Charles Nelson Pray

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Charles Nelson Pray (April 6, 1868 - September 12, 1963) was a U.S. Representative from Montana.

Born in Potsdam, St Lawrence County, New York, Pray attended the public schools in Salisbury and Middlebury, Vermont. Graduate of the Middlebury High School. He attended Middlebury (Vermont) College 1886-88 and was graduated from the Chicago College of Law. He was admitted to the bar in 1892 and commenced practice at Fort Benton, Montana, in 1896. He served as assistant prosecuting attorney of Chouteau County in 1897 and 1898.

Pray was elected prosecuting attorney in 1898 and reelected in 1900, 1902, and 1904.

Pray was elected as a Republican to the Sixtieth, Sixty-first, and Sixty-second Congresses (March 4, 1907 - March 3, 1913). He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1912 to the Sixty-third Congress. He resumed the practice of law in Great Falls, Montana, January 1, 1914. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1916. He was appointed judge of the United States District Court of Montana on January 21, 1924, in which capacity he served until his retirement in 1957. He died in Great Falls, Montana, September 12, 1963. He was interred in Hillcrest Lawn Memorial Cemetery.

Pray's papers 1878-1963, including diaries and correspondence, are lodged at the University of Montana in Missoula. The town of Pray, Montana is named for him.^[1]