User:RGKMA/sandbox/Francis H. Appleton

Francis Henry Appleton (June 17, 1847 – April 5, 1939) was an American agriculturist and Massachusetts politician.

Biography
Francis Henry Appleton was born June 17, 1847, in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Francis Henry Appleton (1823–1854) and Georgiana Crowninshield Silsbee (1824–1901). His family moved to Salem while he was still an infant, and lived with his maternal grandfather, Nathaniel Silsbee. His paternal grandfather was William Appleton and was a member of the Appleton family.

In 1859, Appleton entered the St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, and graduated from Harvard College in 1869. He became interested in agriculture and settled in Peabody, Massachusetts, where he cultivated an extensive farm. He was the reporter on agriculture for the Massachusetts commissioners at the Vienna Exposition in 1873, and from 1873 to 1875 was curator at the Bussey Institute.

Appleton was a trustee of the Peabody Institute, the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture, the Massachusetts Agricultural College, and served as president of the Essex County Agricultural Society from 1892 to 1895. He was a member of the local farmers' club, the state board of agriculture, the board of control of the state experiment station, an active member of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, of which he was vice-president, and secretary of the Bay State Agricultural Society. In 1887 he was elected secretary of the state board of agriculture, but declined the office.

He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from the 12th Essex district in 1891 and 1892, and in 1893 was a delegate to the national Republican convention. In 1896, he became president of the New England Agricultural Society, and in the same year was appointed to the staff of Governor Wolcott as inspector of rifle practice and retired with the rank of major general. Appleton was also elected a member of the Massachusetts Senate in 1903 and 1904.

Appleton was awarded with the Massachusetts Horticultural Society's Centennial Gold Medal in 1929.

President of the Charitable Irish Society (https://www.charitableirishsociety.org/Past-Presidents), the Sons of the American Revolution, the Perkins Institution for the Blind, the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture, the Essex Institute, the Peabody Institute, the General Theological Library, and the Alumni Association of St. Paul's School.

Trustee of the Massachusetts General Hospital, director of the New England Bank, director of the Stark Mills of Manchester. Governor of the Massachusetts Society of Colonial Wars.

Appleton died April 5, 1939, at his Back Bay residence and was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery.

Massachusetts Horticultural Society Society's Centennial Gold Medal in 1929 https://www.masshort.org/hubfs/Honorary%20Medals.Web.pdf

https://digitalrepository.salemstate.edu/handle/20.500.13013/440

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q106469632

https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Souvenir_of_Massachusetts_Legislators/yP4-AAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=massachusetts+senate+francis+h+appleton+district&pg=PA130&printsec=frontcover