Benjamin Franklin Graves

Benjamin Franklin Graves (October 17, 1817 – March 3, 1906) was a justice of the Michigan Supreme Court from 1868 to 1883.

Born at Gates, New York, near Rochester, Graves was of New England ancestry. His parents wanted him to become a farmer, but he preferred an academic life, and began the study of law. Graves read law in the office of Curtis & Thomas, in Albion, New York, and then in the office of Mortimer F. Delano, a lawyer of wide practice. He was admitted to the bar of New York in 1841. Among the friends and associates of his student days was Sanford E. Church, afterwards Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of New York.

In 1843 he decided to emigrate to the west. He moved to Kentucky, but was not satisfied there, and moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, and began the practice of law. Battle Creek was then a small village, and the country around only sparsely settled. With little business to be transacted, Graves "lived the life of a country lawyer", with a practice "necessarily limited to small affairs and the details of office work". At Battle Creek he was elected civil magistrate, and appointed master in chancery.