The Gale Family and Education

In addition to being staunch abolitionists, the Gale family was not only involved in farming, law, and politics, but also in education.  Later on as the Civil War progressed, their cousin in Wisconsin was involved in Sanitation which was very much needed due to the number of Civil War deaths involving water and food contamination.   

Judge George Gale was a third cousin of Henry Wallace Gale per my preliminary research from ancestry.com.  Judge George Gale was one of the founders of Galesville, Wisconsin and Gale College.  He was a member of the Free Soil Party, a lawyer, a judge, and an educator.  He also wrote a book on the Gale family history.  Here is what Wikipedia says about him:

George Gale (November 30, 1816 – April 18, 1868) was a Wisconsin pioneer, judge, and legislator.  Born in Burlington, Vermont, Gale was admitted to the Vermont bar. He then moved to Wisconsin Territory, where he practiced law in Walworth County, Wisconsin serving as District Attorney and as a member of the second Wisconsin Constitutional Convention of 1847-1848.^[1]In 1850-1851, Gale served as a Free Soil Party member of the Wisconsin State Senate's 14th District.^[2] Gale moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin, where he became a Wisconsin county judge and then was elected a Wisconsin Circuit Court judge. Gale bought land north of La Crosse and helped plat the city of Galesville, Wisconsin in order to found Gale College; he is responsible for the creation of Trempealeau County, Wisconsin.^[3] During the American Civil War, Judge Gale served with the United States Sanitary Commission. He died in Galesville.^[4][5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gale_(Wisconsin_politician)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galesville,_Wisconsin


Here is a picture of him, courtesy of
 http://www.wisconsincentral.net/Towns/Towns/Galesville.html

Judge George Gale

With this picture, you can see the characteristic Welsh Gale family long face, curly hair and taller, slim features of the Gales.

There is also a Galesburg, Illinois that was involved with the underground railroad and was founded by another George Gale as well who was also involved in education and the founding of Knox College.  I have not yet concluded his family relationship to the Volo Gales.   Per Wikipedia:

Galesburg was founded by George Washington Gale,^[3] a Presbyterian minister from New York state who dreamed of establishing a manual labor college (which became Knox College). A committee from New York purchased 17 acres (0.069 km²; 0.027 sq mi) in Knox County in 1835, and the first 25 settlers arrived in 1836. They built temporary cabins in Log City near current Lake Storey, just north of Galesburg, having decided that no log cabins were to be built inside the town limits.

George Washington Gale (fair use)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galesburg,_Illinois

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Gale


As I have revealed in my book about Henry Wallace Gale, he was a teacher.  I did find an old school in Volo that was converted to a business.  I am still trying to research and determine if this was the school he taught at and it appears it may be as it is not very far from the Gale home in Volo, IL.  I took a few pictures of the old building that was modernized and it still has the old chalkboards inside.  The inside of the old Volo School that has now been converted in to a business

https://pixabay.com/en/old-school-room-school-room-527044/

It also appears that H. Wallace Gale's family were the pioneers in Volo, Il (Forksville, IL.), but whether they were the first is something I am still researching.  Without a doubt, the Gale family had their act together for the times, and were organized with a large number of family members and a method that involved their participation in education, politics, law, sanitation, farming, and finally soldiers of the Union.  We can learn a lot from the Gales.  Too bad, there are not a lot of them around, today because we are indebted to them for our quality of life in America.