- JAMES GRAY (deceased), late a resident of Beloit, Rock county,
was born March 20, 1824, in
- Ireland, of Scotch-Irish parents, and came with them to this
country when he was a lad of five years. The father, also names
James GRAY, was a farmer, and died near Galena, Ill., at the
age of fifty-five. His father, also named James GRAY, was a well-to-do
man, and died in Ireland. The mother of our subject, who bore
the maiden name of Mary JOHNSON, died in Kansas, at the home
of a daughter, when eighty-two years old. Our subject was one
of a family of eight. The family located in Baltimore, and our
subject remained under the parental roof until he reached the
age of twenty-eight years, when he came West, and spent some
time at Galena, Ill. But the country did not entirely satisfy
him, and he retraced his steps to Maryland. He was married in
Baltimore in 1851, and the young couple sought a home and business
in the West. They spent three and a half years at Galena, and
about eleven years at Warren, Ill., where Mr. GRAY was engaged
in the plow-making industry. In 1866 he moved to Beloit, and
thereafter that city was his home as long as he lived. Here he
formed a partnership with J. R. BOOTH, and bought the sash and
blind factory of Burpee & Hammond, conducting it for five
years under the firm name of GRAY & BOOTH. Mr. BOOTH then
disposed of his interest in the factory to Mr. GRAY, who held
and managed the business alone for many years.
- Mr. GRAY was married Oct. 8, 1851, to Miss Catharine RUST,
a daughter of Paul and Patience
- (STINCHCOMB) RUST, and to this union came seven children,
James Pierce, Alda, George S., Nellie, Tina Pauline, Frank Elmer
and Labertice. James Pierce married Miss Ann CLARK, now deceased,
and he died in 1894; they were the parents of five children,
Frank, Mabel, Paul, Robert, and one child deceased. Alda married
W. A. ROOT, and lives in Elgin. They have one child, Kate Pauline.
George S. is a traveling man; he is unmarried, and makes his
home with his mother. Nellie died when two and a half years old.
Tina Pauline married Ernest FLUEKIGER, a groceryman of Beloit;
they have three children, Alda, Ruth and Ernest Rust. Frank Elmer
married Miss Anna WELLS; they live in Chariton, Iowa, and are
the parents of three children, Catherine, Helen and Rosie. Labertice
is single, and is in business at Atlanta, Ga. Mr. and Mrs. GRAY
were always believers in the Christian faith, but never united
with any church. They attended the Second Congregational Church
in Beloit. He was a Democrat, and was alderman from the Third
ward three years. Mr. GRAY united with the Odd Fellows while
still living in Baltimore, and beautifully exemplified the tenets
of that order in his own life. He was a man of marked domestic
tastes, and greatly loved his home. He seldom spent the evenings
abroad, but enjoyed his friends at his home, owning a beautiful
residence at No. 756 Bluff street. He remodeled the house thoroughly,
and it is still the home of his widow.
- Mrs. GRAY's parents were natives of Maryland. They had five
children, three of whom are now
- living. Achsah is the wife of Austin HEMPHILL, of Burlington,
Iowa; Catharine is the widow of James GRAY of Beloit; and Mahalah
is the widow of John GREENWOOD, of Kalamazoo, Mich. Mrs. GRAY's
father, Paul RUST, was a blacksmith by trade, though he was more
largely interested in real estate than in anything else. He served
in the war of 1812, and died in Baltimore when he was eighty-nine
years old. His wife died in 1850, when sixty years old. They
were both Methodists. His father, Charles RUST, was a native
of Pennsylvania; his father was a German, and his mother English.
Charles RUST served in the American Revolution, and died when
somewhat past middle life. Thomas STINCHCOMB, the father of Mrs.
Paul RUST, was a native of Maryland, of Welsh descent, and also
a soldier of the Revolution. He was the father of eleven children,
and died in middle life.
-
- Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of
the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin"
(c)1901; p. 29-30.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
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