KIMBALL, Sumner Increase, organizer and superintendent of the United States Life Saving Service: b. Lebanon, York County, Me., 2 Sept. 1834. He was graduated from Bow doin in 1855; studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1858. In 1859 he served in the State legislature and was a member of the committee on judiciary. In 1862 he became a clerk in the second auditor's office in the Treasury De partment at Washington, and in 1871 was made chief of the Revenue Marine Service. In that position he had occasion to investigate the con dition of the government stations on the New Jersey and Long Island coast where surf boats and other apparatus were stored under the charge of a keeper for use in case of ship wreck; he found the property badly cared for and the service inefficient. Obtaining an ap propriation from Congress he entirely reorgan ized the service, and so successfully that it was soon extended to Cape Cod and other points on the Atlantic Coast. In 1878 the Life Saving
Service was organized as a separate bureau and was extended to the Pacific Coast and the Great Lakes. He was made the head of the bureau and introduced many improved methods, including the patrol system and telephonic con nection between adjacent stations; he also ob tained the passage of the law, to the effect that inspectors, keepers and crews in the service should be appointed on a strictly non-partisan basis °with reference solely to their fitness?) He has also been acting register, acting comp troller and acting solicitor of the Treasury, and in 1889 he was the United States delegate to the International Marine Conference. He has written 'Organization and Methods of the United States Life Saving Service' (1889, the most complete monograph on the subject, and 'Joshua james— Life Saver) (1909).