Difference between revisions of "GMGallagher"

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CHARLES THEODORE GALLAGHER 1851-1919

Deputy Grand Master, 1899
Grand Master, 1900-1902

TERM

1900 1901 1902

MEMORIAL

From Proceedings, Page 1919-345, Grand Master's Address:

Since our last Quarterly Communication in, September Freemasonry has suffered a great loss in the passing away of one of its bright and shining lights. There are few if any members of our order more widely known or more generally ]loved and respected than was Most 'Worshipful Brother Charles Theodore Gallagher. He died on Sunday, September 28, at his home in Roxbury. Although for some years his intimate friends have known that he was not in the enjoyment of good heal&, the news of his death came as a great shock. A memorial will be presented by a committee at the Stated Communication, December 29.

No one can estimate or measure the value of his long and splendid service to Masonry. From his very first membership in this Grand Lodge, when he was an officer in Saint Paul's Lodge, of South Boston, he was especially devoted to it. Many biographical and historical a,ddresses and articles were delivered or published by him, and our printed Proceedings bear convincing testimony of his zeal and Masonic learning. He was a member of all the Masonic bodies of the York and Scottish Rite, and at the time of his passing away was one of the four Active 33° members of the Supreme Council from Massachusetts, and also Deputy for the State. He was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge in 1900, 1901, and 1902, and for many years has been a member of its Board of Directors.

My relations with him in recent years have been so close and intimate that a deep sense of personal loss makes words but too poor vehicles of tribute to his memory. It is in the silent chambers of thought and in the nobler resolves of grateful hearts that the lives of such men are truly honored.-

"No step is on the conscious floor !
Yet Love will dream and Faith will trust,
(Sinee He who knows our need is just)
That somehow, somewhere meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress trees !
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking clay
Across the mournful marbles play !
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death
And Love can never lose its own."

From Proceedings, Page 1919-452:

The assertion that "Death loves a shining mark" seldom meets with stronger confirmation than when in the early evening of Sunday, the twenty-eighth of September last, Charles T. Gallagher - widely honored and beloved - was numbered with those who have passed, from our earthly association.

Born in South :Boston Mar. 21, 1851, he entered life richly endowed, for his father was a man of inflexible integrity - a descendant of one, of the soldiers of Cromwell and his mother a woman of unusual brilliancy and intellect whose ancestors had fought in our Revolutionary War and in that of 1812.

That mother passed from earth while he was yet a babe in arms, but his father married two years later, an estimable woman descended from Mayflower stock and blessed with sound New England sense, and her training was the foundation upon which was reared the, sterling, character of later years.

When Brother Gallagher was but thirteen years of age the blood o{ hrs soldierly forebears asserted itself and in patriotic response to the call of the immortal Lincoln and the Union cause, he enlisted as a drummer boy in the United State Army and at the close of the war he continued his service with the Tenth and First Regiments of the Massachusetts Militia.

He organized the first Drum Corps in the Boston School Regiment in 1865, and in 1868 he was Captain of the Company which won the prize for excellence of drill. Brother Gallagher was a studious youth, and at an early age he had read extensively, his special delight being biography and history, and later in life he added to the natural richness of his mind by years of travel and study abroad, and the degree of A.M. was bestowed. upon him by Dartmouth College in 1894.

It was the desire of his father that he should enter the legal profession arid, although deterred for a while by ill health, he took up a course at Harvard and later at Boston University Law School, from which he graduated in 1875 with the degree of LL.B., being admitted to practice in Massachusetts the same year and in the United States Supreme Court in 1882. During the larger part of his professional life he was engaged. in civil trials and he participated in many important cases, but later he devoted his attention to corporation matters and the trusteeship of estates.

His law practice was wide and lucrative, but he found time for active participation in important industries and he fiIled many positions of honor and. responsibility in public affairs. The business and art and education of the old Bay State owe much to his interest and his wise counsel.

He was Vice-President and Director of the Commercial Tow Boat Company; Director of the Dana Hardware Company; Director of the Gilchrist Company ; Trustee and Vice-President of the South Boston Savings Bank; Director of the Dorchester Mutual Fire Insurance Company; Director at one time in a National Bank, two Trust Companies, a Railroad and a Life Insurance Company. He was a Director of the Boston Legal Aid Society; Trustee of the Roxbury Latin School; Trustee and Vice-President of the Dartmouth Educational Association; Trustee of Boston University; Trustee of the Farm and Trades School, and Trustee of the South Boston School of Art.

Twelve years he was a member of the Boston School Committee, and four years he was President of the Board. He was a Trustee of the Boston Art Commission; a Trustee of the Benjamin Franklin Fund; a member of the Suffolk County Court House Commission; a member of the Boston Chamber of Commerce; a member of the Museum of Fine Arts; a member of the Massachusetts State Senate in 1882; a member of the Webster Historical Society, and a member of the Bunker Hill Monument Association.

He was also Attorney of the South Boston Railroad and a Trustee of the Bird School, and notwithstanding all these demands upon his time and talent, he was a Director of the Algonquin Club; he was five years President of the Art CIub; he was one of the Executive. Committee of the University Club; an officer of the Boston Bar Association; a member of the Exchange Club, the Boston Athletic, and the Curtis Clubs; the Bostonian Society; the Massachusetts Historical Society; The Young Men's Christian Union; the Camden, Maine, Yacht and Golf Clubs, the Seapuit Golf Club of Osterville, and a charter and active member of Dahlgren Post No. 2, Grand Army of the Republic.

Brother Gallagher was a Republican in politics and was a delegate to the National Convention in 1884.

In religion he was a Unitarian, a regular attendant at the old Eliot Church in Roxbury and a Trustee of the Hawes Church in South Boston.

He was married in 1880 to Nellie A. Allen of Scituate, a direct descendant of Peregrine White, the first white child born in New England. The widow and three children - Capt. Merrill A. Gallagher, Miss Emily Gallagher, and Mrs. Alvin Morrison survive. He also leaves four brothers- William, Edwin, Sears, and Percival, and one sister- Mrs. Burnham.

Brother Gallagher's Masonic record was as follows: He was raised in Saint Paul's Lodge, of South Boston, on December 2, 1873, and was Worshipful Master in 1878 and 1879. He was Commissioner of Trials in the Grand Lodge for twenty years; Grand Director of the Corporation for a long period, Deputy Grand Master in 1899, and. Grand Master in 1900, 1901, and 1902.

He received the Royal Arch Degree in St. Matthew's Chapter November 13, 1899; the. Super Excellent in Roxbury Council November 26, 1900, and the Order of the Temple in St. Omer Commandery November 20, 1899. He was admitted to Massachusetts Consistory December 22, 1899; crowned a Sovereign Grand Inspector General 33° of the Northern Jurisdiction, September 18, 1900; elected an Active Member of the Supreme Council September 16, 1903, and at the time of his death he was Illustrious Deputy for Massachusetts and Most Illustrious Commander-in-Chief of the District.

What a busy, useful, and many-sided life! What a remarkable embodiment of genius and ability ! What a loss to this community and to the world ! From whatever angle we look upon Brother Gallagher he rises preeminent.

He was one of the school of lawyers who have given Massachusetts its reputation. By his strong personality, his wise counsel, his brilliant mind, his inflexible integrity and his indefatigable zeal and labor he has built for himself an enduring place in our institution and our personal love and has sent far abroad an influence that tells and will continue to tell most effectually for all that is best in our American civilization.

Rooted and grounded in honor, he stood ever firm to his convictions and naught could swerve him from the course which duty dictated that he should follow. He set for himself the highest standard of character, and he was intolerant only of what he deemed to be pernicious.

This Grand Lodge, the Scottish Rite, and all our Masonic bodies owe to him a debt beyond our reckoning. For many years we enjoyed the benefit of his professional training and knowledge and he transacted a vast amount of legal business for us, in court and out, without fee or reward, and this gift from his hand, together with the many biographical and historical papers he prepared in our behalf and his wise assistance in the shaping of our polity and action, mark him as one to whom we are under lasting obligation.

As Brothers and Masons we lay upon his bier the wreath of a gratitude and appreciation that knows no bounds. We shall ever continue to revere his memory and bless his name.

On every golden page of time,
'Writ large, so all the Craft may see,
Masonic Brethren have inscribed
Their faith in immortality.

We mourn when we are called to part
With men most manly tried, and true;
But look with trust to Lodge above,
Where ties of earth we shall renew.

'We bow our heads a while today,
A prince has fallen at our side!
We hear it whispered that "Our Chief,
Our foremost Counsellor has died."

Believe it not ! He laid asicle
The earthly garment that he wore,
But he, our Brother, leader, friend,
Lives on, loves on forevermore.

Sound not the "Taps" - the call of night,
But rather sound the "Reveille";
For toward the morning has he gone,
Toward larger life that is to be.

Respectfuily submitted,
Edwin B. Holmes,
J. Albert Blake,
Dana J. Flanders

NOTES

CHARTERS GRANTED

• 09/10/1902 Friendship, Wilmington

RULINGS

None.

Grand Masters