History of Roxbury, (Suffolk County) Massachusetts United States of America

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Biographies:

Augustus Kinsley Gardner, physician, was born in Roxbury, Mass., July 31, 1821; son of Samuel Jackson Gardner (1788-1864), Harvard, 1807, lawyer, editor of the Advertiser, Newark, N.J., and author of "Autumn Leaves" (1859). Augustus was a student at Harvard three years, graduated in medicine in 1844, and received the honorary degree of A.M. in 1852. He studied in Europe, 1844-47, and practised in New York city where he introduced the use of street drinking fountains: the importation of English sparrows; the abolition of the sale of swill milk; a revision of the code of medical ethics, and a movement to discourage the use of the treadle sewing-machines. He was the first physician in the United States to give chloroform in labor and practised it successfully while professor of midwifery in the New York medical college. He resigned his membership in the Academy of physicians upon being questioned as to his action in calling into consultation a homeopathic physician. He published Hours of a Medical Student in Paris (1848); Our Children (1872); and Ships and Shipbuilders of New York. His edition of Tyler Smith's Lectures and his translation of Scanzoni's Diseases of Females are text-books. He died in New York city, April 7, 1876.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Henry Bull, colonial governor, was born in Wales in 1610, arrived in Boston June 4, 1635, and took up his residence in Roxbury. In May, 1637, he was made a freeman. He espoused the cause of Mrs. Hutchinson in the Antinomian disputes, and was sentenced to banishment from the colony. Before this sentence had been passed he, with John Clark, William Coddington and others, sailed from Boston, and chose a new home on the Island of Aquidneck, in Narragansett Bay. In June, 1638, he was chosen a corporal of a newly formed militia company, and soon after was elected sergeant. He was also one of the seven "Elders," who, on April 28, 1639, agreed to propagate a plantation in the midst of the island, or elsewhere. This plantation became Newport. He was elected governor in May, 1685, serving one year. During the regime of Sir Edmund Andros, the general assembly convened, Feb. 26, 1690, for the first time in four years. Governors Walter Clark and Christopher Almy were sent for, but each refused to serve. Henry Bull, then more than eighty years old, was elected and served from Feb. 27 to May 7, 1690, declining re-election. He died in Rhode Island in 1694.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Charles Dana Gibson, artist, was born in Roxbury, Mass., Sept. 14, 1867; son of Charles DeWolf and Josephine Elizabeth (Lovett) Gibson; grandson of Charles Dana and Abbey (DeWolf) Gibson, and of Charles Warley and Josephine (DeWolf) Lovett, and a lineal descend ant of Isaac Gibson, who settled in Plymouth in 1630, and of Gov. William Bradford. Charles removed with his parents to Flushing, L.I., in his early youth and was educated at the Flushing high school. He studied drawing at the Art Students' league, 1884-85, and began illustrating for the periodicals in 1886, giving his attention chiefly to pen-and-ink drawings. His drawings represent the bright and beautiful side of life, He was married in 1895 to Irene, daughter of Chiswell Dabney Langhorne of Richmond, Va., and made New York city his home. He travelled in Europe and Africa where he gathered rare material from which he illustrated life as he saw it in London and in Egypt. He confined his work chiefly to illustrating books and the pages of Life. His published volumes include: Drawings (1894); Pictures of People (1896); London (1897); Sketches and Cartoons (1898); Sketches in Egypt (1899); and The Education of Mr. Pipp (1899), pen and ink drawings in portfolio form with brief explanatory titles.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Josephine Shaw Lowell, humanitarian, was born in West Roxbury, Mass, Dec. 16, 1843; daughter of Francis George and Sarah Blake (Sturgis) Shaw, and a sister of Col. Robert Gould Shaw . In 1851 she went abroad with her parents, returning in 1855, when they made Staten Island their home. She attended schools in New York and Boston. She was married, Oct. 31, 1863, to Col. Charles Russell Lowell . She took an active interest in the sanitary commission during the civil war, and after her husband's death devoted herself to work for the freedmen and to philanthropy and reform. She was appointed a member of the New York state board of charities by Governor Tilden in 1876, and served until 1889, having been reappointed by Governors Robinson and Cornell. She was one of the founders of the Charity Organization society of New York city in 1881. She advocated the rights of labor and of labor organizations, and became interested in civil service reform and in prison reform. In 1899 she was appointed by Governor Roosevelt a member of the board of managers of the New York State Reformatory for Women. She is the author of: Public Relief and Private Charity (1884); Industrial Arbitration and Conciliation (1893), and contributions to periodicals.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor