Pages 198-201: Chapter II--How I Became Interested in John Gray

My first knowledge of John Gray dates back to the year 1847, when, as a boy, I was growing up on my father's farm in the same neighborhood. My earliest recollections of him are associated with muster days, mass meetings and Fourth of July celebrations, when a number of venerable men -- ex-soldiers of the war for independence -- were invited to conspicuous seats upon the platform. John Gray was always seen to be among them. These, however, were commonplace affairs, and, even, among his nearest neighbors, very little was known concerning him, except the bare facts that he had seen service, which was sufficient to fill my boyish mind with wonder. A quiet, unassuming farmer, without avarice or ambition, there was nothing in his outward life to attract public attention. In this capacity, he was sober and industrious; as a citizen, quiet and unostentations; as a Christian, earnest, faithful, and devout, and though six miles from any church, he was always there whenever possible, and was invariably one of the first present whenever the itinerant preacher of those days would announce service at any of the farm-houses in the neighborhood. But, though hard-working, he was always poor, and, as he grew older, found himself in great danger of coming to want. In these later days, his strength having in a measure failed, rendering him unable to work, he spent much of his time in reading his Bible in quiet devotion. During these declining years, he lvied mostly alone, with his step-daughter, Nancy McElroy, a lady also of advanced age, and unmarried. From the rental of his little farm, supplemented by a cow and garden, cared for by themselves and the kind attention of thoughtful neighbors, they managed to keep the wolf from the door, and, by mere trifle, to escape the journey "over the hill to the poor-house."

Apart from this, no one seemed to pay any attention -- certainly he received no public recognition, all seemingly forgetting, at least ignoring the fact that he had been one of those who marched at the front at the time that triend men's "Souls," and who, in the sacred cause of freedom, so dear to every American, took upon himself, under the leadership of our own loved Washington, the deliverance of our heritage from the hands of our oppressors. In politics he was, by his religious convictions, trained and developed in the Methodist Episcopal Church, an uncompromising Abolitionist, and when that extremist party collapsed, he became a staunch Republican. As such, he took a lively interest in the war of the rebellion, and many were the prayers that ascended from that cabin hearth for the success of the Union cause. If it seems strange, that from the beginning I have taken such an interest in John Gray's history, I explain this by saying that John Gray was my neighbor in Ohio for well-nigh twenty years, and that I loved the old man as if he had been my father. I admired him -- who could help it -- for his rare and excellent qualities of mind and heart. I loved him, because he had fought for the same flag that I had, and I loved him because he was so much like Washington -- plain, simple, honest and good.

I bow down not to genius and rank; I worship only the heroes of the true and good. He was such a hero. His name should not and can not rot in oblivion. Through all coming time his name will be like that of Washington. I looked upon him as preserved through four generations to show his children and his children's children what a noble type of men were our revolutionary fathers. He was a worthy sample of that good old stock. Ask the people of Ohio and they will tell you that there never lived in Ohio a better man than old John Gray. He was always a poor man and a Christian. He never attempted any kind of speculation or business, but literally earned his bread of labor as a farmer all his life. For four-score years he was a consistent member of the Methodist church, and never missed a single Sabbath church when it was possible to attend. He joined church at twenty-five. He lived a sober, regular, and industrious life, in so much that he was for half a century and more a model of piety to his church in a degree not excelled by any of brethren in Christ. His hours of rising, working, and sleeping were regular as the clock. He retired early and rose before the sun. Seldom is any Christian permitted so long and so well to be a "living epistle known and read of all men." More than three-score and ten years he lived to adorn the doctrine of the savior by a daily walk with God. Schooled as he was in that pure and honest school which made Washington a good man, learning his lessons from the father of the church and state who formed that beautiful system of government under which we live, John Gray was ever a model man. Not one man was ever heard to doubt John Gray's sincerity as a Christian and as a patriot. On visiting the old man, he said to us, in reply to the question "why he enlisted so young?" "I lived and was born near Mount Vernon, the home of Washington, how could I do otherwise?" Such an answer speaks volumes for the old patriot.