Page:One of a thousand.djvu/165

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CROSBY. CROSBY. 1^1 He also studied law in the office of William C. Green, and with Gargan, Swazey & Adams, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1878, where he has been till recently engaged in the practice of his profession. He has of late been in Los Angeles, Cal, as attorney for the Lowe Gas & Electric Company of that city. Mr. Cronin represented ward 13 of the city of Boston, in the House of Represen- tatives in 1881, '82 and '83, and served on the committees on judiciary, and probate and chancery. He was elected state sen- ator from South Boston in 1884, and served on the committees on probate and chan- cery, bills in the third reading, and was chairman of the joint committee on claims. He has never been married. CROSBY, George Hannibal, eldest child of Hartwell Broad and Elizabeth Grant (Buxton) Crosby, was born in Bangor, Penobscot county, Me., September 23, 1836, being a lineal descendant in the seventh generation from Simon and Ann Crosby, who came from England in the ship "Susan and Ellen," in 1636, and settled in Cambridge. Mr. Crosby's father, being a builder and contractor, moved to St. John, N. B., directly after the great fire in that city, 1841. He had only just re- turned to Albion, Me., where he and his wife were both born, and built for himself some mills, when the great fire occurred in St. John's, New Foundland, in 184S; he left his family and with a large crew of mechanics went to that city to again engage in building. Three years later he again went to St. John, N. B., and remained. He built the old custom house, suspension bridge, lunatic asylum, Hammond River viaduct, city hospital, and scores of other railroad, government, public and private buildings. During those years his son was attending the public schools, and for a time previous to 1850 he attended the academy at China, Me. He then attended the institute at YVaterville, Me., one year, and afterward spent a year at the Wesleyan Academy, Sackville, N. B. At the age of eighteen he was fully prepared to enter college, but at the urgent request of his father to learn the building business, he tried it for one year, but it being distasteful to him he was placed with the firm of Fleming & Hum- bert, builders of engines and general ma- chinery at St. John. Here he remained until the middle of the second year, when, at the time of the Crimean war, he sailed for Constantinople, visiting at the same time Gibraltar, Malta, Messina and Liver- pool. Soon after his return he married, at St. John, June 23, 1S57, Sadie Elizabeth, daughter of Robert and Jane (Disbrow) Ray, of St. John. That same year he moved to Boston. He found employment at the Boston Locomotive Works for one year. He was now a journeyman machinist. From this time he was constantly employed studying mechanical engineering, gradually GEORGE H. CROSBY. advancing into finer grades of work ; was foreman in the Massachusetts state prison five years, then foreman for the Ashcroft Steam Gauge Company. In 1S73 he was appointed foreman of the American Steam Gauge Company, and there remained until 1875. In 1876, having in the meantime secured patents for several of his valuable improvements in pressure-gauges, safety- valves, etc., he went into business for him- self, and organized the Crosby Steam Gage & Valve Company, of which he was a director and superintendent. His improve- ments in the steam engine indicator and other instruments of precision in which he made a notable success have a world-wide reputation, until to-day the model factory in Boston, with its varied and continued improvements in this special line, stands an honor to the trade, and its productions are