[1] In the 1830s, she split her time between Hillsborough, New Bern, and Raleigh, where her husband was serving in the North Carolina General Assembly.

[1] In 1842, they moved from their home in Hillsborough to an estate outside the town, facing the Eno River, that they named Montrose Gardens.

[1] She hired Thomas Paxton, the landscape gardener at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to design the grounds.

[4] When Graham's husband moved to Washington, D.C. to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate caused by the Robert Strange, she stayed behind in Hillsborough with their children.

[1] During the American Civil War, her husband served as a senator for North Carolina in the Confederate States Congress.