He was instrumental in planning several additions and laying out roads and took great interest in the future of that portion of the city known as "Riverview", where an effort was made to establish a market and grain exchange.
As territorial attorney for Wyandotte district, Gray was the first man in Kansas to prosecute liquor cases.
His father was Daniel Gray, of Brunswick, New Jersey, and his mother was Lydia (née Bevie; sometimes spelled Bovier or Bouvier) of Ulster County, New York.
[2] Gray spent four years as a clerk in a dry-goods store at Marshall, and in 1845, entered the Freshman class at Ann Arbor, Michigan.
His previous education was obtained principally at the Academy at Marshall, but during his clerkship he read Latin and Greek, after business hours in the store, and thus able to enter university, and graduated in 1849.