1837-????
Adoniram Judson Gray
Soldier/Physician ME/CA
Adoniram Judson Gray was born in Tisbury, Dukes County, Massachusetts, October 28, 1837, of American-colonial descent and attended the Massachusetts State Normal School and Bowdoin College (1859). His professional training was at Harvard and Dartmouth Medical Colleges where he received the M. D. degree in 1861. He married Alice Worth Merry on May 7, 1862.[1]
Dr. Gray was a Medical Officer in the United States Army from 1862-81, serving in the Civil War at stations in Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington and eventually 1865 at the Hospital for Refugees and Freedman in Mobile, Alabama. When the war ended, he accepted assignments in Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming. Dr. Adoniram Judson Gray was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion. A summary of his medical career in the army is glowing:
During the eighteen years, and more, spent with the army, not one of his appointments as acting assistant surgeon U.S.A., was terminated except at his own request. This is not said boastfully, but in grateful memory of the uniform courtesy and personal consideration shown by the surgeon general and by the medical directors under whom he served.
He has never held a professional position in civil life beyond what is common to every practitioner, having been content to labor “in the ranks,” and leave the special honors to those who are more worthy to bear them.[2]
Dr. Gray eventually moved to San Diego, California, in 1887 to establish a medical practice but the trail ends there.
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[1] George H. Kress, A History of the Medical Profession of Southern California, 2nd edition (Los Angeles: Times-Mirror Printing and Binding House, 1910), p. 140.
[2] W. Thornton Parker, Editor, Records of the Association of Acting Assistant Surgeons of the United States Army (Salem, MA: Salem Press Publishing and Printing, 1891), p. 44.