George S. Boutwell

George Sewall Boutwell (January 28, 1818 – February 27, 1905) was an American statesman who served as Secretary of the Treasury under President Ulysses S. Grant, the 20th Governor of Massachusetts, a Senator and Representative from Massachusetts and the first Commissioner of Internal Revenue under President Abraham Lincoln. Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, Boutwell was raised on his family's farm and attended the public schools as a child. He worked as a schoolteacher in Shirley, Massachusetts and as a clerk and shopkeeper in Groton, Massachusetts. In 1836 he began by himself to study law, and was admitted to the bar, but did not enter into active practice for many years. He also began a course of reading, by which he hoped to make up...