Captain Robert Gray, 1755-1806 was a sea captain and explorer. This Tiverton native commanded the Columbia from 1789-1793, a vessel on which he became the first American to circumnavigate the globe in 1789. Shortly after this feat he set sail again from his home port of Boston to the Oregon Country, and this voyage he explored the mouth of the great river of that region and named it for his ship. This 1792 visitation established American claim to the Pacific Northwest.