Burgess, Joseph Reed

The following data is extracted from Biography and Genealogy of Western Massachusetts, 1639-1925.

Superintendent of schools of Monson, is one of the best known educators of Hampden County and Western Massachusetts. A man of wide education and excellent knowledge of his profession, he has held innumerable responsible and important pedagogical positions in the county, the State, and in Maine, and he is now one of the most highly esteemed members of the teaching profession. He is an active citizen and club and fraternal man of the town and county and is generally recognized as a leader of the pedagogical fraternity.

Joseph Reed Burgess was born in Rockland, May 21, 1893, the son of Horatio B. Burgess, a sole leather buyer, who successively held the posts of chief of fire department and chief of police department in Rockland, and Georgianna Burgess. Joseph Reed Burgess was educated in the public schools of his native town, in the Rockland High School and he took his pedagogical studies in the Bridgewater Normal School, going through all the courses, including the advanced normal subjects. He completed his education in Harvard University. He had been teaching school but a short time when he was appointed principal of the Eastham Grammar School at Eastham, where he remained several years. He then became principal of the Longfellow and Emerson schools at Sanford, Maine, after which he was principal of the Sawyer School, in Gloucester. Massachusetts. His next position was that of assistant superintendent of schools of the Agawam and Ludlow districts, of Hampden County, and soon after he resigned to become superintendent of schools of Monson, Hampden County.

Mr. Burgess is a member of the John Cutler Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, of Abington, the Pilgrim Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons, the Abington Council of the Royal and Select Masters, and the Bethlehem Commandery of the Knights Templar. He also belongs to several educational clubs and social organizations.

Mr. Burgess married Doris R. Price, daughter of Alexander Price, Jr., and Etta Price, in Fairhaven, June 26, 1821. They have one son, Price Bradford Burgess, born February 26, 1923. The Burgess family lives at Palmer Road, Monson.

Source: Biography and Genealogy of Western Massachusetts, 1639-1925

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