George A. Gale, son of Rev. Elbridge and Elizabeth Gale, was born in Vermont in 1854. He arrived on the shores of Lake Worth in February 1885 from McPherson, Kansas. His father had retired and come to the lake three months earlier. George was accompanied by his wife, the former Mattie J. Alexander, whom he had married in Kansas on 14 June 1879, and their young son, William E., born 17 December 1883. They also brought along George’s niece, Nellie B. Simpson, age thirteen.
George, a carpenter, helped his father build the first log cabin on the west side of the lake, located in Mangonia, today’s Northwood Hills. The logs came from the lake front, and the shingles were cut from wreckage found on the ocean beach. They topped it with a steep palmetto-frond roof.
George became a fruit and poultry farmer. In the mid 1 880s, he took over as postmaster of Lake Worth (original name of the Palm Beach postoffice) from ailing V.0. Spencer. He was also superintendent of the Lake Worth and Jacksonville Transportation Company in 1889. By 1896, he had a general merchandise business in Mangonia. Next, George went into partnership with R.E. Oliver in a car dealership in West Palm Beach. He sold Studebaker and Paige cars.
George died 6 March 1922. Mattie died five months later, and they are both buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, West Palm Beach.
His son, William E. Gale, was a blacksmith. He and his wife, Elizabeth, lived at 431 Jessamine, West Palm Beach, and had two children, George Iven and Clara, who married a Bailey.
Nellie Blanche Simpson married William E. Poland, a contractor, and had four children:
* W.E., Jr., Claude, Florence and Lucille. Nellie died 11 July 1934, W.E. died 6 July 1948, and both are buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, West Palm Beach.
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