Bailey, Halcyon Gilbert

NUGGET #2

Bailey, Halcyon Gilbert (1828-1905) married Emily Keeler of Ridgebury Road in 1854; Bedini describes satirical campaign Gilbert ran, complete with posters, for office of town hayward — posters generally made fun of women and promoted drinking; Emily divorced him by 1880; in 1908, national news stories reported his daughter, Dr. Annie Keeler Bailey (q.v.), asked court to change her name to Keeler to “free the honor of her mother’s family from the taint arising from the name of her father.” “Father,” she was quoted as saying, “was a man addicted to excessive dissipation, shocking immorality and profanity. He was a disgrace to the family”; buried in Peach Lake Cemetery, North Salem.

From Jack Sanders, Who Was Who in Ridgefield.

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