[2] Robert Gray, one of John Gray’s sons, was twenty years old when he came to America. There is a tradition in the family that the acquaintance and courtship began on the voyage. [3] Sauquoit was a settlement in the eastern part of the town of Paris, the township so named in grateful recognition of a supply of food, sent by a Mr. Paris, of Oswego, at a time when the early settlers were near starving.--A. G. [4] Moses Gray was the eighth child,--a boy and a girl were born later,--and one step-brother, Watson, survived Moses Gray. Moses Wiley Gray made the journey to Sauquoit, on horseback, taking before him his son Moses, then a boy of eight. The Mohawk Valley at this time was the far West, with only slow and tedious communication beyond Schenectady, but opening, in its lovely tributary valleys, tempting regions of hill and valley, well wooded, with clear, sparkling streams. The land offered good farming opportunities when cleared of trees, and the rapid streams gave good promise of water power. Here Moses Wiley Gray took a farm on the top of a hill, and cultivated the land for ten years. He was injured by the fall of a tree, and his leg was amputated. He died the next day, May 8, 1803, leaving his son Moses, with his stepmother and her children largely dependent on his assistance. [5] She was married in 1788. [6] The house is still standing which, built in 1648 by an ancestor of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was bought by William Howard, in 1669. [7] Asa’s mother was but four years old, when the family moved to Sauquoit, and well remembered her mother’s crying at the crossing of the Hudson River, which must have seemed formidable in the small boats of that time. Joseph Howard was a man of a very lovable character, as shown from the affectionate remembrances of him by his grandchildren, the eldest of whom, Asa, was much with him. He was a deacon of the First Church in Sauquoit for forty years, and one of the leading men in the town. He died in 1849.