Robert Rantoul Kimball

Information taken from:
The Granite Monthly, Oct, 1909

Robert Rantoul, second son of John Shackford Kimball, born in Boston March 7, 1849, was educated in that city, at the Taconic Institute in Lanesboro, and at the Allen English and Classical School in West Newton, Mass.  He early took an interest in mercantile affairs, securing a position as clerk in a wholesale dry goods house, and progressing step by step, till he formed a partnership with his older brother, the late John Stevens Kimball, under the firm name of Kimball & Co., on Devonshire Street in Boston.  The great fire of November, 1872, destroyed the store and its entire stock, and this business was no longer continued; but the brothers became proprietors of a general store in Hopkinton village, the firm name being Kimball & Co., then Kimball & Harvey, and again Kimball & Co., the younger brother, George A.S., taking the interest of the elder, John S., the latter partnership continuing up to the time of Mr. Kimball's death, May 2, 1904.  For the last thirty years of his life Mr. Kimball had also been actively associated with the well-known Boston merchantile house of Brown, Durrell & Co.

"Elmhurst"

October 30, 1872, he married Ella Louise, daughter of Robert Barclay and Eliza M. (Winans) Currier, and a granddaughter of Dr. Stephen Currier, one of Hopkinton's early physicians.  They established their home in Hopkinton, purchasing the fine old mansion erected by Joseph Towne, the leading merchant of the place more than a hundred years ago, which Mrs. Kimball still retains.  Mr. Kimball was an ardent lover of his adopted town, holding all its welfare closely at heart and taking peculiar interest in the children and the schools.  It was largely through his efforts that the last Hopkinton hotel, widely known as "The Perkins Inn," was built, and he was president of the hotel association.  He was a prominent in Masonry and a member of Mt. Horeb Commandery, K.T., of Concord.