Craft Masonry in Albany County, New York - Onondaga and Oswego ...

war under his brother, Capt. Timothy Eaton. James W. Eaton was graduated from the Albany Boys' Academy in 1875 and from Yale
University in 1879; in the latter year he began the study of law in Columbia Law School, which he left in May, 1880, to become
professor of Latin in the Albany Boys' Academy, which position he held until his admission to the bar in 1882. In 1883 Mr. Eaton
formed a co-partnership with George W. Kirchwey, a former Yale classmate, which continued until Jul 1891. In the following autumn
he was nominated by the Democrats and elected district attorney of Albany county and held that office until 1 Jan 1895. He has
been instructor in the department of evidence and contracts of the Albany Law School for some years, and is engaged in active
practice at the bar of his native city. As a lawyer he is strong in argument, candid and successful; he is strong at nisi prius, still
stronger before the court in banc. It is said that in some respects his characteristics resemble those of the late Judge Ambrose
Spencer. He is a member of Masters Lodge No. 5, F&AM, the Fort Orange Club and other organizations of Albany. 18 Jul 1894, he
married Mrs. Hortense Willey Vibbard, of Dansville, NY.
Page 33 [951] Family Sketches
Henry Gallien, son of Henry and Eliza M. (George) Gallien, was born in Albany, NY, 3 Dec 1861. His father was born on the Isle of
Guernsey and when sixteen years of age came to America and located in Albany, where for thirty years he was in the canal
department and State comptroller's office, and for the last fifteen years that he was there held the offices of second deputy and
deputy, holding the latter office at the time of his death in 1883. Henry Gallien was educated in the Boys' Academy, State Normal
School, Public School No. 11 and the Albany High School, after which he was for a time in C. H. Van Benthuysen's paper
warehouse. Subsequently he went to the Albany County Bank and the National Commercial Bank, where he remained eight years,
and later was teller at the Park Bank of Albany for two years. From the Park Bank he went to the Exchange Bank, where be held the
position of teller for three years, and left in 1894, to engage in business with his brother, E. J. Gallien, dealing in investment
securities, with whom he remained one year. Then after a few months' experience as an expert accountant he was appointed by
Commissioner Lyman, in April, 1896, auditor of the State Excise Department.
Mr. Gallien is a member of Ridgefield Athletic Club, of which he is a trustee, and has held the office of secretary for three years. He
was for one term financial secretary of the Albany Bicycle Club and organized the Albany County Wheelmen. He held the office of
secretary and treasurer of the organization and subsequently held the offices of president and captain. He represented the Albany
Bicycle Club and the Albany County 'Wheelmen for several years in the National Assembly, L. A. 'W., and is a member of the
auditing committee of that body. For two years he has been treasurer of the Albany Press Club and is a director and member of the
Albany Musical Association. Mr. Gallien is also a Mason, being a member of Masters Lodge No. 5, F&AM.
Page 33-36 [700]
William Herrick Griffith was born at Castleton-on-Hudson, Rensselaer County, NY, 27 Jan 1866. He is descended from an
illustrious and distinguished ancestry. His father, the late Edwin Henry Griffith, a Banker and a man of prominent position, born in
Nassau. Rensselaer Co., 1 Dec 1830, married early in life Mary Louisa KnowIton, daughter of George Washington and Sybil Ann
(Rowe) Knowlton. He was founder of the National Bank of Castleton, to which place he removed in 1865, and was officially
connected with that institution and prominently identified with the interests of the place until a year before his death, which occurred
at Albany, NY, in May 1875, upon his return from a sojourn in Denver, Colorado, whither he had gone for the improvement of his
health. His father was Smith Griffith, of Nassau, NY, an elder in the Presbyterian Church at that place, and who held nearly all the
official positions of prominence in the gift of the Town. He was born 22 Feb 1793; died 18 Jan 1878; his father being Major Joshua
Griffith, who served with credit in the War of 1812; and his grandfather, William Griffith, a Revolutionary Soldier, who was a direct
lineal descendant of Llewellyn, last King of Wales, who was beheaded by the English in 1282, and who was the son of Griffith, also
King of Wales. Lemira Merrick, wife of Smith Griffith, above, and paternal grandmother of Mr. Griffith, subject of this sketch, was
second in lineal descent from Colonel Rufus Herrick, an officer of the New York State Continental Line in the Revolutionary War;
seventh in lineal descent from Sir William Herrick, of Leicester, London, and Beau Manor Park, England, and eighteenth in lineal
descent from Eric, King of Danes. The arms which she made use of were granted to Sir William Herrick in the reign of Elizabeth and
are described as follows:
"Argent; a fesse vaire, or and gules."— Crest—"A bull's head couped argent, horned and eared Sable, gorged with a chaplet of
roses ppr." Motto—" Virtus omnia nobilitat."
The Griffith arms are the same as those of Griffith of the Royal House of Wales, of whom the persons of the name already
mentioned in this sketch are all lineal descendants, and therefore entitled to use the arms.
Mr. Griffith's lineal paternal ancestors intermarried with the New England Colonial families of Paine, Smith, Perrin, Trask, Leonard,
Avery, Denison, Stanton, Starkweather, Lord, Thompson, Peck, Marvin and Chickering, and the Piatt, Wood and Scudder families of
Long Island. Of these female lines the Paines. Perrins, Averys, Denisons, Stantons, Lords, Pecks, aud Platts possessed and used
Coat armor which belonged to them by descent from the original armiger. Mr. Griffith's mother, as mentioned early in this sketch, is
Mary Louisa (Knowlton) Griffith. She was born at Greenbush-on-Hudson, Rensselaer Co., NY, 26 Mar 1833, and is now living in
Albany. She belongs to the Historic New England family of Knowltons, to which belonged many of the bravest soldiers and illustrious
statesmen of the New World. General Nathaniel Lyon, of Missouri, was a prominent member of this family who fell in the Civil War,
and whose death the nation mourned. Col. Thomas Knowlton, younger brother of Lieutenant Daniel Knowlton, of Connecticut, greatgrandfather
of Mrs. Griffith, and whom she represents in the Daughters of the Revolution, was an intimate friend of George
Washington, who in lamenting his untimely death at the Battle of Harlem Heights in 1776 said; "The brave Knowlton has fallen. He
would have been an honor to any country." The State of Connecticut has appreciated and shown honor to his memory by erecting a
bronze statue of heroic size just in front of her State Capitol at Hartford. To this family also belongs Sir Charles Tupper, the last
Prime Minister to Canada. The first of this name to come to America was Capt. William Knowlton, who early in the seventeenth
century sailed from Cheswick, England, with his three sons, in his own ship, and landed at Nova Scotia. One son, John, removed to
Ipswich, Mass., and from him are descended the most illustrious descendants of the name. Mrs. Griffith's father was the late George
Washington Knowlton, ninth in descent from Captain William, above, and her mother, Sybil Ann (Rowe) Knowlton, now living. Mrs.
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