No. 7215 Thomas French Temple
Men of Progress. Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Leaders in Business and Professional Life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (Boston, 1894), 184.
Thomas French Temple, register of deeds, Suffolk County, is a native of Canton, born May
25, 1838, son of William F. Temple, a son of Samuel Temple, a graduate of Dartmouth College, author of many musical works, and of ” Temple’s Arithmetic.” His mother was Milla H. (French) Temple, daughter of the Hon. Thomas French, of Canton, a noted man in Norfolk County from 1830 to 1850, having been in the Senate and in Governor Briggs’s Council. When he was a child, his parents moved to Dorchester, and he was educated there in the public schools. In 1855 he entered the service of the Dorchester Insurance Company ; and he has held all the positions in the gift of the company, being now its president. He served as town clerk and treasurer of Dorchester from 1864 to 187o, when the town was annexed to Boston; was a trial justice for Norfolk County previous to annexation, and became the first judge of the Dorchester District Municipal Court established with annexation. In 187o, also, he was one of the representatives of the new district in the Boston Common Council. The next year he was first elected to his present position as register of deeds, and has held it continuously through re-elections from that date. Mr. Temple is connected with a number of business corporations and numerous philanthropic organizations. He is a director of the International Trust Company, of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, of the Dorchester Hygeia Ice Company, and of the Boston Lead Company ; president, as above stated, of the Dorchester Mutual Fire Insurance Company; and trustee of the Home Savings Bank. He served for twenty years on the Board of Overseers of the Poor in Boston, several terms as chairman, finally resigning in 1890; and he has been for a long period trustee of the Perkins Institution for the Blind, trustee of the Boston Farm School on Thompson’s Island, and president of the trustees of Cedar Grove Cemetery. He is a leading Mason, past master of the Union Lodge, member of the Boston Commandery Knights Templars, and treasurer of the Massachusetts Consistory; and is quite prominent in other fraternal societies, belonging to the United Workmen, the Knights of Honor, the Royal Arcanum, and similar orders. He has held the position of grand receiver of the Grand Lodge of United Workmen of Massachusetts since 1885 ; is also senior grand master workman of that body; has been a member of the Supreme Lodge of United Workmen and Knights of Honor, and has served on the finance committee of both organizations. He has long been a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, commander of the organization in 1886, and now chairman of its finance committee ; is a member and vice-president of the Old Dorchester and Minot clubs : member of the Codman Club, Hale Club, and National Lancers. He was formerly connected with the Dorchester and Boston fire departments, and was fireman of Engine 20 at the time of the Great Fire in 1872. Mr. Temple was married in July, 1863, to Miss S. Emma Spear, a daughter of Captain John Spear, of Neponset, Dorchester, formerly of Quincy. He has four daughters and a son.
The following is from Arthur Wellington Brayley. Schools and Schoolboys of Old Boston. (Boston, 1894).
Thomas French Temple was born in Canton, May 25, 1838, and came with his parents to Dorchester the following year. His father, William F., was born in Dorchester, April 4, 1810, where he died in 1884. He was early associated with the Dorchester Manufacturing Company, but from 1855 up to the time of his death was secretary of the Dorchester Mutual Fire Insurance Company. Mr. Temple’s mother was also a native of Canton, having been born there in 1815. Her maiden name was Milla H. French, and she is still living (1894) and in the enjoyment of excellent health. Thomas as the eldest of eleven children, two brothers and two sisters of whom survive. His education was commenced in a primary school on River Street opposite Forest Hill Avenue (now Morton Street) in the Dorchester district, taught by Misses Viles and Everett, and was then known as District 5. When seven years of, he attended a grammar school kept by Isaac Swan, who had as assistant Mr. Home. This was called the Winthrop School but is now known as the Stoughton. He remained at this school one term longer than was necessary , awaiting the completion of the Dorchester High School building, which was finished in 1853, young Temple being one of its first pupils. William J. Rolfe, the well-known Shakespearian scholar, was master of the High School, and he was later succeed by Jonathan Kimball and Eldridge Smith. He graduated from this school in 1856, and he had as classmates Henry Hall, G.A. Churchill, T. B. Fox, W. A. Gilbert, J. Foster Hewins, George A. Fisher, J. Homer Pierce, Horatio Newell, George Clark, Charles A. Humphrey and others.
During 1855-56, he worked I the office of the Dorchester Mutual Fire Insurance Company after school hours, and in 857 he was engaged permanently by this company, when, starting from the most subordinate position, he rose to the highest, and upon the death of Edmund J. Baker, in 1890, he was chosen as president and treasurer, which offices he still holds. From 1870 to 1890, he was Overseer of the Poor of Boston, and at the time of his resignation in 1890, he had been for ten years chairman of the board.
He was clerk and treasurer of the town of Dorchester from 1863 up to the time of its annexation to Boston. In 1870, he was elected Register of Deeds for the County of Suffolk, a position which he has held continuously ever since and which he still occupies. From 1865 up to the time of annexation, he was a trial justice for Norfolk County, first justice of the Dorchester Municipal Court in 1870, and was a member of the first City Council after annexation. Young Temple joined the Dorchester fire department in 1856; was clerk and foreman of Engine 1; foreman of Engine 5 at Neponset, and held that office when Steam Fire Engine 20 was introduced, being in command of the company at the time of the big fire in 1872. During the draft riots, he was a private in the Boston Lancers. The numerous other organizations and societies of which he is or has been connected may be summed up briefly as follows: Director of the Home Savings Bank of Boston for twenty years, and member of the investment committee; trustee of the International Trust Company, director of the Boston Lead Manufacturing Company, trustee of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, the Boston Farm School, and Perkins Institution for the Blind, treasurer for thirteen years of the Massachusetts Consistory Thirty-second degree Masons, member of Union Lodge of Masons, and its Master in 1872-78-74, and again in 1886; a member of the Boston Commandery; a member of various lodges of Odd Fellows, Knights of Honor, and several other orders; past commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, and a member of its finance committee for the past eight years; he was a charter member of the Ancient order of United Workmen, Grand Foreman in 1880 and 1881, has filled the chair of Grand Master and is at prsenet Grand Receiver; vice-president of the Old Dorchester Club, and a member of the Exchange, Minot, Hale, and Codman Clubs. Mr. Temple worships in the church of the Unity at Neponset, where he resides and is a pewholder in Dr. Edward Everett Hale’s church in Boston.
He was married in 1863 to Miss S. Emma Spear, who came of an old Quincy family, being a daughter of Capt. John Spear. They have five children living; Thomas F., Jr., who is attending the Boys’ High School; Edith J; Milla H., a teacher Mari I, a graduate of the Emerson College of Oratory and a well-known reader; and Emma F., now in the Dorchester High School.