From Website: http://vermontcivilwar.org/units/ca/grout-j.php 1st Vermont Cavalry Biography Josiah Grout First Vermont and Frontier Cavalry Grout, Josiah, of Derby, son of Josiah and Sophronia (Ayer) Grout, was born of American parents in Compton, Canada, May 28, 1842. When six years of age his father removed to Vermont and he received his education in the public schools and Orleans Liberal Institute at Glover. He also commenced a course of study at the St. Johnsbury Academy, which he left to enlist Oct. 2, 1861, as a private in Co. I, 1st Vt. Cavalry. He was mustered in on the organization of his company as 2d lieutenant, promoted to captain in 1862, and in 1864 was appointed major of the 26th N. Y. Cavalry which was organized for frontier service after the St. Albans raid. While serving with the 1st Vt. he participated in seventeen different engagements and was badly wounded in a skirmish with the partisan leader Mosby, April 1, 1863. At the termination of the war he entered the law office of his brother, General Grout, at Barton where he continued till December, 1865, when he was admitted to practice in the Vermont courts. The following year he removed to Island Pond where he had charge of the Custom House for three years and also scrved the same space of time in the same capacity at St. Albans and Newport. In 1874 he changed his residence to Chicago and afterwards to Moline, Ill. While at Newport, before going West, he practiced his profession with very great success, ranking high as a lawyer and especially excelling as a jury advocate. In 1880 he returned to Vermont and has since devoted himself solely to his extensive model stock farm, his chief delight being farming – and it well done. Major Grout's efforts as an agriculturist and stock raiser have met with great success and he possesses some of the finest Jersey cattle, blooded Morgan horses and Shropshire sheep in the Green Mountain state. Major Grout was united in marriage, October, 1867, to Harriet, daughter of Aaron and Nancy (Stewart) Hinman, one of the leading families of Derby. They have one son: Aaron H. Major Grout is an earnest Republican. He represented Newport in the Legislature in 1872, 1874, and Derby in 1884, 1886 and 1883. He was one of the Orleans county senators in 1892. He was speaker of the House, in 1874, 1886 and 1888. He has served as the chief executive officer of the Republican Club at Derby, and was four years vice-presdent and one year president of the Vermont League of Republican Clubs. He is liberal in his religious belief and has been raised to the sublime degree of a Master Mason. During the three years he was in Chicago, he built up a nice law practice which was reluctantly exchanged for business prospects at Moline, where for two years he was one of the supervisors of Rock Island county. He devotes himself industriously and with conscientious purpose to the accomplishment of all his undertakings and can be literally regarded as one of those who does with his might whatever his hands find to do. Particularly is this characteristic of faithfulness noticeable in the work he has bestowed in improving and developing his farm and stock, which with a pardonable pride he so cheerfully shows all who call to see him. Source: Jacob G. Ullery, compiler, Men of Vermont: An Illustrated Biographical History of Vermonters and Sons of Vermont, (Transcript Publishing Company, Brattleboro, VT, 1894), Part II, pp. 165. Source: VermontCivilWar.Org Database. Contributor: Tom Ledoux.