Famous Masons of Naval Lodge No. 87

John Mills Browne

BROWNE, John Mills, surgeon, born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, 10 May, 1831.   He was graduated at the medical department of Harvard in March, 1852, and entered the United States Navy as an assistant surgeon, 26 March, 1853.

In 1855-'6 he participated in the Indian war on Puget sound, and subsequently he took part in the survey of the northwest boundary, he became a passed assistant surgeon, 12.May, 1858, served in the brig " Dolphin," suppressing the slave-trade on the west coast of Africa in 1858, and in October of that year joined the Paraguay expedition.

He was commissioned a surgeon, 19 June, 1861, and attached to the steamer "Kearsarge" until 9 December, 1864, participating in the engagement with the Confederate cruiser "Alabama." He served at the Mare island navy-yard from 1869 till 1871, during which time he superintended the erection of the naval hospital there. He was commissioned as medical inspector, 1 December, 1871, and was fleet-surgeon of the Pacific fleet in 1872-'6. He served at the naval hospital at Mare island, California, in 1876-'80, was commissioned a medical director, 6 October, 1878, and was a member of the examining board at Washington, from 2 July, 1880, to 26 October, 1882, when he took charge of the Museum of hygiene until 1 July, 1886, after which he was again appointed a member of the examining and retiring board.

On 27 March, 1888, he was appointed Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery and Surgeon-General of the Navy.

Adm. David G. Farragut, c.1863

Farragut, David G.
- Admiral in U.S. Civil War

FARRAGUT, David Glasgow, the United States Navy's first senior officer during the American Civil War.    Also the Navy's first rear admiral, first vice admiral, and first full admiral. He is remembered in popular culture for his possibly apocryphal order at the Battle of Mobile Bay, usually paraphrased: "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!".

Farragut was born to Jorge and Elizabeth Farragut at Lowe's Ferry on the Holston (now Tennessee) River a few miles south east of Campbell's Station, near Knoxville, Tennessee, where his family lived.

His father operated the ferry and was a cavalry officer in the Tennessee militia. Jorge Farragut (1755 – 1817), a Spanish merchant captain from Minorca, son of Antonio Farragut and Juana Mesquida, had previously joined the American Revolutionary cause after arriving in America in 1776. Jorge Farragut married Elizabeth Shine (b.1765) from North Carolina and moved West to Tennessee after serving in the American Revolution. David's birth name was James, but it was changed in 1812, following his adoption by future naval Captain David Porter in 1808 (which made him the foster brother of future Civil War Admiral David Dixon Porter and Commodore William D. Porter).

David Farragut entered the Navy as a midshipman on December 17, 1810. In the War of 1812, when only 12 years old, he was given command of a prize ship taken by USS Essex and brought her safely to port. He was wounded and captured during the cruise of the Essex by HMS Phoebe in Valparaiso Bay, Chile, on March 28, 1814, but was exchanged in April 1815. Through the years that followed, in one assignment after another, he showed the high ability and devotion to duty that would allow him to make a great contribution to the Union victory in the Civil War and to write a famous page in the history of the United States Navy.

Samuel Howard Gerrish

GERRISH, Samuel Howard, was born December 27, 1834, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for many years a foreman in the railroad shops of the Central Pacific Railroad Company. The family is one of the oldest in New England. His father, William Gerrish, was born at Lebanon, Maine, one of a family of thirteen children, twelve of whom were sons. He was a clock manufacturer and a merchant. The founder of the family in America was Captain William Gerrish, of the British army, born in Bristol, England, who emigrated to America during Cromwell’s time, in 1638. On his mother’s side he is a descendant of the well-known Hartford family of New England; his grandfather Hartford was a New Hampshire farmer and a soldier of the War of 1812, in which war he died; Samuel Howard, for whom he was named, was his maternal grandmother’s father and was a Revolutionary soldier. When in 1837 his father died, our subject was two and a half years old. Although later on his mother removed to Boston, he remained in Dover to attend school. His brother-in-law, John B. Wood, was editing a newspaper at Great Falls, and at the age of fifteen years young Gerrish proceeded to that village to learn the trade of printer. After about one and a half years he went to Boston and worked at his trade in a job office on Washington Street. After a year had passed he concluded to learn the trade of machinist and went to Northampton, Massachusetts, where he worked for Dimock Bros. six months; then went to Holyoke, where he worked for the Hadley Falls Company one and a half years. Leaving there, he worked for a time in Boston and New York. His brother-in-law, R.M. Whitehouse, was foreman of the Connecticut River Railroad repair shops located at Northampton, Massachusetts, and he went there and worked seven years. In 1860 he came to California with George A. Stoddard, leaving New York June 5, coming by the Panama route and arriving in San Francisco on the 28^th. He began working for E.T. Steen and continued with him for a year and a half. For the next four years he was engineer on the United States dry dock in the Mare Island Navy Yard. Then he came to Sacramento and was employed by Goss & Lambard, proprietors of the Sacramento Iron Works. In May 1866, he was employed for the railroad company and ran the first engine for the Central Pacific shops, where he worked and made the first tools used. His brother, J.L. Gerrish, now of Oakland, was also employed at the time in the same shops. He has held many positions of trust, among them that of trustee of the City Library and secretary of the board. He has been a Freemason since 1863, when he joined Naval Lodge, No. 87, of Vallejo; he is now a member of Concord Lodge, No. 117, of Sacramento, and has been a Master of that lodge during three years. He is also a member of Industrial Lodge, No. 157, I.O.O.F., of which he is a charter member. He was also a member in 1866-’67 of the California National Guards, Company D, Infantry, Captain Dasonville. Being of a scientific and statistical turn of mind, he has kept a record of the rainfall and temperature in his experiments in acclimating tropical trees ever since he came to Sacramento, making, as a voluntary observer of the United States Signal Service, monthly reports to Washington. He was married September 4, 1855, to Sarah J. Rogers, a native of Northampton, Massachusetts, whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower in 1620. Her father, Thomas Rogers, was a carpenter, builder and contractor. Mr. Gerrish has four daughters and one son. Their home is on G Street, where they have lived for twenty-one years.

Edited from the transcription of Debbie Walke Gramlick.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 457-458.
Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2004 Debbie Walke Gramlick.