1851–1921 — Born Lowell, 13 December 1851; died at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, 16 April 1921 (monument; Lowell Sun).
Also recorded as: Judge Lilley; Charles S. Lilley.
Bonney’s son-in-law and successor in the house, where he lived from 1896 until his death in 1921.[sources]
Lilley was a Lowell boy, the grandson of an Oldham cotton man, educated in the public schools and by tutors; he worked first as a carpet designer at the Lowell Manufacturing Company before reading law with Arthur Bonney and joining the bar in June 1877. His practice was corporate — mills, railways, tax cases against the city — and his politics Democratic. The Lowell Sun’s 1893 profile, written when Governor Russell put him on the Superior Court bench, notes that he had "married a few years ago, Miss Bonney".
After his wife’s death in 1894 and his father-in-law’s in 1896 he stayed on in the house with his small daughter, left the bench in 1900, and in 1899 commissioned the family memorial at Lowell Cemetery. He gave his daughter away in the house in 1917. The Sun’s obituary says that in later years he "sought few personal acquaintances following the untimely death of his wife and lived a secluded life among his books", though "in earlier life his affability and good comradeship won him a wide circle of friends". He died in a Boston hospital in April 1921; "many jurists" came to the funeral "at the late home, 236 Fairmount street".
The Bonneys’ only child marries the lawyer Charles Sumner Lilley, who had trained in her father’s office. Lilley’s 1921 obituary gives the date as 14 April 1891; a library account, citing the Boston Globe, places the ceremony in the drawing room on Fairmount Street.[sources]
DocumentedClara (Bonney) LilleyCharles Sumner Lilley
What is uncertain: Three dates are in print — 4, 14 and 15 April 1891; the 1891 newspapers are not online.
Governor William E. Russell names Lilley — who had read law in Bonney’s office and served in the state senate — to the Massachusetts Superior Court. The Lowell Sun printed a long profile on 23 November 1893.[source]
DocumentedCharles Sumner Lilley
Three months after the birth of her daughter, Clara dies at her home on Sherman Street "after a long and painful illness". The funeral is held from her father’s house on Fairmount Street. The Sun called her "sympathetic and generous to a rare degree".[source]
DocumentedClara (Bonney) LilleyClara Bonney (Lilley) Dunbar
What is uncertain: The cause of death given in modern accounts (pyaemia, a form of sepsis) has not yet been checked against the certificate.
Bonney dies "at his home on Fairmount street", aged 68. His only descendant is his infant granddaughter, Clara Bonney Lilley. His son-in-law stays on; the house remains in the Bonney estate.[sources]
A bronze figure by Frank Edwin Elwell, "New Life", in a granite surround by the architects Brite & Bacon, is set up over the family lot at Lowell Cemetery. Lorado Taft’s 1903 history of American sculpture lists it as "property of Hon. Charles Sumner Lilley, called the Bonney Memorial, 1899"; the architectural press published it in January 1901.[sources]
The city’s published tax lists show Charles S. Lilley at 236 Fairmount Street and the property assessed to Bonney’s heirs — the judge living in a house held for his daughter.[source]
AttributedCharles Sumner LilleyClara Bonney (Lilley) Dunbar
What is uncertain: Read from newspaper tax columns; the probate and deed chain for 1896–1925 has not yet been pulled.
Bonney’s granddaughter, a Wellesley graduate of 1915, marries a Boston lawyer "at the home of the bride", given away by her father Judge Lilley. The house "was decorated in an artistic manner".[source]
Charles Sumner Lilley dies at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston after a brief illness, aged 69. The Sun writes that he had "lived a secluded life among his books" since his wife’s death. On 20 April "many jurists" attend the funeral "at the late home, 236 Fairmount street". Burial is in the family lot at Lowell Cemetery.[source]
DocumentedCharles Sumner Lilley