By John Rhodes
Special to The Chatham Voice
On a number of occasions I have been asked who I think the most important person in Chatham history would be. There would be a number of candidates, but at the apex of my list would be just one person, and that would be Robert Gray.
Robert was born at Chatham on Feb. 5, 1862 and was the son of William Gray, who was born in Scotland in 1824 and came to Chatham to found a blacksmith shop circa 1853. William was killed in a train accident, at Guelph Junction in 1884. Robert’s mother was Barbara Helen Scott, who was born in Scotland in 1832 and died at Chatham on Feb. 18, 1896.
At the time of Robert’s father’s death, the family was operating a small wagon and buggy factory at the southwest corner of Wellington and William streets; it had 24 employees. Within 15 years, the William Gray and Sons Carriage Works, under Robert’s control, had nearly 400 employees and a substantial factory that took up the entire block bounded by Wellington Street, William Street, Park Street and the CPR right of way.
In 1916, Robert clearly saw that the day of horse-drawn vehicles was soon to be at an end and with this as consideration, he made a deal with Josiah Dallas Dort, of Flint, Mich. to assemble Gray Dort automobiles at Chatham.
The body plant would be at William and Wellington; the assembly building would be on the north side of Colborne Street, between Adelaide and Princess streets; and the stamping plant would be in the former Blondi furniture plant at the southwest junction of Thames and Dover Streets (Harvey’s Restaurant).
The combined employment of the three factories would reach 800 persons.
Sales went well until Dallas Dort became ill, stepping down and passing away in 1924 after which both the American and Canadian operations collapsed.
A division of Gray Dort, known as Motor and Coach, survived as a specialty wood body manufacturing entity until it was made obsolete by the onset of all steel car bodies in the mid-1930s.
Robert Gray died March 31, 1929 and reposes in the family plot, Old Ward A, Maple Leaf Cemetery.
