a compendium of facts about Ohio history
by Dan Chabek
Noble County and John Gray
Noble County in southeastern Ohio was the last of the 88 counties to be formed in the Buckeye State. It was organized March 11, 1851, and named in honor of James Noble, one of the area's first settlers.
John Gray, the last surviving soldier of the American Revolutionary War, lived in Noble County and died there of old age near the town of Hiramsburg in 1868. He was 104 years old.
Gray was born at Mount Vernon, Va., in 1764. When 16, he took up the musket of his father who had fallen at White Plains and carried it until the Revolutionar War was over.
Gray fought at Williamsburg and was at Yorktown for the final surrender, which took place in his 18th year. He wed twice in Virginia and once in Ohio, and survived his three wives.
He was described as a quiet, kindly and generous farmer who lived in a one-story, hewed-log house and attended a Methodist church regularly for 78 years.
Gray used tobacco most of his life and once, while musing over past deprivations, said he sometimes had nothing else to give him solace but a dog and a plug of tobacco.
Late in life, after becoming poor and infirm, Congress granted him a pension of $500 per year.
He was buried in a family cemetery plot about 250 yards north of his home in Noble County. The grave was marked by a plain three-foot-high stone that idnetified him as "The Last of Washington's Companions."
© 1998 Dan Chabek
