, 1850, when he was recorded by a census enumerator as a 28-year-old, unmarried, illiterate, mulatto native of Pennsylvania (no indication where his parents had been born). He was boarding with the family of white iron foundry employee George Welch. Mesh’s occupation was not noted by the enumerator. His “color” would be categorized as “mulatto” (denoting mixed African and European ancestry) again in 1860 and 1880 census enumerations, but as “black” in 1870 and 1900 enumerations. 

Judging from the birth date of his first recorded child (Catherine, reputedly born in Bellefonte on April 21, 1856), Mesh started a family with Sarah Elizabeth Williams around 1855. An obituary for Sarah, published in 1903, claimed that she had been “born in this place [Bellefonte] in 1840.” That birth date appears to be off by at least a few years. Sarah was enumerated in June 1850 as a 16-year-old daughter of Spring Township residents John and Mary Williams, suggesting she had been born no later than 1834. By that measure, she would have been about 21 years old in 1855 when she and Mesh started a family. 

Sarah’s parents were identified on 1850 census schedules as Maryland natives whose first child, Isaac, had been born in that slave state in 1828. The birthplace of second child Joshua was not recorded by the enumerator, but third child Mary Catherine was said to have been born in Pennsylvania around 1833. That suggests that the Williams family migrated or fled from Maryland to Pennsylvania in the early 1830s, just prior to the birth of fourth child Sarah Elizabeth in Bellefonte around 1834. The writer of an 1881 obituary for Sarah’s father John Williams claimed that the latter “was brought to Bellefonte by [Quaker ironmaster] William A. Thomas who bought him out of slavery.” William H. Mills expanded on that topic when he related the following in his 1909 history of the St. Paul AME Church:  

One other special act of kindness of [William A.] Thomas, which is a further proof of his sincere friendship to the men and women of our race, was the purchasing of the freedom of Mr. John Williams, his wife, Mary Williams, and their son, Isaac. Uncle John, as he was called by everyone who knew him, was an honest, upright man, of which the writer can attest. Uncle John Williams and his wife Mary, were the father and mother of a very large family of boys and girls, five of whom survive them [in 1909], namely: Isaac, Joshua, Jacob, William and Mariah Williams, Tamazine McDonnell, Mary Harding and Julia Hawkins, all of whom are residents of Bellefonte at present with the exception of the latter two, who moved west some time since. John Williams was employed by Mr. Thomas as a sawyer on the old mill that stood on the site of the present F.W. Crider mill, at the time his freedom was purchased by Mr. Thomas, and by [John’s] energy, thrift and economy succeeded in saving enough of his earnings to refund the purchase money to Mr. Thomas for his kind and friendly act. . . . 

By June 1850, “Uncle John” Williams was living with his wife and nine children (including Sarah Elizabeth, whom William Mills unaccountably did not mention in the foregoing biographical sketch) a short walk from William Thomas’ “Wren’s Nest” residence on the west side of Spring Creek, at the foot of Halfmoon Hill. John was working as a sawyer, while his 21-year-old son Isaac was employed as a blacksmith, and his 20-year-old son Joshua was occupied as a barber. While John was said to own $300 worth of real estate, no evidence of land acquisitions by the sawyer has been discovered in Centre County property records. 

Nor have I found a record of Sarah Elizabeth Williams’ marriage to Meshic Graham. Mesh informed a census enumerator in 1900 that he and Sarah had been married for 40 years, suggesting they had wed in or around 1860. If that was indeed the case, their first two or three children would have been born before the marriage. As noted above, first-born Catherine—known as “Katie”—is reputed to have been born in Bellefonte on April 21, 1856 (that date is noted in an obituary; oddly, her death certificate cites her birth date as April 21, 1861; the latter date cannot be correct, as Katie was recorded as four years old on census schedules completed in August 1860). Sarah Graham delivered a second daughter, Mary Adeline (sometimes spelled “Adline”), on June 15, 1858. A third child, William H., was born in May 1860, three months before the Graham family was enumerated in a house in a predominantly Black section of south Bellefonte. Meshic may have owned the Graham residence, as he was recorded on census schedules owning $300 worth of real estate (although no associated deed has been discovered). The five Grahams—all categorized as “mulatto”—shared the residence with 23-year-old boarder William Robinson and 13-year-old Julia Williams. The latter, likely Sarah’s youngest sibling, might have been living with the Grahams in order to help with domestic chores during and after Sarah’s recent delivery of baby William. 

Mesh told the census enumerator in August 1860 that he was able to read (unlike his reported status in 1850), and was employed as a barber. Census records indicate that barbering was the only occupation pursued by Black men in and around Bellefonte during the nineteenth century that afforded practitioners an opportunity to own and operate their own business. Black barbers catered to an exclusively white clientele by day, knowing that such customers were reluctant, if not adamantly opposed, to patronizing shops where African Americans were also served (for more on that phenomenon, see Cutting Along the Color Line by Quincy T. Mills; University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013). 

The earliest contemporary record I have found reflecting Mesh’s entrance into Bellefonte’s barbering coterie is the following advertisement, published in the June 4, 1857, edition of the Democratic Watchman: 

FASHIONABLE BARBER 

The subscriber begs leave to inform the public that he is still busily engaged at his stand, on Allegany street, SHAVING AND SHAMPOOING his customers in the latest cut and fashion. 

His scissors are sharp, his razors keen, 

So he can shave your faces clean, 

He’ll brush your hair and serve you well, 

Sweep your clothes and make you swell. 

His motto is somewhat dissimilar to ‘man wants but little here below, but wants that little long,’ and ipso facto his Razors and Scissors will always be found to cut close and clean. 

If you want to get into a scrape, give him a call. 

June 4, 1857    Missich Graham 

Further evidence of Mesh’s early barbering efforts was published in the next week’s edition of the Democratic Watchman (June 11, 1857), as follows:  

WHITEWASH. It is astonishing what a great change a few cents spent for lime will make in buildings; everybody will admit the truth of this statement if they will only visit Missich Graham’s barber shop. By the way, Mish is a good barber; and 

“If you want a pleasant shave, 

as good as barber ever gave, 

just call on him, at his saloon, 

at morn, or eve, or busy noon— 

at any time, when you can stay, 

except upon the Sabbath day. 

His room is neat, his towels clean, 

his scissors sharp, his razors keen, 

and then, he moves as true a hand 

as any artist in the land; 

and all his art or skill can do, 

just call on him, he’ll do for you 

with rapid touch he smooths the face, 

and dresses hair with equal grace. 

 

On October 17, 1860, Mesh and Sarah Graham’s second child, two-year-old Mary Adeline, died from an unrecorded cause. Her body was buried in the Union Cemetery, about 70 feet east of the new cemetery gatehouse (in the direction of the cemetery’s present “Babyland”). A headstone marking the burial site bears the inscription: “Mary Adline [sic], Daughter of M & S Graham, Born June 15, 1858. Died Oct. 17, 1860.” A footstone inscribed “M.A.G.” stands about three feet to the east, further testifying to an infant burial. These stones are the earliest known memorials marking the burial of a Black person in Bellefonte’s largest cemetery.  

Mesh Graham’s ability to read was apparent in the summer of 1861—a few months after the outbreak of the Civil War—as he and four other Black Bellefusians each subscribed to The Christian Recorder at an annual cost of $1. (The Christian Recorder is described on the magazine’s website as “the oldest existing periodical published by African Americans in the United States whose existence dated before the Civil War. It had its genesis in The Christian Herald, which was established by the General Conference that was held in Philadelphia in 1848. Founded by Rev. Augustus R. Green in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, The Christian Herald was published weekly with subscribers paying one dollar and fifty cents a year. The name of The Christian Herald was changed to The Christian Recorder at the Ninth Quadrennial Session of the General Conference held in 1852 in New York City. The first issue was published and disseminated on July 1, 1852.”) As noted in the August 24, 1861 edition of the Recorder, “Mish Graham” and his four fellow Bellefonte subscribers paid their subscription fees to “Rev. A. Johnson, of Lewistown, Pa.” 

In February 1863, Sarah Graham delivered a fourth child and third daughter. The baby was given the name “Melissa,” but would later also be known as “Lizzie.” Fifth child and second son Johnnie Morgan was born on October 24, 1863. As noted on his headstone in the Union Cemetery, Johnnie lived only 13 months. His remains were buried beside the grave of his sister Mary Adeline on a cold day in December 1864. 

Sarah Graham delivered a sixth child and fourth daughter in August 1865. Named “Prothenia,” she would be known to family and friends as both “Tennie” and “Teenie.”   

Sometime prior to February 1865, a few Black Bellefonte-area residents—likely including Mesh Graham—formed a Bellefonte chapter of the Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League. Mesh would be identified five months later as the chapter’s secretary (details to follow). Among the chapter’s founders was John Welch, a native of Maryland’s Eastern Shore who had reportedly “escaped from slavery” in the 1840s with his wife and two sons “and were concealed [in Bellefonte] by the family of Mr. William A. Thomas” (those details were presented in a 1910 biographical sketch of John’s son Isaiah Henderson Welch). John Welch later claimed that he was also one of “the seven original members of [Bellefonte’s second AME congregation,] organized by Rev. Willis Nazery in 1844.” Twelve years later, on March 27, 1858, John Welch served with John Williams (father-in-law of Mesh Graham) as a trustee of that AME congregation as it leased from William A. Thomas a “Meeting House and School House” that Thomas “with the aid of several of his abolitionist friends [had] erected on his own land, west of the creek and south of a continuation of High Street,” in or shortly after 1847 (according to J. Thomas Mitchell’s biography of William A. Thomas; see more background and details in my May 12, 2024 blog post).  

In February 1865, John Welch attended the State Equal Rights Convention of the Colored People of Pennsylvania, held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he was elected as one of six vice presidents. That Convention set the stage for the first Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League, scheduled to be held in Harrisburg on August 9-10, 1865. During the interim, the Bellefonte chapter met and, among other actions, elected Mesh Graham to serve as the organization’s secretary, then appointed Franklin Johnson and one other member to represent Bellefonte at the August meeting. Those details were apparently included in Mesh’s report to Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League officials in Philadelphia, as one of the latter, Secretary J.C. White, Jr., composed the following reply on July 25, 1865: 

Office of Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League, 717 Lombard st., Philadelphia, July 25, 1865. 

M.S. Graham, Sec. of E.R.L., Bellefonte: 

Sir: The report of your League is before me, and as you have appointed two Representatives to the State League, your representation fee will be fifteen dollars, ($15) according to the article 1st Constitution of State League. 

The annual meeting of the State League will be held at Harrisburg, on the 9th of August, and I beg to express the hope that by that time you will have identified yourselves by the payment of the fee, and that your Representatives will be present.  

Yours for equal rights, J.C. White, Jr., Secretary State League. 

That letter made its way to Mesh Graham in Bellefonte, but the barber unwittingly dropped it on a sidewalk or in a street, where it was retrieved by someone who then turned it over to P. Gray Meek, the young firebrand editor of the Democratic Watchman. In the November 24, 1865, edition of his paper (published several months after Franklin Johnson served as Bellefonte’s lone representative at the Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League in Harrisburg), the “Copperhead” Meek—an outspoken critic of abolition and equal rights for Black citizens—published the following exposé and critique: 

The “Equal Rights League.”—It will be seen by the following letter, that an association bearing the above name is in existence in the State. From the fact that Meshac [sic] S. Graham, a respectable colored barber, of this place, is secretary of the association in Bellefonte, we would infer that it is either a colored organization exclusively, or one in which colored persons are considered on a par with their white companions. We incline to this latter opinion. The object of the association or “League” is sufficiently indicated by the name by which it is called, and from the fact that we had never heard of its existence prior to the finding of the letter which we publish below, we are left to judge that it is secret in its nature, and calculated to operate on the “know-nothing” principle. The letter which follows, and which is addressed to Meshac S. Graham, the “respectable colored barber” aforesaid, was found in the street, and handed to us for publication some time since. We forgot it, however, until in lately overhauling the contents of our vest pockets, we found the precious document among other papers which we had stowed away for safe keeping. We give it entire, only remarking that “Mesh” should be more careful of documents that he does not desire to have meet the public eye: [then followed a transcription of the July 25, 1865 letter, as cited above.] 

Mesh Graham’s involvement in the Bellefonte chapter of the Equal Rights League lasted at least a year longer, as he traveled with representative John Welch to the next Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League, held in Pittsburgh on August 8-10, 1866. In minutes of that meeting, “Meshach Graham, Bellefonte” was recorded as one of roughly two-dozen “honorary members” in attendance. 

As noted in a deed composed several months after Mesh’s return from Pittsburgh (Centre County Deed Book 27:17), he had “entered into a contract” two years earlier with Bellefonte attorney, judge, and three-term U.S. Congressman James T. Hale to purchase from Hale a 60-by-150-foot lot designated “Lot 62” on “the general plan of Bellefonte borough.” The property fronted on the south side of E. High Street, east of that street’s intersection with S. Penn Street, on what would become known as “Jail Hill” after the County erected a new, castle-like prison across E. High Street from Lot 62 in 1867. Hale had purchased the hillside property at a Sheriff’s sale in August 1858, and tax assessment records suggest that Mesh and his family rented and occupied the dwelling on the lot as early as 1861. Mesh reportedly “contracted” with Hale on October 22, 1864, to buy the property from the congressman for $1,200. The cited contract has not been located, but it might be found among the 713 pages of Centre County Orphans’ Court records pertaining to the estate of James T. Hale that are posted online. If the contract exists and can be consulted, it might provide insight into the relationship between Mesh and one of Bellefonte’s most famous citizens during the Civil War, nearly on par with renowned Andrew Gregg Curtin, Pennsylvania’s “Civil War Governor.” 

James Hale returned to Bellefonte after completing his third consecutive term as U.S. Representative on March 3, 1865, only to contract typhoid fever within the next few weeks. He died in his Allegheny Street mansion on April 6, 1865, stunning his home community. That development complicated life for Mesh Graham, as he had not yet received from Hale a deed for Lot 62 and its two houses, on which he had begun to pay taxes. After a few confusing months, Mesh submitted a petition to the Centre County Orphans’ Court on January 22, 1866, citing his October 1864 “contract” with Hale, and requesting that the administrators appointed to settle Hale’s extensive estate—E.C. Humes and Adam Hoy—now formally convey Lot 62 to him. The administrators did so by a deed dated June 16, 1866 (Centre County Deed Book 27:17). The recorded consideration of only $1 suggests that Mesh may already have paid Hale or his widow most or all of the agreed-upon purchase price. 

On W.W. Richie’s 1870 map of Bellefonte, the “res[idence of] M.S. Graham” was denoted on Lot 62, fronting on E. High Street opposite the new County jail. The house was again depicted in that location on a map of Bellefonte published in 1874, this time with a smaller structure denoted in the rear (southern) end of the Graham lot, fronting on Cherry Alley. Subsequent maps and photographs—including twentieth-century fire insurance maps—appear to indicate that the Graham house of the 1860s and ‘70s is still standing at 212 E. High Street. 

(Above) Mesh Graham’s residential parcel on Jail Hill is highlighted in yellow on Beach Nichol’s 1874 map of Bellefonte. The Graham residence stood at the northern end of the parcel, fronting on E. High Street and the new County prison. 

(Above) A yellow arrow points to the two-story Graham house in this detail of Frederick Gutekunst’s 1874 or 1875 panoramic photograph of Bellefonte as viewed from Halfmoon Hill. The county jail erected in 1867 across E. High Street from the Graham residence is indicated by a blue arrow. The building blocking the southern half of the Graham residence from view is the Lutheran Church, destined to be destroyed by fire in July 1888. According to a report in the July 13, 1888, edition of the Harrisburg Daily Independent, that fire also destroyed some houses and outbuildings between E. High Street and Cherry Alley west of Penn Street, including “several small houses occupied by colored families.”

 

The Graham house on Jail Hill stood a five-minute walk from Mesh’s barber shop, which was nestled in the basement of the Conrad House, a hotel situated on the site now occupied by Temple Court on the east side of S. Allegheny Street. The location of Mesh’s shop was noted in the following advertisement placed by the “fashionable barber” in an 1869 edition of the weekly newspaper Bellefonte Republican: 

M.S. Graham, Fashionable Barber in Basement of the Conrad House, Bellefonte, Pa. The best of Razors, sharp and keen, always on hand. He guarantees a SHAVE without either pulling or pain.—Perfumery, Hair Oils, Hair Restoratives, Paper Collars, Etc., constantly on hand. 

According to the obituary of William H. Mills quoted earlier, William was working in Mesh’s barber shop when those advertisements appeared, and he would continue to do so until establishing his own shop along W. High Street in 1871. In a brief note concerning William and Mesh included in an information sheet written in 2008-2009 by Daniel Clemson and Sue Hannegan, the researchers offered the following commentary, without citing their sources: “Meshick Graham, . . . who taught Mills the [barbering] trade, featured a bathtub in his shop. White barbers didn’t operate barber shops [in Bellefonte] until the 1880s. Local blacks could only get haircuts after hours and with the blinds closed.” 

 

Part 2 of this biographical sketch of Meshic Graham will be published in a subsequent post. 

 

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