CHARLES H. McGILVRAY, Newark, New Jersey.
Thirteen is the number of battles in which Charles H. McGilvray served in the late Civil War, certainly an unlucky number according to the popular superstition, but fortunately Mr. McGilvray was not superstitious when it came to that thirteenth battle, and ere it was time for the fourteenth he was mustered out, having served from 1861 to 1864 in Battery A of the New Hampshire Artillery, under Captain George H. Gerrish. Mr. McGilvray, who is the son of Henry McGilvray, a lumber dealer of Nassau, New Hampshire, was born in that city on May 9, 1841. He secured a good common school education and then learned the machinist's trade, having been head machinist in Amos Grigg's machine shop in Manchester, New Hampshire, prior to 1860. In the fall of that year he took service with the Boston & Lowell Railroad, working as a machinist in the shop and running as extra fireman when his services were required. On returning from the war he took a course in an eastern college, but on October 17, 1866 gave up the idea of following a business life and accepted a position as fireman on the Erie. Two years later he was promoted to engineer and ran freight until 1879, when he was transferred to a switch engine in the Newark yards, which he has run for the past twenty years.

Mr. McGilvray was married on May 3, 1866, to Miss Nettie Quimby, daughter of David Quimby, a shoe-dealer of Manchester, New Hampshire. They have one child, Lewis, a stenographer and typewriter. Mr. McGilvray belongs to Lodge 135, B. of L. E.; Markasell Ward Post, G. A. R., and America Lodge No. 143, K. of P. He owns a fine home at 54 Broad street and has the highest esteem of his many friends and acquaintances.


Excerpted from: "American Locomotive Engineers, Erie Railway Edition," H.R. Romans Editor; Crawford-Adsit Company Publishers, Chicago, IL 1899.