Samuel Chester Gale, son of Isaac and Tamar (Goddard) Gale was born at Royalston, Sept. 15, 1827. His father died, when Samuel was eleven years of age, leaving a family of ten children, and the young boy was apprenticed to an uncle (Salmon Goddard) of West Royalston as a tanner. His desire for an education was so keen, however, that at 17 he began to prepare for college. He entered New Salem Academy as a student in 1845, and in an address delivered before the Alumni of New Salem Academy in 1885 he refers to that event as follows: "Just forty years ago a boy of seventeen, came out for the first tim3 from the hills of Royalston — peace and honor attend that ancient town — I came a student to New Salem Academy. What a memorable under taking that was. The sun never broke upon such a day before. I made the journey on foot behind a neighbor's wagon wherein was stored my box of valuables. The procession was not an imposing one, but in my imagination that wagon, that box and I. on that momentous errand, was the King and his retinue with chariot and banners." After a hard struggle he was able to enter Yale College in 1850, graduating four years later, a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, and chosen class orator at graduation in a class of 100 members. He spent one year in Harvard Law School and then read law with a firm in Worcester. In 1857 he went to Minneapolis, where he continued his law studies in the office of Cornell & Vanderburgh, and was admitted to practice in 1858. The practice of law not being in much demand there in those days, he opened a real estate and loan office in 1860 in partnership with his brother, Harlow; this rapidly grew into a most prosperous business, adding much to the development of the growing young city. He has been an active participant all his life in almost every movement looking toward the improvement of the city materially, intellectually and morally.

He was for some time the president of the Minneapolis Anthenseum which was founded in 1860; he was one of the original promoters of the public library, and long a member of the board; he was on the Board of Education from 1871 to 1880. He was an alderman and president of the City Council at one time and president of the Minneapolis Exposition. Was also actively connected with the Academy of
Natural Sciences, the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, the Board of Trade, and virtually every organized effort toward the improvement and up-building of the city in its earlier days. Religiously, he has been identified with the Unitarian Church, and was the chief contributor in the cost of the church edifice. He was married in 1861, to Miss Susan A. Damon, daughter of Col. Samuel Damon of Holden, Mass. She was born in Holden, May 7, 1833. Mr. and Mrs. Gale presented in 1887 to the town of Holden, the Damon Memorial Library and public school building; the cost of the gift exceeded $45,000, and in addition to the building Mr. Gale added $3000 for books. He also gave about the same time the Baptist parsonage and grounds in the west part of Royalston. The children of Samuel C. and Susan (Damon) Gale are Edward C. and Charles S., Mrs. David P. Jones, Mrs. Clarkson Lindley and Miss Marion Gale, all of Minneapolis.