Honorable George P. Lawrence
In 1897, Hugh Drysdale was congratulated in the North Adams Transcript for his appointment as Private Secretary to Hon. George P. Lawrence, who was also a Drury alumni, and who would eventually be his neighbor on Cherry Street. The two would continue a close connection for years through local law and politics. Hugh would even be a pallbearer at Lawrence’s funeral just ten years after his appointment as Secretary.
George Pelton Lawrence was born in Adams (Mass) in 1859 and attended Drury High School, Williams College, then receive his Baccalaureate from Amherst College. After earning a law degree from Columbia University, he established a law pratice in North Adams. Just a couple years after he began his law career, he was appointed a judge in the Northern Berkshire District Court, where he served from 1885 to 1894 and was the youngest judge in the state.
George was elected to the Massachusetts Senate in 1895 and was its president from 1896 to 1897. But by the time he hired Hugh, he’d already moved on to the U.S. House of Representatives. There he served several terms representing the first congressional district of Massachusetts until he declined to run for re-election in 1913. After leaving politics, George was then offered a position on the public service commission by the Governor Eugene Foss of Massachusetts, only to retire shortly after to care for his ailing wife.
It was to George Lawrence’s home at The Cochran Hotel in Washington, DC that Hugh’s 1905 invitation to the White House was addressed.
George’s wife, Susannah, daughter of Col. John Bracewell, passed away in December of 1914 after an extended illness, and George reportedly suffered bouts of depression after her death. He committed suicide just a few years later in New York and is interred at Hillside Cemetery in North Adams (Mass).