Andrew C. Gray

Andrew C. Gray (1804–1885) was a lawyer, banker, businessman, and public official in the U.S. state of Delaware.[1]

Gray was born in Kent County, Delaware, and graduated from the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, in 1821.[1]

He became a lawyer, opened his own law practice, and later became an entrepreneur. He had an interest in the New Castle Manufacturing Company, which built a foundry to help manufacture locomotives for the New Castle and Frenchtown Turnpike and Railroad Company. He later became president of the railroad, counting among his partners Charles I. du Pont.[1] Some of the right-of-way pioneered by the railroad is still in use by Norfolk Southern.

In 1849, he became president of the New Castle branch of the Farmers' Bank of Delaware.[1]

In 1853, he became president of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Company.[1]

Gray was a Whig delegate from New Castle County to the 1853 convention that sought and failed to enact a fourth constitution for the state of Delaware.[2]

He bought a house built for Gunning Bedford Jr., a delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787. In this house was subsequently born a son, George Gray (1840–1925), who grew up to be a lawyer, Attorney General of Delaware, and U.S. Senator.[3] George eventually gave his father's name to his own son;[4] this second Andrew C. Gray would also serve as Attorney General of Delaware, from 1909 to 1913.