USA > New Hampshire > Sketches of successful New Hampshire men > Part 36
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Mr. Richards was, for some years, one of the largest land-holders and tax- payers in the town. In connection with his farming business he kept a way-side inn, where rest and refreshment awaited the dusty and chilly traveler,-man and beast. This was nearly three-quarters of a century before the scream of the loco- motive was ever heard in this part of New Hampshire, a time when the people were mostly dependent upon their own resources, in regard to methods of travel and transportation.
About the year 1812, Sylvanus Richards moved to Newport Village, and became the proprietor of the "Rising Sun" tavern, a house originally built and occupied as a public house by Gordon Buell, the father of the late Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, of Philadelphia, the accomplished writer and editor of the Lady's Book. It was in this house that DEXTER RICHARDS was born.
Of the four children, all sons, born to Sylvanus and Lucy ( Richardson) his wife, was Seth Richards (7), born in Dedham, Mass., February 20, 1792, who grew up to aid him in his business, and ultimately succeeded to the proprietor- ship of the " Rising Sun." The writer remembers Capt. Seth Richards as a man
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of great personal activity and tact in business, of irreproachable integrity in all his transactions with his fellow-men through a long and busy life, genial and benevolent, a downright gentleman of the old school, and in his departure leav- ing a place in the social and businesss affairs of this community exceedingly diffi- cult to fill. He was often called by his fellow-citizens to fill town offices and places of trust and responsibility, and was chosen as a representative to the state legislature in 1833.
After leaving the hotel he turned his attention to the mercantile business, and was for some time a clerk in the store of Erastus Baldwin, one of the earlier merchants of the town. In 1835, when the Cheneys retired from Newport, he purchased their stock and trade, and the " old stand," and continued the business successfully for many years, or until about the year 1853, when he became inter- ested in the Sugar River flannel-mills, -of which we shall have more to say hereafter, - and finally retired from active life about the year 1867.
Captain Richards married, April 8, 1817, Fanny Richards, of Dedham, Mass., and to them were born, in the years from 1818 to 1834, two sons and six daughters. In regard to the family of Seth and Fanny Richards, we may say that no more pleasant and hospitable home ever opened its doors in Newport. They died in the faith and communion of the Congregational church. Fanny died August 11, 1854. Seth died October 30, 1871.
'Of the children of Seth and Fanny Richards, was Dexter, born September 5, 1818, who is more particularly the subject of this sketch. Tracing his gene- alogy, we find him in the eighth generation from Edward in the line of the American Richardses. To say that Dexter Richards was born with a silver spoon in his mouth would belie the facts in the case; but to say that he comes through a worthy line of ancestors, and that he inherits their good and noble qualities and best abilities, will meet our case at the threshold. He has some time said that he never had any childhood or youth, in the common acceptation of the term ; that in his early years his parents were in moderate circumstances, and, being the eldest son of a family mostly daughters, he was called to work, and think of ways and means for promoting their welfare. While other lads of his age were engaged in their sports and pastimes, or enjoying public occasions like the old-fashioned trainings and musters, Fourth-of-July celebrations, or town- meetings and court days, he early manifested a natural tact for business, by engaging in some juvenile enterprise by which to turn an honest penny with the crowd.
The public school in district number two afforded him an opportunity for learning the rudiments of knowledge, which was eagerly improved, summer and winter, as he could be spared from other duties. When about eighteen years of age he finished his education, so far as schools are concerned, with a term or two at a high school in Lebanon, under the tutelage of the late eminent Prof. Edmund R. Peaslee. Mr. Richards has, therefore, never been through with what is termed a regular course of study, and conies to us with no diploma from ' college or hall. The most important part of his education has been acquired outside the schools, in the great university of active life, and is of the most practical character.
Politically, he was reared in the Democratic faith ; but, when the union of the states was assailed, the action of the Democratic party in regard to the great . questions of that day not being in accord with his views he withdrew from it, and affiliated with the Republican party, just then commencing its career. The ranks of this great party, that has for more than twenty years dominated in this country, were greatly augmented and strengthened by such acquisitions from the Democratic party; men who arose in their might, declaring the patriotic.
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sentiment of their old leader and hero, Andrew Jackson,-"The Union must and shall be preserved."
In regard to his public career, Mr. Richards was many times, when quite a young man, elected to serve on the board of selectmen. In the years 1865, 1866, and 1870, he represented the town in the state legislature. In 1871 and 1872 he was a member, from this district, of the executive council, and about that time a delegate to the Republican national convention at Philadelphia, that nominated General Grant for his second term of the presidency. In 1876 he was a delegate to the convention for revising the constitution of the state; and, so far as his official course is concerned, from the beginning it has been distin- guished by eminent ability and the strictest integrity. The "spoils," so-called, have never been his object in accepting offices of trust at the hands of his con- stituents. He has found his reward more in the faithful and conscientious per- formance of his duty.
In regard to the business career of Mr. Richards, we may say it has been characterized by great industry and enterprise, on a basis of good judgment, and in a spirit of fair dealing throughout. We have already alluded to his early incli- ation to buy and sell and get gain in a small way, as a boy, and in this respect the child foreshadowed the man. During the years of his minority he was the faithful and efficient coadjutor of his father in all his plans and purposes, and particularly so when Capt. Seth Richards succeeded to the mercantile business at the old Cheney stand, about the year 1835. In the management of this busi- ness the son was a most important factor, and on coming of age became a partner with his father. The business was well managed and profitable, and with it came prosperity to the Richards family, and to Dexter Richards the foundation and assurance of future successes in life. About the year 1853, Richards & Son came to be interested in a flannel-mill in Newport, that, possibly, had not hereto- fore been very successfully managed. The history of this concern may be briefly stated as follows : -
The Sugar River mills were built in 1847, by Perley S. Coffin and John Puffer. About the year 1853, Richards & Son (Dexter) succeeded by purchase to the original interest of John Puffer, then owned by D. J. Goodridge. On the retirement of the senior Richards, in 1867, changes were made by which the entire establishment came into possession of Dexter Richards, Mr. Coffin retiring from the concern with a handsome fortune.
In the prosecution of the business up to this time, the parties interested had been singularly favored by circumstances that brought disaster to many other firms and business men throughout our northern towns and cities. We have ref- erence to the great civil war that about this time (1861-65) so much disturbed the commerce of the country. Of the gray twilled flannels produced by the Sugar River mills, a large stock had accumulated at this time. The goods were well adapted to the wants of laborers, and particularly the soldiers in the Union army. The war created a demand; prices appreciated; the machinery was kept running night and day ; the flannels found ready sale as fast as they could be produced ; and the success of the Sugar River mills was henceforth assured. In the mean time, the establishment had been greatly enlarged and improved, and was turning out about eight hundred thousand yards of flannel yearly.
In 1872, Seth Mason Richards, the eldest son of Dexter Richards, a young man just entered upon his majority, was admitted to a partnership with his father. Enlargements and improvements have continued from time to time, and the condition of the establishment at this date (1882) may be stated as follows : Dexter Richards & Son, proprietors; capital stock, $150,000. S. M. Richards, superintendent; Arthur B. Chase, secretary. It gives steady employment to
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eighty-five operatives ; runs eight sets of cards, forty-four narrow looms, fifteen spinning-machines ; works up two hundred and eighty thousand pounds of cotton and wool, and turns out annually nearly one million yards of gray twilled flan- nel. The trade-mark (D. R. P.) of these goods is well known, among dealers and others, throughout the country, and the products of the factory find market and ready sale through commission merchants in Boston, New York, Philadel- phia, and Chicago.
Up to the year 1871, the manufacturing and agricultural interests of New- port and the towns adjoining had achieved all the prosperity it was possible for them to attain without railroad facilities to enable them to compete successfully with other places in the enjoyment of such facilities. As early as 1848, the Concord & Claremont Railroad Company had been incorporated, and in 1850 the road had been put in operation to Bradford. From Bradford to Claremont the rugged nature of the route was appalling to engineers and contractors, and par- ticularly so to capitalists who were expected to construct the road. The enter- prise here came to a stand. Further efforts, legislative and otherwise, to continue the work, were made without success, and for twenty-one years the heavy-laden stages and teams continued to toil on over the weary hills, to and fro, waiting for some able and friendly hand to establish a new order of things, and deliver them. In the meantime, the war of the rebellion, that had absorbed the thought and labor and capital of the country, had come and gone, and "enterprises of great pith and moment," that had long slumbered, were again revived, -day dawned again upon the Sugar River Railroad.
In the year 1866, mainly through the influence of Dexter Richards, then a member of the legislature, and his enterprise as a citizen, the Sugar River Rail- road Company, now known as the Concord & Claremont Railroad Company, was chartered. The means to revive and continue the building of the road through to Claremont were furnished by the Northern Railroad Company, aided by large assessments on the towns on the route of the road. The town of Newport, by official act, became responsible for forty-five thousand dollars, or about five per cent on its valuation. In addition to this amount, the further sum of twenty thousand dollars was required to assure the continuance and completion of the work. Of this amount, Mr. Richards became liable for eleven thousand dollars, and other parties interested made up the remaining nine thousand dollars. The assurance of sixty-five thousand dollars from the town of Newport secured the construction of the road through to Claremont beyond a doubt. The road was soon afterward completed, and the first regular train from Bradford to Claremont passed through Newport, September 16, 1872.
It was also through the instrumentality of Mr. Richards, that in July, 1866, the wires of the Western Union Telegraph Company were extended and in oper- ation to this town. Of the one thousand dollars subscribed by citizens of New- port to secure this great facility of communication, three-fourths of the amount were paid by him.
Mr. Richards has identified himself with the friends of education, and Dart- mouth College particularly, by the endowment of a scholarship in that venerable and favorite institution of learning. He has also contributed liberally to the. support of Kimball Union Academy, at Meriden, of which he is one of the trustees. He is also one of the founders and benefactors of the Orphans' Home, at Franklin, and a trustee of the New Hampshire Asylum for the Insane, at Concord, benevolent institutions that are an honor to our state.
The Congregational church and society, of Newport, of which Mr. Richards has been for many years a member, are greatly indebted to him for their present substantial prosperity. He has identified himself not only with the ample
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support of the ministry of this time-honored church, its mission work, its chari- ties, local and remote; its Sunday-school, -of which, up to 1878, when he retired from the position, he had been for more than twenty years the superintendent, - but with the improvements and additions to its buildings and grounds, and the erection of its parsonage. At an expense of some two thousand five hundred dollars, he has placed a large and fine-toned organ in the choir, as a memorial of a beloved daughter (Elizabeth), who died in the year 1868, in the twenty-first year of her age.
To complete the list of interests that wait on Mr. Richards for his attention, we find his name as one of the directors of the Eastern Railroad in New Hamp- shire; and, also, one of the directors of the N. H. Fire Insurance Company, at Manchester. He is the president of the First National Bank of Newport. He was also one of the founders and the first president of the Newport Savings Bank, chartered July 1, 1868, and now in successful operation.
He married, January 27, 1847, Louisa Frances, daughter of the late Dr. Mason Hatch, a long time highly esteemed physician and citizen of Newport. Of the six children born to them in the years from 1847 to 1867, three only survive: Seth Mason, born June 6, 1850, now a partner with his father in the Sugar River mills establishment, in which he has exhibited superior business qualities, and bids fair to become a useful and influential citizen of the town and state. Josephine Ellen, born October 30, 1855, a graduate of the Female Semi- nary, at Andover, Mass., and the founder of a scholarship in honor of her alma mater. During the years 1880 and 1881, Miss Richards, with a party of friends, sought entertainment and culture from an extended tour in Europe, visiting Egypt and Palestine in the course of their trip. William Francis, born January 28, 1867, is now (1882) a student connected with Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.
The Richards family have a delightful cottage at Straw's Point, Rye Beach, where an unaffected hospitality, as well as the breath of the sea, await their friends during the summer months.
There are several instances in the history of Newport of men who, having ac- quired wealth in their dealings with its citizens, have removed to more important places to enjoy the spending and investing of their incomes, without leaving behind them any visible improvement in the way of buildings, or a public good of any kind, -nothing but a memory of their insatiate avarice, followed by un- sparing criticisms. Such a record can never be made of Dexter Richards. With increasing ability in the way of means, he has manifested a corresponding dispo- sition to improve the physical aspect of his native town. He has placed on the street not only his elegant private residence, but houses for rent, and substantial and sightly blocks of buildings for business purposes. He has improved his factory buildings and grounds, built barns, cultivated lands, produced crops, inter- ested himself in improved breeds of cattle and horses, thus giving employment to many working men and hands, and increased the productive industry of the town and its general valuation in many respects, aside from his manufacturing interest, as indicated by the assessments for taxation. He is by far the largest tax-payer in Newport, and one of the largest in Sullivan county and the state of New Hampshire.
He has managed his private affairs and the public business, as far as it has been intrusted to his care, with superior ability ; and now in his mature prime of life, should the state require his further service, his past record and present po- sition would afford an abundant guarantee for the able fulfillment of any future or more important trust.
HON. DAVID HANSON BUFFUM.
DAVID HANSON BUFFUM was born in the town of North Berwick, county of York, and state of Maine, on the tenth day of November, 1820. He was the oldest child and only son of Timothy and Anna (Austin) Buffum. His mother was a native of Dover, -a daughter of Nathaniel Austin. His father -who manufactured furniture and carriages to a limited extent-died when the subject of this notice was but six years of age, leaving also two sisters still younger. Subsequently his mother was united in marriage with William Hussey, and at her death, fifteen years afterward, two children were left as the result of this marriage. Still later Mr. Hussey was united in marriage with Mary J. Hanson, and, at his death, in 1870, two children remained as the result of this union. This presented the rather singular and unusual occurrence, that three children by one marriage and two children by another were half-brothers and half-sisters to two children by a third union, and yet were in no way related to each other.
The care of the fatherless six-years-old boy and of the two little sisters still younger was too much for the very slender resources of the widowed mother. The family was broken up, and the "child David" was taken into the family of his father's brother. The next eleven years of his childhood and boyhood were spent with this uncle. He was a country merchant who "kept everything," as the old-time merchants of fifty years ago all did. The boy was taught to work in the store, "to do the chores," and was sent to the district school as opportu- nity afforded,-which generally consisted of two terms of eight or ten weeks each per year. The Quaker uncle was a kind but sturdy master, and habits of temperance, thrift, untiring energy, steady perseverance, and a love of buying and selling were ingrained into the very bones of the boy. Leaving his uncle when seventeen years old, he made his home with his step-father for two years, during which time he attended two terms at an academy, and taught a country school "to pay his way." At nineteen years of age, in the autumn of 1839, with few dollars and much courage, he commenced as a clerk with two brothers in a general store at Great Falls, in Strafford county, of which place he has since been a citizen. His salary was eight dollars per month and board, for the first six months. At twenty-one he bought out one of his employers, at twenty-three he sold out to the other and erected a brick block which contained three stores, one of which he occupied as a merchant in general merchandise, always keeping abreast of the times, until called to a new business.
The legislature of 1846 granted the charter of the Great Falls Bank, the first in the town, and its originators had got together the one hundred thousand dollars of capital stock by such efforts of labor and persuasion as would astonish the railroad builders and bankers of these days. The directors, December 5, 1846, selected Mr. Buffum as its cashier, which position he held until April 20, 1863. On the 5th of August, 1857, he was elected treasurer of the Somers- worth Savings Bank, which position he held for ten years. While he filled these positions, both of which he resigned in order to give his exclusive attention to manufacturing, he had become interested, by way of investments, in real estate, shipping, and manufacturing.
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277
HON. DAVID HANSON BUFFUM.
In 1857, Mr. Buffum, in company with John H. Burleigh, organized the Newichawanick Woolen Company at South Berwick, Me., an enterprise at first unprofitable, but which proved to be a financial success. In 1862 he organized the Great Falls Woolen Company with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, which, from fortunate earnings in the next few years, was increased to one hundred thousand dollars; and he has since been treasurer and general manager of it excepting for a period of six years, when he was compelled to withdraw from the active management by reason of impaired health, occasioned by too close applica- tion to business, three years of which time he spent in travel.
For twenty years Mr. Buffum has been engaged in the manufacture of woolen fabrics, gradually extending his operations, until, at this writing, he is owner of a felt-mill at Milton, N. H., a partner in the wool-pulling establishment of L. R. Hersom & Co., in Berwick, Me., treasurer and manager of the Great Falls Woolen Company, and treasurer and director of the Newichawanick Woolen Company at South Berwick, Me .; he has also been a director of the Great Falls Manufacturing Company since 1877. He has been connected with the Great Falls Bank, both state and national, from its commencement, as cashier, director, and president, which latter position he now holds; and, with the exception of the first two years, has been connected with the Somersworth Savings Bank as treasurer, trustee, and vice-president.
In local affairs, Mr. Buffum has taken an active and leading part. The same nervous, physical energy which made him the first player in the game of ball in his youth afforded just the qualities needed in the fire department, in which he was always among the foremost, and for many years at the head. He was chosen town clerk in 1843-44, moderator in 1848 and 1857, and selectman in 1846 and 1871-72.
In political affairs, Mr. Buffum has acted with the Whigs and Republicans. In 1861-62 he was chosen representative to the legislature, serving the first year as a member of the committee on banks, and the second year as chairman of the committee .on the reform school. In 1877 he was elected to the senate from district number five, and served as a member of the committees on judiciary, finance, banks, and state institutions. In 1878 he was re-elected to the senate, and chosen its president. He was the last president of the senate of twelve mem- bers. Of the sixty-two presidents of that body, he was the only one from district number five, or from Strafford county as now constituted. In 1880 he was elected as a delegate-at-large to the Republican national convention at Chicago.
In his domestic relations, Mr. Buffum was happily connected, and his home reflected the results of a successful business career. He was married, January 26, 1853, to Charlotte E. Stickney, daughter of Alexander H. Stickney, one of the old-time citizens of Great Falls. The issue of this union was three sons and a daughter. The wife and mother died March 8, 1868, and the daughter, May 23, 1877. Two of the sons, Edgar Stickney and Harry Austin, are graduates, and the third, David Hanson Jr., is now an undergraduate, of Yale College. Of the two little sisters left fatherless with him, one is the widow of the late Hon. John H. Burleigh, of South Berwick, Me., and the other is the wife of Isaac P. Evans, an oil-manufacturer, of Richmond, Ind. The half-brother is Timothy B. Hussey, plow-manufacturer, of North Berwick, Me., and the half-sister has presided over his household since the death of his wife.
Mr. Buffum received his youthful impressions and early religious training among the Society of Friends, whose tenets have exercised a marked influence upon his career. At Great Falls he has been a regular attendant at the Congre- gational church, to which he has been a liberal contributor. The many trusts committed to his care fairly prove the esteem and respect in which he has been held by his neighbors and townsmen.
HON. CHARLES ADAMS, JR., A. M.
BY REV. W. R. COCHRANE.
IT appears from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. VII., and also from Drake's History and Antiquities of Boston, folio edition, 1854, that " Ap Adam (the Welsh for Adams) came out of the Marches of Wales." Their descendants appear to have lived for many generations in the English shires of Lancaster, Gloucester, and Devon. From the latter, Henry Adams, the first of this family in America, emigrated, and settled in that part of Braintree which is now Quincy, Mass., about 1630. He died there in 1646. Twenty-four generations in the male line are given below, the first seventeen of which are copied from the authorities cited above.
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