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RAY. RAY. 503 for a vear to a school in Walpole, N. H. From the age of eight years he was work- ing mornings and evenings for his brother at Unionville, manufacturing twine. From that time until he left school, he was em- ployed in the various departments of the mill, and became quite an expert 111 the work carried on there. 9th congressional district of Massachu- setts. He has for several years past been chairman of the Republican town com- mittee. He is treasurer of Ray's Woolen Com- pany, City Mills Company, Massachusetts & Rhode Island Railroad, and the Milford & Providence Railroad, president of the Franklin Library Association, a director of the Franklin National Bank, and a trustee of Dean Academy, Franklin. Mr. Ray was married at East Black- stone, in 1854, to Emily, daughter of Col. Joseph and Annie Rockwood, by whom he has two children : Lydia P. and Annie R. Ray. The business of Mr. Ray and his asso- ciates, since 1850, has covered all the ground in both cotton and woolen textile industries, from batting to finished cotton cloths, and from shoddy to fancy cassi- meres. RAY, William Francis, only child of Francis B. and Susan B. (Rockwood) Ray, was born in Franklin, Norfolk county, March 2, 1854. JOSEPH G. RAY. In 1850, with his brother Francis, he started the first rag-picker in that district, and laid the foundation of the first shoddy mill in New England, under the firm title of Ray Brothers. In i860 this firm was dissolved, Francis B. Ray retiring. The business was then carried on by J. P. & I. G. Ray, who purchased the Bartlett mill at Woonsocket, R. I., and engaged in the manufacture of cotton sheetings. In 1865 they purchased a woolen mill in North Bellingham, for the manufacture of satinets. In 1870 they built a mill at Franklin Centre for the manufacture of shoddy, and in 1S77 another in Franklin for the manufacture of fancy cassimeres. Joseph G. Ray was chosen to represent Blackstone in the Legislature in 1859, he being then twenty-eight years of age. In 1869 he was elected senator by the Nor- folk district, in which he resided. In 1884 he was elected a delegate to the national Republican convention at Chicago, by the WILLIAM F RAY He enjoyed the educational advantages furnished by the public schools of his na- tive town, preparing for college in Dean Academy, from which he was graduated in 1870. He entered Brown University,