Hi All, Does anyone know anything more Charles Grafton Wilberton French? I found a short bio on ancestry noted at the end. He has an interesting story that has a North Carolina connection. A local writer is seeking more information about him and his ancestry and sent me the following email. "I wondered if you might have any data about Charles Grafton Wilberton French, born about 1820-1822, possibly in New York. He was quite a fellow--went west and became the first chief justice, I think, of the Arizona Supreme Court. Later he want to California, and helped start the state library, among other things. He lived at least until 1886,when --and here's the Beaufort connection--he returned to Beaufort (he had come here in his youth as a tutor) and married a childhood sweetheart named Nancy Manney. Nancy's father had kept them apart and with a complicit postmaster, hid their letters over the years. Nancy never married. Meantime, Charles married someone out west and had three children before that wife died. Somehow he found out about the letters and that Nancy was sick with "consumption". He hurried East and, married her and they had three weeks together before she died. She is buried here, next to her mother and father and near her Civil War hero brother. I would love to see or pursue anything you might have learned about family history that would include this French. It's a good story, but more facts about this gentleman would make it great. So would the letters! Many thanks for your attention." There is no known connection with my Frenches of North Carolina. Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Thanks, David FRENCH, CHARLES GRAFTON WILBERTON, lawyer, jurist, state legislator, was born Aug. 22, 1820, in Berkeley, Mass. He was for many years trustee of the state library of Sacramento, Cal.; was a representative in the state legislature in 1872; and in 1875 was appointed chief justice of the supreme court of Arizona, and was reappointed in 1880. Source: Encyclopedia of American Biography [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 1997. Original data: Herringshaw, Thomas William. Herringshaw's Encyclopedia of American Biography of the Nineteenth Century. Chicago, IL, USA: American Publishers Association, 1902.