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About Mary Gray
Sharon Fehr:
from email dated May 12, 2008
MARY BURTON [10] married JOHN GRAY JR [10]
At least five of John and Mary Gray’s children travelled west to Minnesota about 1854. SHELDON [11] and PATIENCE [11] and his four youngest siblings (Benjamin, Joseph, Hannah, and Reuben) all married in Maine and died in Minnesota. That seems like an incredibly long journey. Twelve hundred miles or more.
A very interesting collection of pioneer memories [footnote 1] records the details of one family's trip from Machias, Maine to Minnesota in 1851. I'm suggesting that Sheldon's family could have followed the same route.
Quoting Colonel Levi Longfellow:
"In those days, instead of a run of two or three days, it took a month to make the journey.
"One bright day in June, an ox team drove to our door, and took us . . . to the Boston boat. From Boston, a train carried us to Albany, New York, and from there by canal boat we went to Buffalo. Here we boarded a lake steamer for Chicago. This place I remember as the muddiest hole I had ever seen. A plank road led from the boat landing to the hotel. One railroad ran west out of Chicago for a distance of about ten miles. Beyond this lay the unexplored country we were to enter. We hired a man with a team and a covered farm wagon to drive us across the prairies to Galena. One week was occupied in this part of the journey. . . . From Galena we took a steam boat [up the Mississippi] to St. Paul where we were met by my grandfather. . . . He brought us to St, Anthony Falls with his ox team."
The railroad wasn't built yet in 1854.
http://www.lhsmn.org/research/firstrailroadinminnesota.html
"In 1857 the line of railway was located from Stillwater by way of St. Paul and St. Anthony Falls to a point near Big Stone lake, on the western boundary of the State." [Minnesota}
Back to that wagon train trek.
JOHN GRAY JR [10] died in 1832. SHELDON's mother MARY BURTON GRAY [10], almost 80, took that trip west with her children She died on the way and was buried along the banks of the Mississippi River between Galena IL and St. Paul MN. (That fact suggests to me that they came up the Mississippi River by steam boat.) It must have been heart-wrenching to leave her body behind.
Later in 1876 some of the Gray family travelled by covered wagon [footnote 2] from Minnesota to Texas -- and back again. Again they walked away from the graves of loved ones.
--Sharon Fehr
Laurel Logan
Aug 1, 2008:
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ga/county/habersham/familygroupsheets/c...
"Reuben Gray, born in 1815 in Calais, Maine, was the eleventh of twelve children of John Gray, Jr. who was born in 1770 and died in 1832 and Mary Burton Gray born in 1776 at Hancock Plantation, later Clinton, Maine. Reuben's wife, Adeline Averill Gray was the daughter of Daniel Averill and Abigail Hanscom Averill. Her grandfather Joseph Averill served in the Revolutionary War.
"Reuben's father, John Gray, Jr. was the son of Captain John Gray born in Sheepscot, Maine in 1742 and Elizabeth Roundy Gray who was baptized 8 of July 1750 at St. Michael's Episcopal church in Marblehead, Massachusetts.
"Census records for 1850 show Reuben and Adeline Gray, then ages 34 and 35 respectively, living in Washington County, Wesley, Maine with Henry, age 13, Cynthia, age 12, Andrew, age 10, Jefferson, age 8, Justus, age 6, Lydia, age 4, Edwin, age 3, and Francis, eight months.
"In October of 1854 a large number of Grays including Reuben's older brother Benjamin and his family and Reuben and his family left Wesley, Maine, probably also with other citizens of Wesley for Minnesota Territory which was now open for settlement. With Maine's forests being depleted and the Grays involved in the lumbering industry, it was an excellent time to move to Minnesota.
"The trip from Maine to Minneapolis, Minnesota took approximately eleven days by the following route: Steamboat to Boston; Railroad to Albany; New York canal boat to Buffalo (Erie Canal); Steamboat to Toledo, Ohio; Railroad to Chicago; Stage to Galena, Illinois; and Steamboat to St. Paul, Minnesota. The trip proved too arduous for Mary Burton Gray, widowed mother of Benjamin and Reuben, who died on the way to Minnesota at age 78 and was buried somewhere between Galena and Minneapolis along the banks of the Mississippi.
--Laurel Logan
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Mary Gray's Timeline
| 1776 |
March 5, 1776
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Winslow, Kennebec County, Maine
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| 1794 |
April 25, 1794
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Hancock, Hancock County, Maine, United States
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| 1795 |
September 25, 1795
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| 1797 |
November 27, 1797
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Fairfield, Somerset County, Maine, United States
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| 1798 |
1798
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| 1800 |
1800
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| 1801 |
1801
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1801
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| 1802 |
1802
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