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ILLETT, FREDERICK HUNTINGTON, graduate of Amherst college and of Harvard law school, lawyer in Springfield, Massachusetts, assistant attorney-general of Massachusetts, representative in the General Court of Massachusetts, representative in the United States congress from the second district of Massachusetts from 1893, was born in Westfield, Hampden county, Massachusetts, October 16, 1851. His father, Edward Bates Gillett (1818-99) was a graduate of Amherst, class of 1839, was admitted to the bar in 1841, and practised law in Westfield during the remainder of his life. He was state senator, 1852, district attorney, 1856-71, and prominent in Republican state politics. He died in Westfield, February 3, 1899. His grandfather, Daniel Gillett, was a merchant in South Hadley Falls. His mother was Lucy Douglass, daughter of James and Lucy (Douglass) Fowler of Westfield, a woman of superior mental and moral character impressing her characteristics on her son. He attended the public and high school of his native place, studied a year in Dresden, Saxony, was graduated from Amherst in 1874, and from Harvard law school in 1877. He was admitted to the Springfield bar in 1877. He served as assistant attorney-general of Massachusetts, 1879-82; as a representative in the General Court of Massachusetts, 1890-91; and in 1892 he was elected a Republican representative from the second district of Massachusetts to the fifty-third Congress by a plurality of 2,413 votes. He served on the committee on Military Affairs, on the committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries and on the committee on Enrolled Bills. He was reelected in 1894 to the fifty-fourth Congress by a plurality of 5,437 votes; in 1896 to the fifty-fifth Congress by a plurality of 12,015 votes; in 1898 to the fifty-sixth Congress by a plurality of 5,277 votes and in this congress he was chairman of the committee on Reform in the Civil Service and was a member of the committee on Foreign Affairs. He was returned to the fifty-seventh Congress in 1900 by a plurality of 6,938 votes and continued as chairman of the committee on Reform in the Civil