Gardner Gale - H. Wallace Gale's Father

If you look hard enough you can find out many things about the past, hidden away in esoteric and antiquated books.  The subject of interest at a haunting, Henry Wallace Gale, was a young man who had everything to live for before he died suddenly during the Civil War from Typhoid Fever.  His father, Gardner Gale, moved the family to Volo, Illinois from Vermont and was active in the community.  From the book, The Past and Present of Lake County, Illinois by Brookhaven Press/Schuler Books (originally printed in 1877) we can find a quick summary about Henry Wallace Gale's father.  His father was married twice which was not uncommon as many women died from childbirth complications back then.  He had four children with his first wife, Sophronia Smith, and he had six children by his second wife, Louisa Williams. He moved the family to Volo, Illinois in 1853. He was the Road Commissioner and School Director.  He was a farmer who owned 339 acres of land that was worth $8000 back in 1854.  His son, Henry Wallace Gale, who was a teacher at the Volo school, died at the age of twenty, in a hospital on February 16, 1863 in Nashville, Tennessee, after enlisting in the Union Army.