My Genealogy Hound

JAMES GAYLEY, superintendent of furnaces in the Edgar Thomson works, Braddock, was born in Cecil county, Md., in 1855. His father, Samuel A. Gayley, a Presbyterian minister, a native of County Tyrone, Ireland, emigrated to America about 1840, and for thirty-one years has been pastor of one congregation. His wife is Agnes, daughter of Peter Malcolm, a grain-merchant of Baltimore, Md. Our subject received his preliminary education at West Nottingham Academy, Maryland, and at the age of sixteen entered Lafayette College, at Easton, Pa., graduating at that institution in 1876. Mr. Gayley commenced his business career in the capacity of a chemist for the Craine Iron-works at Catasauqua, Pa., and for three years remained with that company. He then identified himself with a large furnace company at St. Louis, where he continued for two and a half years; then went to the E. & G. Brooke Iron company, at Birdsboro, Pa., where he had charge of their blast-furnace department for three years. In 1885 he entered the employ of the Edgar Thomson works, Braddock, as superintendent of the blast-furnace department, which position he now holds. In 1884 he married Julia T., daughter of Col. Curtiss C. Gardiner (a prominent insurance man and lawyer of St. Louis) and Mary (Thurston) Gardiner, daughter of Judge Thurston, of Elmira, N. Y., the latter being a descendant in the sixth generation of Miles Standish. Mr. and Mrs. Gayley are parents of two children: Mary Thurston and Agnes Malcolm. They are members of the Presbyterian Church; he is a democrat.