Robert Gray (sea Captain)

Robert Gray (sea Captain)

Robert Gray (May 10, 1755 – c. July, 1806) was an American merchant sea-captain who is known for his achievements in connection with two trading voyages to the northern Pacific coast of North America, between 1790 and 1793, which pioneered the American maritime fur trade in that region. In the course of those voyages, Gray explored portions of that coast and, in 1790, completed the first American circumnavigation of the world. Perhaps his most remembered accomplishment from his explorations was his coming upon and then naming of the Columbia River, in 1792 while on his second voyage.

Gray's earlier and later life are both comparatively obscure. He was born in Tiverton, Rhode Island, and may have served in the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War. After his two famous voyages, he carried on his career as a sea-captain, mainly of merchantmen in the Atlantic. This included what was meant to be a third voyage to the Northwest Coast, but was ended by the capture of his ship by French privateers, during the Franco-American Quasi-War, and command of an American privateer later in that same conflict. Gray died at sea in 1806, near Charleston, South Carolina, possibly of yellow fever. Many geographic features along the Oregon and Washington coasts bear Gray's name, as do numerous schools in the region.