USA > Vermont > Orange County > Bradford > A history of Bradford, Vermont : containing some account of the place of its first settlement in 1765, and the principal improvements made, and events which have occurred down to 1874--a period of one hundred and nine years. With various genealogical records, and biographical sketches of families and individuals, some deceased, and others still living > Part 24
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father in Florida. Sybil grew up an amiable, interesting young lady ; remembered her Creator in the days of her youth ; and at the age of about nineteen became hope- fully pious. In the year 1828 she, with more than twenty others, united with the Congregational church in this place. Of those then received Mr. Hardy was one ; so that this destined couple, by a happy coincidence, com- menced publicly their heavenward journey together. They were married by their pastor January 3, 1830, and directly commenced house-keeping in a new building, de- signed both for a family residence and to accommodate the business of its proprietor as a watchmaker and jewel- ler. This building was subsequently removed, to give place to the commodious brick residence in which she spent the principal part of her married life.
Mr. and Mrs. Hardy had one daughter, Sarah Jane, a very amiable and good young lady, who became the wife of Dr. E. A. Kilbourne, and died at her father's house ; and two sons, worthy young men, of the same occupation as their father, namely, Oliver, who married Louisa Ladd, of Haverhill, N. H., went South and died in Hayneville, Alabama, and William G., who married Maria L. Jenkins, of Fairlee, where for a few years past he has resided on a farm, with a view to the improvement of his health, which had become delicate and precarious. He was un- able to attend his mother's funeral. They have an infant son.
The state of Mrs. Hardy's health had been for several years very imperfect, and of such a nature as to affect seriously her nervous system, and to weigh heavily on her accustomed cheerfulness. But this, with her repeated bereavements, she endured with quiet resignation ; habit- ually aiming to do, in all circumstances, the best she could.
She was much attached to the quietude of her home, but had been repeatedly benefited by being taken to the
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sea-shore to spend a few weeks at a time, and the last Summer and Autumn was wonderfully revived and invig- orated by a journey with her husband, of some months, in the western country, including a visit to the medicinal springs of Saratoga, and especially of Clarendon, Vt. This improvement, however, was not of long duration. As her health again declined, and her journey through life was evidently drawing near its end, she seemed not to be much disappointed, or at all alarmed, but was enabled to trust in the precious promises of the Gospel with sweet composure, and was greatly comforted in view of eterni- ty by the belief that she should soon be with her prec- ious Saviour, re-united with her dear ones who had died in the Lord, and that those whom she was leaving would, in God's good time, be with them there, in perfect and
'everlasting blessedness. She had for about forty-six years been aiming to live in obedience to the Gospel, and, as might be expected, the end was peace. She left her husband solitary in the pleasant home which they had so long enjoyed together, deeply afflicted, but still able to . say : "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
Mr. Johnson A. Hardy, the last survivor of his own family, died at the house of his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Ma- ria Hardy, in Fairlee, October 17, 1874, in the sixty- ninth year of his age. He was a worthy man, and in his last will remembered generously the church of which he had long been a member.
2. George W. Hardy, son of Deacon Oliver Hardy, born March 8, 1809, in early manhood was, with his fa- ther, occupied for several years in the business of a tan- ner and currier of leather. After the burning of that es- tablishment, he engaged in the manufacture of boots and shoes for sale, and mercantile business in this, his native, village, and so continued during the remainder of his life. He built and occupied a pleasant brick house, a lit-
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tle north of that of his brother, on the same street, which is now (1874) owned by Mr. James Woodward, of Chi- cago, and undergoing important improvements. Mr. G. W. Hardy married Miss Sophronia Buswell, of Lebanon, N. H., and died January 26, 1866, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. They had one son, John, who married Miss Josephine Doe, of Newbury, Vt. He owns and oc- cupies a farm which formerly belonged to his grandfather, but on which he never lived, in that part of Bradford called Goshen. They have but one child, a son, whose name is Frank Everett.
3. John, the fourth son of Deacon O. Hardy, born January 17, 1814, learned the clock, watch and jewelry business of his brother J. A., and at the close of his ap- prenticeship went South, and was very successful in his . chosen occupation. He married a Southern lady, Miss Susan Crenshaw, by whom he had three daughters, Ala- bama, Virginia, and Sarah Jane. He died of congestive fever, September 11, 1843, at Haynesville, Alabama, in the thirtieth year of his age, leaving, as the result of his skill and industry, about $6,000 for the comfort of his be- loved wife and daughters. Mrs. Hardy has since died, but the daughters are understood to be still living at the South.
4. Harriet Maria, the only surviving daughter of Dea- con Hardy, born April 26th, 1827, married Jasper M. Hardy, of Hopkinton, N. H., April 12th, 1866, and so became a resident of the native State of her parents.
It is here worthy of remark, that the descendants of good Deacon Oliver Hardy and wife have been, not only in a temporal view, but also religiously, signally blessed. The daughter just mentioned, also her brother, J. A. Hardy and wife, their daughter, Mrs. Kilbourne, her brother William G. and wife, Mr. George W. and wife, their son John and his wife, all became members of the same
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church to which Deacon Hardy and wife belonged, and in which he had so long and acceptably officiated.
THE SHAW FAMILIES.
The Shaws were of English descent. The first of the name in this country of whom we have any account was Benjamin Shaw, of Abington, Mass. His son, William Shaw, born February 22, 1730, married Hannah West, and settled in Bridgewater, in that State. He was a man in humble circumstances, by occupation a tanner and shoe maker ; but of excellent moral and religious character, and withal of very industrious habits. He and his wife had a large family, whom they seem to have faithfully en- ยท deavored, and not without success, to train up in the way they should go. Mrs. Shaw, their mother, died in 1772. Mr. Shaw married again ; had by this marriage one daugh- ter, and died in January, 1810, in the eightieth year of his age. Two of his sons, namely, Colonel Dan Shaw and Rev. Naphtali Shaw, when quite advanced in life, re- moved to Bradford, Vt., and here died, leaving families ; and it is of them particularly that I shall now have occa- sion to speak.
Their brothers and sisters, generally married, settled elsewhere, and left posterity in the country.
Colonel Dan Shaw was born at Bridgewater, Mass., No- vember 15, 1758. His first wife was Joanna Perkins, a daughter of Deacon Isaac Perkins, of Middleborough, in that State, born January 5, 1761. They were married in March, 1780, and removed to Lyme, N. H., where she died November 22, 1803, in the forty-second year of her age. The Rev. Dr. Burton, in his sermon at her funeral, after- wards published, speaks highly of her good qualities and christian character. For his second wife Colonel Shaw married the widow Mary Bliss, of this town, who survived 22
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him, and became the wife of Colonel Freeman, of Hanover, N. H.
In the sixteenth year of his age Mr. Shaw became, on profession of his faith, a member of the Congregational church in his native place, and was through life a remark- ably strict keeper of the Sabbath.
At Lyme he united with the Orthodox church, and was constituted a deacon in the same.
He was also for a time one of the Selectmen of that town; and in a military line was, by regular gradation, promoted from the office of a Lieutenant to that of com- mander of a regiment; whence the title by which he was ever after designated. After the death of his first wife he removed from Lyme to this town, and purchased a farm on the West side of the River road, bounded on the South by the line between Bradford and Fairlee, the same on which Amos Clement now lives.
Colonel Shaw when over fifty years of age became un- settled in his mind in regard to the correctness of the Orthodox belief that those who die in their sins are for- ever lost, and finally embraced fully the doctrine that all without discrimination will be saved. And so zealous was he in his new belief that in the year 1809 he obtained approbation from due authority to go forth as a preacher of universal salvation, and in the course of four or five years preached occasionally, in many places. He was undoubtedly sincere in his belief, and so conscientious that when, again fearing he might be wrong, he ceased to preach, became unhappy, and so disturbed in his mind, about that and other things, that he terminated his life by drowning himself in a small brook near his home, greatly to the grief of his family and many friends, November 14, 1814, at the age of fifty-six years. He was an ami- able man, in life well esteemed, and there can be no doubt but he had become truly insane.
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Colonel Shaw and his first wife had a very respectable family, of whom some account will now be given.
1. Nanny P., the eldest daughter, born December 16, 1780, married Joshua Balch, of Lyme, June 15, 1800, and died there, leaving a family of children, January 24, 1850.
2. Dan, born October 13, 1782, died May 4, 1805.
3. Samuel W., born November 12, 1784, died March 31, 1803.
4. Joanna, born April 3, 1787, married Abel Kent, Jr., . of Lyme, January 1, 1806, and died November 4, 1856, leaving a family.
5. Asa, born February 20, 1789, married Eliza T. Slade, of Hanover, was a merchant at Lyme, and died there July 4, 1861, leaving one daughter, Eliza P., and one son, Asa, with their mother. This son is a merchant in Hartford, Conn.
6. Abraham Perkins, born June 20, 1813, married Mary, daughter of Joseph Jenkins, of this town, June 20, 1813, who died here August 6, 1855. Mr. A. P. Shaw and wife were both members of the Congregational church in this place, and valuable members of society. He was by occupation a cabinet maker, and is at this date still living in this village, in circumstances of comfort.
THEIR CHILDREN.
Joseph Wright Shaw, born April 3, 1814, married Al- mira Tisdale, was of the same occupation as his father, removed to Summerville, Mass., and died there, March 1, 1870.
Dan W. Shaw, born March 12, 1816, married Jane A., daughter of Captain Haynes Johnson, of Bradford, and engaged in the manufacture and sale of furniture at East Cambridge and Boston, Mass., on a large scale, in which business he has been very prosperous. He has a commo- dious and delightful residence at North Cambridge. Mr.
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and Mrs. Shaw are very estimable people, and have a pleasant family, as follows : Ella J., born July 19, 1846 ; Emma L., born November 27, 1848, died January 22, 1854; Susie E., born November 30, 1854, was married with Mr. George A. Keeler, June 4, 1874 ; Adna B., born December 8, 1856, and his brother, Edward L., January 24, 1860.
Mary E., eldest daughter of A. P. Shaw and wife, born June 9, 1818, died February 28, 1826.
Abram Perkins, Jr., born May 3, 1821, remains at this date a citizen of Bradford, usefully engaged in the man- ufacture and sale of furniture, and caring for his father, now far advanced in age.
Arad K., a younger brother, born April 16, 1825, by reason of severe sickness in childhood became deaf and mute, though still bright in intellect, and died April 14, 1854.
Julia A. B., born September 25, 1827, married Olin Partridge, January 16, 1853, who died in Ripon, Wiscon- sin, August 16, 1861. Their son Willie Olin was born at Ripon, September 22,1858. After her husband's decease, Mrs. P. returned, with her son, to this her native place.
Mary J., the youngest member of this family, born May 25, 1831, married William Miller, then of Bradford, a worker in marble, October 23, 1853, and died here April 12, 1855.
7. Naphtali, the next son of Colonel Dan Shaw, was born May 20, 1793. He married Hannah Worthen, of Bradford, January 21, 1817. He was a man highly es- teemed for his intelligence, ability, and moral worth; was for many years occupied here in mercantile business, and died September 3, 1861, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. His good wife died August 16, 1844, in the forty-fifth year of her age. They were both exemplary Christians, and members of the Congregational church in this place. They had two daughters and one son. The
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youngest daughter, Julia B., died in her infancy. Han- nah Maria, born November 27, 1817, married Olin Part- ridge, June 21, 1840, and died .December 20, 1847, leav- ing one daughter, Arabelle Maria, born May 29, 1841.
Asa Thaddeus, the only son, born February 9, 1820, married Maria L. Putnam, November 9, 1843, removed to Elmore, Vt., and died there, January 5, 1855, leaving a family of three daughters and two sons, with their mother. Their eldest son, Asa Balch, had previously died in child- hood. Mrs. Shaw with her family returned to Bradford, and for years has kept a respectable millinery establish- ment here. Her daughter, Harriet Arabelle, born De- cember 3, 1846, died June 27, 1867, in the twenty-first year of her age. Julia Laurette, born October 22, 1848, an industrious young lady, to whose influence we are in a great measure indebted for the monument at her grand- father's grave. Mary Ann, born November 12, 1850, married Victor Wallace Bagley, September 16, 1871, a merchant, in partnership with William B. Stevens, of this place. Asa T. Shaw, Jr., born February 14, 1855, a clerk in that establishment. And, lastly, William West, born October 22, 1852, engaged in the business of a livery- stable keeper.
8. Pollycarpus, the sixth son of Colonel Dan Shaw, was born February 25, 1797. Went to Indiana, devoted himself to teaching, married, and died February 1, 1849, leaving a large family. And, finally,
9. Mandana, youngest member of Colonel Shaw's fam- ily, born April 9, 1799, died June 6, 1801, at Lyme, N. H. Of this large and respectable family, Abraham P. Shaw at this writing is the only survivor, now eighty-three years of age.
Rev. Naphtali Shaw, the third son of William, of Bridge- water, Mass., and brother of Colonel Dan Shaw, was born there, June 20, 1864, and was from his childhood trained up in habits of industry, sobriety, and christian morality.
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He had naturally a strong desire for the acquisition of useful knowledge, and fondness for reading, but his ad- vantages were very limited. He was in his youth, as well as in mature manhood, a lover of his country, and at the age of fifteen, with his father's consent, enlisted for a limited period in the Revolutionary service. He re- turned in safety; and at the age of twenty, by agree- ment with his father, entered on a decided course of preparation for college, and persevered amid difficulties, paying his expenses in part by manual labor, and was ad- mitted a freshman, at Dartmouth, in the autumn of 1786. He found his preparation had not been equal to that of most of his classmates, but by hard and persevering study gained and held an honorable standing among them. He graduated in 1790, his appointment at commencement being a discussion of the question, " Does moral obliga- tion arise from the revealed will of God, or from the fit- ness of things ?" Among his fellow graduates were Rev. Ethan Smith, Mills Olcott, Esq., Asa Lyon, Member of Congress, and General William Eaton, United States Consul at Tunis, in North Africa-men of distinction in their day. . On leaving college Mr. Shaw, having taught in Boston and other places for a year or two, to pay up his college expenses, studied theology, for about seven months, with Rev. Dr. Sanger, of Bridgewater ; when, being approbated by Plymouth Association as a qualified preacher of the gospel, he was invited to preach for four Sabbaths, as a candidate, at Kensington, N. H. About the same time he received his second degree at Dart- mouth. With much diffidence, he consented to go to Kensington, having no expectation of giving them satis- faction, as that church had already tried twenty or thirty candidates without success, and were in a deplorable con- dition. He preached his first sermon there September 9, 1792, and in the course of eight weeks, to his great surprise, received an urgent call from the church and
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society to become their pastor. He felt that he must not refuse; and on the 30th of January, 1793, was duly or- dained, and constituted the settled pastor of the Congre- gational church and society in Kensington. And so con- tinued, in love and peace, and with moderate success in his ministerial labors, for about twenty-one years, when his health had become so seriously impaired that a re- lease from study and preaching could no longer be de- ferred, and, with great cordiality on both sides, his minis- terial connection with that people was, by act of council, honorably terminated, January 13, 1813. He then set- tled up his secular affairs, bought a farm in this town, adjoining that of his brother, Colonel Shaw, on the east, and settled here with his family, in October of the same year, designing to spend the remainder of his days in agricultural employment, and from that time wholly ceased to officiate as a preacher, but continued through life to maintain an excellent Christian character. For five or six years after Mr. Shaw's ordination, he remained a bachelor; but on the 10th of June, 1798, he married Mary Crafts, a daughter of Dr. John S. Crafts, of North Bridgewater, a companion altogether suitable for him. They were blessed with a family of four children. Mrs. Shaw died at Bradford, January 14, 1840, aged seventy- five years. Rev. Naphtali Shaw, her husband, died here also, October 10, 1853, in the ninetieth year of his age. Their remains repose side by side in Bradford cemetery. They were both members of this Congregational church.
THEIR CHILDREN, ALL NATIVES OF KENSINGTON.
1. Thomas Crafts, was born June 7, 1799, and under good parental influence grew up a very worthy young man. It is not known that he ever contracted any of the bad habits so common among young men. The ordinary use of tobacco and intoxicating liquors, Sabbath breaking, profane swearing, lounging about in places of public re-
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sort, and wasting time and money in dissipating amuse- ments, were practices that he abhorred. He was always to be found on the side of morality and good order. His candor and kindness, and strict regard for veracity, jus- tice, fairness and faithfulness, in all transactions with his fellow men, were admirable. He had through life a healthy appetite for reading, and in that way acquired a good store of useful knowledge. He was in his youth a successful teacher of common schools, and through life felt interested in the right education of the rising gener- ation. For twenty-three years he officiated as a trustee of Bradford Academy, and for six years of that time as treasurer. Mr. Shaw was married, December 2, 1819, with Miss Sarah B., a daughter of Joseph Jenkins, an estimable young woman of the same neighborhood, a few years older than himself. They remained, taking care of his parents, at the old homestead, till their decease, after which Mr. Shaw sold that place, and bought a pleasant residence in the village, near his ordinary place of wor- ship, and there they spent their remaining days. During a series of religious meetings, attended with great power, about the beginning of the year 1837, Thomas C. Shaw and wife became hopefully converted, and united with the Congregational church, in which he was in 1839 chosen a deacon, and for about twenty-seven years so performed the duties of the office as to purchase to him- self a good degree, and great firmness, if not boldness, in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. A failure of his health induced him to resign, about five years before his de- cease. Mrs. Shaw died, stricken down by apoplexy, De- cember 30, 1869 .. Deacon Shaw, after a protracted fee- - bleness of some two or three years, in which his eldest daughter, the only surviving member of his family, with admirable loving kindness ministered most faithfully unto him, died March 24, 1871, aged seventy-one years.
These parents had been blessed with three children.
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Sarah Jane, the eldest daughter, born December 14, 1820, at this date still survives, occupying, with competent support, the pleasant home which her father left to her in this village. She is a member of the same church to which her parents belonged. The next child of her pa- rents, a son, died in his infancy. The younger daughter, Mary Ann, born June 6, 1825, died February 10, 1848, in her twenty-third year.
2. Eliza Parks, eldest daughter of Rev. N. Shaw, born April 19, 1801, became hopefully pious when about fifteen years of age, and made a public profession of her faith. She married Randall H. Wild, of West Fairlee, then resident in Bradford, March 15, 1824. They re- mained here for a while, and Mr. Wild was chosen a dea- con in the Congregational church, October 4, 1827. They removed to West Fairlee, and had two daughters, Mary Elizabeth, the eldest, married Rev. Orpheus T. Lan- phear, now D. D., and pastor of the Congregational church in Beverly, Mass. Her younger sister, Emily, died in her maidenhood, an amiable young lady. Mrs. Wild, their mother, owing to a softening of the brain, or some other physical cause, suffered a sad failure of her intellectual powers, though still remaining quiet, and by agreement was taken home again by her parents, and, by accidentally falling into an open fire, was so seriously burned as to cause her death, which occurred December 22, 1841, in the forty-first year of her age. Though thus in the decline of her life unfortunate, there can be no doubt but she was a truly good woman, and her immortal interests secure.
3. Samuel West, the second son of Rev. N. Shaw, . born June 1, 1803, grew up a very worthy young man, and married, November 23, 1830, Jerusha Bliss, daughter of Deacon Solomon Bliss, of Fairlee. They were both good Christians. He lived in a house near his fathers' for a few years, and died March 10, 1832. His widow
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married Deacon John Metcalf, of Piermont, N. H. ; had several children, and at this date is still living, again in widowhood.
4. Mary Ann, the younger daughter of Rev. N. Shaw, born May 21, 1807, died in childhood.
In closing this genealogical record it is deeply inter- esting to notice how the divine blessing has come down from a pious ancestry upon children's children, unto the third and fourth generation. So may it be till earth and time shall be no more.
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CHAPTER XVI.
The Prichards, Lows, and Ormsbys.
THE PRICHARD FAMILY.
Col. George W. Prichard was born at New Ipswich, N. H., December 4, 1792. His parents were Jeremiah and Elizabeth Prichard, of that place. His father was for sev- eral years an officer in the war of the Revolution, and bore the title of Captain. He died in New Ipswich in 1813, at the age of fifty-eight years. His widow died at the house of her son, in Bradford, Vt., March 1836. The parents had four sons, all worthy men, of whom the sub- ject of this notice was when visited with his last sickness the solitary survivor.
George W., while rather young for a clerkship, came to live with Captain John B. Wheeler, of Orford, N. H., in whose store a large amount of business was in those days transacted. Capt. Wheeler, who was a shrewd business man, and would have none but the capable and trustwor- thy about him, was so much pleased with this young man that he not only kept him as a clerk, but in due season took him into partnership, and committed to him the management of the mercantile business which he had es- tablished in Bradford. When about twenty years of age, in the year 1812, Mr. Prichard took up what proved to be his permanent residence here. Nor was it long before he became the sole proprietor of the establishment. He here continued in very successful mercantile business for about half a century, when, having acquired a competen- cy, and being far advanced in life, he retired, leaving his almost life-long business to two of his sons, to the prac- tice of which they had from early youth been trained. His first store was a low wooden building on the west side of Main street, in the central part of the village,
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where the two story brick building which he subsequent- ly erected now stands, and continues to be occupied for the same purpose.
That Col. Prichard was a very capable, upright, and honorable man in his various transactions, is evident from the manifold official duties which he was called to per- form, and the entire confidence which all who knew him invariably reposed in him. By the election of his fellow townsmen he officiated for three years as one of their Se- lectmen; twice he represented the town in the State Legislature ; executed the office of a Justice of the Peace for some thirty years; and for some thirty-seven years was entrusted with the town moneys, as Treasurer. On resigning the latter office, at the last annual meeting preceding his death, a vote of thanks was unanimously passed, testifying that he had invariably kept the funds committed to him with fidelity, and discharged the vari- ous business of his office as Treasurer to the entire satis- faction of all concerned. He performed the duties of Secretary of the Board of Trustees of Bradford Acade- my for, it is believed, more than forty years. He also bore for some while the commission of a Colonel, in a time of peace. He was also the efficient, reliable, and only President of the first Bradford bank, whose business was honorably closed, without loss to any, about two years before his decease.
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