James Robinson Graves, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetJames Robinson Graves
American theologian and minister
Date of Birth: 
About James Robinson Graves
- James Robinson Graves (April 10, 1820 – June 26, 1893) was an American Baptist preacher, publisher, evangelist, debater, author, and editor.
- He is most noted as the original founder of what is now the Southwestern family of companies.
- Graves was born in Chester, Vermont, the son of Z.
- C.
- Graves, and died in Memphis, Tennessee.
- His remains are interred in Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis. In 1855, Graves established Southwestern Publishing House in Nashville, Tennessee.
- The company's name was chosen because, at that time, Nashville was in the southwestern part of the United States.
- Southwestern originally published The Tennessee Baptist, a Southern Baptist newspaper, and religious booklets which were sold by mail for 20¢ and 30¢ each. Prior to the Civil War, most Bibles were printed in the North, rather than the Confederacy.
- Graves acquired stereotype plates from the North and began printing Bibles for sale in August 1861.
- He also produced and sold educational books.
- After the 1864 Battle of Nashville resulted in a Union victory, Graves relocated to Memphis, as he felt vulnerable because of articles he had published against the North.
- The company resumed publishing in 1867.In 1868, Graves discontinued the company’s mail order business, and began training young men as independent dealers to sell Bibles and educational books door-to-door as a way to earn money for college.
- Graves retired in 1871.Though raised in a Congregationalist family, Graves joined a Baptist church at age 15.
- Contemporary fellow ministers in the Southern Baptist Convention praised his preaching abilities.
- Thomas Treadwell Eaton wrote, "We have seen him hold a congregation packed uncomfortably, for three hours and a half without any sign of weariness on their part.
- This was not done once or twice, but scores of times." Denominational leader James Bruton Gambrell described one of Graves' sermons at a small church in Mississippi as "The Greatest Sermon I Ever Heard." Scholars have recognized Graves as an early and chief promulgator of the Landmark movement.
- The subject's Nashville publishing house, Graves, Marks, & Co, which later became South-Western Publishing, published all of fellow 'Landmarker' Amos Cooper Dayton's books.
- Both were expelled as 'schismatics' between 1858 and 1859 from the Nashville First Baptist Church due to their theological perspectives on their apostolic connection.
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