This book traces the descendants of Elias A. Gray and Mary R. Wheaton. Elias was born in Connecticut in 1788 and Mary was born in Massachusetts in 1789. After the War of 1812, they married in Chenango or Oneida County, New York. Elias was eventually granted bounty land in Michigan and ultimately Minnesota. Elias, Mary and their children took up land in Minnesota Territory about 1854. Both Elias and Mary died and are buried in Fillmore County, Minnesota.

Their descendants moved throughout the midwest states and continued as far west as California.