Charles H. Grasty was born March 3, 1863 in Fincastle, Virginia, the son of a Presbyterian minister, the Reverend John Sharshall Grasty, and the former Ella Giles Pettus, and as a bright youth taught Latin while in high school.
In 1890 he married Leota Tootle Perrin, a woman with a daughter from another marriage named Sarah Perrin (Sarah Perrin was married to Lieutenant George de Grasse Catlin in Lake Placid New York August 18, 1909).