Solano County Biographies

SAMUEL C. GRAY

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 
born in Boston, Mass., October 11, 1816, where he received his early education. 
At the age of sixteen went to Baltimore, and from there came to California.  
Married Miss Lucy, daughter of Chauncey Wetmore, of Middletown, Conn., December 
14, 1847.  In January, 1849, started for California, by way of Panama, where 
they waited seven weeks on the steamer �Panama,� and arrived at Benicia June 3, 
1849.  Had remained in Benicia in business until elected County Treasurer in 
1861.  Has been in business, in the leather trade in Benicia, since June, 1867.  
Was a Trustee of the city of Benicia for seven years, until he left for San 
Francisco.  Is the author of the interesting  lecture on �recollections of 
Benicia� in this work.
 
History of Solano County�. � San Francisco, Cal. - Wood, Alley  & Co., East 
Oakland, pub 1879, pp 441

one of the earliest of California pioneers, is also the pioneer living resident 
of Benicia, having come to this city in June, 1849.  He was born in Boston, 
Massachusetts, in 1816.  At the age of sixteen he became a clerk in a wholesale 
straw-goods house in Baltimore, and at twenty-one was accountant in a wholesale 
boot and shoe establishment in the same city, remaining there eleven years.  He 
came by the Panama route to California, arriving at the time already stated.  
Coming at once to Benicia he engaged in merchandising until 1861, when he was 
elected County Treasurer and held that office for three years.  In 1867 he 
removed to San Francisco, where he was a member of the firm of Gray, Jones & 
Co., proprietors of the Santa Cruz tannery for twelve years; the company then 
dissolving, he returned to Benicia.  He now has extensive real-estate interests 
in this place, which will probably be enhanced in value with the general 
development now in progress around the bay of San Francisco, especially in water 
front property.  He is the President of the Electric Light and Motor Company, 
and Secretary of the Building and Loan Association of Benicia.
            He was married in 1847, in Middletown, Connecticut, to Miss Lucy 
Wetmore, a native of that place.  After a little more than a year�s residence in 
Baltimore they came to California, where their five children had been born; four 
of these are now living, three in Benicia and one in San Francisco.  They are:  
Dr. Edward Gray, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume; Arthur, born in 
1853; Theodore, born in 1855, and living in San Francisco; and Lucy Gertrude, 
born in 1866.  One son, Franklin Henry, died in 1852, in infancy.  Mr. Gray�s 
first wife died in 1879, and in 1887 he was married to Miss Frances Garretson, a 
native of Racine, Wisconsin, and daughter of N. H. and Jane Frances (Howard) 
Garretson, the parents being natives of Connecticut.  Mr. Gray is a zealous 
member of the Episcopal Church, with which he has been affiliated for the past 
thirty years.
 
Memorial & Biographical History of Northern California, The Lewis Publishing 
Co., 1891, pp 502-503