FARMER. FARMER. 207 has written some history and biography, and delivered several historical addresses. Mr. Everett came from good ancestral stock. His paternal grandfather was a chaplain in the revolutionary army, and for nearly forty years pastor of the Con- gregational church in Wareham. His father was a soldier in the war of 1S12, and highly esteemed by his fellow-towns- men. Mr. Everett was first married at Fall River, to Abby Ann H., daughter of Nicholas H. and Sophia Antoinette (Tis- dale) Sherman. There was no issue by this marriage. His second marriage was in Wareham, with Hattie J., daughter of Leander I,, and Harriet (Gibbs) Packard. Of this union were two children : War- ren Irving (deceased) and Juliet Chester Everett. FARMER, MOSES GERRISH, eldest child of Colonel John and Sally (Gerrish) Farmer, was born in Boscawen, Merri- mack county, N. H., February 9, 1820. He is a lineal descendant of Edward Farmer, who emigrated from Ancely, War- wickshire, England, and settled in Bil- lerica about 1670. He attended the dis- trict school in Bashan, the academy on Boscawen Plains, Phillips Academy, An- dover, and entered Dartmouth College in 1840, but was obliged to leave during his third year on account of ill health. The degree of A. M. was conferred upon him by the faculty of Dartmouth in 1853- He taught the academy in Eliot, Maine, where he was married, December 25, 1844, to Hannah Tobey, daughter of Richard and Olive (Tobey) Shapleigh, of Berwick, Maine, and later taught the Bel- knap school in Dover, N. H. In 1847 he- gave up teaching and turned his attention wholly to scientific pursuits. In 1847 he constructed a small electro- magnetic locomotive and railway, which he exhibited in various towns, lecturing upon the subject of electro-magnetism. In December, 1847, he opened a telegraph office in South Framingham, and while- there invented his first fire alarm appa- ratus. He exhibited this in Boston in 1849. Two years later he became acquainted with Dr. W. F. Channing, and in connec- tion with him he brought to perfection and put into operation the system of fire alarm telegraph now in universal use. The office in Boston was opened April 28, 1852, and Mr. Farmer remained its superintendent until 1855. Between 1852 and 1855 he devised and constructed an apparatus for transmitting four messages simultaneously over a single wire. He was the first to suggest the use of the continuity-preserving key in the duplex telegraph. In 1855, as a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he read a paper on multiplex teleg- raphy. In 1856 he perfected the double transmitter with reversed currents and constant resistance. In 1859 he invented an automatic regu- lator for controlling the distribution of electricity to numerous electric lamps, and began investigating the production of light MOSES G. FARMER. by electricity, which investigations have never been relinquished. He invented an automatic regulator by which the light can be kept at a uniform intensity for any length of time. In 1859 he lighted' his own house in Salem by elec-
