William Reed, Jr.

Editor and proprietor, Taunton Mass Daily Gazette.

His paternal ancestors settled in Woburn, early in the Colonial period, and several generations resided in Newbury and Newburyport ... Harvard grad, 1864

family

William Reed, Jr., son of William Reed & Sophia Ladd, was born 2 Dec 1842 in Newburyport, Essex, Massachusetts. He died 9 Oct 1913 in Taunton, Bristol, Massachusetts. William married Katharine Tracy Hale on 26 Dec 1870 in Newburyport, Essex, Massachusetts, who died 20 May 1903.

They had the following children:

1. William Hale Reed was born 17 Feb 1874.
2. Ernest Reed was born 8 Jan 1876. He died 6 Aug 1876.
3. George Hale Reed was born 26 Jun 1877.
4. Catherine Reed was born Oct 1879,
5. Sophia Reed was born 27 Aug 1881.

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biography

from Massachusetts of Today: A Memorial of the State, Historical and Biographical, Issued for the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago Daniel P. Toomey, Thomas Charles Quinn Columbia publishing Company, 1892 - Massachusetts - 619 pages. Page 481. "William Reed, Jr."

WILLIAM REED, JR., is a descendant of the old families which landed in Newbury and began the contest with the wilderness of New England in 1636. The maternal ancestor was one of the little band to which land was granted in what was then Haverhill, and the first farm marked out by metes and bounds was his. By the re-location of State lines the old homestead site is now in the town of Hampstead, N. H. The history of the early settlement of that town is stained with blood, as Indian raids down the Merrimack River were many. The records tell of fierce fighting, daring deeds, and the death of more than one of the family under the hatchet of the savage while the struggle for mastery was going on. Both his great grandfathers served in the Revolutionary War, one at Bunker Hill, the other at Stillwater, where a British bullet lamed him for life.
He was born in Newburyport in 1842, and, after preparing for college in the high schools of that city and Cambridge, entered Harvard College and was graduated as one of the prize men of the class of 1864. He began life as a teacher and was principal of the high schools of Edgartown and Nahant, Mass., Watertown, N. Y., and Erie, Penn. His attention was attracted to journalism, and he became connected with the Fall River News, first, next with the Herald of Helena, Montana, afterwards with the Providence Herald, and finally with the Taunton Daily Gazette, which he bought in 1872 and has edited and managed since.
Mr. Reed has been an untiring worker and has built up his newspaper property so that it stands in the front rank of the provincial press of the State, and has much more than a local reputation. He has been a very active citizen of Taunton, and has often been called to fill positions of trust and responsibility. He has been president of the Board of Trade, sewer commissioner, member of the School Committee, has represented the district twice in the Legislature and once in the Senate, and served as an active and influential leader in all things that have tended towards the commercial, moral and social advancement of the city. While serving in the Legislature he was made a member of the convict labor commission of the State, and was the author of the report which led to the establishment of the reformatory at Concord and the separation of convicts into two grades. He is also one of the directors of the largest corporation with headquarters at Taunton — The Massachusetts Real Estate Company — which has large investments in the East and West. He is also president of the Massachusetts Press Association, and is connected with a large number of social, literary and business enterprises at his home and abroad. Always a Republican, in the councils of that party he has held an honored place, and has been often upon the stump in advocacy of its principles, preferring to work for the election of others to office rather than for himself, on the ground that the man who conducts a modern newspaper successfully has scope and work enough to demand the employment of all his time and energy.

Origins

William Reed and Sophia Ladd had the following children:

1. William b. 1841/2, Newburyport d. Oct. 9, 1913, Taunton
2. Milton b. Oct./1/1848 d. Sept. 18, 1932
3. Waldo b. June 2, 1850, Newburyport
4. Sophia b. Jan 14, 1845 ; d. Sept. 6, 1846
5. Maria b. Aug. 17, 1846 d. Nov. 1854, Iowa

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• http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~malden/reedladd/w...
• Harvard's Biographical sketch