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Gray, Barry (1826-1886)

Robert
Barry
Coffin

At his death, Robert Barry Coffin ("Barry Gray") was remembered as a "venerable author and Bohemian" ("Old 'Barry Gray' Dead" 5). He was born in 1826 and was a descendent of the Coffin family and "old Admiral Coffin" of Cape Cod.

"Barry Gray" was a critic for the Home Journal, and he may have associated with famous authors, including Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry W. Longfellow. "Gray" was also a frequenter of Pfaff's cellar who often sat "at the dripping round-table where Walt Whitman read his 'Yawps'" alongside fellow Pfaffians, Fitz-Greene Halleck and Artemus Ward ("Old 'Barry Gray' Dead" 5).

Gray is credited with having written a "large number of books" and made contributions to periodicals; he wrote under the pseudonym "Barry Gray" and under his own name, Robert Barry Coffin. His books include "'Married Life at Hillside,' 'Out of Town,' 'Infelicities of Married Life,' and 'Cakes and Ale'" ("Old 'Barry Gray' Dead" 5).