USA > Connecticut > History of Connecticut, Volume III > Part 24
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OLIVER BUCKLAND ELLSWORTH
Widely known in his state's banking and business circles, Oliver Buckland Ellsworth is currently the president of the Riverside Trust Company at Hartford. This firm was formed from the merger of the Riverside Trust Company and The Portland Trust Company, and he formerly held office as president of both of those organizations. He serves on a number of boards of directors, and has performed work in posts of public trust at the city and state levels.
Born on July 17, 1897, he is a son of Herbert E. and Emma F. (Lincoln) Ellsworth of Portland, and is a descendant of two of the state's earliest families. One branch is traced back to Josiah Ellsworth of England, who came to this country about 1650 and became the father of the famous Oliver Ellsworth of Windsor. The Buckland branch of the family is traced back to the Labeques of France, who came to the Connecticut Valley at the time of the French Revolution.
After graduating from Portland High School and Middleton Business College, Oliver B. Ellsworth enlisted in the United States Army in May, 1917. First assigned to the Ambulance Corps, he ob- tained a transfer to a combat group and had attained the rank of captain when he was discharged in 1919. Prior to leaving the service, he was in charge of the appraisal of army medical property at Dijon, France.
On leaving the army in October, 1919, he became a clerk in the old First National Bank of Portland and five years later, when he was elected to the presidency at the age of twenty-seven, he was the youngest bank president in the state of Connecticut. A year later the First National Bank and the Freestone Savings Bank, also of Port-
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land, merged into the Portland Trust Company and Mr. Ellsworth became treasurer of the new institution.
In 1932, he entered the Hartford banking field as vice president of the Riverside Trust Company and that same year advanced to the presidency. Three years later he was also elected president of The Portland Trust Company, the bank in which he had started as a clerk sixteen years earlier. The Riverside Trust Company and The Portland Trust Company were merged in 1950 under the name of the former institution, and with Mr. Ellsworth as president.
In addition to his banking affiliations, Oliver B. Ellsworth has been active in the state's industrial and commercial life generally. He has been a member of the board of directors of The Silex Company since 1941; a director of The Fuller Brush Company since 1948; a director of The Silex Company, Ltd., of Canada since 1949; a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston since 1953; a director of the Hartford Chamber of Commerce since 1953. In 1954 he became a corporator of The Hartford Hospital; and he became a director of J. Watson Beach, Inc., the following year. As a banker, he is active in the Connecticut Bankers Association and has served on its legisla- tive committee since 1951. He has been a member of the finance com- mittee of the Metropolitan District of Hartford since 1952, and a director of Governmental Research Institute, Inc., since 1957.
He has also been active in civic and state affairs. From 1938 to 1942 he was a member of the Board of Finance of the City of Hart- ford. He was chairman of the State Board of Fisheries and Game from 1935 to 1938, and during World War II, was Hartford chair- man of the Connecticut War Finance Committee, which established a national record for the sale of war bonds. He was a member of the five-man commission appointed by the governor to study the or- ganization of the state government, as authorized by the 1949 Con- necticut Legislature. He is a past president of the Middletown Rotary Club and past vice commander of the Department of Connecticut, American Legion.
Mr. Ellsworth is a member of the Hartford Club, Hartford Golf Club, Newcomen Society of North America, and the Free and Accep- ted Masons. In the Masonic order, he is a member of the higher bodies up to and including the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is a member and trustee of the Portland Meth- odist Episcopal Church. His favorite outdoor sports are hunting and fishing.
On September 22, 1937, Oliver Buckland Ellsworth married Bes-
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sie Miller, a native of Bloomfield, and daughter of Robert and Addie Mae (Burnham) Miller. Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth reside at 35 Bloom- field Avenue, Hartford. Mr. Ellsworth is the father of two children: I. Oliver Buckland, Jr., who was born on July 29, 1920, and lost his life in action on Iwo Jima in 1945, while serving as platoon sergeant in the U. S. Marine Corps. He had graduated from Loomis Institute at Windsor, just prior to his enlistment. He was married to Caroline Woods of Beaufort, South Carolina, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jasper Woods. Oliver, Jr., and Caroline (Woods) Ellsworth were the parents of one daughter, Jacquelyn, who was born at Beaufort, South Carolina, on September 24, 1944. She is now attending Ashley Hall in Char- leston, South Carolina. 2. Lenore, born on April 8, 1925. She attended Dana Hall and Wellesley College, and is married to Mr. James Jarvis Preble of West Hartford. They have three children: i. Lenore Bald- win Preble, born May 18, 1946. ii. Linda Ellsworth Preble, born May 22, 1947. iii. Susan Jarvis Preble, born May 9, 1952.
RAYMOND A. GIBSON
Raymond A. Gibson, president and a director of The Hartford Electric Light Company, was born in Washington, New Jersey, on December 15, 1900. His parents were the late Arthur Gibson and Minnie Woodruff Gibson.
He was graduated from Binghamton (New York) High School in 1919 and from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as an electrical engineer in 1923.
Joining the sales department of The Hartford Electric Light Company, he was to serve in numerous capacities, including sales engineer, editor of the company's employee magazine, "The Illumi- nator," advertising manager, commercial manager and assistant to the vice presidents. He was made sales manager in 1945 and vice president in 1950.
He was elected a director in 1954 and became president in 1956. He received further national recognition from the electric utility in- dustry in 1959 with his election to a three-year term as a director of the Edison Electric Institute.
Mr. Gibson has served the business, civic, and religious commu- nities of Greater Hartford with distinction. He is a director of Aetna (Fire) Insurance Company, Arrow-Hart & Hegeman Electric Co., Connecticut Printers, Inc., The Torrington Company and Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company, and is a trustee of the Society for Savings.
Conn. III-20
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He is a vice chairman of the Committee for Hartford, a director and former president of Junior Achievement of Hartford, Inc., and a director and former vice president of the Hartford Chamber of Commerce. He is also a director of the Manufacturers Association of Hartford County, a corporator of the Institute of Living, and a regent of the University of Hartford.
For a number of years he served in various offices of the Greater Hartford Community Chest, the Y.M.C.A., and the Children's Serv- ices of Connecticut. He served for ten years in Troop C, 122nd Ca- valry, Connecticut National Guard, resigning in 1936 as a first lieu- tenant.
He is senior warden of Trinity Episcopal Church, and a member of the Hartford Club, the University Club of Hartford, and the Hart- ford Golf Club.
He was married in June, 1932 to Miss Ruth M. Burdick of Hart- ford, and he and Mrs. Gibson make their home in West Hartford.
DR. EDMUND BURKE BOATNER
For over two decades, Dr. Edmund Burke Boatner has served as superintendent of the American School for the Deaf, at West Hart- ford. He is a civil engineer by training, but his profound interest in the education and rehabilitation of the handicapped brought him to his present post.
A native of Potts Camp, Mississippi, he was born on March 20, 1903, son of Franklin Pierce and Mary Edwards (Wills) Boatner. His father, a graduate in medicine at the University of Louisville, practiced as physician and surgeon in Mississippi, and from 1920 to 1928 served in the Mississippi State Senate.
On completing his public school studies, Edmund Burke Boatner attended Millsaps College from 1919 to 1921, and the University of Illinois in 1921-1922. In 1925 he graduated in civil engineering from the University of Mississippi, and in 1933 took further courses at Gallaudet College, leading to the degree of Master of Arts. He also took graduate work at Pennsylvania State College in 1933 and at Columbia University in 1934-1935. His degree of Doctor of Letters was received from Gallaudet College in 1952.
He began his career as a civil engineer on United States govern- ment flood control work with the Mississippi River Commission at New Orleans in 1925. The next year he left for Chicago, where he joined the Illinois Central Railroad as a civil engineer. In 1927-1928
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he worked in the same capacity for the B-W Construction Company of Chicago, engaged on large building projects at Memphis, Min- neapolis, and Cleveland. In 1928 he became associated with the H. K. Ferguson Company, engineers, of Cleveland, for which organization he served as civil engineer and assistant director of purchases until 1932.
In that year, Dr. Boatner relinquished his engineering career, and entered Gallaudet College, where he took special training in teach- ing the deaf. When this training was completed, he became vocational principal of the New York School for the Deaf in New York City, and in 1935, came to his present post in West Hartford as superin- tendent and principal of the American School for the Deaf. He quickly won recognition as an able admininstrator, and an authority on the general education and vocational training of the deaf.
Dr. Boatner is president of Captioned Film for the Deaf, Inc, and a trustee of the Society for Savings at Hartford. He is a member of the Rotary Club in that city, the 20th Century Club, Hartford Golf Club and of the Cosmos Club in Washington, D. C. His fraternity is Pi Kappa Alpha. He is Congregational in religious faith.
On July 19, 1928, at Jackson, Mississippi, Edmund Burke Boatner married Maxine Tull, daughter of James Porter and Mai (Bailey) Tull. He has one daughter Barbara, born April 30, 1941, a graduate of Chaffe School.
GEORGE ROGERS WILLIS
Executive vice president of the First New Haven National Bank, and treasurer and a member of the board of directors of the High Standard Manufacturing Company of New Haven, manufacturers of target and sport pistols and of revolvers and shoulder arms of high quality, from 1951 until his retirement on July 5, 1958, Mr. Willis is also the owner and operator of the Elm City Appliance Company, the New Haven distributors of Maytag electrical appliances. He is a di- rector of the Connecticut Radio Foundation (Station WELI) and is also a director of the Evergreen Cemetery Association and Fair Haven Union Cemetery.
Mr. Willis was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on July 3, 1888, the son of Fred Lincoln Willis and of Cuba (Hinckley ) Willis. His father, born in 1863, was a locomotive fireman and then a loco- motive engineer between New Haven and Springfield, and he was a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. He was ac- tive in Masonry and died in New Haven in 1933. Mr. Willis's mother
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was born in New Britain, Connecticut, in 1865. Active in the Order of the Easter Star, she died in 1926. Mr. Willis attended New Haven High School and then studied at the American Institute of Banking. He entered the employ of the New Haven County National Bank in 1905, and retired in 1958 as executive vice president of the bank, now known as the First New Haven National Bank. It was in 1927 that he became associated with the High Standard Manufacturing Company, Inc., serving as president of the company from 1928 to 1951. Mr. Willis now holds the post of treasurer in the corporation and is a director.
He has been active in the community and has been treasurer and director of the Connecticut Blue Cross Inc. since its inception in 1937. He is a member of the New Haven Chamber of Commerce and the Kiwanis Club and is a Republican in politics. His social connections include membership in the Quinnipiac Club, the Union League and the New Haven Country Club. He attends religious services at the Calvary Baptist Church in New Haven.
Mr. Willis was married at New Haven on June 17, 19II, to Leah Phillips of Troy, New York, who died on April 19, 1929. Mr. Willis had one son by this marriage, G. Kenneth, born at New Haven on July II, 1912. A graduate of New Haven High School in 1929, he then studied at Exeter Academy and obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Princeton University. An excellent hockey player, he was always captain of his team in school and college, and he played base- ball and football, his proficiency in kicking goals in the latter sport defeating Andover and Yale. He is now vice president of the High Standard Corporation, and he is married to Harriett Toole of New Haven. They have one son, Theodore Rogers, born on July 14, 1946.
Mr. Willis was married for the second time at New Haven on October 14, 1930, to Fannie (Woodward) Searles, born at New Haven, on January 14, 1888, the daughter of Frank A. Woodward and of Fannie (Newton) Woodward. Her father was a farmer and both of her parents are deceased. Mrs. Willis is assistant treasurer of the New Haven Hospital Auxiliary and is in charge of the Coffee Shop and Gift Shop. She is president of the Mary Wade Home for aged ladies, and past regent of the Mary Clapp Wooster Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution of New Haven.
By her first marriage, Mrs. Willis had two sons: 1. Raymond Merritt Searles, born in New Haven, studied at Suffield Academy, attended the University of Virginia for two years, and then received the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Trinity College. He is married to Virignia Peterson, and they have two daughters: Dorothy and Lydia.
Slu H. Plant
Florence M. Plant
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2. Russell Woodward Searles, born in New Haven, attended Suffield Academy and obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts from Trinity College. During World War II, he served as a bombardier in the Army Air Force, and he is now employed by the Southern New Eng- land Telephone Company. He is married to Margaret Mayo and they have two children : Robert Willis and Susan.
JOHN DAVID PLANT
As an industrialist, John David Plant of Hamden, demonstrated the qualities of foresight and resourcefulness in concentrating his attention on a specialized aspect of glove manufacture. He was presi- dent of the John D. Plant Glove Company in New Haven. Apart from his role as manufacturer, he was a leader in organizational and church work, and had served two divinity schools as an official.
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on July 3, 1888, he was a son of James Chapman and Mary Elizabeth (Greenleaf) Plant. In the paternal line he was descended from John Plant, who came to Bran- ford, from England in 1630 with Betty Roundkettle whom he mar- ried; the line continues through John Plant, who was born in 1678 and died in 1752, and married Hannah Whedon, of Boston (1685-1754) ; James (1716-1795) and Bethsheba Page (1716-1803) Plant; Solo- mon (1741-1822) and Sarah Bennett (1747-1815) Plant; David (1783-1851) and Catherine Tomlinson Plant; John David ( 1823- 1860) and Eudocia B. Chapman Plant; and James Chapman ( 1853- 1916) and Mary Elizabeth (Greenleaf) (1855-1927) Plant. James C. Plant was an architect. His wife, too, was of old New England stock.
Spending the years of his boyhood and youth at Glencarlyn, Vir- ginia, John D. Plant attended high school in Washington, D. C., and for his advanced studies entered Cornell University at Ithaca, New York, where he graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1910. He took postgraduate courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.
His first position was as a teller at the Chase National Bank of New York City, a position he left to become assistant to the controller of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, also in New York. He was not happy in this type of work, however, and quit the latter post with no clear idea of what he wanted to do. Shortly afterwards, on the occasion of a visit to an aunt in Vermont, he be- came acquainted with the operators of a small company manufacturing cotton gloves. With this organization, he accepted a position as travel-
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ing representative. thus becoming familiar with the demand for gloves.
In 1918 he came to Connecticut and founded his own firm under the name of John D. Plant. When he first began the manufacture of gloves, his mother cut the first pattern for him and taught him to run the sewing machine. He then went ahead to manufacture cotton work gloves on a small scale. However, he soon learned that large-volume production was necessary in order to meet competition in this phase of glove manufacture, and accordingly he turned his attention to the production of lightweight cotton lisle gloves, designed for the pro- tection of the work, in industrial applications, rather than the protec- tion of the worker's hands. These have wide utility among the manu- facturers of such products as electric fixtures and parts, and in the handling and packing of items with a high finish, to avoid perspiration stains and rusting. The manufacturers of nylon and other sheer stock- ings supply them to workers in their plants to avoid snagging. In this field of glove production, Mr. Plant was a pioneer, being among the first men to recognize the growth of this need in industry. A plant in Branford, under the management of his son, manufactures the cloth from which the gloves are made at the New Haven plant. Mr. Plant was appointed by the court at New Haven as receiver for the Echlin Manufacturing Company. Further evidence of the public con- fidence in his grasp of affairs was seen during World War II when he gave broadcasts on O. P. A. matters over Radio Station WELI at New Haven.
Mr. Plant had an excellent reputation as a businessman. both in industrial circles and among his employees. He was a capable execu- tive, whose foresight and response to the needs of the market resulted in the founding of a sound enterprise, and a distinctive contribution to the economic progress of his community. Dr. William Slate, former Director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experimental Station, New Haven, and a close friend of Mr. Plant contributed the following ap- praisal:
Everyone who knew John Plant well respected and loved him. He had a fine mind, his judgment was sound and his ethics were of the highest order. He was kind, generous and thoughtful. He liked people and people liked him. At golf or on a trip John was the perfect companion. For him play was relaxa- tion, not a business. An independent thinker, he sometimes spoke bluntly, but one soon learned to accept that and admire him for it. The men and women who worked in his factory were completely loyal and held him in highest esteem. He did not coddle them but he was fair-the perfect boss."
For three years, Mr. Plant served as treasurer of the General Theological Seminary in New York, and he held the office of trustee
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and member of the finance committee of the Berkeley Divinity School. He was a devoted lay worker in the Episcopal Church, and a member of the executive council of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut.
His memberships included the Harvard Club of Connecticut, the Graduates Club, Faculty Club, Newcomen Society in America, New Haven Country Club, and Mory's. Fond of golf, he was a member of the Connecticut Senior Golf Association. He belonged to the New Haven Lawn Club Association, and was formerly a member of the Rotary Club.
Mr. Plant was a genial man, with a fine sense of humor. He was fond of good company, and had a talent for enlivening the spirit of any social gathering.
On December 28, 1922, John David Plant married Florence Reynolds Mason, the ceremony taking place at Elmira, New York. She is the daughter of William Ellsworth and Jennie Steele (Rey- nolds ) Mason, and was born in Elmira, New York, September 27, 1895. Her family was among the original founders of the First Episcopal Parish in that city of the Finger Lake section of central New York. Both her grandfather and her father were active vestrymen in that city, and her mother was a member of its Woman's Auxiliary. Ac- cordingly, Mrs. Plant was brought up to consider the church as an important aspect of life. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts de- gree, in 1918, from Elmira College, and took graduate work at Bryn Mawr College the following year. She remained at Bryn Mawr to be- come assistant to the director of the Department of Social Economy and Social Research in 1919-1920. From 1920 to 1922 she was em- ployed by the United States Rubber Company, Lycoming Branch, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, in the Written Standard Practice De- partment and as manager of the Ked Shoe office.
After her marriage to Mr. Plant in 1922, she worked with him for several years in the advertising and sales departments of his glove business.
While in Williamsport her church ties were confined to Sunday attendance but upon coming to New Haven, she transferred by letter to Trinity Church, where she became active and is still a member. She was the first chairman of publicity and promotion of the Connec- ticut Branch of the Woman's Auxiliary of the Episcopal Church in 1941, later serving as recording secretary, vice president and dioce- san president, and as president of the New England Branch of the Woman's Auxiliary. Mrs. Plant was a member of the vestry of Trinity Church from 1955 to 1959. and is active in the Woman's
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Auxiliary and the Missionary and Benevolent Society. She is a mem- ber of the board and past president of Trinity Church Home, which was the first institution to receive state aid for those confined in pri- vate old-age homes. Mrs. Plant was effective in obtaining this aid, thus pioneering in a procedure which has since become common prac- tice. She represents the Episcopal Church on the board of the North- field Conference and is a member of the executive board of the Church Mission of Help. In 1955 she became the first woman appointed to the executive council of the Diocese of Connecticut, where she was a member of a special committee to study the reorganization of the diocese. Mrs. Plant has described the chief element contributing to- ward her Christian development as personal acquaintance with a few devoted women in the church who were especially interested in the practice of daily prayer and in giving help in letters, devotional read- ing and guidance.
In interdenominational circles she has been a member of the business and finance committee of the National Council of Churches of Christ in America. takes part in the work of the New Haven Council of Church Women, and has served the Young Women's Christian Association as vice president and as chairman of the main- tenance committee. Her interest in her college has continued strong and in 1946 she was a member of the executive council of the Elmira Alumnae Association and was the first president of the Elmira Col- lege Club of Connecticut. Mrs. Plant is a member of the American Association of University Women and while legislative chairman in New Haven, made a study of county homes and boards of education. Bulletin Io of that organization's publications contains an impressive series of charts that were the result of her analysis and art work, a graphic talent related to her hobbies of painting in oil and water colors, and photography. Mrs. Plant is a descendant of distinguished ancestors, and holds membership in the Mary Clapp Wooster Chap- ter, Daughters of the American Revolution. In the light of her contri- bution to religious work, it is interesting to note that one of her an- cestors, Michael Humphrey, was one of the signers of the Act of Toleration passed in 1708 allowing "sober dissenters" (not Congre- gationalists) to establish their own public worship in Connecticut.
Mr. and Mrs. Plant became the parents of one son, John David, Jr .. who was born on February 24, 1929, in New Haven. He attended Hopkins Grammar School, Williston Academy, and Syracuse Uni- versity in New York State, where he received his degree of Bachelor of Arts. He married Jacqueline Foulds, and they have six children :
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i. James Stuart. ii. John David, 3rd. iii. William Huntington. iv. Nancy Christine. v. Jocelyn. vi. Jacqueline.
Mr. Plant's death occurred on October 23, 1958. Wherever he was known, in industry and in civic and church connections, he was respected for his qualities of leadership, and admired for his traits of friendliness and integrity. The following comment from resolu- tions passed by officials of the Berkeley Divinity School give an indi- cation of the character of the man as he was known to those who worked with him:
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