Moses K. Graeff was born in Maidencreek Township, near Molltown, Pennsylvania, on the farm of his father, Abraham Graeff. He was an only child. When Moses was about 12 is father sold the farm and purchased a general store in Reading. His son followed him to town and worked in the shop as a clerk. When Abraham retired from business some seven years later young Moses became a travelling salesman for a hat company. In 1863 Graeff partnered with brewer Frederick Schuldt to form a malting business in Reading, Pennsylvania. Four years later Schuldt sold his interest in the company to Graeff.

Around this time Graeff became interested in the brewing of beer, more as an owner and investor than as a brewer. He purchased the Park Brewery in Lebanon and leased it to a brewer named John A Smied. He then purchased the Yost Brewery and leased it as well.

Moses kept his head during the panic of 1873 and invested in many of the struggling businesses across the coal region of Pennsylvania. He compiled a big stake in Frederick Lauer's Brewery of Reading. He invested in the railroad.

In 1876, in order to square up a debt, Graeff traded his $12,000 Park Brewery for Christopher Ganster's $30,000 Union Hotel. In 1881 Graeff called in a $27,000 debt for malt against the Frederick Lauer Brewery, forcing it into bankruptcy on Christmas Eve. Graeff again cashed his debt in for influence. The brewery was reorganized the next month. It retained the Lauer name and the 72-year-old brewer was kept on as a figurehead, but the power lay in the number two position, a space occupied by one Moses K. Graeff.

Graeff by this time had become adept at using the courts to his advantage. He sued to get his way on railroad deals, and at the end of his life he was endeavoring to force the reorganization of a public utility. Moses K. Graeff died on the 21st of February, 1905. He was 75 years of age.

The too-big-to-fail Jay Cooke & Company bank declares bankruptcy and sets off a rapid chain reaction of bank runs and failures in what would become known as The Panic of 1873.  Over 18,000 American businesses would fail in the economic Depression that followed.