Alexander Gaston was a French Huguenot who was born in Ireland in about 1735. He settled in Cravan County, North Carolina in 1764, where he worked as a medical doctor. During the War of Regulation Gaston provided medical services to the local militia. An outspoken patriot, he became a member of New Bern's Committee of Safety in 1776 and later became a judge of the New Bern District Court of Oyer & Terminer in 1777. That year he received a confession from and oversaw the trial of Nathan Mayo, who killed his neighbor Thomas Clark during a dispute about politics. In August 1781 a group of loyalists made a raid on New Bern, where they killed Gaston.