George Washington Armstrong was born on August 11, 1836 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He was a descendant of a family of emigrants from the North of Ireland, David and Mahalia (Lovering) Armstrong, who settled about 1722 in the Scotch-Irish stronghold of Londonderry, but later moved to Windham.
Armstrong studied in the noted Old Hawes Grammar School, but his education was cut short on the death of his father in 1851.
Penny postman in South Boston, office boy for the South Boston Gazette, newsboy on State St. , and news agent for nine years on the Boston & Worcester Railroad with occasional relief as a brakeman, baggage handler, and conductor, mark the rungs of his rising ladder.
In 1863, he purchased a half-interest in the restaurant at the Boston terminal of the Boston & Albany Railroad. Eight years later, he was able to buy out his partner.
In 1865, he purchased King's Express, which operated over the Boston & Worcester Railroad, changing the name to Armstrong's Transfer. With a couple of coaches and a Berlin carriage, Armstrong's men transferred baggage and passengers from the Boston & Worcester station to the North End terminals.
In 1869, the restaurant and news concession on the Fitchburg division were taken over. Soon the Armstrong Company controlled the transfer, news, and lunchroom service on the Boston & Albany, the Old Colony, the eastern section of the Boston & Maine, and the Boston, Revere & Lynn Railroads. The employees numbered several hundred.
Armstrong did a prosperous business. Travelers appreciated his reliable service and reasonable rates, and rewarded him with an ever increasing patronage. In 1882, the concern, with a virtual monopoly of business on the New England railways, was reorganized as the Armstrong Transfer Company with George W. Armstrong as president. With Yankee intuition, he had found a new line of endeavor and developed a tremendous business.
His later years were spent in his Brookline residence, where he had gathered a good library and a rich collection of antiques and bric-a-brac, and in a quiet summer cottage at Centre Harbor, N. H. Yet his business cares were heavy, for in addition to the Armstrong Transfer, he was a director of the Worcester, Nashua & Rochester Railway, the Manchester & Lawrence Railroad, and the United States Trust Company.
It is known that Armstrong had a strong constitution, pluck, and the racial characteristic of aggressive tenacity.
Armstrong was twice married. In 1868 he was married to Louise Marston of Bridgewater, who died in 1880; and in 1882 to Flora E. Greene, daughter of a distinguished Boston physician, Dr. Reuben G. Greene; he had two children by each wife.
