Edwin Gray

This article is about the politician Edwin Gray; for the football player and coach of the same name, see Eddie Gray .

Edwin Gray (born July 18, 1743 in Southampton County , Colony of Virginia , † in Nansemond County , Virginia ) was an American politician . Between 1799 and 1813 he represented the state of Virginia in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Edwin Gray grew up during the British colonial era. He attended the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg . He began a political career before the American Revolution. Between 1769 and 1775 he was a member of the colonial House of Burgesses . He joined the independence movement and was a member of state assemblies in Virginia in 1774, 1775 and 1776, where political developments were discussed. Between 1776 and 1791 he sat five times in the Virginia House of Representatives ; from 1777 to 1779 he was a member of the State Senate . In the late 1790s he joined the Democratic Republican Party founded by Thomas Jefferson .

In the congressional elections of 1798 Gray was elected in the tenth constituency of Virginia in the US House of Representatives, which was then still in Philadelphia , where he succeeded Carter Bassett Harrison on March 4, 1799 . After six re-elections, he was able to complete seven legislative terms in Congress by March 3, 1813 . Since 1803 he represented there as the successor of John Taliaferro the 19th district of his state. In 1800, the new federal capital Washington, DC was moved. During his tenure as Congressman in 1803, the Louisiana Purchase made by President Jefferson, the United States was significantly expanded. In 1804 the twelfth amendment was ratified.

After the end of his time in the US House of Representatives, the trail of Edwin Gray is lost. The sources only mention that he died in what was then Nansemond County, which today largely corresponds to the city of Suffolk .

Web links

• Edwin Gray in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)