Pray graduated from the
Chauncy Hall School in 1894 and
Harvard College in 1898. Immediately following and until 1903, he worked for the
Olmsted Brothers in
Brookline. He married Florence Mabel Nichols on October 30, 1901 in
Buffalo, and later had a son named Benjamin Sturgis, who also graduated from Harvard in 1925 and lived in
Thayer Hall during his freshman year, and a daughter, Frances Motley, named after his mother. From 1904 until 1918, Pray worked for his own firms: Pray & Gallagher (1904-1906) and Pray, Hubbard, & White (1906-1918). In 1908, Pray succeeded
Frederick Law Olmsted as chairman of the Department of Landscape Architecture at
Harvard University (1908-1928). Pray served as Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture from 1905 to 1914, Charles Eliot Professor of Landscape Architecture from 1914 until his death. Pray was a patron of the
Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture in
Groton. ==References==