History of Leominster, (Worcester County) Massachusetts United States of America

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Biographies:

James Gordon Carter, educator, was born at Leominster, Mass., Sept. 7, 1795. In 1820 he was graduated from Harvard college, and for ten years was occupied as a teacher in his native town. His papers, entitled, Essays on Popular Education, contributed to the Boston Patriot in 1828, drew attention to him as an educational reformer. He was the first to advance the idea of seminaries for the instruction of teachers in his Letters to William Prescott on the Free schools of New England, with Remarks on the Principles of Instruction (1823). He was instrumental in founding the American institute of instruction, in 1830, and was active in furthering its interests. He was a member of both branches of the state legislature during the years 1835-40. He was chairman of the legislative committee on education, and in 1837 drafted the bill establishing the board of education, of which he was appointed the first member by Governor Everett. He published Geography of Massachusetts, a work on Middlesex and Worcester counties (1880); and the Geography of New Hampshire (1831). He died in Chicago, Il1., July 22, 1849.

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

Alvah Crocker, representative, was born in Leominster, Mass., Oct. 14, 1801. He attended the Groton academy and was first employed in a paper mill at Franklin, N.H., in 1820. In 1823 he borrowed the money necessary to establish a paper mill at Fitchburg, Mass., and in 1834, purchased all the land in the Nashua valley and built a wagon read. He was elected to the state legislature in 1835, where he proposed a railroad to connect northwestern Massachusetts with the seaport at Boston. He was returned to the legislature in 1842 and then secured a charter for the road, completing it in 1845. This he followed with the Vermont, the Troy and the Hoosac tunnel railroads, urging the Hoosac tunnel project, in a canvass of the western towns of Massachusetts, 1847-48. His paper mills became the largest in the United States and he built extensive machine shops and foundries in the neighborhood of his mills. In manufacturing white paper he was the first to use cotton waste and also the first to use palm leaf fibre in wall papers. He represented his district in the state senate, 1862-64, and when Representative Washburn was elected governor in 1871 Mr. Crcoker succeeded to his seat in the 42d congress, Feb. 14, 1872, and was re-elected to the 43d congress. He died in Fitchburg, Mass., Dec. 26, 1874.

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

Walter Rogers Johnson, chemist, was born in Leominster, Mass., June 21, 1794. He was graduated at Harvard in 1819, and taught school in Massachusetts, 1819-21; was principal of Germantown academy, 1821-26; professor of mechanics and philosophy at Franklin Institute high school, Philadelphia, Pa., 1826-36; made a geological survey of the coal and iron formations of Pennsylvania, 1836-37, was in charge of the department of magnetism, electricity and astronomy, U.S. exploring expedition, 1837; professor of physics and chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, medical department, 1839-43; congressional expert to determine and report upon the relative value of the varieties of coal for commercial uses, 1843-44; naval department expert on coal, 1844; expert on water supply for the city of Boston, 1845, and chemist at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1848-52. He represented the United States at the London, England, world's fair, 1851; was a founder of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists, and first secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1848. He is the author of: Scientific Class Book No. 1 (1835), No. 2 (1835); Notes on the Use of Anthracite in the Manufacture of Coal (1841); Coal Trade of British America (1850); and translations of Knapp's Chemical Technology (1848), and Weisbach's Mechanics (1849). He died in Washington, D.C., April 26, 1852.

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