The Green Bag

VOL. XX.

No. 6

BOSTON

JUNE, 1908

JUDGE GEORGE GRAY BY GEORGE H. BATES A DISPASSIONATE judgment upon the career of a lawyer and a judge must be formed mainly from an impartial exami nation of the man himself and his accom plishments in his practice at the Bar and in those high stations to which he has from time to time been assigned in the public service, whether official or unofficial. At the same time it is always useful as well as interesting to know something of a man's forbears, as well as of his upbringing, when we are called on to form a critical judgment upon his life and character. In the case of George Gray these influences seem to have operated very strongly and to justify a somewhat more detailed statement of his family history than is ordinarily necessaryHis ancestry was such as ' naturally to produce the character and the mental and moral attributes which his life has developed. William Gray, a son of Andrew Gray, early in the eighteenth century, sailed from Belfast, Ireland, as an emigrant to the American Colonies. He was accompanied by his wife and a young son, William, who, in the course of the voyage, lost both of his parents by ship fever. The lad was landed on the shore of the Delaware River, an orphan, but fortunately possessed of a fair inheri tance. The boy and his fortune were well taken care of by his guardian, a mem ber of the Caldwell family, well known in Delaware in Revolutionary history. After reaching the estate of manhood, William Gray married Jean, the daughter of Andrew Caldwell, one of the judges of the colony before the time of William Penn. A "son, Andrew, was graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, after a careful preparatory

education. He inherited from his grand father Caldwell a large landed estate in Kent County, Delaware, on which he lived until 1808, when he removed to New Castle County, near Newark, and there spent the rest of his life. 'He was five times elected to the state legislature, serving in both branches. He also wrote many pamphlets, some of which were of a philosophical character, and he was an enthusiastic and thorough student of the classics. His wife was Rebecca, the sister of the Commodores John and George Rodgers, both distin guished in the War of 1812. The child of this marriage was Andrew Caldwell Gray, the father of the judge, born in 1804. He was well educated, graduated from Prince ton College in 1821 at the age of seventeen, was admitted to the Bar and practiced at New Castle with ability and success. He was always a student and like his father, continued his study of the classics through life. As a lawyer he was reputed by his contemporaries to have been conspicuous both for strong grasp of the legal bear ings of a case and the force and clear ness of his argument of it. Being counsel for the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal Company, he became its president in 1853, and thereafter retired from active practice and devoted himself to the interests of the canal and a railroad of which he was also president. During this period of his life he was at the head of a bank and also of a manufacturing company, one of the pioneers of locomotive building in the United States. He persistently declined to be a candidate for public office, and yet, having from preference remained during his life a private