Graham, Christopher L.

Christopher Columbus Graham was born in 1784, near Danville, Kentucky. He was involved in several military expeditions including the War of 1812, the Blackhawk War, and the Mexican War. He graduated from Transylvania University with a degree in medicine after the Mexican War. He served as a surgeon on Colonel Gray's expedition to survey land for the Southern, Atlantic, and Pacific Railroad. During his life, he was devoted to collecting items to preserve the natural history of Kentucky. Graham was widely known as a physician, hunter, explorer, surveyor, soldier, and author. He died in 1884. John Robert Procter was born in Mason County, Kentucky, on March 16, 1844. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard. He became Kentucky state geologist and Commissioner of Immigration in 1880. In 1892, Procter was dismissed from his position by Governor John Young Brown. In 1893, President Grover Cleveland appointed Procter to head the U.S. Civil Service Commission. He served in this capacity until his death in 1903.

Fifteen to twenty thousand years ago, a great ice sheet covered an area from northern Canada to the Ohio River. South of this sheet, wooly mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, and giant bison came to a salt lick in Boone County, Kentucky. This sight has become known as Big Bone Lick, Kentucky. Many of the animals became trapped in the boggs and died, their bones buried and preserved. French Captian Charles Lemoye de Longueil collected some of these fossils and sent them to King Louis XV of France. Benjamin Franklin studied some of the bones and concluded elphants used to live in America. In 1807, William Clark excavated bones for scientific study. These specimens made their way to museums around the world.