Robert Gray was an American explorer who became the first non-Native American to sail into the Columbia River. He was also the first American to circumnavigate the globe.

He was born on May 17, 1755, in Tiverton, R.I. He is thought to have served in the Continental Navy and is known have been a mariner who won the plum job of captain of the ship Lady Washington for a voyage to the Northwest in 1787, as part of the fur trade. Also in that year, he set out on what became a round-the-world voyage, aboard the Columbia Rediviva. He was the first American to circumnavigate the globe, taking furs from the Pacific Northwest to China and then sailing westward, returning home in 1790. Along the way, he exchanged ships with Capt. John Kendrick, who had been captain of the Columbia for the first part of the journey.

Gray was a trader as well as a ship's captain, and he was known to demand higher amounts of furs than the sellers were willing to provide. He is known to have fired a gun at a handful of traders and to have killed a few. When he discovered that members of one Native American tribe planned to attack his ship and kill his crew, he ordered their village burned. He had only one eye and wore a patch, which no doubt added to his stern appearance.

That sort of behavior illustrated his overall aggression, which had its pros and cons when he was directing the path of a ship. He damaged more than one ship because it got too close to a coastline; he also had more than enough courage to order the Columbia into the River of the same name in May 1792. A shifting sand bar at the mouth of the river estuary provided a significant obstacle, but Gray and his crew were up to the challenge and, after relying on the sounding performed by a small crew in a sailboat, proceeded into the river proper.

This was the first known European ship to have sailed into this river. Gray named the river after his ship. He mapped the area, spending nine days on the river and trading for furs, then passed on what he had learned to the British soldier and explorer George Vancouver, who ordered a detailed survey of the river, which resulted in a detailed map that provided Great Britain with what they considered to be a legitimate claim to the river, if not the surrounding the countryside (which eventually became the Oregon Territory).

Gray, meanwhile, was back at sea, joining the merchant ranks and sailing from his home in Boston to ports elsewhere along the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean. He carried furs from America to China, exchanged them for tea, and then brought that home, making one more circumnavigation. He also enjoyed a stint on high alert, captaining the Lucy in the undeclared war with France, which stretched from 1798 to 1800 (and which many historians refer to as the Quasi-War).

Robert Gray died in 1806. The cause is officially unknown, but some sources say that he contracted yellow fever. He had married Martha Atkins in 1794; they had five children, four daughters and a son, who died while young.

He is remembered in the name of a harbor and a river in Washington and several schools in Oregon and Washington.