1905 History of Crawford County Kansas

Christopher C. Gracey, who owns and resides upon a nice little estate of forty acres in Osage township, is one of the old settlers of Crawford county, having come here in 1869, when the prairies still stretched almost continuous from one boundary line to the other, only broken here and there by a cultivated field and a newly established homestead. He has accordingly witnessed the development and transformation which have since taken place in the county, and as he has borne his part most creditably in all the activities to which he has been called he merits mention in the history of his county as a man of worth and public-spirited citizenship.

Mr. Gracey also deserves mention as one of the soldier citizens of the county. On the 21st of August, 1863, being at that time sixteen years of age, he enlisted at St. Louis, from Bond county, Illinois, in Company D (later transferred to Company E), Third Illinois Cavalry, under Captain Joseph K. McLean and Colonel Karahan; from Benton Barracks they were sent to Little Rock, and later formed General Steele's body-guard; were at Memphis, Nashville and at various other points in the Mississippi valley; were ordered to Fort Snelling, Minnesota, to quell the outbreak of the Sioux Indians, and that rough-rider service took them all along the northern border toward Canada and in the Dakotas. Mr. Gracey received his honorable discharge at Springfield, Illinois, in October, 1865, after having seen hard service in the army and gaining an excellent record as a soldier although still a boy when he was discharged.

Mr. Gracey was born in Madison county, Illinois, in 1847, being a son of William and Caroline (Campbell) Gracey, his father a native of Tennessee and of an old family of that state and his mother a native of North Carolina. The parents both died in Illinois, the father in Hancock county. He followed the occupation of farmer, in politics was a Democrat, and he and his wife were members of the Methodist church. They had six children, five sons, John, William, Joseph, Christopher C. and George, and all of them were soldiers. William D. died at Little Rock, Arkansas, in the fall of 1863, and George, the youngest, was drowned in the Ohio river in the spring of 1865.

Mr. Gracey was first married to Miss Kate Smith, a native of Kentucky, a daughter of Asa and Nancy Smith, also of that state. This first wife died in Coffey county, Kansas. leaving two sons, Willard and George. Mr. Gracey afterward married Mary Etta Thompson, a daughter of George and Sarah Thompson, of Madison county, Illinois. There are two children by this union, Frank and Verda. Mr. Gracey is a Republican in politics, and is affiliated with the Grand Army of the Republic.