Captain Robert Gray apparently built this tiny two-and-one-half-story five-bay shingled house for himself. Utterly unpretentious, its central chimney lost, its window sash replaced, and badly crowded by later houses, it is mostly of historical interest, for the colorful background of one of the owners of the house. Of all the nautical derring-do of Tiverton's seaman, none was as consequential as Captain Gray's sailing in the Columbia to the coast of the present-day state of Washington and there discovering the great river which he named for his vessel. Braving the dangerous shoals and fast currents in its mouth, he “took possession” of it, and thereby established the basis for American claims, in later negotiations with England, to ownership of the Oregon Country, which today comprises the states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.