Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/315

236 riet, was born March 12, 1902. [For further information concerning Professor Benedict, chemist and educator, author of "Elementary Organic Analysis," 1900, and "Chemicai Lecture Experiments," 1901, see "Who's Who in America."]

Vallette Lyman Benedict, electrical engineer, graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1894, is with the General Electric Company, Schenectady, N.Y. He married Florence Marian Ballard, June 21, 1900. A son, Russell Gano, was born May 15, 1902.

Clarence Barrett Benedict, lawyer, in Boston, married Millicent Emily Thompson, December 5, 1900.

Mrs. Benedict, as noted above, is the present Regent of the John Hancock Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She was admitted to membership as a great-grand-daughter of Benjamin White, who served in the war as a Lieutenant and later as Captain, and assisted in the capture of Burgoyne. She has been a member of the New England Women's Club, is still a member of the Castilian Club, and is one of the Board of Visitors to the New England Conservatory of Music.

She is particularly interested in the Conservatory students, in behalf of whom she has exercised generous and cheering hospitality, taking great pleasure in befriending young ladies and girls who were far away from their homes. In religion she is an Episcopalian, being a member of Trinity Church.

NNE ELIZABETH MERRILL, who has for many years occupied the position of Supervisor of Music in the public schools of Portland, Me., with much credit, is a native of that State, being one of the two surviving daughters of the late Captain Samuel and Sarah Perkins (Sturgis) Randall. The home of her parents for many years was in Riverside, formerly a part of Vassalboro, Kennebec County. Her paternal grand-father, Benjamin Randall, was one of the pioneer settlers of that town. His wife was Susan Cross. He was a lineal descendant of William Randall, who settled in Scituate, Mass., be- fore 1640. A Benjamin Randall is on record as a private in Captain Bartholomew York's company, Colonel Edmund Phinney's regiment, at Fort George, December, 1776, also in the same company, July, 1777 (Massachusetts Archives).

Captain Samuel Randall, shipmaster, was for a long period successfully engaged in voyaging, but eventually through fire and shipwreck he met with severe losses. Going to California to start afresh, he became master of a high-water steamboat on the Sacramento River. Nearly four years later, and after he had retrieved his fortune and his own boat was not running, he lost his life by a boiler explosion on a low-water steamer, on which at the request of a friend he had embarked as captain for a single trip. His property was in California, where he had made large investments, and his family was apparently well provided for. Monthly dividends for a time were regularly sent to Mrs. Randall, then in Portland. At length notice was received of a change of management, and after that no more remittances were received. Hence the straitened circumstances in which she passed her declining years, years of mental and physical infirmity.

Mrs. Randall was the daughter of Jonathan Sturgis and his wife, Melinda Hartwell Perkins. Jonathan Sturgis was a lineal descendant in the sixth generation of Edward1 Sturgis, who emigrated from England about the year 1634, and in 1639 settled at Yarmouth, on Cape Cod. Edward2 Sturgis, son of Edward,1 married Temperance Gorham, who was born in Marshfield, Mass., in 1646. She was a daughter of Captain John Gorham and his wife. Desire Howland. who was the daughter of John Howland and grand-daughter of John Tilly, both of whom came over in the "Mayflower" in 1620.

Edward3 Sturgis, born in 1673, son of Edward^ and Temperance, married Mehitable Hallet in 1703; and their son Edward4 married Thankful Hedge, and was father of Edward,5 who married Mary Bassett. The last named couple, with four sons—James, David, Jonathan, and Heman—moved from Bainstable, Mass., to Vassalboro, Me., in 1795. On the ground where they settled were many Indian graves, and often, even to this day, Indian implements are turned up by the plough.