Author: Gray, Richardson
Biography:
GRAY, Richardson (1754-1818: ancestry.com)
Details of his family life are few, but Richardson Gray was a cabinet-maker with a business in Elizabeth-town (or Elizabeth) NJ for at least thirty years. He retired and sold his business in 1803 and is buried in the town's Episcopal Church Cemetery. He was probably a Methodist: certainly some of his hymns are presented as having been composed for Methodists. In his will, he provided for the publication of his poems. His executors were obliged to apologize, in an Advertisement, for having taken so long to produce them. The poems appear to have been printed with different title-pages, some starting with Hymns for Sunday Schools, but the contents are identical. (New-Jersey Journal 23 June 1818; ancestry.com 5 May 2020) HJ