Joseph and Mary J. Gray of Geneva County, Alabama
(1802-1882 and 1812-1892)
Descendant List and Notes
Special thanks to Lavinia Jordan Helms of Enterprise, Alabama, for her contributions to Gray research. Lavinia is greatgranddaughter of Martha Gray Milton.
Joseph and Mary J. are the oldest Gray ancestors we have so far been able to document. We know that they came from North Carolina, but beyond that is a mystery. According to the 1880 census, the parents of both were also born in North Carolina. It was once thought that he might be the Joseph C. Gray who appears in 1840 Guilford County, NC and married Polly Whicker there in 1828. After much research, it was discovered that that Joseph C. Gray stayed in N.C., on the west side of Deep River, in Stokes County (which later became Forsythe). He signed deeds in those counties as Joseph C. Gray and lived next to other Whicker families. He was still there in 1850, long after our Joseph was in Dooly County, Georgia.
Wherever they were from in North Carolina, they arrived in Lee County, Georgia about 1838-40, in the area that became Dooly County by 1845 and then became Worth County in the 1850s. (See notes on Pinderton area for details.) Their son John C, the first to be born in Georgia, stated several times on his Confederate pension applications that he had been born in Lee County, Ga., variously 1839 and 1840. His four older siblings were born in North Carolina, the last in about 1836-38. This area where they lived is now in the western part of the northern neck of Worth County. The fact that the area is perhaps twenty miles or less from the town of Albany, in Dougherty County, may or may not be of significance in the search for a Holland connection.
There are no Grays listed on the 1840 census of Lee or Dooly County, but Joseph Gray does appear on an 1845 Dooly state census and on the 1850 Dooly and 1860 Worth censuses. On 12 Aug 1861, his name appears on a deed whereby he bought 280 acres of land in Coffee County, Alabama, in the area that became Geneva County in 1868. He appears in Geneva County in 1870 with his three youngest children still at home. However, by 1880, he and Mary, now 78 and 67, have moved to Daleville, in Dale County, adjacent their daughter Martha and her husband, Richard Milton, and the household of Joel and Betsy Kelley, ages 88 and 90, both also from North Carolina.
Gray-Kelley Connection
An interesting possibility develops of a relationship between the Kelley and Gray families. Joel Kelley was in Dooly County in 1830, with James Gilmore and James McOrmick on one side and Delaney Coats, Jacob Kelley and William Cain, Jr. on the other. Jacob Kelley is under suspicion of being the father or brother of Joel Kelley. Jacob Kelley received two land patents in Coffee County, Al., in late 1860, one for 80 acres north of Marl, very near Eden Baptist Church and Cemetery where many Gray descendants are buried. The other was in the Marl area and touched corners with the parcel that Joseph Gray bought in Aug 1861.
While Joel was in southern Dale Co. in 1850, Jacob was in Coffee Co, surrounded by people who are known to be in the Geneva County area (pg 321B). He had Allen and Eliza Hatton adjacent on one side and James H Gilmore, John A Barker and Bryant Spears on the other. These people lived in the Coffee Springs-Marl-Samson area. A James Coats, 27, was adjacent David Kelley, 33 (pg 283), Coffee Co 1850, both from Ga. A Cain family from Dooly also moved to Geneva County.
While Joseph and Mary were enumerated adjacent to Joel Kelley in Dale County in 1880, their son John C was in Santa Rosa County, Florida, in the sawmill town of Bagdad. Adjacent to him were James and Delilah Kelley, 28 and 24, and James' brother Green. John C has not been located in 1870, but in 1870 Santa Rosa, James and Green Kelley appear in the household of Holley Kelley, 42, from SC, who is listed as male but appears to be the same Holley Kelley listed in 1850 Dale County as wife of William Kelley, three entries away from Joel and Elizabeth Kelley. That Holley Kelley was 20, from SC. Their children in 1850 were Elizabeth M, 3, and James A, 2. In 1870, in addition to James and Green, there are Mary Ann, 20, Joel, 15 and Jefferson, 10. Joel Kelley in 1850 also had sons named James and Green.
There is an LDS IGI entry for Joel Kelley, born c1792, NC or VA, which gives his father as Richard Kelley and mother as Martha Gibbs. There is no further information. See Oscar Leddon's story referencing the name Gibbs as a possible surname for Mary J. Gray's mother.
