Horace Gray (1828-1902)

Horace Gray was born in Boston Massachusetts on March 24, 1828. Gray was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1851. He studied law at Harvard Law School with Christopher Columbus Langdell, who would become Dean at Harvard in 1870, and who is responsible for the "socratic" method of law school instruction. Gray shortly thereafter became the Reporter of Decisions of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, a prestigious appointment. He became the youngest person ever appointed to that Court when he was appointed to it at age 36 in 1864. He became the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1873, and remained in that position until his appointment to the Supreme Court in early 1882. He remained on the Court until his death in 1902.

Gray was a nationalist in his opinions, and his retentive memory (he allegedly was able to recall what was written after reading it once) may have led him to long discourses in his opinions on the Court. Gray was replaced on the Court by Oliver Wendell Holmes, who like Gray had also served as Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

In 1889, Gray married Jane Matthews, the widow of Gray's former colleague on the Court, Stanley Matthews.

Further reading: Owen M. Fiss, Troubled Beginnings of the Modern State, 1888-1910.