James Gray

JAMES GRAY.

Conspicuous among the representative farmers and public-spirited citizens of Butler county is James Gray, of Union township. He is a man of sterling worth, whose life has been very closely interwoven with the history of the community in which he resides and whose influence has always made for the material advancement of the same as well as for the social and moral welfare of his fellow men.

His father, William Gray, a native of Pennsylvania, moved to Hamilton county, Ohio, as early as the year 1818 and a little later changed his above to the county of Butler, purchasing land in Union township, where he engaged in farming and stock-raising, in connection with which he also devoted considerable attention during the late Civil war to dealing in grain, meeting with encouraging success in all of his business undertakings. He was intensely loyal to the Union while the Rebellion was in progress, took an active and prominent part in inducing young men to enlist and few men in the county were as earnest in condemning secession or as influential in arousing and keeping alive a strong sentiment in favor of the government during the trying period when it seemed trembling in the balance. In politics he was one of the original Republicans of Butler county, earnest and enthusiastic in upholding the principles of his party and largely instrumental in promoting its interests and leading it to victory. Financially he was quite fortunate, accumulating a handsome competency and becoming one of the well-to-do men of the community honored by his citizenship, and in all that constituted the enterprising, wideawake man of the times he was easily the peer of any of his contemporaries. When a young man, William Gray married Miss Amanda Fost, who bore him thirteen children, of which large number there are four sons and five daughters living, the subject of this review being the sixth in order of birth. After a long and useful life, fraught with good to all with whom he came in contact, William Gray was called to the unseen world in 1892, his wife surviving him until the year 1895.

James Gray was born December 31, 1845, on the homestead in Union township and from that date to the present has spent his life in Butler county, being, as already indicated, actively identified with its growth and development and an influential factor in all laudable enterprises making for its prosperity. His early training, under the wholesome influence of farm labor, was conducive to a strong and healthful physique, and he grew to rugged, symmetrically developed young manhood with a proper conception of life and its responsibilities and a well-defined purpose to make the most of his advantages, so as to become an honor to his family and a benefit to the world. During his boyhood and youth he attended the public schools until acquiring a pretty thorough knowledge of the branches taught therein and until attaining his majority he lived at home, assisting with the cultivation of the farm and contributing to the support of the family.

At the age of twenty-one years Mr. Gray accepted a clerkship in a store at Pisgah, but after a comparatively brief experience in that capacity resigned his position and turned his attention to agriculture, which he has since pursued with marked success, being at this time one of the leading farmers and stock-raisers of Union township, as well as one of its most enterprising and public-spirited men of affairs. In connection with tilling the soil, he has been operating a threshing machine for a number of years and in this way no small part of his liberal income is earned, his experience as a thresher gaining him a large and lucrative patronage, as the demands for his labor during the busy seasons abundantly attest. Mr. Gray is an exceedingly careful and methodical farmer and keeps fully abreast the times in all matters pertaining to agricultural science. His place is a model of neatness, the beautiful and attractive dwelling, substantial barns and outbuildings, the excellent condition of h.s fields, and the presence of live stock of a kinds bespeaking the prosperity of the proprietor and indicating the home of a gentleman of intelligence and good taste, as well as industry and thrift.

In the year 1875 Mr. Gray was happily married to Miss Mary E. Stevenson, a native of Butler county, the union resulting in the birth of one child, James Frank. Mr. Gray provided handsomely for the education of his son, first sending him through the public schools, after which he was prepared for a business career by taking a fu course in a Cincinnati commercial college.

At this time he holds an important position with a well-known banking house of New York city, being an agent and bookkeeper and standing high in the confidence and esteem of his employers. He possesses business abilities of a high order and has already achieved an enviable standing in the financial affairs of the great metropolis in which he lives, being a married man and quite popular in the social circles in which he and his wife move.

Mr. Gray is a local politician of considerable note and for a number of years he has been one of the influential Republican leaders in Butler county. As a member of the county central committee from Union township he has rendered valuable service to his party, in recognition of which he was nominated in 1899 for the office of real estate appraiser, being opposed by one of the most popular men the Democracy could put in the field against him. In the ensuing election he ran two hundred votes ahead of the other candidates on the ticket, overcoming a large normal Democratic majority and defeating his competitor by a majority of fifty-six, a fact of which he feels deservedly proud, being the first Repub.can elected to the office of appraiser in forty years. Mr. Gray proved a most capable and judicious official and filled the position to which he was chosen with credit to himself and to the satisfaction of the people of the county irrespective of political ties, sound judgment and mature *“j.

[This passage is too damaged in the scanned book to reproduce. See the original book.]

As printed in Centennial History of Butler County, Ohio (1905). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.