Captain Robert Gray was born in Tiverton, Rhode Island, on 10 May 1755. Little is known of his youth. During the American Revolution and the war with the French from 1798 to 1801, he commanded Letter of Marque vessels, including Alert and Lucy, and during the early period as a privateer he lost an eye. He was the first American to land on the Pacific Coast of the Western Hemisphere, about one mile from here, the first American to take his vessel to Hawaii, the first American to circumnavigate the globe twice, and the first to build an American vessel, Adventure, on the northwest coast. On 7 May 1792 he discovered Gray's Harbor, Washington, and on 17 May 1792 he discovered the Great River of the West, which he named Columbia's River. This achievement alone resulted in the United States finally acquiring the Oregon Territory, from which were carved Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming. America's first space shuttle was named Columbia after Captain Gray's ship, the first to carry the American flag around the globe.