This collection is made up of four letters from sugar planter and cattle farmer Charles Gordon Gray of Fairfield, St. James, Jamaica, to his father Charles Gordon Gray, Sr., at Stratton House in Somersetshire. The Gray family had three plantations on Jamaica, including Virgin Valley, Prospect Pen, and Fairfield. The younger Charles Gray provided his father with updates on the status of crops and rum production, shipments of sugar, financial and legal matters, enslaved laborers and a mention of the potential for revolt, and the handling of Prospect Pen land.
See the box and folder listing below for details about the contents of each letter.
Charles Gordon Gray was christened on February 14, 1785, at Chitterne, Wiltshire, England, a son of Charles Gordon Gray, Sr. (1759-1822) and Frances Gray. He attended Eton and then went to work on the Virgin Valley, Prospect Pen, and Fairfield Plantations in St. James, near Montego Bay, Jamaica, which were established by his grandfather Robert G. Gray. The Grays' Jamaican estates were especially well-regarded for their cattle stock. Charles Gray, Jr., married Mary Augusta Faveaux on February 15, 1820. Gray died on January 29, 1823, at Fairfield in Jamaica.
