Asaph Churchill (Asaph; Zebedee, Perez, Benjamin, William, John), 1814-1892
No. 22168 Asaph Churchill
From The Churchill Family in America. (1904), 296 ff
Born in Milton, April 20, 1814. Was fitted for college at Milton Academy and Day’s Academy in Wrentham, and at the age of thirteen entered Harvard College, where he graduated in 1831. He studied law in his father’s office and at the Harvard Law School, was admitted to the Norfolk County bar in 1834, at the age of twenty. He immediately opened an office at Dorchester Lower Mills, and held his Milton and Dorchester practice as long as lie lived, though he opened an office in Boston in 1856, and from that time had his office in that city.
He was always a resident of Dorchester, after his marriage, in 1838. He was an able lawyer and a very influential man in the affairs of his town. He was one of the original promoters, and later president and director, of the Milton Branch (now Shawmut Branch) or the Old Colony Railroad, was director and president of the bank, now the Blue Hill National, holding one or both these offices for twenty-eight years. He was State senator from Norfolk County in 1856, and held other positions of trust and responsibility. He died Nov. 29, 1892, at Milton.
Married 1st, in Dorchester, May 1, 1838, May Buckminster Brewer, daughter of Darius and Harriet (Buckminster) Brewer, of Dorchester; married 2d, in Milton, June, 1862, Mary Anne Ware, daughter of Dr. Jonathan and Mary Anne (Tileston) Ware, of Milton, who died May 5, 1886.
Children of Asaph Churchill and First Wife, born in Dorchester.
Gardner Asaph Churchill
Fanny Buckminster Churchill
Joseph Richmond Churchill
Mary Churchill
Harriet Brewer Churchill
John Maitland Brewer
No. 22364 Gardner Asaph Church from The Churchill Family in America
Gardner Asaph, b. May 26, 1839; m. Helen Brastow Barrett, dan. of Nathan and Harriet (Ware) Barrett, and born in Boston, Sept. 2, 1839. Married in Wrentham, April 16, 1862, and died Aug. 20, 1896
Mr. Churchill was educated in the public sellouts of Dorchester. In his youth he went on several voyages as a sailor, part of the time in a ship engaged in the East Indian trade. He gained experience and studied navigation, so that he was fitted to filla position of trust ; and when during the Civil War, he enlisted in the Navy, he was appointed. Dec. 15, 1862, acting ensign. After a period of training in gunnery on board the ship ” Macedoniann,” he was assigned to duty on board the United States ship “Release,” and served as sailing-master of that vessel, and afterwards, in the same capacity, on the United States steamers “Memphis” and ” Shawmut,” and (with an interval of a few months’ furlough on account of sickness) he served until the surrender of General Lee, when, in in 1865, he resigned.
He was a gallant officer, and on one invasion, by his coolness and prompt action, saved the “Memphis” from destruction by a rebel torpedo ram, in the North Edisto River, March 6, 1864.
After the war, Mr. Churchill engaged in the business of printing with the firm of Rockwell & Rollins, and on the death of Mr. Rollins, in 1869, be became the junior partner of the firm of Rockwell & Churchill, in which progressive and prosperous house be remained till his death. He bad excellent taste in all matters pertaining to the business, was of quick perception and good judgment in all matters in which he took an interest.
He served with credit for two terms, 1875-1876, as representative to the Legislature from Dorchester, and was a trustee of the Insane Asylum at Danvers three years He was a member of the Masonic fraternity, of the Grand Army of the Republic, and of several patriotic societies, among others the Society of Colonial Wars, and the Sons of thee American Revolution. He was interested in history and genealogy, was nu active member of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society. He had for ninny years been interested in gathering material for a genealogy of the Churchill family. and in company with Mr. N. W. Churchill had, at the time of his death. nearly completed nu account of the Plymouth branch of the family, to which his own line belonged, to the seventh generation, and it was in pursuance of his intention that his family decided to publish the volume which has grown to include the three grate branches, and eight or nine, instead of six, generations of tone branch. In 1887, Mr. Churchill compiled and published a genealogy of his own line in a neat pamphlet of eighteen pages, for private distribution. After his marriage and return from the War, Mr. Churchill lived at Wrentham for some years, and then removed to Milton Lower Mills, in Dorchester, where he lived till 1884, when he removed to Alban Street, Ashmont.
Children of Gardner A. and Ellen (Barrett) Churchill.
Mary Brewer, b. in Wrentham, Dec. 31, 1864; m. Franklin A. Wyman, of Dorchester, Feb. 9, 1898, and has one child: Dorothy Churchill Wyman, b. July 3, 1899.
Asaph, b. in Wrentham, Aug. 18, 1866; m. Helen Olivia French, dau. Of William Abrams and Olivia (Chapman) French of Jamaica Plain, June 14, 1900. They reside at Milton, and have on child: Olivia, b. Oct. 28, 1901.
Mr. Churchill fitted for college at the Roxbury Latin School, and graduated at Harvard in 1888. He fitted himself for the whole sale paper business, and in 1901 established himself in that business in Boston. Upon the death of Colonel Rockwell in 1902, he was appointed trustee of the Rockwell & Churchill printing concern.
Ellen Barrett, b. in Dorchester, May 19, 1877.
Buckminster, b. in Dorchester Aug. 11, 1841; m. Joseph H. Locke, of Louisville, Ky., March 19, 1861.
Children:
Hersey Goodwin Locke
Fanny More Locke
Christine Seward Locke
Harriet Buckminster Locke
No. 22364 Joseph R. Churchill from The Churchill Family in America
Joseph Richmond, b. in Dorchester, July 29, 1845; m. Mary Cushing of Dorchester, Feb. 21, 1871.
He was educated in Dorchester and Milton and Harvard College, where he graduated in 1867, and at the Harvard Law School 1869. He was admitted to the bar June 12, 1869, and began practice in Boston the following October with his father under the firm name A. & .J. R. Churchill. Jan. 9, 1871, he was appointed by Governor Claflin a justice of the Municipal Court, Dorchester District of Boston. Much leisure was devoted to botanical study and the formation of a large herbarium. In 1887, by request of the editors of the “History of the Town of Milton,” he compiled a history of the trees and plants growing naturally in Milton, forming a part of Chapter 18 of that book. He was appointed, in 1900, by Harvard College to visit the Botanical Gardens at the University. Has published several papers on botanical subjects in “Rhodora.” Jan. 1, 1901, on the completion of thirty years’ service as justice of the Municipal Court. he was presented by members of the bar with a silver service, in appreciation of his long and able administration of that office.
Children born in Dorchester.
- Richmond, b. July 20, 1874; d. 1880.
- Edward Cushing, b. July II, 1877; d. in 1880.
- Anna Quincy, b. May 31, 1884.
Mary, b. April 4. 1847; m. John Harrod Foster, of Brookline, Mass., Dec. 12, 1872.
Children.
- John Harrod Foster.
- Helen Mason Foster.
- Reginald Foster.
Harriet Brewer, b. Jan. 7, 1855.
John Maitland Brewer, b. Jan. 18, 1858.
He fitted for college in the Boston Latin School, and graduated at Harvard in 1879. He entered the Harvard Law School, but was hindered in his course by frail health. He was admitted to the bar in July, 1884, and began practice in the office of his father and brother in Boston. He died at the isles of Shoals, where he had been some time on account of his failing health. July 29, 1900.
Married, in Dublin, N.H., June 15, 1898, Florence May Windsor. daughter of Gershom. They had one child: John Maitland Brewer.