Name: Pearl Zane GRAY
ALIAS: Used the Pen Name of Zane Grey
Birth: JAN 31, 1875 in Zanesville, Muskingum County, Ohio
Death: OCT 23, 1939 in Altadena, California
Residence: 705 Convers Avenue

THE MAN FROM ZANESVILLE:  The home of the Gray family at 705 Convers Avenue stood in a two acre tract of pasture and orchard land in 1875. On January 31 of that year a son named Pearl Zane was born to Dr. Lewis M. and Josephine (Zane) Gray. The father was descended from Irish immigrants who stopped in Pennsylvania and arrived in Springfield Township, Muskingum County, about 1800. On his mothers side the son was descended from Colonel Ebenezer Zane. As the boy grew up, he fished in the Muskingum and Licking rivers, played truant from school, bullied younger boys, and became known as "The Terror of the Terrace" for his pranks. In a secret cave in the family orchard, the boy wrote his first story on wallpaper, only to see his father tear it up in anger when he found the cave filled with stolen articles.

Leaving Zanesville about the age of seventeen when his father went to Columbus to practice dentistry, the younger man attended the University of Pennsylvania to play baseball and study his fathers profession. Later he neglected his practice to write Betty Zane. About that time he adopted the name Zane because Pearl was taken for a woman's name, and he changed his family name to Grey, the English spelling. As The Heritage of the Desert, Riders of the Purple Sage, Desert Gold, and other books came from his pen, Zane Grey's popularity extended over the world and he became the most widely known Zanesville native in history. When Grey came back to his birthplace in 1921, be was greeted by 3,000 school children at the Weller Theater and honored at a banquet sponsored by the Rotary Club in the Masonic Temple. He died at Altadena, California, on October 23,1939.

John Farrar said of Grey: "He is as national a figure as Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, or General Pershing." T. K. Whipple described his work thus: "We turn to him not for insight into human nature and human problems nor for refinement of art, but simply for crude epic stories, as we might to an old Norse skald, maker of the sagas of the folk."

passage from "Y Bridge City" The Story of Zanesville and Muskingum County, Ohio - by Norris F. Schneider, p 287, Chapter 22 - The Man from Zanesville -- The World Publishing Company, Cleveland and New York

You may see the complete list of of free on-line books available for download or viewing by Zane Grey, HERE. The Betty Zane Book HERE. You may also read the book Betty Zane at your leisure by chapter at CLASSIC READER.

Please Check Out These Links:

National Road Zane Grey Museum,
Zane Grey's West Society,
Writer Zane Grey - More photographs of Zane Grey

NOTE: Zane Grey in many ways epitomizes the tradition of his ancestors and the early settlers. I found during my research that he was a brilliant and independent man ready for adventure. It doesn't surprise me at all that he spent many months of each year traveling and fishing. His fishing exploits are legendary. He fished all over the world including California, Florida, Cabo San Lucas, New Zealand, Australia, Tahiti, and the Tonga Islands setting many fishing records for Marlin, Tuna, Sailfish and Swordfish just to name a few.

Zane Grey would have been called "a man's man" and in many ways a private man while at the same time being a personable, popular and a genuinely friendly man. Reading his books and researching the man would be well worth the journey.

Liz (Frankel) Gunderson

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