Joseph William Gray

Background

Joseph William Gray was born on 5 August 1813, of Puritan stock at Bridport, Addison County, Vermont.

Education

During Gray's early childhood, his parents, Urel and Betsey Case Gray, moved to Madrid, New York, where he attended a rural school.

He studied, later, in the institutes at Potsdam and Gouverneur founded by the New York State Association for Teachers.

Career

In 1836, Gray began to teach in the public schools of Cleveland, then just incorporated as a city. After teaching three or four years in Cleveland and in Cuyahoga County, he read law and opened his own office.

He left Cleveland to practice in Michigan but returned shortly and with his brother Admiral N. Gray purchased the Cleveland, Advertiser, a Democratic evening daily, January 1, 1842.

The name of the paper was changed to the Plain Dealer, “a name that exactly suited the outspoken, trenchant style of J. W. Gray”.

Gray was appointed postmaster of Cleveland in 1853 by President Pierce and held the position until 1858 when he was removed for his refusal to advocate the Lecompton Constitution.

In 1858, he ran unsuccessfully for Congress on the Democratic ticket. He was a delegate to the Charleston-Baltimore convention of the Democratic party in 1860 and as a close friend of Stephen A. Douglas fought for his nomination for the presidency.

Though he had suffered the loss of the sight of one eye in 1858, he remained at work through the campaign of 1860 and the stirring events which followed. Because of his politics, his newspaper became unpopular when the Civil War began but following the leadership of Douglas, Gray gave the Union his full support.

He died somewhat suddenly from after-effects of the injury to his eyes.

Upon his death, he was survived by his wife, Catherine Foster of Cleveland, and two sons and a daughter.

Achievements

• Gray had been in charge of the Plain Dealer during the period when American journalism was changing rapidly with the introduction of steam presses, railroads, and the telegraph. Keeping pace with these changes he increased the circulation of the paper to 40, 000 in 1860. He was a pioneer in illustrated journalism, especially in the use of cartoons.

Politics

Taking an active interest in politics, Gray was considerably responsible for reviving the Democratic party in the state of Ohio, then dominantly Whig.

Personality

Gray was a good paragrapher, possessed striking wit, and rarely let his paper go to press without a few epigrammatic stabs denouncing the Whigs and calling upon the Democrats to save the country.

During the fifties, he gathered a distinguished staff on the Plain Dealer including such men as J. B. Boughton, later a New York editorial writer; David R. Locke, editor of the Toledo Blade and author of The Nasby Papers (1864); William E. McLaren, later Protestant Episcopal bishop; A. M. Griswold, journalist, humorist, and lecturer; James D. Cleveland, later a leading lawyer; George Hoyt, journalist and artist; and Charles F. Browne who adopted his famous pen-name “Artemus Ward” while on the Plain Dealer staff.

Connections

Gray married Catherine Foster in 1845 and had a daughter, Josephine, and two sons, Eugene and Lewis.

Daughteк:

Josephine Gray

Wife:

Catherine Foster

Son:

Lewis Gray

Son:

Eugene Gray

Friend:

Stephen A. Douglas