2 GROVE KARL GILBERT— DAVIS IMb " oi " 8 [vousSi; 



THE GILBERT FAMILY 



Grove Karl Gilbert was born in Rochester, N. Y., May 6, 1843, the son of Grove Sheldon 

 and Eliza Stanley Gilbert. On both the paternal and maternal sides, his forbears were of New 

 England origin. An old record states that John Gilbert, jr., "a brave and honest gentleman," 

 came to America in 1630 and settled with his wife and sons at Dorchester, Mass. One of his 

 descendants, bearing again, a century and a half later, the name of the brave and honest gentle- 

 man of 1630, lived in Connecticut and was an officer in the Revolutionary War; he married 

 Theodosia Marsh, and died at Little Falls, N. Y., in 1795. The sixth of his seven children, 

 born in New Hartford in 1782, received the ancestral name and was the grandfather of Grove 

 Karl Gilbert. Ten years after his father's death, this third John Gilbert was established as 

 an ax and tool maker at Clinton, N. Y., and there in 1803 he married Eunice Barnes, daughter 

 of an ingenious bell and clock maker of the same town. He moved in 1811 or 1812 to Le Roy, 

 where in 1824 he invented a rotary steam engine, which was regarded as so promising as to 

 give hope of profitable manufacture; but after going to New York City to develop the machine, 

 he there fell victim to an epidemic of typhoid fever and died April 6, 1825, without having 

 made progress in his plans; thus briefly is recorded the tragic end of a worthy life. 



Grove Sheldon Gilbert, son of the third John Gilbert, was born at Clinton, August 5, 1805, 

 and on his father's death became, at the age of 19, the "head of the family." In the same 

 town lived Thaddeus and Betsy Doud Stanley and their 12 children. The father, born at 

 Goshen, Conn., in 1769, was a quiet, industrious citizen, a cooper by trade, much loved and 

 respected; he died in 1843. One of his daughters, Eliza, became on November 30, 1826, 

 the wife of Grove Sheldon Gilbert. The young man had studied medicine and taught school, 

 and for a time the pair had a shifting residence; but most of their married life was spent in 

 Rochester, N. Y., where the husband established himself as a self-taught portrait painter. 

 His success was moderate and hardly yielded him a competence. He strove earnestly in his 

 profession, painting for art rather than for fame, but did not reach his ideals; yet after reluc- 

 tantly sending, at the urgent request of some of his friends, one of his portraits to an exhibition 

 held by the National Academy of Design in New York in 1847 he was, much to his surprise, 

 elected to honorary membership in that body in the following year. 



Grove Karl Gilbert was the fifth born and the fourth son in a family of seven children, 

 only three of whom, an older brother and sister and Karl himself, lived to maturity. His 

 little home in Rochester, known as the " Nutshell," was one of small means and high principles. 

 About the time of Karl's birth, his father and mother both withdrew on account of some deep 

 religious conviction from the Presbyterian Church with which they had been previously con- 

 nected, and joined no other, even though lack of church membership left them socially isolated 

 in a community of churchgoers. Karl was therefore never sent to Sunday school and did not 

 receive what the Orthodox would have considered proper religious instruction, nor did he form 

 the habit of attending church; but his father was of a deeply religious nature and talked much 

 and earnestly on religious matters with his children. In so far as the son's pure and serene 

 character came from home teaching, his parents must have been well satisfied. 



BOYHOOD IN ROCHESTER 



But who shall say how far character is affected by early teaching and how far it is inborn ? 

 Scientific tastes do not seem to have been especially encouraged by Karl's home influences, 

 yet close observation as a first step in their development was begun early; for when still a 

 little fellow, 5 or 6 years old, he ran in from the garden one morning, calling in excitement 

 to his father: " The onions are up!" The father went out to see them, and finding no onions 

 in sight turned to chide the boy for telling what was not true; but little Karl insisted until 

 his father, kneeling down to see better, detected the minute sprouts hardly above the soil. 



Other stories of Karl's boyhood preserved among family memories show a gentleness 

 and forbearance that were characteristic of the man in later life. Once when his classmates 

 were crowding out from a schoolroom, he was pushed down a flight of stairs, and although 

 not seriously hurt by the fall he fainted and much excitement followed. On his return to 



