Tulare County Biographies

LEVY NEWTON GREGORY

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
The California citizen of the Dinuba neighborhood, whose career has been most 
worthy as a soldier, a pioneer and a successful man of affairs, is Levy Newton 
Gregory, who was born in Carroll county, Tenn., February 6, 1843. When four 
years old he was taken by his parents to Cedar county, Mo., from which place the 
family moved two years later to Springfield, Mo., where the son was educated in 
the public schools. Here he learned his first lessons in farming and made his 
home until 1870. Meanwhile, in 1862, when he was nineteen years old, he enlisted 
in Company I, Second Missouri Light Artillery, under Capt. S. H. Julean. A year 
and a half intervened between the date of his mustering-in and the date of his 
mustering-out. It was a time of hardship, of much rough service and poor living, 
which, however, is not the least pleasant of Mr. Gregory's recollections of the 
past.
When Mr. Gregory came to California it was as a poor man and it was not until 
1891 that he was able to buy land. He remained on his first purchase until ten 
years ago, when he came to Dinuba and bought twenty-five acres of land at $40 an 
acre, which because of his labor and the rise in property values in Central 
California is now well worth $600 an acre.
In 1870 Mr. Gregory married Sarah J. Hill, a native of Missouri. Of their seven 
children three are living. George was born in Missouri and died in California. 
James G. married Nettie Patterson and is living in Tulare county. William A. 
married Maud Fairweather and he, too, lives in Tulare county. Fred A. was born 
in Oregon, Mo., and died, aged twenty-six years, leaving a widow and one child. 
Bert Wiley, who is a well known ranchman in Tulare county, is the only one 
living of triplets.
Mr. Gregory is an Odd Fellow and a member of the Ancient Order of United 
Workmen. Through his fraternal relations, no more than by his social intercourse 
with his fellow citizens he is popular with all who know him. In every relation 
of life he has proven himself generously helpful and his public spirit, many 
times tried, has never been inadequate to any legitimate demand upon it. His 
father, Wiley B. Gregory, a native of Tennessee, died in Texas at the advanced 
age of eighty-nine years. His mother passed away in Missouri. Mrs. Gregory's 
parents died in Missouri, where her father, Lawson Hill, was in some ways well 
known.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, pp. 725-726