USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Boston of to-day; a glance at its history and characteristics: with biographical sketches and portraits of many of its professional and business men, 1892 > Part 35
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his father's store for one year. Then he returned to the North. In 1869 he began the coal trade with his father, - who had also returned North, --- at Neponset, with office at No. 488 Neponset avenue ; and he has continued ever since as a dealer in coal, wood, and masons' materials. In politics Mr. Frost is an independent Democrat. He has never held office. He is a member of the Appleton Methodist Episcopal Church, Neponset, and also a member of Neponset Lodge, No. 84, Odd Fellows. In June, 1874, he married Miss Clara Hawes, daughter of Sylvester Hawes, of Norwood ; they had one child, a son, Clarence Edmund Frost. His wife died on Dec. 29, 1883. He was again married, on Thanksgiving Day, 1887, to Miss Mary F. Savage, daughter of William Savage, of Atlantic ; they have one child, a son, William Preston Frost.
FROST, RUFUS S., son of Joseph, jr., and Lucy (Wheeler) Frost, was born in Marlborough, Cheshire county, N.H., July 18, 1826. His father, a thrifty farmer, was a native of this town, as were three suc- cessive generations of the same family. The Eng- lish ancestor, Elder Edmund Frost, came to this country in the ship "Great Hope" during the autumn of 1635, from Ipswich, England, accom- panied by his wife and son. He settled in Cam- bridge, where he became the ruling elder of the First Church, which was organized soon after his arrival. From this most excellent patriarch nine generations have lineally descended, Mr. Frost being in the seventh. On his maternal side he derives his origin from Thomas Wheeler, who was settled in Townsend as early as 1640. His grandfather was David Wheeler, who married Rebecca Hoar, of Concord, Mass., and was the first town clerk of Marlborough, N.H., in 1776. Mr. Frost, the eighth child of his parents, left his native town at the age of seven, together with his widowed mother and family, and removed to Boston. Here he attended the public schools and supplemented this education by a course of academic training in Newton. Then he entered a wholesale dry-goods house in Boston. By energy, aptitude, and ability displayed in this service he rapidly rose to the highest position, and at the age of twenty-one was admitted to partnership in the firm, which adopted the title of Osgood & Frost, and continued in business for several years. In 1866 the present firm of Rufus S. Frost & Co. was organized for the transaction of a general commis- sion business in American goods. Mr. Frost soon became extensively engaged in the manufacture of woollens. The National Association of Woollen Manufacturers was founded Nov. 20, 1864. Of
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that association Hon. J. Wiley Edmunds was the first president, and Mr. Frost was his successor for seven years. He is now chairman of the execu- tive committee. To the rapid development of American manufacture during the last twenty-five years, Mr. Frost has conspicuously and effectively contributed. His administrative ability has been recognized by his fellow-citizens, and he has been called repeatedly to positions of public honor and responsibility. He was mayor of Chelsea, where he has resided since his boyhood. In 1867 and in 1868 he received a practically unanimous reëlec- tion. In 1871-2 he was a member of the State senate, serving on the committees on harbors and mercantile affairs, and was chairman of the same committees during the latter session. In 1873 and 1874 he was a member of Governor Washburn's council. In 1874 he was elected to the Forty- fourth Congress from the Fourth Congressional District, and served with marked ability on the committee on railroads and the committee on freedmen's affairs. In 1879-80 he was president of the Boston board of trade. Mr. Frost has long been actively connected with numerous benevo- lent and religious societies, and the educational institutions of the State have found in him a liberal patron and a wise counsellor. He remembered his native town by a generous gift in the shape of an elegant granite library building furnished with two thousand volumes, the deed of the whole being pre- sented to the citizens of Marlborough, N.H., Aug. 26, 1867. To this was added also a fund of $5,000, the interest annually accruing from which to be used for the purchase of additional books, now numbering over five thousand volumes. In honor of the donor, it was named by the town the " Frost Free Library." In 1873 he was president of the Congregational Club of Boston, and for several years has been presi- dent of the American Congregational Association, a national organization which owns the Congregational House on Beacon street. For several years he was president of the Massachusetts Homoeopathic Hos- pital, and has recently established a general hospital in the city of Chelsea, containing rooms for fifty patients, a fine operating-room for the surgeons, all heated by steam, with all modern improvements and comforts, and thorough ventilation ; this he has presented to his fellow-citizens upon condition that no human being shall ever be denied treatment because of poverty or race or color, and that every patient may choose by which school of medicine he or she shall be treated. To the credit of the physicians of Chelsea let it be stated that they are working together harmoniously and most success-
fully upon this plan. For twenty-eight years Mr. Frost has been a director in the North National Bank of Boston, and was in 1891 unanimously elected its president. Mr. Frost has been twice married. His first wife was Ellen M., daughter of Hon. Charles and Amelia ( Ripley) Hubbard. His second marriage occurred in Corning, N.Y., on June 18, 1879, with Catherine Emily, daughter of Benjamin C. and Catherine (Matthews) Wickham. He has had six children : Charles Hubbard, Ellen Amelia, John Osgood (deceased), Emma Wheeler, Rufus Haskell, and Albert Plumb Frost.
FULLER, FRANK, son of Seth W. and Annie Dewitt (Cross) Fuller, was born in Boston Aug. 5, 1850. He was educated in the public schools. He began his business career when sixteen years old in the establishment of his father, and upon the latter's death some years ago he succeeded to the control and management of the business. The firm was founded in 1809 by his grandfather, Seth Fuller, who was the first person in Boston to make an entirely distinct business of hanging mechanical bells and speaking-tubes. His father, Seth W. Fuller, who succeeded to the business in 1835,
FRANK FULLER.
while continuing it along the same lines, was the pioneer of the electrical business in Boston, if not in the United States, having begun to install electric bells about twenty-five years ago. At that time he
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was obliged to import annunciators, wire, batteries, and even the ordinary wood push-button, from Paris ; but the business has since grown to such magnitude that not an article now used by the house is im- ported. During the management of Frank Fuller, the installation of incandescent electric lights has be- come one of its most important branches. Mr. Ful- ler is a past master of Mt. Lebanon Lodge Free Masons ; a member of the Commandery and St. Paul's Royal Chapter, Boston Lodge of Perfection, and Aleppo Mystic Shrine. He belongs to the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, and is a member of the Charitable Mechanic Association. Mr. Fuller was married May 25, 1891, to Miss Annie C. Littlefield.
FULLER, LORIN L., son of David C. and Maria (Lovejoy) Fuller, was born in Readfield, Me., Jan.
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LORIN L. FULLER.
25, 1820. He obtained his early education in public schools in his native State. In the spring of 1839 he came to Boston, and in 1845 began busi- ness on his own account as carpenter. For forty- five years he has been a real-estate dealer and builder in the city. For a number of years he resided in Melrose, which he represented in the Legislature of 1859, and in 1860 moved to Malden, where he now resides. He served as alderman during the first year of the organization of the Malden city government, was mayor of the
city in 1884 and 1885, and again alderman in 1887. For ten years he was a member of the water board ; he has been a member of the Industrial Aid Society from its organization to the present time, and he is an active member of the Malden Improvement Association. At the time of the separation of Everett from Malden, he was chairman of the com- mittee for the adjustment and dividing of the town- ship property, and his able and satisfactory negotia- tion gained for him the respect and esteem of his fellow-citizens. In politics he is a conservative Democrat. Mr. Fuller was married in Sebec, Me., Nov. 8, 1852, to Lucy P., daughter of John and Lydia (Brown) Lovejoy ; they have four children : Henry L., M. Louise, Everett L., and L. Alma Fuller. Mrs. Fuller died April 11, 1886. At Malden, June 20, 1889, Mr. Fuller was again married, to Mrs. Annie Hornsby, daughter of Thomas and Lydia Stewart, of Hartland, Me.
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G AHM, JOSEPH, is a native of Germany, born in Mergentheim, Wurtemberg, in 1835. After attending the schools of his native town from his sixth to his fourteenth year, he was apprenticed for three years to learn the tailoring trade, during which period he also received instruction in music, having developed quite a talent in that direction. In 1854, when but eighteen years of age, he decided to come to America, and accordingly sailed for New York, coming from that city direct to Boston, where his brother was then residing. For five years he worked at his trade here in Boston, gave music , lessons, and played different instruments in several musical organizations. In 1856 he became a member of the Navy Yard Band, and remained with that organization until 1862, engaging at the same time in business. First he established a tailoring establishment in Charlestown, and then, abandoning that enterprise, opened a restaurant. The latter prospered, and in 1865, removing to larger quarters, he added a billiard hall. Desiring a larger field, in 1878 he decided to move to Boston proper, and selling out his interests in Charlestown he established himself at Nos. 83 and 85 State street. Here he opened one of the best-equipped restau- rants in the city, and his patrons from the start were leading down-town merchants, bankers, and brokers. It was not long before he was compelled to occupy the entire building in order to accom- modate his increasing trade. In 1872 Mr. Gahm took the agency for all New England for the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company of Milwaukee, and three years after his removal to State street this business
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had so increased that he was obliged to transfer his bottling works back to Charlestown, where he erected a large building for them. In 1878 he decided to give all his time and attention to this agency, and to
JOSEPH GAHM.
bring all the departments of the business under one roof in Boston ; accordingly he began the erection of a large five-story brick business block on the corner of Hartford and Purchase streets, and upon its completion the following year he retired from the restaurant business and removed his beer busi- ness to the new building. Mr. Grahm has confined his operations to his one line of business, his only other investments having been made in real estate, in which he has also met with success. Since 1864 Mr. Gahm has been a member of the Masonic fraternity, and to-day is a thirty-second degree Mason, a Knight Templar and a member of the Mystic Shrine. He is also a member of various other organizations of a social and benevolent nature. Mr. Gahm was married in Boston, in 1856, to Barbara Hoartel, who was also a native of Wurtem- berg, Germany ; they have had six children, four of whom are living. All have enjoyed the best of educa- tional advantages offered by the Boston schools ; have also been given good musical instruction, and have taken a course in Bryant & Stratton's business college. Mr. Gahm's winter residence is at No. 31 Monu- ment square, Charlestown district, and his summer residence at Winthrop Island.
GALE, WILLIAM B., son of John Gale, an early resident of Lawrence, Mass., was born in South- ampton, N.H., Aug. 8, 1829. He fitted for college at the Amesbury private school, and took a two years' course in Harvard. Then he began the study of law at Concord, N.H., with Franklin Pierce, completing his studies with Judge Asa Fowler of that city. Admitted to the bar in 1853, he began practice in Marlborough, Mass., in July that year. Soon after the war he opened an office in Boston, giving up his office in Marlborough a few years later. Here he has since remained. He has a thoroughly general commercial practice. He has resided in Boston for the last thirteen years. He is a Republican in politics, and was chairman of the Middlesex county Republican committee for twelve years. He has never aspired to office. He has been prominently identified with the Masonic order, and is now a thirty-second degree Mason. He is chair- man of the council of administration of Knights of Pythias. His son, John P. Gale, who was a prominent young lawyer of Seattle, Wash., died May 11, 1892.
GALLAGHER, CHARLES THEODORE, son of William and Emily C. Gallagher, was born in Boston May 21, 1851. After passing through the public schools of the city he studied law, following the Harvard Law School course, and completing his legal edu- cation in the office of Hon. A. A. Ranney. He graduated from the Boston University Law School in 1875, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar the same year. He has been an active member of the school committee for ten years or more, and for two years has been its president. He served one term in the State senate (in 1882), declining a re- nomination. He also twice refused a congres- sional nomination. In 1864 he enlisted as a drummer-boy in the First Unattached Massachu- setts Infantry. He is now a member of Dahlgren Post 2, G.A.R. He is also a member of the Ath- letic, the Art, and the Curtis Clubs. He is a trustee of the Bird estate and the John Hawes fund, two educational funds left for the benefit of South Boston people, and a member of the board of investment of the South Boston Savings Bank.
GALVIN, GEORGE W., M.D., son of John and Eliza (Gevan) Galvin, was born in Somerville, Mass., May 4, 1854. He was educated in the public schools and Boston College, and studied three years in the Harvard Medical School, from which he graduated in 1879. Then he began the prac- tice of medicine in Boston, and was soon after appointed surgeon for the New York & New Eng-
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land and the Old Colony Railroads. In 1891 he established the Emergency Hospital in the business section of the city, - on Kingston street near by the United States Hotel, - equipped for the prompt treatment of accident cases ; and to its work and development he has zealously devoted himself. Dr. Galvin is a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society and of the Gynæcological Society. In 1881 he was married to Miss Alice S. Logan.
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GALVIN, JOHN MITCHELL, son of John Galvin, for many years superintendent of public grounds, and now the superintendent of public institutions on Rainsford Island, was born in Charlestown in 1849. He was educated in the public schools, graduating from the Dwight School, one of the Franklin-medal scholars. Upon leaving school he entered the floral business with his father, in which he has ever since been engaged. He now conducts large and exten- sive greenhouses for the raising of plants and flowers. Mr. Galvin was a member of the school board from the Jamaica Plain district in 1872. In 1891 he was elected city clerk, and reëlected to this position
JOHN M. GALVIN.
in 1892. He is a member of the Clover, Old Dorchester, Boston, and Butler Clubs, and of the Charitable Irish Society. Mr. Galvin was married Sept. 15, 1873, to Miss Mary E. Hanlon.
GALVIN, OWEN A., Son of Patrick and Mary
(Hughes) Galvin, was born in Boston June 21, 1852. He was educated in the public schools, studied law in the Boston University Law School and in the office of Charles F. Donnelly, was ad-
OWEN A. GALVIN.
mitted to the bar in February, 1876, and began practice in Boston in 1881. The same year he was a member of the lower house of the Legis- lature, serving upon the committees on education and constitutional amendments : and in 1882, 1883, and 1884, of the senate, serving upon the com- mittees on the liquor law, labor, education, the judiciary, and election laws. He also served upon a special committee to visit penal and charitable institutions, and on its report the Reformatory Prison at Concord and the Homeopathic Hospital for the Insane were established. In the senate he received the entire vote of the Democratic minority for president. In July, 1886, Mr. Galvin was ap- pointed by United States district attorney George M. Stearns, assistant United States district attorney, and upon Mr. Stearns' resignation in September, 1887, he was appointed by President Cleveland to the chief position. This he held until November, 1889, when he resigned. He was a member of the Democratic city committee in 1879, 1880, 1881, and 1882, serving the two latter years as vice-president. Mr. Galvin was married in Boston July 3, 1879, to Miss Jennie T. Sullivan : they have three children : Stephen P., Augustus H., and Frederick S. Galvin.
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GANNETT, GEORGE, son of Luther and Olive the dry-goods store of Wilkinson, Stetson, & Co., (Washburn) Gannett, was born in East Bridgewater, agents for A. & W. Sprague and the house of Hoyt, Sprague, & Co. He began the practice of law in Boston, and has since continued here, meeting with gratifying success. Mr. Gargan has long been prom- Mass., Oct. 29, 1819. His parents removed to Belfast, Me., the year after he was born, and there he received his early education and was prepared for college. He entered Bowdoin and graduated . in the class of 1842. Later he received the degree of A.M. from his college, and was also elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa. For the first two years after graduation he was principal of Strafford Academy, Strafford, N.H. Then he studied in the Bangor Theological Seminary, and soon after grad- uating therefrom, in 1847, he was settled over the Congregational church in Boothbay Harbor, Me. Here he remained three years, when he was com- pelled to resign on account of ill health, much to the regret of his church people. Soon after he opened a private school for girls in West Cambridge (now Arlington), Mass., and subsequently, in 1857, removing to Boston, he established here a similar school for the thorough training of young women, which, as the Gannett Institute, became widely known. It was among the earliest of the insti- tutions for the higher education of girls, and began collegiate work before any of the colleges for women were established. The school flourished, enjoying a prosperous course until 1891, when Dr. Gannett retired to devote himself to literary pursuits. In 1864 Dr. Gannett was chosen one of the examining committee of Harvard College. THOMAS J. GARGAN. In 1871 he made an extended tour abroad, visiting the great art centres of Europe. In 1887 he received the degree of D.D. from Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt. He has been a frequent contributor to educational journals and magazines, and has lectured on literature, art, and kindred subjects. He was first married in 1847, to Miss Mary Jane Shaw, of Wolfborough, N.H., who died . in 1876. In 1877 he married Miss Georgiana, daughter of Shubael P. Butterworth, of Warren, Mass. .
GARGAN, THOMAS J., son of Patrick and Rose Gargan, was born in Boston Oct. 27, 1844. He was educated in the public schools, and, through private instruction, in literature and the classics, by Rev. Peter Krose, S.J, who fitted him for college. He took the course of the Boston Uni- versity Law School, graduating in 1873 with the degree of I.L. B., and further studied in the law office of Henry W. Paine. Meantime he had served the United States in the Civil War, enlisting in 1863, and commissioned ap second lieutenant ; and had had experience in business, having been in
inent in local and State politics, acting with the progressive wing of the Democratic party. In 1868, 1870, and 1876 he was a member of the lower house of the Legislature ; in 1875 a member of the Boston board of overseers of the poor ; in 1877-8 chairman of the board of license commissioners ; and in 1880-1 a member of the board of police. He is a forcible and brilliant speaker, and among his most notable addresses have been the Fourth of July oration delivered in 1885 by invitation of the city of Boston, and the oration at the centennial celebration of the Charitable Irish Society of Halifax, N.S., the following year. He is a member of the Massachusetts Charitable Irish Society, and was its president in 1873 and 1874. Mr. Gargan was married in Boston, in September, 1868, to Miss Catherine 1 .. McGrath.
GARLAND, GEORGE MINOT, M.D., was born in Laconia, N.H., Oct. 14, 1848. He was educated in the public schools of Lawrence, and fitting for college, entered Harvard College, receiving his degree in 1871. He then studied in the Harvard Medical School, graduating in 1874. The same
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year he went abroad to complete his professional in 1871 and 1872. In 1853 and 1854 he was education, studying for two years in Vienna, Stras- burg, and Paris. Returning to Boston in 1876 he began the practice of his profession. He was appointed in 1877 assistant in physiology at the Harvard Medical School; in 1881 to the position of assistant in clinical medicine ; and in 1887 in- structor in clinical medicine, which position he still holds. In 1878 he was appointed professor of thoracic diseases in the University of Vermont, re- taining the position for five years. In 1881 he was made physician to the Boston Dispensary, in 1880 visiting physician to Carney Hospital, and in 1888 physician to out-patients at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Garland is a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, Boston Society of Medical Sciences, American Medical Association, American Association of Physicians, and the Amer- ican Climatological Association. He has been a frequent contributor to medical journals, and has written a book on "Pneumono-Dynamics."
GASTON, WILLIAM, son of Alexander and Kesia (Arnold) Gaston, was born in Killingly, Conn., Oct. 3, 1820. He comes of a distinguished an- cestry on both sides. On the paternal side he is a descendant from Jean Gaston, born in France, probably about the year 1600, a Huguenot, who was banished on account of his religion, and settled in Scotland ; and on the maternal side from Thomas Arnold, who, with his brother William, came to New England in 1636, and in 1654 joined William in Rhode Island, whither he had gone with Roger Williams. William Gaston's father was a well- known merchant of Connecticut, and was for many years in the Legislature, as was his father before him. With his parents, William Gaston moved to Roxbury in the summer of 1838. He was edu- cated at the academy in Brooklyn, Conn., the Plainfield Academy, and Brown University, which he entered at the age of fifteen. Graduating in 1840, he began his law studies in the office of Judge Francis Hilliard, of Roxbery, and completed them with Charles P. and Benjamin R. Curtis, of Boston. He was admitted to the bar in 1844, and opened his first law-office in Roxbury in 1846. Subsequently, in 1865, the law firm of Jewell, Gaston, & Field was formed, consisting of the late Harvey Jewell, Mr. Gaston, and Walbridge A. Field, now Chief Justice Field of the Supreme Judi- cial Court, with offices in Boston. Mr. Gaston was city solicitor of Roxbury for five years, and in 1861 and 1862 mayor of the city ; and after the annexa- tion of Roxbury to Boston, he was mayor of Boston
elected to the Legislature as a Whig, and reelected in 1856 by a fusion of Whigs and Democrats, in opposition to the Know-Nothing candidate. In 1868 he was elected as a Democrat to the senate ; and in 1874 to the governorship. Among his ap- pointments while governor in 1875 were those of Otis P. Lord to the supreme bench, and of Waldo Colburn and William S. Gardner to the superior bench. In 1870 he was a candidate for Congress, but failed of an election. In 1875 Harvard College and Brown University conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. Upon his election to the gover- norship, Mr. Gaston retired from the firm with which he had been associated and relinquished his practice. When he returned to private life, he opened a new office. In 1879 he took into partner- ship C. L. B. Whitney, and in 1883 his son, William A. Gaston, was admitted to the firm. Mr. Gaston was married May 27, 1852, to Miss Louisa A. Beecher, daughter of Laban S. and Frances A. (Lines) Beecher ; they have had one daughter and two sons : Sarah Howard, William Alexander, and Theodore Beecher Gaston. Theodore, born in February, 1861, died in July, 1869. Mr. Gaston now resides in Boston in the Back Bay district.
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