[1][2] In his honor, many geographic features along the Oregon and Washington coasts were named for Gray, as were numerous public schools established later in the region.

On September 30, 1787, Robert Gray and Captain John Kendrick left Boston, to trade along the north Pacific coast.

Bulfinch had read Cook's "Journals", published in 1784, that in part discussed his success selling sea otter pelts in Canton.

Bulfinch's learning of Cook's pelt-trading solved this problem, so New England sea merchants expected to trade with China profitably.

[7] On the voyage of Kendrick and Gray, the ships' cargo included blankets, knives, iron bars, and other trade goods.

Fighting erupted with the local Tillamook people, and Marcus Lopez, Gray's black cabin boy and cook from West Africa's Cape Verde Islands,[8] was killed.

[12] During their trading along the coastlines of what are now British Columbia, Canada, and Washington, Oregon, and California, United States, the two Americans explored many bays and inland waters.

[5] Meares subsequently published reports and maps of the Pacific Northwest that included a voyage by Robert Gray through a large, imaginary inland sea between the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Dixon Entrance.

[1][3] Gray continued to the west, sailing through the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, and across the Atlantic, reaching Boston on August 9, 1790.

[1] The success in profits realized by this voyage had the most immediate effect of Gray's setting out for the north Pacific coast again, only six weeks after returning thence.

[1] The further effect was that other New England sea merchants began to send vessels of their own to take part in this new trade opportunity, including the dispatch of the brigantine Hope in September 1790, under the command of Joseph Ingraham, Gray's first mate on his first voyage.

Within a few years, many Yankee merchants were involved in the continuous trade of pelts to China, and by 1801, 16 American vessels were engaged in this triangular route.

[19] On this voyage, Gray, though he was still a private merchant, was sailing under papers of the United States of America signed by President George Washington.

Over this winter, the crew built a 45-ton sloop named Adventure, which was launched in the spring with Gray’s first mate, Robert Haswell, in charge.

[20] The attack was a retaliation for insults he thought he had endured and in response to rumors of a plot against his men conceived by some local natives and a Sandwich Islander of his own crew.

The Chicklisaht took their wounded to the Spanish post at Nootka Sound and asked the commandant, Bodega y Quadra, to punish Gray.

[22] During his 1792 journey aboard Columbia Rediviva, Gray noticed muddy waters flowing from shore and decided to investigate whether he might have encountered the "Great River of the West".

So Gray continued south, leaving the Strait of Juan de Fuca on April 30, 1792, trading for more pelts as the ship sailed.

[1] On May 11, his men discovered what he sought, and he ordered a small sailboat launched to attempt to find a safe passage across the sand bars in the process known as sounding.

[1][19] Finally, on the evening of May 11, 1792, Gray's men found a safe channel, so ship and crew sailed into the estuary of the Columbia River.

[1] The ship and crew traveled about 13 mi (21 km) upriver[28] and traded items such as nails for pelts, salmon, and animal meat over a nine-day period.

[30] Gray's success in entering the river would eventually form part of the basis for U.S. territorial claims to the Oregon Country.

Over the summer, Bodega had begun to realize that John Meares had not only greatly exaggerated his losses during the Nootka Crisis, but also had operated British trading ships under the flag of Portugal in violation of East India Company regulations.

Were it not for Ingraham and Gray's letter, along with Vancouver's late arrival, and several other factors, Bodega likely would have turned the entire Spanish establishment at Nootka over to the British.

[4] Later in his career, Gray was involved in the Franco-American Quasi-War of 1798–1800, an undeclared and purely maritime conflict related to the Napoleonic Wars.

[2][34] On September 10, 1798, Gray set sail from Salem in command of the bark Alert, on another trading voyage bound for the Northwest Coast, where he was meant to spend a season or two fur-trading, and thence for Canton and home again, as before.

[2] On November 21, 1800, Gray left Boston in command of the schooner James, with a cargo of iron and stone ballast, bound for Rio de Janeiro, where he arrived on April 18, 1801.

[2] He left behind his wife and four daughters, who later petitioned the U.S. Congress for a government pension, based on his voyages and a claim that he was a naval officer for the Continental Navy during the Revolutionary War.

Moreover, Gray's priority in entering of the Columbia was later used by the United States in support of its territorial claims to what Americans called the Oregon Country.

The rival British claimants called the more southerly portion of this disputed area the Columbia District, which they derived from the river-name chosen by Gray.