Biographical review containing life sketches of leading citizens of Worcester County, Massachusetts, Part 34

Author: Biographical Review Publishing Company, Boston, pub
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Boston, Biographical review publishing company
Number of Pages: 1238

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Biographical review containing life sketches of leading citizens of Worcester County, Massachusetts > Part 34

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In 1861 Mr. Follett was united in marriage with Susan B. Goulding, of Millbury, Mass., who died in 1862, leaving no children. Po- litically, Mr. Follett is a Democrat and in his religious belief a Unitarian. He has a wide circle of acquaintances, and is a highly esteemed citizen.

EWELL ELLIOTT GREEN- WOOD, M.D., who is successfully engaged in the practice of his pro- fession at Templeton, was born in Hubbardston, Worcester County, Mass., Sep- tember 15, 1853, son of Alson J. and Martha G. (Moulton) Greenwood. His father is a well-known farmer and lumberman of Hub- bardston. Further reference to the family may be found in the sketch of Alson J. Green- wood, which appears on another page of the REVIEW.

Sewell Elliott Greenwood began his edu- cation in the common schools of Hubbardston, and continued it by a course of study at the Wilbraham Academy. Entering Harvard University Medical School in 1874, he was subsequently graduated with the class of 1877. In the following year he located for practice in

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Templeton, where he has since resided. His practice extends to the adjoining towns, and he has acquired a wide reputation for skill in his chosen calling. In April, 1882, Dr. Greenwood was united in marriage with Char- lotte E. Smith, of Grafton, daughter of Lucius M. Smith. Mrs. Greenwood is the mother of three children : Lucius, born June 15, 1885; Arthur, born December 6, 1887; and Doro- thy, born May 22, 1892.

Dr. Greenwood is a member of the Massa- chusetts State Medical Society and the Mil- ler's River Medical Society. For a number of years he has been a member of the medical staff of the Cottage Hospital for children. In politics a Republican, he has served upon the School Committee for the past eight years. He is a member of the Unitarian church, which his wife attends.

RANK J. KINNEY, of Worcester, one of the leading market gardeners and fruit-growers of the county, was born in the town of Sunderland, Bennington County, Vt., on May 30, 1833, son of Joel and Clarissa (Ford) Kinney. His grand- father, John Kinney, was of Irish birth. He married a Highland Scotch woman, who stood six feet and two inches high, had, red hair, and was the equal in strength of almost any man. Their only child, Joel, was born in New Canaan, Conn., in 1793. When he was still an infant they removed to Vermont, going some forty miles through the woods by bridle paths, his mother carrying him on the saddle, together with some apple-trees, which they planted when they reached the place where they were to make their home. Eventually they became the owners of between two and three hundred acres of arable land and four hundred acres of mountain land. Both lived to be eighty years old, and both are buried in Sunderland, where also the mortal remains of Joel Kinney and his wife rest.

At nineteen years of age Joel Kinney en- listed in the War of 1812. Later he became a farmer and mechanic, having considerable inventive genius. He was Justice of the Peace of his town for fifty-one years, and for

eleven years held court five miles from his home, walking the distance back and forth. No case tried by him was ever appealed. He inherited the splendid physique of his Scotch mother, standing six feet two inches in height and weighing two hundred and ten pounds. He wore a number twelve boot, and was a very strong man and a great worker. He was self-educated, being fond of reading. As a mechanic he could build anything, from a church to a clock; and he actually made a large watch. He also constructed a most in- genious clock with platforms, upon which figures of a man and of a cock came out at times to number the hours. His son Frank has his old rifle, which has done skilful execu- tion in its day. Joel's wife was a native of Peru, Mass., and came of a long-lived race on both sides of her family, her father and mother each living to be nearly a hundred years old. Her brother, Roderick Ford, is still living at the age of ninety-three. When eighty-five he walked out to his nephew's house from Worcester. Joel Kinney and Clarissa Ford were married in 1817, the groom being twenty-four years old and the bride thirty-four. They were the parents of the following-named children: Laura D .; C. M .; Benjamin H; Elizabeth C .; Frank J., who is the youngest ; and a daughter that died in in- fancy. Laura, who has never married, lives on the farm in Sunderland, where she was born. C. M. Kinney resides in Northampton, Mass., retired from business. Benjamin H., a stone-cutter by trade, residing in Worcester, became a sculptor of some note. He made a fine statue of Dr. Green. Elizabeth C., who married Lafayette Litchfield, of Roxbury, Mass., died at the age of fifty-four, leaving five children.

Frank J. Kinney in his youth made the very most of his educational opportunities, which were only those of the common schools, and at the age of nineteen began teaching school for a winter term. This he continued for eight successive winters, meeting with entire success. He taught three winters in one district where previous teachers had met with the uncomfortable experience of being thrown out by the pupils. During summers

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he worked on the farm of Stephen Foster, of Worcester, who with his wife, Abby Kelly, was one of the leading anti-slavery workers in this section. They had a remarkably fine peach orchard; and Mr. Kinney well remem- bers the 19th of April, 1855, when he first walked out from Worcester to view it. The petals had fallen from the trees. Three years later he married Mr. Foster's niece, Ann Foster, of Worcester. For the first six months after his marriage he was at home in Vermont with his parents, and subsequent to that he taught for eight months in New Jer- sey. He then returned to the home of his wife, and built his first dwelling here on a part of his present farm, his father-in-law having given him two and a half acres of land. This was about 1860. In '1861 he volun- teered for service in the Northern army, but was rejected; and two years later he was drafted, but was also rejected, being in deli- cate health. The surgeon believing him to be short-lived, thought he ought to remain at home. Mr. Kinney took to horticulture as well as to agriculture, and the third year after he had settled on his farm he made fifteen hundred dollars clear of all expenses. From one strawberry bed, six rods long by a rod in width, he sold three hundred and fifty dollars' worth of berries and fifty dollars' worth of plants. These were the famous Jucunda Knoxes seven hundred berries, of which he had bought a box in New York for forty cents. He sold many of his at a dollar a quart. Mr. Kinney early conceived the plan of raising chickens without the care of the hens, and gave special attention to the brown Leghorn breed, selling trios from one hundred and fifty dollars to three hundred dollars, and sending them to many foreign countries.

Mr. Kinney's first wife, above named, bore him seven children - Herbert R., Lorenzo F., Henry E., Emma F., Asa S., Clarence W., and Sarah C. Herbert R. Kinney has a wife and two children. A sketch of him is on another page of this volume. Lorenzo, who is a graduate of the Agricultural College at Amherst, is a professor in the Agricultural College at Kingston, R.I. He is married and has three children, and also has a home of his

own. Henry, who is an artist educated in the Boston Art School and by study abroad in France and Germany, has a studio in Agri- cultural Hall. Emma is a successful profes- sional nurse in the Boston City Hospital, from which she was graduated in 1897. She has charge of the sterilizing department and also of the operating-rooms. Asa, who was graduated from the Massachusetts Agricult- ural College in 1897, is now a professor of science in that institution. He is an inde- pendent investigator, and has already distin- guished himself by the application he has made of electricity as a germinating agency in the propagation of seeds. Clarence W. is a student in his third year in the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He promises to be as able a man as are his brothers. Sarah C. is a student in the Worcester High School in the class of 1898. The mother of these children died in June, 1891, at the age of fifty-three. Mr. Kinney afterward married Fannie Dodd, daughter of Charles Dodd, and by this union he has three children: Robert F., aged five; Lucinda, aged three; and Frank D., aged two years.

Mr. Kinney is a Republican, but he has never cared for political honors. His father held the highest Masonic office in the State of Vermont. Twenty-four years ago Mr. Kin- ney organized a farmers' club here, the Tat- nuck Club; and for nineteen years he was its president and secretary. He is one of the oldest members of the Worcester Horticult- ural Society. He has made additions to his original farm, and now owns one hundred acres.

BBOTT A. JENKINS, a Deputy Sheriff of Worcester County. and an esteemed citizen of Milford, was born in West Townsend, Mass., forty-nine years ago. When he was two months old, his father, Augustine A. Jenkins, was killed by an accident; and his young mother, after having been married about eigh- teen months, was left to earn a livelihood for herself and her child. The maiden name of Mrs. Jenkins was Mary Bennett. She re-

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mained a widow, and is still living in Shirley, at the age of seventy-two. She secured em- ployment, and supported herself and son until the latter was about nine years of age, when she went to work for N. C. Munson, of Shirley.

A year later Abbott went to work for George Chanler, for whom his father also had worked at the age of ten years. He gained the fullest confidence of his employer, and when only eleven years old was left in charge of the men working on the place, whenever the master was obliged to be absent. Not only was he considered trustworthy in all things, but was thought to be capable of doing a man's work, and was sent into the field to mow with a two-horse mower, and expected to sharpen his own knives. From Mr. Chan- ler's he went to Ashburnham, where he lived two years with an uncle, the second year receiving fifteen dollars a month, and being allowed to attend school during the winter. Then, feeling that he needed more schooling, he secured employment in Leominster, where, in exchange for caring for five cows and a horse, he was given his board and permitted to attend school. This opportunity lasted a year and a half; and at the end of that time he began working in a store at Shirley, where he remained a year. Going from there to Ayer Junction, he was in charge of the post-office. Here he remained for three years, during which time he locked and unlocked every mail that was brought into or carried out of the office. He had no vacation whatever in the three years, and attended no entertainment of any kind. Thus it will be seen that the lessons of his early life were learned in a hard school. All this training and conscientious work, however, were not lost; and in later life they have borne good fruit.

Mr. Jenkins now set up in business for himself at Ayer Junction as a butcher; but after a time he sold out, and accepted the charge of the books of the Bachellor Chair Company, in whose employ he remained until the firm failed. Returning then to Leomin- ster, he worked in a store with his cousin for two years, and at the end of that time sold out his interest, and embarked in the hotel busi-

ness, which he subsequently followed for ten years, five years in the town of Harvard and five years in Clinton.

While in the former place he was appointed Deputy Sheriff by General A. B. R. Sprague ; and this position he has filled ever since, with the exception of three years. It may be noted that, besides attending to his duties as officer and landlord, he conducted various stage lines, and also a large livery and boarding stable. In Clinton he was Chief of Police for nearly three years, as well as Deputy Sheriff. In Milford a call was made on the Sheriff to send a competent Deputy here for special work, and Sheriff Sprague delegated Officer Jenkins for that position. That he was active and efficient is evidenced by the fact that at the following term of the Criminal Court Mr. Jenkins brought forward thirty - five cases, which required a full week for settlement, and excluded all other business until the expira- tion of that time.

Since coming to Milford Mr. Jenkins has been prominently identified with its public interests, having served as chairman of the Board of Selectmen on various town commit- tees and for two years as Chief of Police. For a year and a half, also, he was superin- tendent of the Milford Water Works. He has carried on quite an extensive insurance business, and many estates have passed through his hands as trustee or assignee. He had charge of the second case under the "habitual criminal" law tried in Worcester County. As court officer and Deputy Sheriff for twenty years he has probably handled as many cases of hardened criminals as any other man in the county, and it is safe to say that he has a number of enemies in that class. In a corresponding degree, and as he has been instrumental in protecting and conserving the best interests of the community, he has the esteem and gratitude of the citizens in gen- eral.

Mr. Jenkins is well known in the Masonic organization and in that of the Odd Fellows. He was made a Mason at twenty-one, while in Ayer, and later became a Royal Arch Mason in Marlboro Chapter and a member of Hudson Commandery. He subsequently

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transferred his membership to the Milford Commandery. He became an Odd Fellow in Harvard, and passed through the chairs in that body. He joined the encampment in Fitch- burg, but withdrew from that in order to help form an encampment in Clinton, and on going to Milford joined the Milford Encampment. He is also a member of various other social organizations in Clinton and Milford. While in Harvard he served on the State detective force for a year under Chief Clements. While in Clinton he was a director of the Board of Trade, and he is now a member of the Board of Trade in Milford.

Mr. Jenkins pays high tribute to the char- acter and moral worth of the men with whom his lot was cast during his early years, and there is no doubt that their precept and ex- ample had much to do with forming and fixing those upright principles which have been his guide to action through all his life. Mr. Jen- kins was married first to Lawrence Shirley. She bore him one son, Arthur A. Jenkins, who was with the Swift's Chicago Beef Com- pany for eight years, and is now with Will- iams Brothers a Milford. Mr. Jenkins's second wife was before her marriage Emma L. Knight, of Ayer, Mass.

YRUS GALE, a well-known, philan- thropic citizen of Worcester County, donor of the Gale Public Library building to the town of Northboro, his native place, where he is still a resident, is a representative of the seventh generation in descent from Richard Gale, who came to Mas- sachusetts - doubtless from England - within twenty years after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, and in 1640 bought nine acres of land at Watertown. As we learn from the Gale Family Records, by George Gale, LL.D., published in 1866, search for the origin of the family in the remote past has re- sulted in a bewildering variety of opinions on the subject. Some think it to have been of Welsh and others that it was of Scotch High- land antecedents, whence one form of the name, "Gael " or "Gaell." Burke's "Landed Gentry of England " speaks of "the family of

Gale " as of importance in Yorkshire early in the sixteenth century.

Besides Richard, of Watertown, there were other New England settlers of this name, among them Hugh, of Kittery, Me .; Am- brose, of Marblehead; Bartholomew, of Salem; and Edmond, of Beverly - the last three thought by the author of the Records to have been sons of Edmond, of Cambridge, who died in 1642.

The will of Richard Gale, of Watertown, dated February 25, 1678, and proved in April, 1679, after considerately providing that his well-beloved wife shall enjoy his "whole es- tate, both houses and lands and cattle of all sorts and all his household goods, for her comfort and maintenance during her natural life," proceeds to designate the manner in which after her death the property shall be divided among his four children and their heirs, naming his sons, Abraham and John, and his daughters, Sarah Garfield and Mary Flagg.

Abraham Gale, born in 1643, second child of Richard, occupied the old homestead, situ- ated in what is now Waltham, and was a Se- lectman of Watertown in 1706 and in 1718, the year of his death. His name in his will is spelled "Gael." Sixteen children were born to him and his wife, Sarah, who was a daughter of Nathan . Fiske, of Watertown. Nine of these grew to maturity and married. Abraham, Jr., the eldest, born in 1674, mar- ried December 6, 1699, Rachel, daughter of John and Abigail (Garfield) Parkhurst and grand-daughter of George Parkhurst, an early settler in Watertown.

Abraham Gale, third, the next in line, eld- est son of Abraham, Jr., and Rachel, and one of a family of eight children, born November 28, 1700, married Esther Cunningham. He was a blacksmith by trade, and settled in Weston. He had eight sons and one daugh- ter that grew to maturity. Seven of the sons served in the French and Indian wars; and Abraham, the seventh son, died in the winter of 1757-58 from the effects of wounds re- ceived in the service.

Abijah, the fourth son and representative of the fifth generation in this line, was born

CYRUS GALE.

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July 25, 1727. He was twice married, and had six children by his first wife, Abigail Amsden, and eleven by his second wife, Su- sannah Allen, of Weston. Abijah and his family lived at Westboro. Several of the children died young, and some of those who grew to maturity never married.

Cyrus, Sr., tenth child of Abijah and Su- sannah (Allen) Gale and father of the subject of the present sketch, was born October 7, 1785. In early manhood he was a grocer and provision dealer, wholesale and retail, in Boston. During the War of 1812 he was Captain of a company of militia in that city. Removing to Northboro in 1814, he served as Postmaster about five years, for fifty years was Justice of the Peace, was a member of the State legislature in 1844, and was a mem- ber of Governor Boutwell's Council in 1852. He was in mercantile business in Northboro from 1815 until 1843. He spent his last years on his farm.

The Hon. Cyrus Gale was three times mar- ried. His first wife, Eliza Davis, sister of the Hon. John Davis, United States Senator, died in 1822; his second wife, Sarah Patrick, who was born March 16, 1795, died December 4, 1849; and his third wife, Susan G. Hol- brook, died in 1888. He died September 10, 1880. His children, three by his first wife and four by the second, were: Frederick W., born June 22, 1816, who married Mary S. Utley, of Boston; Hannah D., born January 14, 1818, who married George Barnes, and died July 15, 1851; Cyrus, born November 25, 1821, died February 17, 1822; Cyrus, subject of this sketch, born March 6, 1824; George A., born February 19, 1827, died September 10, 1857; Walter, born November 13, 1833; Susan M., born June 16, 1835, died June 22, 1842.

Walter Gale, the younger of the surviving sons, now a resident of California, when a young man studied law in the office of the Hon. George F. Hoar, of Worcester, now United States Senator. During the Civil War he served as an officer in the Fifteenth Massachusetts Infantry, being commissioned Second Lieutenant in January, 1862; Captain, October 24 of that year; and Major, July 14,

1 864. He was in nineteen engagements and several skirmishes, was slightly wounded at Antietam, and received two bullet wounds at Gettysburg. Cyrus, the elder brother, attended school in Berlin, Mass., and at the age of fifteen, in 1839, entered Amherst Academy.

In 1844, before he was twenty-one, he went into business as a dealer in general merchan- dise, keeping a store in the village of North- boro. For some years the firm was Gale & Maynard. Later Mr. Gale's brother-in-law, Samuel Wood, became a partner. Mr. Gale sold out his interest in the concern in 1863, and retired from mercantile pursuits. He has since given his attention to the care of his property, consisting largely of real estate, to forwarding schemes of public improvement, and to unostentatious works of charity. Prompted by a desire to erect an enduring, costly, and attractive monument to the mem- ory of his honored father, and to confer on his native town a lasting benefit, after due delib- eration and consultation he built at the ex- pense of thirty-two thousand dollars, and pre- sented to the town of Northboro in 1894, the beautiful Gale Public Library, a substantial structure of Milford granite, finished in quar- tered oak, a joy and a blessing for the present and for generations yet to be.

Mr. Gale is the principal stockholder of the Northboro National Bank, of which he has been a director since 1880. In politics he has been an ardent Republican ever since the organization of the party. In religion a Uni- tarian, brought up in the faith under the pul- pit teachings of the late Rev. Dr. Joseph Allen, saintly and revered exponent of liberal Christianity of the Channing type, he has been in all his manhood years a stanch sup- porter of the old First Congregational

Church.

Mr. Gale was married on December 5, 1850, to Miss Ellen Maria Hubbard, of Con- cord, Mass., daughter of Cyrus and Susannah (Hartwell) Hubbard and sister of Mrs. Sam- uel Wood, of Northboro.

Mr. and Mrs. Gale have travelled much in the United States, having made many trips to the Pacific coast. Valuable paintings and

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other works of art, together with natural curi- osities, interesting relics, and well-selected books, including many volumes of the world's best literature, adorn their dwelling, marking it as the abode of refinement and taste.

EORGE ALLEN, a prominent citizen of Brookfield, was born in Hiram, Oxford County, Me., September 20, 1826, son of Hosea and Dorcas (Blaisdell) Allen. He is of Scotch origin; and his pa- ternal grandfather, Jotham Allen, was a resi- dent of York County, Maine. Mr. Allen's parents, who were both natives of York County, removed to Oxford County in 1825,; where the father was engaged in farming until his death, which occurred in 1870.

George Allen was educated in the public and private schools of Hiram, Me. He as- sisted his father for a time in carrying on the home farm. Later, having learned the car- penter's trade with his brother, Christopher Allen, of Hiram, he followed it in Dover, N. H., and Fitchburg, Mass., for some years. Returning subsequently to Hiram, he fol- lowed carpentering and farming there, and also dealt quite extensively in cattle, until his removal to Fort Fairfield about 1883, where he resided for a short period. In 1885 he came to Brookfield, where he has since occu- pied a farm of fourteen acres, located on the main road to East Brookfield.

Mr. Allen was first joined in marriage at Dover, N. H., with Cordelia Wentworth, daughter of Stephen Wentworth, formerly a well-known citizen of that town. He had two children - Jotham and Delia, neither of whom is now living. His wife died at Dover in 1858. Mr. Allen later married Nancie S. Pingree, who was a daughter of Theodore I. Pingree, of Denmark, Me.

Politically, Mr. Allen is a Democrat. He now holds the office of cattle inspector, the duties of which he is well qualified to fill, and to which he was elected in 1897. Since locating in Brookfield he has interested him- self in the general prosperity of the commu- nity, and has gained the good will of his fel- low-townsmen. He is connected with the

Patrons of Husbandry, and also belongs to Mount Cutler Grange, of Hiram, Me.

AMUEL DWIGHT SIMONDS, a prominent business man of West- minster and formerly Representa- tive to the legislature, was born in Athol, Mass., February 4, 1846, son of Albert and Sarah (Woodcock) Simonds. His father was a native of Winchendon, Mass., and his mother of Phillipston, Worcester County. His paternal grandfather was Elder Samuel Simonds, a Baptist minister, who built a church in New Boston (Winchendon), Mass., which is still standing. His maternal great- grandfather served in the Continental army during the Revolutionary War, enlisting at Athol.

Samuel Dwight Simonds attended the pub- lic schools of Athol, and subsequently fol- lowed a commercial course of study at East- man's Business College, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. His first employment was as book-keeper for his uncle, a patent-medicine manufacturer in Fitzwilliam, N. H., with whom he remained a year, after which, returning to Athol, he assisted his father for some time. About 1868 he came to Westminster as book-keeper for Merriam, Holden & Co., chair manufact- urers, with whom he remained four years. Later for a similar length of time he was engaged in the retail furniture business in Athol. Returning to Westminster in 1876, he was for over twenty years thereafter in charge of Artemas Merriam's chair factory, which was burned in October, 1897. Since the death of Mr. Merriam, which occurred shortly after the fire, he has been engaged in settling the estate.

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Biographical review containing life sketches of leading citizens of Worcester County, Massachusetts, Part 34

Author: Biographical Review Publishing Company, Boston, pub Publication date: 1899 Publisher: Boston, Biographical review publishing company Number of Pages: 1238

Author: Biographical Review Publishing Company, Boston, pub
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Boston, Biographical review publishing company
Number of Pages: 1238