Author: Felch, Walton
Biography:
FELCH, Walton (1790-1872: ancestry.com)
He was born in Royalston MA to Nathan and Mary Felch; he is buried in Coldbrook Cemetery in Barre MA along with his wife Mandy (Brigham) Felch (1800-90). He began his working life as a teacher in Boston and brought out several versions of a new method for teaching grammar between 1821 and 1841. One of his brothers, Cheever Felch AM, a clergyman, is cited as a supporter in A Comprehensive Grammar (1837). He appears also to have gone about the state as an itinerant speaker, offering a lecture on the stars. He served as postmaster in Coldbrook (or Cold Brook) MA at least from 1836 to 1842. By 1839, however, he had turned to phrenology and was identified as "the phrenologist." It is surely the same Walton Felch, by then living in Oakham MA, who was Grand Master of the Massachusetts Freemasons in 1856 and 1861. His papers were donated to the Worcester Historical Society. (ancestry.com 29 Nov. 2018; WorldCat; Proceedings of the Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters of Massachusetts [1870] 65) HJ