Gale, Amory, 1800-1873

Reverend Amory Gale was born in Warwick, Massachusetts and received a Doctor of Medicine degree from Brown University in 1824. He practiced medicine and gave lectures on scientific subjects. He was later ordained an evangelical minister, and served several parishes in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

From the description of Papers of Amory Gale, 1823-1861 (Harvard University, Divinity School Library). WorldCat record id: 229963675

Physician and Unitarian minister who moved around and practiced in the towns of Canton, Scituate, Mansfield, and Medway in Massachusetts, as well as in Woonsocket, Rhode Island and New Hampshire.

From the description of Amory Gale ledgers, 1840-1872. (University of Massachusetts Amherst). WorldCat record id: 50008454

Born on October 15, 1800, the son of a blacksmith and tool manufacturer in rural Warwick, Massachusetts, Amory Gale received his early education at the Chesterfield, N.H., and New Salem Academies and read medicine in nearby Royalston, all as a young man. Hampered by ill health, Gale had a strong desire to enter the ministry, but after attending medical lectures at Dartmouth in 1823, he completed his course of medical studies at Brown, receiving his diploma in 1824.

Beginning as an allopath in Barre, Mass., Gale moved frequently while attempting to establish his practice, passing through Amherst (N.H.) and Canton, Mass., before settling in South Scituate. An instinctive reformer, engaged in the causes of temperance, antislavery, and peace, Gale studied theology under the Unitarian minister Samuel J. May while in South Scituate, and was ordained in Kingston, Mass. in 1844. His ministry, however, was brief. After occupying the pulpit in East Bridgewater, Mass., Southington, Conn., and in Pembroke and Norton, Mass., ill health once again intervened. Too ill for the demands of the ministry, Gale returned to medicine, converting from allopathy to a homeopathic practice more in keeping with his reformist instincts. He built a thriving practice in Woonsocket, R.I., before relocating to East Medway, Mass., in 1853, where his wife had family. Gale remained there until his death on Feb. 20, 1873.

Gale married Martha Leland of Warwick in 1825, with whom he had six children: Caroline (b.1828), Martha (b.1832), Mary (b.1835), James (b.1837), and Annah (b.1840). He is buried in Warwick.

From the guide to the Amory Gale Account books MS 259., 1840-1872, (Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries)