Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 04.djvu/248

 GA5IEWELL

GANNETT

ent of missions and corresponding secretary of the Baptist general con\ention of Texas in 1896; president of the Texas Baptist education com- mission in 1897 and president of the American Baptist education society in 1898. He received the honorary degree of D.D. from Furman uni- versity, S.C., and that of LL.D. from Wake For- est college, N.C., in 1896.

QAMEWELL, John N., inventor, was born in Marlboro county, N.C., in 1823. He attended the public schools in his native place and later devoted his time to inventing improvements for the telegraph. He went to Boston in 1859 and patented the Gamewell telegraphic fire-alarm system. He took his inventioa south and was placing it in the city of Charleston, S.C, when the civil war broke out and his patents were confiscated and sold by the Confederate govern- ment. Until the close of the war lie manufact- ured gunpowder in Columbia, S.C. Subsequently he regained possession of his patents after j'ears of litigation and acquired a large fortune. He died in Hackensack. N.J., July 19, 1896.

QAMMELL, William, educator, was born in Medtield, Mass., Feb. 10, 1812; son of the Rev. William and Mary (Slocorab) Gammell. He was graduated from Brown university in 1831 and became principal of the South Reading, Mass., academy. He was a tutor at Brown, 1832-35; assistant professor of belles-letlres, 1835-37; pro- fessor of rhetoric, 1837-50; professor of history and political economy, 1850-64; and a fellow of the university, 1870-89. He was president of the Rhode Island Bible society, 1869-84; vice-presi- dent of the American Bible societ}', 1884-89; president of the Providence, R.I., Athenaeum, 1870-81; member of the Rhode Island historical society, 1844r-89, and its president from 1882- The honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by the University of Rochester in 1859. He was assistant editor of the Christian Beview 1850-53, a frequent contributor to the press, and the author of the lives of Roger Williams and Samuel Ward in the second series of Sparks's Lihrary of American Bioyraphy. At the request of the American Baptist missionary union he prepared a History of Anifirican Baptist Missions. He died in Providence. R.I., April 3, 1889.

GANNETT, Ezra Stiles, clergyman, was born in Cambridge, Ma.ss., May 4, 1801; son of Caleb and Ruth (.Stiles) Gannett; grandson of Ezra Stiles, president of Yale, 1778-95; and a descend- ant on his father's side from Mary Chilton of the Mayflower. He entered Harvard in 1816, was president of the "Hasty Pudding Club," and held first honors at commencement in 1820. He was graduated from the divinity school in 1823, and in May, 1824, he accepted a call to be Dr. Clianning's colleague at the Federal Street

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church, Boston, and was ordained to the Unita rian ministry, June 30, 1824. In 1837 he received a unanimous call from the new Second Unitarian society of New York city to become their pastor and in 1832 was offered the position of general agent of the American Unitarian association, which he had been foremost in organiz- ing and of which he had for six years been the secretary; but he declined both invita- tions at the earnest solicitation of his people. In October, 1835, he was married to Anna, daughter of Bryant P. Tilden of Boston. In 1836 his health, which had been failing for some (^yytiyij^ ^MWU-ttT time, broke down en-

tirely, and he \\as ordered to Europe for rest, re- turning to his church in 1838. In 1839 he received a shock of pai'alj-sis which cost him the use of his right leg and left liim for life dependent on the two canes by which eveiy one knew "Dr. Gan- nett "' on Boston streets. He became eilitor of the Monthly Miscellany of EcUyion and Letters in 1840 and in the same year delivered courses of Sunday evening lectures on Unitarian and Scriptural Christianity. In October, 1842, Dr. Channing died and Mr. Gannett became his successor. He delivered the Dudleian lecture at Harvard in 1843 and from January, 1844, to May, 1849, was joint editor with Dr. Lamson of the Christian Eiaminer. In 1847 he was chosen president of the American Unitarian association, which in that year ob- tained an act of incorporation, and remained in office till 1851. For five or six years following he delivered lectures throughout New England. He was president of the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, 1857-63. In 1859 the society built a new church edifice on the corner of Arlington and Boylston streets, where he continued to preach until 1869, when he was made senior pastor of the society for life and was succeeded in the ac- tive ministry by the Rev. John F. W. Ware. He took a prominent part in several controversies, sustaining always, but in a liberal spirit, the " Channing " or conservative theology. He was an overseer of Harvard, 183.5-58. and received from that institution the degree of D.D. in 1843. His published writings consist chiefly of sermons, addresses, essays and magazine articles. See Ezra Stiles Gannett, Unitarian Minister in Boston, 1824-1871 (1875), a memoir, by his son William C. Gannett. He was killed in a railway accident six miles from Boston, Mass., Aug. S6, 1871.