USA > Vermont > Orange County > Gazetteer of Orange County, Vt., 1762-1888 > Part 60
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in San Francisco; and one son who died in infancy. The descendants of Capt. William H. Latham have donated to Thetford academy, the First Congregational society, and to establish Latham Memorial library, about $20,000.
Capt. John Kinsman was born in Nova Scotia, whence he removed to Or- ford, N. H., where he remained a few years and married Sarah Holton, He came to this town in 1830 and bought the farm settled by Joel Strong. He was a farmer, reared a family of eight children, and lived to be eighty-two years old. Dea. John Kinsman, his son, still lives upon the old farm. He has served as selectman, and deacon of the Congregational church at North Thetford since its organization in 1878. He married Julia A. Heath, of Leb- anon, N. H., and has had born to him seven children, six of whom are living. Of his three sons, George O. is a lawyer in Oxford, Mich .; Charles C. is at Olcott, and John, Jr., resides at Thetford.
Richard Mills Gleason settled in Thetford in 1833. His father, Samuel, came from Connecticut, stopping for a time in Lempster, N. H., where Richard M. was born, in March, 1798, and making his final settlement at what is known as " Gleason's Flats," in Norwich, where he erected mills and dealt largely in lumber, which he manufactured and rafted to Hartford, Conn. His wife was Azubah Wright, and they had two sons, Richard M. and Sewell, and two daughters. The sons removed to New York, but Richard returned to Union Village, where he afterwards lived, and engaged in farming. He served as justice, town agent and selectman (1852-54). His wife, Harriet, is a daughter of Isaac Moxley, who emigrated to Randolph from Scotland. She still resides at Union Village, aged eighty-one. Their children were Eliza- beth C., deceased, Arabella (Mrs. Dana), Harriet N., Addie L. (Mrs. Rev. E. E. Miller), Samuel M. (see Bench and Bar), and Edgar W., who died while in Dartmouth college, class of '62.
John Huntington came into Thetford in 1834, from Plainfield, Vt. He was born in Marshfield, in May, in 1802, to which place his father, Gideon, had come from Francestown, N. H. Gideon married, in Marshfield, Margaret Holmes, of Scotch parentage. John Huntington, their son, married Hannah Ayers, a native of Goshen, N. H., who became the mother of five sons and two daughters : Hazen K., of West Fairlee ; John H .; Alvah A., of Cedar- town, Ga .; two sons who died in childhood ; Harriet N. (Noyes), of Cedar- town, Ga .; and Ann A. (Brimblecom), of Woosung, Ill. John Huntington, a farmer by occupation. bought the place now owned by his son John H., in 1848, upon which he continued until his death, in January, 1885. His wife died in February, 1884. They had passed sixty-one years of wedded life together. Two sons were soldiers in the civil war, Alvah A. as lientenant in the 8th Georgia Regt., and Hazen K. in the Ist Vt. Cav. John H. Hunt- ington married, first, Ellen Fiske; and second, Mary I., widow of Henry Davis, and daughter of Ira Stowell, an early settler in Thetford, but who removed to Hyde Park about 1835.
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Harvey Quimby came to Thetford from Enfield, N. H., in 1838, and has since lived here, engaged in farming. His children are S. Janette (Mrs. Clapp), Caroline J. (Mrs. I. W. Moore), Laura A. (Mrs Royal George), Wareham M., of Boston, Mass., and Luman V., who served in the late war, dying in 1884.
Richard and Mitchell Welch, natives of County Waterford, Ireland, came when young men to Thetford to work in the lead mine. Richard engaged in farming soon after his marriage to Rose A. Boyle, settling upon the farm where his widow and younger sons still live. He died July 22, 1868, aged fifty-one years.
Joseph C. Tewksbury, born in Grafton, N. H., in 1821, came at the age of seventeen years to Thetford. For fifteen years he has owned and operated the saw-mill a mile northwest of the Center, and aside from that has been a farmer. He served two years as assistant town clerk. His wife is Lucia E., daughter of Capt. Josiah Hubbard, and granddaughter of Col. Josiah Hub- bard, one of Thetford's pioneers.
Joseph Allen Morrill came from Danville, Caledonia county, when about six years of age, and resided with King Heaton. He was the youngest in the family, and was left an orphan. At the age of eighteen he went to Boston and learned the mason's trade, which he has since followed as contractor's foreman and contractor. He served in the late war in Co. A, 15th Vt. Vols. He married Jane P., daughter of James D. Crocker, of Thetford, and has one son, James A., and two daughters, Nellie J. (Mrs. H. B. Palmer) and M. Belle (Mrs. Dana A. Watson), of Lowell, Mass.
Philip C. Cambridge, a woolen manufacturer, born in Rindge, N. H., bought the woolen-mill at Union Village in 1845, and continued to operate it until it was destroyed by the freshet of 1869. His father, John Cambridge, was in the Revolution, serving in the Quebec expedition and with Washing- ton in New Jersey, and it is said that the father of John Cambridge made the first broadcloth produced in America. Philip C. Cambridge was from youth a woolen manufacturer, located for ten years at Lebanon, N. H. He died in 1880, aged eighty-eight years. He was three times married, and the father of eight children, of whom three are living, one of them, Amasa C., at Union Village. John Cambridge, brother of Philip C., owned the woolen- mills in Rockingham at the village called in his honor " Cambridgeport."
Benjamin Berry, a shoemaker and tailor by trade, came from Dover, N. H.,. to Vershire, where he married Sarah Kinney, about 1817. He died in 1831, at the early age of thirty-five years. George W. Berry, his son, located, in 1849, upon his present farm in Thetford. He married, in 1851, Irene, daughter of Levi D. Parker, and has one son, Lucius A., and one daughter, Ida (Mrs. Edgar Caswell).
Josiah B. Heath was born in Groton, N. H., in 1817, and came to Thet- ford in 1849, where he has since been engaged in farming, and has served as. selectman, etc. He married Lucetta, daughter of Rev. Daniel Pulsifer, a.
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Congregational clergyman who preached some years in Thetford and Fairlee. They have had children as follows : Harlan A. and Charles H., deceased ; Francena L. (Mrs. Frank N. Ware), and Georgia A. (Mrs. Charles H. Con- verse). Mr. Heath's farm is the one originally settled by Nathan Mann about 1780, where was established the first ferry in this section across the Con- necticut.
Fred S. Slack, son of Henry, was born in Sharon, Windsor county, in June, 1821, and brought up at Wells River. He located at East Thet- ford in 1860, and engaged in the hotel business in his present house. He served as postmaster without interruption for twenty-six and one-half years (186t to 1887). His first wife, Angeline (Goodenough), became the mother of three children -- Imogene (Mrs. West), Wilbur F., who has been station agent at East Thetford sixteen years, and Lillie D., deceased. His present wife, Abigail, is a sister of his first wife.
Thomas H. Chubb was born in Charlestown, Mass., and at the age of four years removed with his parents to the Colorado Valley, in Texas, where he spent his early life. He belonged to a regiment of militia before the war, and when that broke out was appointed captain of the Dodge, a Unites States revenue cutter, which was captured in Galveston harbor when the state se- ceded. From the outset to the close of the Rebellion he fought in the Confederate navy. To use his own language: " The negroes were slaves, and I did my best to keep them so; but it 'is a blessing to us that they be- came free." He located in Thetford in 1869 and engaged in the manufac- ture of fishing rods. Thetford sent him to the legislature in 1882, and he was a candidate for senator in 1884 He has been postmaster at Post Mills since January 1, 1887.
John Bragg is a descendant of one of the early Vershire or Strafford fami- lies, but his early life was passed in Waterbury, Washington county. He lo- cated in Thetford in 1851, and in 1880 removed to Vershire, where he still lives. He sold the farm in Thetford to his son Dana, who is one of the most extensive and successful dairy farmers in the town.
Jonathan Josiah Conant, one of the substantial farmers of Thetford, was born in Lyme, N. H., in 1823. He had a good common school education with a few terms at an academy. In early life he was put to learn his father's trade as a carpenter and joiner, and followed this calling for a few years. Numerous churches, hotels, factories, and dwellings in all the region round about attest his and his father's skill and industry. He bought his present farm situated in Thetford on Connecticut river between the two depots in 1853, and has carried on farming there since. In all the affairs of his town, and of the church, of which he has been an earnest supporter, he has taken a lively interest, as a right minded public spirited citizen. In 1872 he was elected as a Republican to the legislature, and served two years with credit. He has also served as a justice of the peace. He has been married twice, first to Octavia B., youngest daughter of Abijah Howard, of North Thetford.
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She died in 1854 and left two children, Samuel D., a successful lawyer at Greenfield, Mass., and Octavia B., who married Charles L. Jones, an enter- prising business man in Hastings, Nebraska. His second wife is Martha P., daughter of I. T. Howard, of North Thetford, whom he married in 1859, and has three children, of whom the eldest, Sarah, graduated in 1887 from Wellesley college (Mass.); a son, David S., and a daughter, Mary C., are both under twenty-one years of age. Mr. Conant traces his ancestry back to Mary Chilton, one of the Pilgrim " mothers," and to Roger Conant, one of the most eminent of the early settlers of New England. Roger Conant was born in Devon, England, April 9, 1593, came to Plymouth with a family in 1623, and settled at Salem, Mass., where he built the first house, and was appointed the first governor of that infant colony. He served till 1628, when Gov- ernor Endicott, sent out from England, superseded him. He was the dele- gate from Salem to the first General Court held at Boston in 1634. For his public services he had a grant of 400 acres of land in what is now Beverly, Mass. He died in 1679, aged eighty-six years. Of his four sons, Lot Conant was the father of ten children, the youngest of whom was William, who was the father of the Rev. William Conant, the first minister of Lyme, N. H., where he remained twenty-six years until his death in 1810. Jonathan Conant was an elder brother to the Rev. William. He married Jane Latham, of Bridgewater, Mass., in 1760, and about 1773 came to Lyme and settled at " Lyme Plain." Where the meeting-house now stands was his corn field, and he built his house on the spot where the " Latham House," occupied by D. C. Church- ill, Esq , now stands. His wife, Jane Latham, was the great-granddaughter of Mary Chilton, the girl of eighteen who was the first person to step ashore at Plymouth Rock at the landing of the Pilgrims in 1620. Mary Chilton married John Winslow before 1627. Their daughter Susanna married Rob- ert Latham in 1649, and Robert was the grandfather of Mrs. Jane Latham Conant, the wife of Jonathan. Through their energy and influence the Lathams and the Rev. William Conant came to Lyme to settle. Jonathan Conant early enlisted in the Revolutionary war and served seven years. He was at Valley Forge and Yorktown, and many other important battles. He died in 1826, at the age of ninety-five years. He was small in stature, very nervous and quick in his motions, and of great energy. He was disabled in the war and received a pension. His son Josiah Conant, born in 1768, was killed in Orange, Vt., by a falling tree in 1801. He left a widow, Betsey Sloan, and six small children. One of the elder sons was Jonathan Conant, the father of the subject of this sketch. He was born in June, 1793, lived all his life at Lyme village, a worthy, industrious man. He served a short time in the War of 1812, was a lieutenant-colonel in the militia, an officer of his town, and as a builder noted far and wide for his skill and energy. He died in 1863, aged seventy years. He married Clarissa Dimick and had eight chil- dren. One of his sons, Dr. David S. Conant, achieved great celebrity in the medical profession, especially as an anatomist and surgeon, in New York city.
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He died in 1865, at the age of forty, greatly lamented by all who knew him. Another son, Chester C. Conant, a graduate of Dartmouth college and Al- bany Law school, is judge of probate and insolvency at Greenfield, Mass., and has a large and successful practice as a lawyer. He is a member of the bar of the United States supreme court, and was a delegate to the National Republi- can convention at Chicago in 1884. Dr. Abel B. Conant, the youngest son, was an army surgeon during the late war. He served three years in the West, was at the siege of Vicksburg, and in many engagements in Kentucky ard Tennesee. He died of diphtheria in 1864.
Rev. Harry Brickett, son of John Brickett and Elizabeth Putnam, his wife, was born February 1, 1818. He graduated at Dartmouth college in 1840, studied medicine at Hanover two years, and then engaged in teaching ; following that occupation thirteen consecutive years, and also in the mean- time lecturing in teachers' institutes in New Hampshire and Maine, having been employed in that work, in part during vacations, one hundred weeks. He taught the Francestown (N. H.) academy during seven consecutive years from 1844 to 1851 ; the Brown High (Latin) school on the Mall in Newbury- port two years, ending in May, 1853 ; and during four years following was principal of the Merrimack Normal Institute at Reed's Ferry, N. H., ably assisted by Mrs. Brickett a large part of the time. From that place, in the spring of 1857, he was called to the pastorate of the Congregational church at Hillsborough Bridge, N. H., and was ordained January 28, 1858. In 1865 he was called to be pastor of the Congregational church in Geneseo, Ill., to which place the family removed. Here they remained for seven years. In the autumn of 1872, having resigned his charge in Geneseo, he accepted the pastorate of a Union Evangelical church then recently established at East Lake George, in the town of Queensbury, Warren county, N. Y. In January, 1876, the family returned to Hillsborough Bridge, N. H., and Mr. Brickett, by invitation, to the charge of the Congregational church at that place, the place of his first settlement in the ministry. He remained six years, -in all over that church fourteen years,-and having resigned accepted an invitation to fill the pulpit in Thetford a short time. He was afterwards formally invited to remain as acting pastor, in which capacity he is now serving.
Charles D. Lucas was born in Boston, Mass., and came to Thetford over thirty years ago, where he followed farming until 1871, when he engaged in trade at the Center. Since 188t he has made a specialty of breeding short- horn cattle of the purest stock, also carrying on the mercantile business. His wife is Emeline F. (Tyler), and their children are one daughter, Helen (Mrs. Henry West), and one son. Henry West has served as postmaster at Thetford Center, and town clerk since 1871.
Don C. Wheeler, born in Plainfield, N. H., in 1822, came with his parents to Norwich when seven years of age. He settled on his present farm in the southwest corner of Thetford in 1858.
George W. Wise, son of Jonathan, who removed to Lyme, N. H., with his
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TOWN OF THETFORD.
family about 1837, was born in Groton, N. H., in 1818. He married Harriet M., daughter of William Gardner, of Lyme, and has three sons and one daughter-George G., Theodore W., Willie F. and Charlotte B. He settled on his present farm about 1857.
The First Congregational church of Thetford .- As early as 1768 Thetford and Lyme, N. H., united in supporting preaching ; but it was not until 1773 that Thetford had a settled pastor. At this date Rev. Clement Sumner was settled here, and the " minister's right " of land provided by the charter was voted to him. This when laid out included the place now occupied by the railroad depot at East Thetford. During the Revolution, Mr. Sumner being a tory, found it convenient to depart, going to Swanzey, N. H., where he exchanged his right in Thetford for the farm of William Heaton, who came to this town and settled. The second pastor was Rev. Asa Burton, D. D., born at Stonington, Conn., August 25, 1752, and with his father located in Norwich, Windsor county, in 1766. He graduated from Dartmouth col- lege in 1777, was called to the church in this town November 18, 1778, and ordained January 20, 1779, continuing as its pastor until old age disabled him for the duties of a pastorate. He died here May 1, 1836, in the fifty- sixth year of his ministry. He was a noted theological writer and instructor, having trained over sixty students for the ministry. The third pastor was Rev. Charles White, son of Dr. Burton's third wife. He was a graduate of Dartmouth college, and January 5, 1825, settled here as a colleague of Rev. Dr. Burton, being dismissed March 24, 1829. He subsequently became president of Wabash college, Indiana. The fourth pastor was Rev. E. G. Babcock, who was installed February 10, 1831, and died September 20, 1848. Mr. Babcock was succeeded by Rev. Timothy F. Clary, who was ordained December 12, 1849, and dismissed December 18, 1855. Rev. Leonard Tenney was installed October 21, 1857, dismissed August 1, 1866, supplied until December, 1867. Rev. Richard T. Searle, the seventh min- ister, was installed June 2, 1868, and dismissed December 15, 1873. The eighth pastor, Rev. Charles F. Morse, was installed June 25, 1875. The present pastor is Rev. Harry Brickett. Their first house of worship was. built of logs, in 1781, on the farm now occupied by H. A. Cummings. The present wooden building was erected in 1787, by the town, on the west side. of the common, and sold to the society and moved to its present site in 1830.
The Congregational church of North Thetford was organized October 8, 1878, by a council of delegates, with forty-one members. They have had no settled pastor, but have been supplied by students and professors from Dart- mouth college. Their church building, a union house, was erected of wood in 1860, and is occupied by the Congregationalists and Methodists on alter - nate Sundays. The building cost about $2,000. The society now has forty- five members, and are preached to by E. B. Blanchard, a Dartmouth college student. Rev. J. T. Classon preached here from the spring of 1877 to the summer of 1880, at this place and Fairlee, residing here. Rev. R. B. Fay-
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TOWN OF TOPSHAM.
preached here from April, 1883, to April, 1885, residing at Post Mills. The nucleus of a church fund has been given to this church, Rev. Isaac Hosford donating $500, Oramel Emerson $250, and John W. Andress $250.
The Congregational church of Post Mills was organized February 26, 1839, by a council of delegates, with twenty-six members from the churches of Thetford. West Fairlee, Vershire and Strafford. Their house of worship, the present wooden structure, was erected about 1814, has recently been repaired at a cost of $1.000, and will comfortably seat 275 persons. The present membership is seventy-eight, under the pastoral charge of Rev .. Leland E. Tupper.
The Methodist Episcopal church at North Thetford, a branch of the M. E. church at Thetford Center, occupies the union meeting-house on alternate Sabbaths with the Congregationalists. Their first house of worship, the present wooden structure, was erected in 1860, will comfortably seat 250 per- sons, and originally cost about $1,800. The present number of members is. forty-seven, with C. F. Partridge, pastor. The Sunday-school has nine teachers and eighty scholars.
The Methodist Episcopal church at Thetford Center was organized in 1836, by Rev. E. I. Scott, presiding elder from Montpelier, and consisted of thirty- five members. Rev. James Campbell was the first pastor. Their first house of worship, the present brick structure, was erected in 1836, will comfortably. seat 250 persons, cost $1,400, and is now valued at $2,000. The present pastor is Rev. E. E. Reynolds.
T OPSHAM is the central town in the northern part of the county, in latitude 44° 8' and longitude 4° 45', and is bounded north by Groton, Caledonia county, east by Newbury, south by Corinth, and west by Orange. It was chartered by Benning Wentworth, governor of New Hamp- shire, September 27, 1763, to George Frost and eighty one associates, and contained 23,040 acres, the charter bounds being as follows :-
"Beginning at the southwesterly corner bound of Newbury, a town lately granted in this Province lying on the westerly side of Connecticut river, from thence running north sixty-five degrees west, six miles to a stake and stones, then turning off and running north twenty degrees east, six miles to a stake and stones, then turning off again and running south sixty-nine degrees east, about six miles to the northwesterly corner of Newbury aforesaid, thence south twenty degrees west, about six miles and one-half mile by New- bury aforesaid, to the bounds began at."
The surface of Topsham is uneven-picturesquely interspersed with hills and valleys, which form a pleasing landscape picture. The soil is equally good on the hills and in the valleys, many of the best farms being upon the highest elevations. The agricultural products are abundant,-corn, rye, oats, and potatoes being the principal crops, while wheat yields a good harvest on
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the more elevated farms. There is comparatively very little barren land in the town.
The town is watered principally by the head branches of Wait's river. This stream rises in Harris Gore, in Washington county, passes through the northeast part of Orange, and enters Topsham, running southerly passes through the villages of West Topsham and Wait's River, thence through Corinth and Bradford, emptying into the Connecticut river. It affords some good mill-sites on its course. Tabor Branch, upon which the first grist-mill in town was built, at East Topsham, flows through nearly the central part of the town, and empties into Wait's river in the town of Corinth. It also affords some good mill-sites.
The rocks entering into the geological structure of the town are principally of the calciferous mica schist formation, the only other strata being a very small outcrop of granite, syenite and protogine in the northwestern corner. There is a small bed of marl in the southern part, near Wait's river where it crosses the border into Corinth.
In 1880 Topsham had a population of 1,365. In 1886 the town had fifteen school districts and fourteen common schools, taught during the year by six male and nineteen female teachers, to whom was paid an average weekly salary, including board, of $7.23 to the males and $4.20 to the females. There were 354 scholars, seven of whom attended private schools. The entire income for school purposes was $2,311.79, while the whole amount expended was $1,905.22, with Milo Kezer, superintendent.
EAST TOPSHAM (Topsham p. o.) is a village located east of the center of the town. It contains two churches, a general store, saw-mill, grist-mill, wheelwright shop, and about a dozen dwellings. The village is pleasantly located in a valley on a branch of Wait's river. The town house is located here.
WEST TOPSHAM (p. o.), the largest village in the town, is picturesquely located in a beautiful little valley on Wait's river, in the southwestern part of the town. It contains two general stores, one lawyer, two physicians, a grist- mill, saw-mill, blacksmith shop, a union church, used by the Freewill Baptist and Methodist Episcopal societies, a good hotel, and about twenty-five dwellings.
WAIT'S RIVER (p. o.) is situated on Wait's river, in the southwestern part of the town. It contains a general store, blacksmith shop, bobbin factory, saw-mill, a church, and about a dozen dwellings.
Samuel M. Field's grist-mill, located on Wait's river, in West Topsham village, came into Mr. Field's possession in 1877. It grinds about 5,000 bushels of wheat per annum, and about the same number of bushels of other grain.
Beede & Locke's saw and grist-mill was built by Edson C. Swift about 1856, and was bought by Mr. Beede, in company with Orange A. Dodge, in 1883. In September, 1885, Mr. Dodge disposed of his interest, and in
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TOWN OF TOPSHAM.
February, 1886, Mr. Beede took in as partner Spaulding Locke, the business now being conducted under the firm name of Beede & Locke. They employ four hands, and do about $4,000 worth of business per annum.
Henry E. Hood's butter-tub factory, on road 59, came into Mr. Hood's pos- session in January, 1884. He employs two men, and manufactures about 3,000 tubs per annum.
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