Pusey Graves was born Pusey Grave, only later changing the spelling to Graves.  He was born in New Castle County, Delaware, Nov. 10, 1813, the son of Nathan and Hannah (Howell) Grave.  The family moved to Wayne County, Indiana, in 1816.  They were Quakers, and Pusey received his early education in Quaker schools.  As a young man, he taught school and considered becoming a lawyer, but finally decided that it was incompatible with honesty and integrity.  He subsequently worked as a plasterer, mason, and cooper. When Hicksite separation took place among Indiana Quakers in 1827-1828, young Pusey's sympathies lay with the Hicksites.  In 1837 he married Jane Mitchell in a Hicksite Quaker ceremony.  Early in the 1840s, however, he became increasingly interested in radical reform, especially adjoining counties.  In 1844 Pusey and his family joined a utopian community in Randolph County, Indiana, organized by Hiram Mendenhall, another Hicksite Quaker.  The community collapsed in 1846 and Pusey returned to Newport in Wayne County.  About this time, the Hicksite Friends disowned him for his radial activities and "disunity." In 1850 Pusey joined a group of men from Newport who traveled overland to the California gold fields.  He remained there until 1853.  On his return, he joined his family in Fulton County, Illinois.  Failing in business there, in 1859 he moved to Woodson County, Kansas, where he became active in local politics and rejoined Friends.  He died there December 27, 1899. Pusey Graves was a leading radical abolitionist, freethinker, reformer, and spiritualist in Wayne County, Indiana, in the 1840s and 1850s.

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