century association biographical archive

Earliest Members of the Century Association

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George C. Lay

Lawyer

Centurion, 1894–1934

Full Name George Cowles Lay

Born 10 June 1850 in New York (Manhattan), New York

Died 30 January 1934 in Saint Paul, Minnesota

Buried Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York

Proposed by Payson Merrill and William Bispham

Elected 5 May 1894 at age forty-three

Archivist’s Note: Brother of Oliver I. Lay; uncle of Charles Downing Lay; great-uncle of Oliver Ingraham Lay

Century Memorial

George Cowles Lay practiced law in New York and St. Paul during sixty-three successive years; appearing before the Minnesota probate court only a year ago, at the ripe age of eighty-three. He was a man of avocations; his long practice of the law was varied by interest in music and history. In the neighborhoods where he lived, Lay was best known as helper of the unfortunate; a quest which friends described as his ruling passion. In the belief of his intimates, he would have come to be a widely-known philanthropist had he accumulated wealth, instead of using his modest surplus for his charities as he earned it.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1935 Century Association Yearbook