Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

were Edward Gilman with his wife, who
was Mary (Clark) Gilman, with their
three sons, two daughters, and three ser-
vants.
Edward Gilman, the immigrant, settled
in Hingham, Massachusetts, where he
was admitted a freeman, December 13,
1638
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
; three years later a grant of land
eight miles square, then called Seekonk,
now Rehoboth, was granted to Edward
Gilman and others by the Plymouth Col-
ony. His name does not appear in the
records of Seekonk after 1646, but the following
year it is recorded at Ipswich,
Massachusetts. His sons, Edward and
John, subsequently removed to Dover,
New Hampshire, and from the latter of
these the subject of this narrative was de-
scended. John Gilman was one of the
first counsellors under the provincial
charter, a judge, and Speaker of the New
Hampshire House of Representatives.
From this sterling New England ancestry
there was born at Norwich, Connecticut,
July 6, 183 1, Daniel Coit Gilman, son of
William C. and Eliza (Coit) Gilman.
The boyhood days of Daniel Coit Gilman
were spent in his native town, attending
the common school. His prepa-
ration for his collegiate course was ob-
tained in New York City. Later he became
a student at Yale College, graduat-
ing in 1852. He then devoted two years
to observation and study in Europe, dur-
ing which period he was first attached to
the United States Legation in St. Peters-
burg, Russia ; subsequently he became a
student under Ritter and Trendelenburg
in Berlin, and then a commissioner to the
French Exhibition in 1855. Returning
home that year, he became successively
librarian of Yale College, Professor of
Physical and Political Geography in the
Sheffield Scientific School, trustee of the
Winchester Observatory, and visitor of
the Yale School of Fine Arts. While con-
288
nected with Yale College, he was for a
short time city superintendent of schools
in New Haven, and subsequently secre-
tary of the State Board of Education.
It was in 1872 that he accepted the
office of president of the University of
California, to which he was originally
called two years previous. He became
the first president of that institution, and
was instrumental in securing from capi-
talists large gifts, notably the Francis
Lieber Library, also $50,000 from Michael
Reese ;
guages ;
the Agassiz chair of oriental lan-
the Mills chair of philosophy
$100,000 for a law college ;
a gymnasium ;
and he assisted in securing the Lick
Observatory. The university prospered
under his administration, and he remained
as president until 1875, when he was
called to Baltimore, Maryland, to become
the first president of the Johns Hopkins
University. This institution, which has
trained a large number of professors, in-
vestigators and lecturers, soon under his
management took first rank among Amer-
ica's scientific and literary schools of
learning.
President Gilman was called upon in
1889 to aid in the organization of an
allied institution, the Johns Hopkins Hos-
pital, of which he was made a director.
He was one of the original trustees of the
John F. Slater fund for the education of
the freedmen, and was for some time sec-
retary and subsequently president of the
board of trustees of the fund ; also he
filled the office of vice-president of the
Peabody Education Fund. He resigned
as president of Johns Hopkins University
in 1901, and was made president emeritus,
and the same year became president of
the Carnegie Institution, Washington,
D. C, a position he filled for three years.
In the meantime he had become editor-in-
chief of "The New International Cyclo-
paedis," and also president of the National
;