Lorenzo Gile, M. D. was born May 20, 1814, in Stephentown, Rensselaer Co., N. Y.  He is of Scotch-Irish descent.  His father, Asa Gile, was born in Massachusetts, and was a Revolutionary soldier under General Washington.  He entered the army at the age of fifteen.  His discharge from the service, signed by General Washington at his headquarters, bears date June 9, 1783, for six years' faithful service in the First Massachusetts Regiment.  He married Nancy Monroe, of Spencertown Columbia Co., and reared a family of four children, of whom Lorenzo was the youngest.  Asa Gile died in February, 1837, and his wife, Nancy Gile, in 1860, having survived him twenty-three years.

     The early life of Lorenzo was spent on a farm in his native town, where he was a student at home, and attended the district school, to which, in early boyhood, he walked five miles, and returned the same distance each day.  He was a diligent and thorough student.  In 1834 he commenced the study of medicine with Henry D. Wright, M. D., of New Lebanon, and graduated at the Berkshire Medical College, of Pittsfield, Mass., in December, 1839.  He first commenced practice in Wayne Co., N. Y, remaining part of a year, when he settled as a physician in Canaan, Columbia Co., N. Y., where he continued in successful practice for over thirty years, and was largely identified with the public interest of the locality.  He has been through life a man of strictly temperate habits and of a vigorous constitution.  Well read in his profession, and possessing a large fund of general information, he naturally took a leading part in all matters pertaining to the welfare of his town and county, and has been as thoroughly finished [unreadable] duties morally as intellectually, being a man of unswerving integrity and fidelity to principles, as well in the smallest details of public and private business as in the greater concerns of life.  An anti-slavery man form conviction; and although for a time politically in the minority, he was often elected to office, because the people knew that he could be trusted.  In 1850, 1857, 1872, 1873, and 1874 he was elected a member of the board of supervisors, was chairman of the board in 1873, and a member of the Legislature in 1858.  He was a member for many years of the Columbia County Medical Society, and an honorary member of the Berkshire Medical Society.

     [p. 331] On the 4th day of July, 1837, he was united in marriage to Miss Eliza A. Dean, of New Lebanon, N. Y., by whom he had one child, William A. Gile, born on the 3d of October, 1844, and at present residing in Stephentown, Rensselaer Co., where he is engaged in mercantile pursuits.  She died on the 3d of January, 1851, and on the 8th of September, 1853, he married for his second wife Harriet C. Cornwell, of New Lebanon, by whom he has one daughter, Lizzie A., who is residing at home.

     After a life of unusual activity, Dr. Gile was suddenly stricken with paralysis on the 11th of June, 1874.  He had another shock on the 9th of July, 1877, which has hopelessly incapacitated him for business, and, but for his remarkably strong constitution, would probably have terminated his earthly career.  He still survives, although his health is quite feeble, and the tone and activity of his mind considerably impaired.  He has every domestic and medical attention that can ameliorate his condition, his daughter Lizzie especially being unremitting in her care and devotion to him in his critical situation.