12 May 1807–18 Dec. 1859
Thomas Laurence Baker Gregory, portrait painter, was born in Hertford County. The name of his father is unknown, but his grandfather was very likely one Thomas Gregory who married Priscilla Baker, the sister of General Laurence Baker. His mother, Margaret Bradford, a native of Halifax County, was a descendant of the Reverend Thomas Burges. On the early death of her husband, she returned to Halifax where she married James Whitaker. Thomas L. B. Gregory was reared and resided all of his life in the Crowells Cross Roads section of Halifax County.
Nothing is known of his education and little about the artistic influences he encountered. He undoubtedly knew the work of the itinerant painter James McGibbon, who did several portraits in the town of Halifax about 1830. Young Gregory also may have been familiar with the fine portraits of his cousin, Mary Wynns Gregory, and her husband, Dr. Isaac Pipkin of Murfreesboro, which were painted by Thomas Sully in 1825. In the Scotland Neck neighborhood, near Gregory's home, lived the descendants of John Anthony, a native of Philadelphia, who owned a portrait of him painted by his first cousin, Gilbert Stuart. The work of Jacob Marling, the Raleigh portrait painter, was known in Halifax County in Gregory's formative years.
As a painter, Gregory was only average. He was able to capture a likeness but other details in his pictures are clumsy. Of the portraits attributed to him, the one of John B. Williams is by far the best. Gregory's chief importance lies in the fact that he was one of the early natives of the state to attempt portrait painting as a profession.
Little is known of the last two decades of the painter's life. References to him in the deeds of Halifax County reflect mounting economic difficulties. At one point, his wife sued him for the return of property guaranteed to her in a prenuptial agreement. Thomas Gregory appears in the 1850 census as a farmer in the Crowells neighborhood. In the 1859 death schedule for the census of 1860, he is listed as an artist and as having died of consumption of several months' duration.
In 1828 Gregory married Mary Frances Pittman of Halifax County. Of their several children, only one, Frederick William, married and left descendants. Thomas L. B. Gregory, his wife, and several children were buried under a handsome monument in Old Trinity Episcopal Cemetery, Scotland Neck. Photographs of his known portraits are on file in the Frick Art Reference Library, New York. They also appear, though not attributed to him, in a book of portraits and photographs published in 1961 by the Alston-Williams family society.