My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE B. CANTERBURY, a retired farmer of Ware, is a native of this town, where his birth occurred in 1837, and a son of Henry and Melintha (Leach) Canterbury. Henry Canterbury, born in Hingham, Mass., in 1799, who was a successful agriculturist of Ware, married for his first wife a daughter of Joseph Hawes, of Monson, Mass.; and their union was blessed by the birth of five children. After her death, which occurred at an early age, he married Miss Melintha Leach, born in Belchertown, Mass., about the year 1809, who outlived him five years. Of this marriage there were born a son and daughter, George B. and Elizabeth, the latter residing in Ware. Their father died in 1884, eighty-five years of age.

George B. Canterbury graduated from the public schools of Ware. He then learned the trade of a mason, at which he was employed until the commencement of the Civil War. On November 20, 1861, he enlisted in Company D of the Thirty-first Massachusetts Regiment, and was appointed Third Sergeant of his company. On May 8, 1863, he was wounded at Sabine Cross-roads, being shot through the lungs and liver. While disabled in this way he was taken prisoner and confined in the rebel prison at Mansfield, La., for ten months. He was then paroled, and returned to his home on a sixty days’ furlough. After three years of service he was honorably discharged. By this time he had been promoted to the rank of First Sergeant, and was brevetted as First Lieutenant. For fifteen years prior to making his home in Ware he conducted a large dairy farm in the town of Hardwick, Worcester County, where he was one of the most progressive farmers of that section, and put in the first creamery used in that vicinity. He sold this establishment in February, 1895.

On August 9, 1864, he was married to Miss Martha J. Esterbrook, of Holden, Mass., a daughter of Josiah Esterbrook. She bore her husband three children, namely: Maud S., who married Emery Barnes, of Ware, and died June 1, 1893, the third day after her mother’s death; Grace, who is the second wife of Emery Barnes; and Alvah G. Canterbury, a successful engineer, who married Miss Grace Campbell, of Ware. Their mother was fifty-four years of age at the time of her death. Mr. Canterbury is a stanch Republican. He has served as Constable for eleven years, and during his residence in Hardwick he was Road Commissioner for three years. He has also served on the police force in Ware for fifteen years, during which period he proved himself one of the most efficient and vigilant officers the town has had. He is a Master Mason, and is a member of J. W. Lawton Post, No. 85, Grand Army of the Republic, of which he has served as Adjutant. He is now residing with his daughter, Mrs. Barnes, in Ware.