Edwin Gray


Edwin Gray was a lawyer, planter, patriot and politician from Southampton County who represented the county in the Virginia House of Delegates before serving seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Early life and education

Born in Southampton County, Virginia, the son of Edwin Gray and his wife, the former Juliana Godwin of Nansemond County. His had three brothers, and a sister Mary who married Daniel Simmonds. Gray received a private education suitable to his class before traveling across the James River to Williamsburg to attend the College of William & Mary. His uncle James Gray served as a captain during the Revolutionary War, was wounded at the Battle of Germantown and married Elizabeth Grizzie Cowper.

Career

His grandfather Joseph Gray and father Edwin Gray Sr. been prominent in Southampton County for decades, as well as operated plantations using enslaved labor. This man also distilled brandy liquor, and in 1814 had a machine with five sections with capacities of 141, 149, 174 and 177 gallons. His brother Thomas at Round Hill plantation was known for his stables of racehorses.
In 1787 Southampton County voters elected either this man or his father as well as James Wilkinson as their representatives to the Virginia House of Delegates. However, the two Southampton delegates for the fall 1790 session were Benjamin Blount and veteran James Wilkinson. Voters again elected Edwin Gray alongside James Wilkinson for the fall 1791 session, but not in the fall 1792 session. This man won election to Congress seven times before retiring in 1813.

Personal life

Gray married twice, first to a woman named Charlotte. In the 1810 census, his Southampton County household included an adult white men and woman as well as two boys and a girl between 11 and 15 years old, and a white male between 16 and 25 years old, as well as ten enslaved people. He later married Margaret Kearns of Portsmouth, but one historian believes Gray died without having had any children, nor leaving any last will and testament that survives.

Death and legacy

Gray retired from Congress in 1813. One genealogist believed he died in Portsmouth, Virginia, while another notes his presence in the Nansemond County personal property tax list in 1817 and no other year. His cousin John C. Gray served as a congressman in 1821-1823, but was not his direct successor despite some family histories. Complicating matters, two decades later, shortly before Nat Turner's Rebellion and its suppression, this man's brother Thomas Gray, who had two sons and a daughter, died with a last will and testament explicitly disinheriting his lawyer son Thomas Ruffin Gray in favor of his son Edwin Gray and sister/daughter Ann Gray.