Notes for: Lewis Gray WELLS

Lewis was a man of extraordinary merits. Born and brought up in the south, in the period just before the Civil War, when political antagonisms divided many families, he took the national side. In 1860, he accompanied his uncle Samuel Cotton Gray to California by steamer via Panama. He returned after the close of the war, went into business in Baltimore with the Turner and Day Mfg. Co., and afterwards removed to Louisville, still in the service of the same concern, of which he soon became a member. Here he lived in active business until declining health compelled him to retire. His fine literary tastes and exalted ideals impressed all who associated with him, and he had the special gift of arousing and maintaining the enthusiastic devotion of young men.