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 506 REED. REED. setts regiment, and went with them to the front ; was afterward attached to the 27th regiment, and was taken prisoner at Peters- burg, July 30, 1S64. He was the only commissioned officer left when captured at the mine, all the rest being killed, wounded or sick ; was an inmate of the rebel prison for over seven months, and at the end of the war was commissioned captain by Presi- dent Johnson, for his brave and valuable services during the rebellion. He also raised a company for the 57th veterans. Captain Reade enjoys the well-merited respect and esteem of his fellow-townsmen. He has shown himself a loyal soldier, a patriotic citizen, a faithful legislator, and an incorruptible administrator of every public and private trust committed to his hands. REED, ERASTUS MALTBY, son of Wil- liam and Mary (Dennis) Reed, was born in Taunton, Bristol county, July 28, 1832. Public schools and Bristol Academy, of Taunton, gave him his early educational training. He then studied law in the office of Bassett & Reed, Taunton, and was admitted to practice in the Bristol county bar, 1856. May 13, 1856, he opened a law office in Mansfield, in the Old Meeting House. He has remained in Mansfield ever since, but for several years held legal connections with James H. Dean, Taunton. Mr. Reed was married in Taunton, Au- gust 21, 1857, to Sarah Jane, daughter of John and Mary (Pierce) Crockette of Mid- dletown, Conn. Of this union is one child : Bertha Holden Reed. Mr. Reed has been town clerk, town treasurer, enrolling officer under the United States government during the war of the rebellion ; a member of the school board, and superintendent of schools ; was a member of the lower branch of the Legis- lature, 1S66 and '67 ; clerk of the Ortho- dox Congregational society; a trustee of the Bristol County Savings Bank ; justice of the peace, notary public, trial justice and special justice of the first district court of Bristol county ; commissioner of insolvency, master in chancery ; president of Cobb Stone & Machine Company, Taun- ton ; for many years treasurer of St. James Lodge, F. & A. M., of which he was one of the charter members. REED, JOSIAH, the son of Thomas S. and Cynthia (Shaw) Reed, was born April 18, 1826, in South Weymouth, Norfolk county. He is a lineal descendant of Wil- liam Reed and Ivis, his wife, who settled in Weymouth in 1635, being the eighth generation from William f. William Reed was the first representative to the General Court from Weymouth after its incorpora- tion. Among the ancestors of Josiah Reed were Colonel Thomas Reed, who died in 17 19 ; Captain John Reed, who died in 1757, ami Captain John Reed, who served in the revolutionary war. These early ancestors were inspectors of leather in Weymouth, at that time such officials being chosen by the town. Among the later generations were Harvey and Quincy Reed, who established the first wholesale boot and shoe store in the city of Boston. JOSIAH REED. In fact, this family claim to be the found- ers of the boot and shoe business of this country. Mr. Reed's unbroken record of persever- ing industry has an early beginning, he working at the age of nine at a bench by his father's side in his shoe-maker's shop The winter months, spent in the district school, served rather as a vacation than as a season of labor. A service of several years with Nathaniel Shaw & Co. was the preliminary to his successful business ca- reer as boot and shoe manufacturer. Upon this he entered in 1851, when twenty-five years of age, and in January, (852, he sold the first goods for the California market. He made a specialty of that trade for the