GRAFTON  , a

city and the county-seat of Taylor county, West Virginia, U.S.A., on Tygart river, about zoo m. by rail S.E. of Wheeling . Pop, (189o) 3159; (1900) 5650, including 226 foreign-born and 162 negroes; (1910) 7563 . It is served by four divisions of the Baltimore & Ohio railway, which maintains extensive car shops here . The city is about z000 ft. above sea-level . It has a small national cemetery, and about 4 M . W., at Pruntytown, is the West Virginia Reform School . Grafton is situated near large coal-fields, and is supplied with natural gas . Among its manufactures are machine-shop and foundry products, window gldss and pressed glass ware, and grist mill and planing-mill products . The first settlement was made about 1852, and Grafton was incorporated in 1856 and chartered as a city in 1898 . In 1903 the population and area of the city were increased by the annexation of the town of Fetterman (pop. in woo, 796), of Beaumont (unincorporated), and of other territory .