From Website: http://www.rockvillemama.com/caledonia/groutfamily.txt Caledonia GROUT, Aaron Hinman, Josiah, Theophilus & William W. Biography of Josiah GROUT Men of Vermont: Illustrated Biographical History of Vermonters & Sons of Vermont. Ullery. Brattleboro: Transcript Publishing Company, 1894, p 165 (portrait p 165) Josiah GROUT, of Derby [Essex County, Vermont], was born 28 May 1842 [1841 or 1843? sister Sophronia (Mrs. George O. FORD) born 17 September 1842?] in Compton [Province of Quebec], Canada, son of Josiah and Sophronia (AYER) GROUT. 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 [Orleans County, Vermont]. Commenced a course of study at the St. Johnsbury Academy [Caledonia County], which he left to enlist 02 October 1861, as a private in Company I, First Vermont Cavalry. He was mustered in on the organization of his company as second lieutenant, promoted to captain in 1862, and in 1864 was appointed major of the Twenty-sixth New York Cavalry which was organized for frontier service after the St. Albans raid. While serving with the First Vermont he participated in seventeen different engagements and was badly wounded in a skirmish with the partisan leader MOSBY, 01 April 1863. At the termination of the war [Civil War officially ended April 1865] he entered the law office of his brother, General [William W.] GROUT, at Barton [Orleans County, Vermont], where he continued until December 1865, when he was admitted to practice in the Vermont courts. The following year he removed to Island Pond [Essex County, Vermont] where he had charge of the Custom House for three years and also served the same space of time in the same capacity at St. Albans [Franklin County] and Newport [Orleans County]. In 1874 he changed his residence to Chicago [Cook County, Illinois] and afterwards to Moline [Rock Island County], Illinois. 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 agriculturalist 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 Vermont. Republican; represented Newport in the state Legislature in 1872, 1874, and Derby in 1884, 1886, and 1883; was one of the Orleans County senators in 1892; speaker of the House in 1874, 1886, and 1888. Has served as the chief executive officer of the Republican Club at Derby, and was four years vice president and one year president of the Vermont League of Republican Clubs. Liberal in his religious beliefs. Hs 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. [Also Governor of Vermont 1896-1898.] 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 in 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. In October 1867 Major [Josiah] GROUT was united in marriage to Harriet, daughter of Aaron and Nancy (STEWART) HINMAN, one of the leading families of Derby. They [Josiah and Harriet GROUT] have one son, Aaron H. Biography of Aaron Hinman GROUT [son of Josiah] Encyclopedia Vermont Biography: A Series of Authentic Biographical Sketches of the Representative Men of Vermont and Sons of Vermont in Other States. Dodge. Burlington: Ullery Publishing Company, 1912, p 207 Aaron Hinman GROUT, lawyer, Newport [Orleans County, Vermont], was born 18 January 1879 at Rock Island [Rock Island County], Illinois, son of Josiah and Harriet (HINMAN) GROUT. Educated at Derby Academy, graduating in the class of 1896, and at the University of Vermont, class of 1901. Admitted to the Vermont bar in 1904. Held a position in the law office of Young & Young, Newport [Orleans County, Vermont], from 1903 to 1906; has since been in partnership with his father. Republican; executive messenger 1896-1898; executive clerk 1906-1908; secretary of civil and military affairs 1908-1910; chairman of the Republican county convention 1908; delegate to the state convention 1908 and 1910; president of the Republican Club of Newport 1908 and 1910. Mr. GROUT served in Company I, Vermont National Guard as private, corporal and sergeant 1893-1897; captain and aide-de-camp on the staff of Gen. Julius J. ESTEY, brigade commander, 1895-1901; military secretary to the governor with rank of major 1908-1910; and judge advocate with rank of major since 1910. In religious preference a Congregationalist. Member of Memphremagog Lodge No. 65, Free & Accepted Masons; Cleveland Chapter No. 20; Orleans Council No. 19; Malta Commandery No. 10; Memphremagog Grange; Young Men's Improvement Club; Memphremagog Yacht Club, and Kappa Sigma Fraternity. In 1907 he [Aaron Hinman GROUT] married Edith Goddard HART of Chelsea [Suffolk County], Massachusetts; they have one daughter, Eleanor. Biography of William W. GROUT Men of Vermont: Illustrated Biographical History of Vermonters & Sons of Vermont. Ullery. Brattleboro: Transcript Publishing Company, 1894, pp 166-167 William W. GROUT, of Kirby [Caledonia County, Vermont], was born 24 May 1836 in Compton, Province of Quebec, Canada, of American parents. His ancestry is traced back to Dr. John GROUT who came from England in 1630 and settled in Watertown [Middlesex County], Massachusetts. His great grandfather, Elijah GROUT, of Charlestown [Sullivan County], New Hampshire, served as commissary in the Revolutionary War. His grandfather, Theophilus GROUT, settled on the Moose River in the new State of Vermont upon land afterward included in the present town of Kirby, in 1799, and there cleared a large farm which his father, Josiah GROUT, afterwards owned and on which he lived until near the time of his death. William W. GROUT received a common school and academic education, and was graduated at the Poughkeepsie Law School [Dutchess County, New York] in 1857. He was admitted to the bar in December 1857, and settled in the practice of the law at Barton [Orleans County, Vermont]. In July 1862 he was nominated by the Republicans of the [Orleans] county to the office of state's attorney, but declined the nomination and enlisted in a company then being raised in Barton for the Civil War. On its organization he was made captain, and subsequently was promoted to be lieutenant colonel of the Fifteenth Regiment, which was attached to the brigade of General STANNARD, afterward so famous for the repulse of PICKETT's charge at Gettsyburg. The Fifteenth Regiment did not remain at Gettysburg until the close of the battle, but on the afternoon of the second day was ordered to the defense of the First Corps train, then on the way to Westminster [Windham County, Vermont], and liable to attach from STUART's cavalry, which were prowling in the rear of the Union army. A few days after the regiment joined the brigade at Funkstown [Washington County, Maryland], and the next day brought up in front of the enemy at Hagerstown [also in Washington County], and Colonel GROUT with two hundred men from the Sixteenth Regiment went upon the skirmish line against which the enemy was actively demonstrating, while LEE with the bulk of his army was crossing the Potomac. In August 1863 Colonel GROUT was mustered out with his regiment on account of expiration of term of service. In the fall of 1864 the enemy raided St. Albans [Franklin County, Vermont], robbing banks, etc., and by order of the Governor of Vermont, Colonel GROUT was placed in command of the provisional forces raised on the east side of the mountain to guard the Canadian frontier. The Legislature then in session organized three brigades of militia, and Colonel GROUT was elected brigadier general and assigned by the Governor to the command of one of them. In 1865 he was elected state's attorney of Orleans County, and was re-elected in 1866; represented Barton [in the Vermont Legislature] in 1868, 1869, 1870, and 1874; in 1876 was elected to the state Senate from Orleans County, and on organization made president pro tempore of that body; in 1878 was nominated for Congress by the Republicans of the third district, but was beaten by Bradly BARLOW, a greenbacker; in 1880 was elected to the 47th Congress from the third district. By the tenth census, Vermont lost a member, and the third was absorbed by the first and second districts. General GROUT was a candidate for nomination in the second district in 1882, but was beaten by Judge POLAND, ex-member of both House and Senate, and ex-chief judge of the of the Supreme Court. In 1884 General GROUT was nominated by the Republicans of the second district and was elected to the 49th Congress by a majority of nearly thirteen thousand, and has since been re-elected to the 50th, 51st, 52nd, and 53rd Congresses, invariably running ahead of his ticket. He has served on the committees on territories, levees and improvements of the Mississippi River, education, District of Columbia (of which he was chairman in the 51st Congress), expenditures in the interior and treasury departments, and upon the committee on appropriations, of which he is now a member. In the meantime General GROUT has been engaged in an active law practice until quite recently, and all the time interested in agriculture. He now owns and resides upon the old homestead in Kirby where his grandfather settled in 1799, and which has been in the family ever since. In 1860 General GROUT married [Miss?] Loraine M. SMITH, who died in 1868. He has not remarried. Biography of Theophilus GROUT Men of Vermont: Illustrated Biographical History of Vermonters & Sons of Vermont. Ullery. Brattleboro: Transcript Publishing Company, 1894, p 168 (portrait p 168) Theophilus GROUT, of Newport [Orleans County, Vermont], was born 03 September 1848 in Compton, Province of Quebec, Canada, son of Josiah and Sophronia (AYER) GROUT. Early education received in the public schools of Concord, followed by an academic course at the institutions at St. Johnsbury [Caledonia County], Newbury [Orange County] and McIndoes Falls [Caledonia County], after which, as he had resolved to adopt the legal profession as his life work, he commenced his studies in the office of Bisbee & Grout; admitted to the bar of Orleans County at the September term in 1871; commenced practice in the town of Newport; with the exception of one year he spent in Galveston, Texas [the 1880 census of the family of Theophilus GROUT in Newport, Orleans County, Vermont, indicates his wife, Ellen, was born in Texas], he continued his professional career in Newport, having some of the time been in partnership with his brother, Josiah and C. A. PROUTY, Esq., but chiefly by himself; in 1878 was made state's attorney; has been connected with many important cases in the county; in 1880 represented Newport in the state Legislature, in which body he served with marked ability on the committees to which had been entrusted the revision of the statutes and the rules. Mr. GROUT has always taken an active interest in educational affairs; and has acted as superintendent of schools and trustee of Newport Academy. In these duties his early experience must have been of service, for he had been an instructor in his youth, having taught in several educational establishments in the northern part of the state. A member of the Protestant Episcopal church, in which he is a warden and lay reader and is active in the work of the Sunday school. A 32nd degree Mason; is acting prelate of Malta Commandery No. 10, of Newport. When he withdrew from professional practice in 1891 he became editor and proprietor of the "Newport Express and Standard," which journal he continues to publish until the present time. On 25 November 1873 he [Theophilus GROUT] was married to Ellen A., daughter of Charles and Mary (STUBBS) BLACK of Galveston [Galveston County], Texas, and of this union there are issue: Charles T. [age five in the 1880 census] and Addie Lou [age one month in the 1880 census]. [Besides William Wallace, Josiah, and Theophilus of the above biographies, the children of Josiah GROUT and his wife Sophronia AYER included: Helen (GROUT) PERKINS, George, Sophronia (GROUT) FORD, Victoria GROUT, Mary Maria (GROUT) DWINNELL, James, and Susan (GROUT) BALDWIN. Submitter's interest in the GROUT family relates to noting Vermont-Wisconsin connections, e. g., Helen GROUT, born 17 December 1831 and married Martin PERKINS, who died on 26 August 1856 at Stevens Point, Portage County, Wisconsin.] [For additional information on the GROUT family of these biographies, see the address of Theophilus GROUT given at a September 1899 reunion and a news article about the reunion (already online at another website); and printed sources including: (1) Captain John Grout of Watertown & Sudbury, Massachusetts, and some of his descendants ... Grout and allied families ... Henry Whittemore Grout of Waterloo, Iowa. Jones, E., comp. Waterloo, IA: Grout, 1922; (2) Memoir of General William Wallace Grout & Autobiography of Josiah Grout. Grout, Josiah. Newport VT: Bullock, 1919; (3) Descendants of Hudson Grout 1800-1876, Abel Grout 1786-1875 & John Grout 1788-1839; and (4) Lincoln Book: Soldier's Tribute to His Chief. Grout, Josiah. Rutland: Tuttle, 1925; has AYER information.] Submitted by Cathy Kubly