In the Beginning

My name is Hans Gray, son of Theodore S. Gray. My sister, Rose, and I, and all of our kids, call him Paw. Paw is the last living member of the Gray family brothers and sisters. My goal in establishing this blog is to document the history of the Gray family as told by Paw and other members of the family, including the Nichols, Christopher, Tyler, and other branches of the family. The stories that I will post to this blog were told to me by Paw. I hope to supplement the text with audio clips, video clips, and photographs.

If any member of the Gray family wishes to post pictures or add commentary, especially about members of their immediate family, I will provide you with instructions on how to so. Just contact me by email (hans.gray@yahoo.com) or phone (251-978-4042). Please help in making this history as complete as possible. If we do not make an effort now to preserve what is known about our family, it will be lost to our children and grandchildren.

The Gray family history starts with Sargent Griffin. Sargent Griffin is Paw’s great grandfather. Sargent Griffin rests in the Ten Island Baptist cemetery on Highway 77, just south of Southside/Gadsden. Next to him lies his wife, Rebecca Putman (1828-1860). Sargent Griffin was born in 1816, probably in the Ohatchee area. He died in 1897. During his life time, he accumulated several thousand acres of land in the Ohatchee area. He donated the land on which Ten Island Baptist Church is located along with the land for the cemetery. At one point, his land holdings extended from the area around the church, over the mountain to the banks of the Coosa River. This included the area called Mohawk Valley.

Not much is known about Sargent Griffin. Paw stated that as a young boy, his grandfather and mother and father often spoke about him, but he often was too busy playing or doing other things and that he did not pay enough attention and thus only remembers a small portion of what was told.

Click here to hear Paw tell about Sargent Griffin.

At the time that Sargent Griffin was born in 1816, Alabama was still a wild frontier area. To understand better the historical setting into which he was born and lived, consider the following. The area around Ohatchee was populated by the members of the Cherokee Indian Nation. Two years before Sargent Griffin was born, Andrew Jackson defeated the Creek Indians at The Battle of Horseshoe Bend in March of 1814. This broke the power of the Creek Indians in middle and lower Alabama. Jackson then went on to New Orleans and in December of 1814, and defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans. In November of 1816, James Monroe is elected as the 5th preident of the United States. When Alabama became a state in 1819, Sargent Griffin was only a young boy of 3.

Click here to learn more about the Battle of New Orleans

Click here to learn more about the Battle of Horseshoe Bend


In 1838, when Sargent Griffin was 22 years old, President Andrew Jackson ordered that all Indians in the southeast (Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas) were to be removed to what is today Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects. The migrants faced hunger, disease, and exhaustion on the forced march. Over 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokees died. The Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, and Choctaw Indians in Alabama were included in this forced removal.

Click here to learn more about the Trail of Tears

Sargent Griffin served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Sometime during his service in the war, he met Paw’s grandfather, Jesse Berry Gray. I will continue with the story at this point in the next posting.