History of Chittenden County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 87

Author: Rann, W. S. (William S.)
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 1054

USA > Vermont > Chittenden County > History of Chittenden County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 87

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Mr. Barnes, in common with the best of his fellow-citizens, cherished a strong de- sire that Burlington should not depend for its prosperity on the lumber trade alone. He was aware that there are large iron mines and furnaces in the Champlain Valley, and that the manufacture of iron ought to be successfully prosecuted in this place. The Burlington Manufacturing Company was accordingly chartered and organized with a capital of $175,000, nails and merchant iron being the staple production. Mr. Barnes was elected treasurer of the new corporation, and by his probity and skill commended

Lawrence Barnes

721

LAWRENCE BARNES.

it to other capitalists in town. At the end of two years, however, operations were sus- pended, but Mr. Barnes, from sheer sympathy with many of the less able holders, pur- chased their stock - much of it at par, and magnanimously suffered the loss himself. The works remained silent and decaying until 1871, when Mr. Barnes and others re- solved to convert them into marble works. Thus was he instrumental in introducing the marble trade in the city, which survived the commercial panic of 1873, and is to- day one of the most prosperous enterprises in Northern Vermont. From the beginning Mr. Barnes acted as treasurer and principal proprietor. He also subscribed largely to the stock of the Howard National Bank, of which institution he was president from its organization to the time of his death. He was a stockholder and director of the Bur- lington Gas Company and the Vermont Life Insurance Company, and president of the National Horse Nail Company of Vergennes. In 1868 he was elected one of the di- rectors of the Rutland Railroad Company, and retained that office until the lease of the road to the Central Vermont, and was also for some years one of the trustees of Vermont Central Railroad.

Although never an aspirant for political honors, Mr. Barnes displayed his usual ca- pacity and fidelity in all political positions to which he was elected by his fellow-citizens. In 1864 and 1865 he represented Burlington in the Legislature of the State, and ob- tained the city charter during his term of service. After the incorporation of the city he was chosen a member of the first board of aldermen, and served in that capacity for three years. He was a member of the national Republican convention that nom- inated General U. S. Grant for a second term. At the time of his death he was an honored trustee of the University of Vermont, to which position he had been elected in 1865.

For many years before his death, which occurred on the 21st day of June, 1886, Lawrence Barnes was a leading member and a deacon of the First Baptist Church of Burlington. The present house of worship now occupied by that church was reared largely " on the foundations of his munificence." On the day of his funeral the large manufactories in the whole city were closed in honor of his memory, and the working- men, to whom he had always been a true friend, turned out in a body and followed his remains to their final rest. He left a widow and three children. He was united in marriage on the 20th day of May, 1841, with Lucinda F., daughter of Oliver Farmer. They had six children, three of whom died young. Those who survive are a son, Lawrence K., and two daughters, Georgiana L., wife of F. W. Smith, and Ella Frances, wife of C. R. Hayward, all of Burlington. Mr. Barnes was most happy in his domes- tic relations. Among the remarks made upon the occasion of his funeral, his character was beautifully and aptly described in the following language by President M. H. Buckham :

" I said his life was almost the typical life of a self-made man. In one respect it was not such. The self-made man is almost always self-conscious, self-asserting, of a spirit unlike that of which St. Paul says that it ' vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly.' There was not in Mr. Barnes a particle of this vanity. He was beautifully simple, natural, and unconscious of himself. He could not have borne himself more meekly and graciously in the midst of his wealth and his success, if his ancestors for ten generations had had the use and wont of great breeding. He was a native gentleman, one of the truest and best, artless, humble, kindly, incapable of of- fense, absolutely incapable of malice."

722

HISTORY OF CHITTENDEN COUNTY.

BORROWDALE, HENRY. The subject of this sketch was born on the 24th of December, 1813, in Warbethwait, Cumberland county, England. His father, John Borrowdale, a farmer, was born in Cumberland county September 10, 1778, and died in Canada February 22, 1849. His wife, the mother of Henry Borrowdale, was Ann Thompson, and was born in the town of Borrowdale, which probably derived its name from this family, in Westmoreland county, England, May 2, 1777, and died in 1860. They had nine children, Hannah, Elizabeth, John, Ann, Margaret, Henry, Jane, Mary, and Sarah, who were born in the order named. In 1823 John Borrowdale brought his family to Odelltown, seignory of Lacole, D. C., P. Q., where he and his wife both died.

Henry Borrowdale received in his native country such education as he could obtain in the common schools, and came to America with his parents. At the age of fifteen years he left home for St. Albans, Vermont, and there entered upon a four years' ap- prenticeship to the cabinet-making trade, after completing which he returned to the home of his father in Canada and passed several months. He then passed a year in Montreal as a journeyman cabinet-maker, but was driven out by the cholera panic of 1834, when he again passed some time with his father. Thence he repaired succes- sively to St. Albans, Vt., two years, Burlington one year, Plattsburgh, N. Y., until 1845, Hopkinton, N. Y., one year, about a year in several places in Illinois, chiefly Fox River, then a short time in Canada, and again in Plattsburgh, after which he returned to the residence of his father in Canada. During all these years he was working at his trade as a journeyman until after his first year in Plattsburgh, and then independently. He remained with the family of his father until just before the death of his mother, in the spring of 1860. In March of that year he came to the farm in Jericho which he now owns and occupies, and which was originally settled by his father-in-law, Jonas Marsh, a worthy pioneer in the settlement of the town. Since that time he has remained on this place, improving and enlarging the premises. The farm originally contained 176 acres, which he has made by gradual accessions 213. He has for a number of years made a specialty of dairying, and has been practically president of the Mill Brook Cheese Factory, which has been in operation since 1874, taking milk from 400 or 500 cows annually. He generally keeps about twenty cows in addition to other stock.

Mr. Borrowdale is a liberal-minded member of the Republican party, and in ante- bellum times was an uncompromising opponent of slavery. Being unobtrusive in man- ners, and without political ambition, he has remained out of office as much as con- venient, serving occasionally as lister, appriser, etc. He has for many years been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and for a long time before coming to Jeri- cho was the class leader in one society. There being no Methodist Church near his present residence, and because of a troublesome defect in his hearing, he has not of late been a very frequent attendant at service.

Henry Borrowdale was first married in 1840 to Mary J. Reed, of Plattsburgh, N. Y. At her death she left one child, Clela Elizabeth, who died at Odelltown at the age of thirteen years. On the 26th of January, 1859, he was united in marriage with Orpha, daughter of Jonas Marsh, who is now living with him. Their only child is an adopted daughter, Effie, who has lived with them since she was two years of age.

Jonas Marsh was born in Bath, N. H., on the 9th of August, 1783, and was the son of James Marsh, the first settler in Waterbury, Vt. Upon the death of his father in 1793 he came to Jericho with two brothers, and entered into possession of the farm upon which Mr. Borrowdale now lives, not far from 1800. In 1806 he married Peggy

A LITTLE

Henry Borrowdale

723

HENRY BORROWDALE. - LYMAN BURGESS.

Whitten, of Jericho, and a native of Cummington, Mass., and with her became the father of five children, Lucien, Emeline, Laura, Orpha, and Catharine, of whom Orpha, (Mrs. Borrowdale) was the fourth, and is the only surviving child.

PURGESS, LYMAN. Lyman Burgess was born at Grafton, Vt., on the 6th of March, 1798. His surname is derived from no uncertain source, being in England a civil or official title. The inhabitant or representative of a burgh or borough is a burgess. In the Old World the orthography of the name is well preserved, but in this country is frequently found corrupted into such forms as burghess, burges, burgis, borgis, burge, burg, etc. Lyman Burgess was in the seventh generation direct from Thomas Burgess, who emigrated from England to Salem, Mass., about 1630, owned a piece of land in that part of Plymouth called Duxbury, in 1637, and in the same year forfeited his title by removing to Sandwich, where he acquired a large property. The family have always possessed the trait of love for home, and the home of Thomas Burgess is still in the possession of his descendants.

Lyman Burgess remained on the farm of his father, Benjamin Burgess, during the whole period of his youth, attending the district schools of Grafton, and in the intervals assisting about the work of the farm. He soon displayed the active and sterling busi- ness qualities of his ancestors, and determined to enter at once upon a business career. After passing a number of years in Boston as a clerk in a large store he removed to Milton in 1826 and immediately engaged in mercantile business. From this time until October, 1877, he continued the trade he had established. By virtue of diligent atten- tion to the management of his affairs, the possession of a genial and even disposition and of habits of honesty and economy, he acquired a handsome property in Milton, and at the age of seventy-nine years retired from the active pursuits of life. He did not confine his energy to the mercantile business, but during a considerable portion of his residence in Milton operated extensively in lumbering, buying and clearing many tracts of valuable pine timber, which grew here in abundance at the time of his advent. He also owned a fine water privilege in Milton village, and for many years operated a saw-mill and paper-mill. He was abundantly able to manage the affairs of his varied interests, being in better spirits when his activities were taxed to the utmost than when he was permitted even a momentary relaxation. As evidence of his almost imper- turbable temper, it may be stated that he kept one man in his employment for more than forty years, which a moody or irascible man has never been known to do.

Lyman Burgess was united in marriage on the 22d of January, 1823, with Lucia Day, daughter of Warren and Keziah Hill. Warren Hill is mentioned in the history of Milton as owner for a long time of the entire water privilege in Milton village.

In politics Mr. Burgess was a consistent Democrat, never aspiring to public posi- tion. He died at his home in Milton on the 12th of December, 1882, leaving one child, Lucretia, wife of the late Edgar A. Witters, who now owns the property which hẹ left.

Edgar Alonzo Witters was the son of Ira Witters and grandson of Hawley Witters, mentioned in the history of the town of Milton. His father was born on the 7th of December, 1797, near the line of Milton, in Georgia, and passed the greater portion of his life on a farm in the north part of the town. About 1849, however, he removed to a farm a little more than a mile south from Milton village, which is now held by his widow. He was twice married, Edgar A. being one of the three children of his first

724

HISTORY OF CHITTENDEN COUNTY.

wife. He was frequently placed in positions of trust by the voters of his town, being highway surveyor as early as 1823, and selectman from 1833 to 1839 inclusive, from 1843 to 1850 inclusive, and in 1852, besides holding other offices. He died on the 20th of September, 1861. His son, Edgar A., was born on the 22d of April, 1827, educated in the common schools of Milton, and at the age of sixteen years began to act in the capacity of clerk for Lyman Burgess. He was admitted to an interest in the business in 1852, and continued in that relation until 1861, when he went to New Or- leans as sutler for the Eighth Vermont Regiment, under General Butler. After the taking of that city, in which he had a large stock of supplies, he resigned his position in the army and engaged there in the wholesale grocery and commission mercantile business. An extensive trade was soon established, at first under the sole proprietorship of Mr. Witters, and afterwards under that of the firm of Weed, Witters & Co., the partnership being dissolved in 1866. In the fall of 1868 he returned to his home in Milton, and after a brief stay went again to New Orleans to attend to the management of two rice plantations which he owned below the city. While superintending the harvesting of the rice he contracted malarial fever and was obliged to start immediately for his home in the North. He died at Chicago, while on his way home, on the 16th of February, 1869, and his remains were buried in Milton. Like his father, he was an active member of the Democratic party, and was frequently called upon to serve his town in some public office.

He married Lucretia, daughter of Lyman Burgess, on the 26th of October, 1853, and left two children, now living -Catharine C., now with her mother, and Lucia Bur- gess, wife of Homer E. Powell.

CANNON, COLONEL LE GRAND B. Le Grand Bouton Cannon, son of Le Grand and Esther (Bouton) Cannon, was born in New York city on the first day of November, 1815, and is descended from an honorable ancestry among the French Huguenots. The patronymic is derived from a distinguished family of Cannons, or Canons, as the name was originally spelled, who lived in Dijon, France, from which town Jean, or John, Canon emigrated to England, and thence, in 1632, in company with a large body of Huguenots, to Westchester county, New York, where they established the first settlement of New Rochelle. As early as 1632 John Cannon became extensively en- gaged in foreign shipping in New York city. Cannon street in that city is named from this family. The name of Le Grand comes from an equally interesting and honorable source : John Cannon, son of John Cannon before mentioned, having married a daugh- ter of Pierre Le Grand, a fellow member of the Huguenot settlement. In the year 1698 a portion of this family went to South Carolina, where they established themselves in honorable and eminently successful pursuits. The mother of the subject of our sketch, Esther Bouton, traced her ancestry back to a distinguished Huguenot family, hereditary seneschals of the French fortresses of Dole.

Colonel Cannon received a thorough education at the Rensselaer Institute, now known as the Polytechnic Institute, of Troy, N. Y., from which he was graduated in 1834. Immediately after his graduation he began a successful career as a wholesale dry goods merchant in Troy, and was able to relinquish the activities of this pursuit in 1846. Four years later he took up his residence in New York city, which is still his home for six months of each year. Although not engaged in business on his own account, he has ever been of too active a temperament to remain idle and has interested himself in many

725

COLONEL LE GRAND B. CANNON.

public enterprises, invariably attaining in them all high positions of confidence and honor. In 1864 he became president of the Champlain Transportation Company, a position which requires great administrative abilities, sound and accurate judgment, and an ex- tensive acquaintance with human nature. This office he still holds, having since his inauguration conducted the company from a subordinate station among powerful com- petitors to a level above competition and beyond the fear of failure. The history of the company is given in detail in Chapter XV of this work. Among other offices which have been conferred upon Colonel Cannon may be mentioned that of president of the Lake George Steamboat Company, president of the Crown Point Iron Company, pres- ident of the Champlain Valley Association, vice-president of the Delaware and Hud- son Railroad Company, and of director in a number of railroad and banking compa- nies. It is unnecessary to comment upon the wisdom of the discrimination which has placed Colonel Cannon in these elevated stations ; the intelligent people of the entire Champlain valley have been familiar with his just, determined and always successful methods for years.

Colonel Cannon's first military service was rendered in the Canadian Rebellion of 1838, when he was aide-de-camp to General Wool, stationed near the Canadian border in Northern Vermont. In 1861 he was reappointed to the regular service, and served through the Rebellion as chief of staff of General Wool, with the rank of colonel. His headquarters were at Fort Monroe. His experience and military accomplishments were of great service to the cause of the Union. He was influential in bringing into the serv- ice the first slaves that were given arms for the Union during the war, and as a member of the military commission which commanded the department of Virginia, made the first report that substantially emancipated the slaves in that department nine months before the famous proclamation of President Lincoln.

The beautiful site on the heights in Burlington which Colonel Cannon occupies about six months every year came into his hands by purchase in 1856. He then began at once to erect the buildings and grade and beautify the grounds, which are still the most attractive ornament to the city, and first occupied them in 1859. No better place in the Champlain valley could have been selected for beauty of prospect and healthful- ness of situation. Colonel Cannon also owns a valuable farm of 450 acres in the town of Shelburne, devoted to breeding fine stock.

The first political affiliations of the subject of this sketch were with the old Whig party, of which he was a member until its dissolution, when he united with the Repub- lican party. His aversion for political office, however, has been as great as his interest in business. He has repeatedly declined a nomination to Congress or political con- ventions in the State of New York, and in 1885 declined the proffered candidacy for the governorship of that State, the only exception being as a member of the electoral college of 1880. As a citizen, nevertheless, he is always awake to the best interests of his party and country, a fact which is abundantly attested by his position as vice-presi- dent of the Union League of New York, the greatest Republican club in the United States, which dates its origin from the war period He but recently declined the nomi- nation to the presidency of that club. During the recent labor agitations he introduced to this league a series of forcible and effective resolutions, which were unanimously adopted.

Colonel Cannon is a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal Church, into which faith he was born and baptized.

726

HISTORY OF CHITTENDEN COUNTY.

On the first day of July, 1842, he married Mary, daughter of Benjamin De Forest, of New York city. He has three daughters and one son, viz. : Mrs. Chester Griswold, of New York, Mrs. Horace J. Brooks, of Burlington, Mrs. Louis Crawford Clark, of New York, and Henry Le Grand Cannon, still living with his parents. Col. Cannon is a widower; his wife died in 1871.

ANFIELD, THOMAS HAWLEY, only son of Samuel and Mary Ann Hawley C Canfield, was born in Arlington, Bennington county, Vt., March 29, 1822. His ancestors were somewhat prominent in the political affairs of Vermont during the Revo- lutionary War, before it had become a State, while endeavoring to protect its rights from the encroachments of New Hampshire upon the east, and New York upon the west. Mr. Canfield was brought up on a farm, but at an early age he evinced a strong desire for a more advanced education than the common school of his native town afforded. Accordingly he was placed by his father at Burr Seminary, in Manchester, at its open- ing in May, 1833, under those able professors, the Rev. Dr. Coleman, the Rev. Dr. Worcester and John Aiken, esq., where he remained until he was fitted for college at the age of fourteen. Having a decided taste for practical matters, and not desiring to enter college at this early age, he returned home to the work of the farm for two years, when he was transferred to the Troy Episcopal Institute with reference to a scientific course of study, which had a very efficient corps of instructors, among them the present bishop of Vermont.

He was particularly fond of mathematics, and it was while demonstrating a difficult problem at a public examination in the city of Troy, N. Y., that he arrested the attention of the late Bishop Alonzo Potter, of Pennsylvania, who was one of the examiners, and then the acting president of Union College, Schenectady. By him Mr. Canfield was induced to abandon his idea of becoming a civil engineer and to enter the junior class in Union College, in 1839. He was by far the youngest in this class of over eighty, but yet, through the same indefatigable energy and perseverance which has character- ized his conduct through life in everything which he has undertaken, he was one of the Maximum Ten who came out at the head of it.

Soon after the beginning of the senior year he was summoned to Vermont by the sudden death of his father; and although strongly urged by President Potter, as well as by his own relatives, to return and complete his college course, he considered the duty he owed to his mother and only sister paramount to everything else, and again took up the burden of the farm.

Finding the labor of the farm too severe for his slender constitution, he removed, in 1844, to Williston, Vt., where he became a merchant, having in the mean time married Elizabeth A., only daughter of Eli Chittenden, a grandson of the first governor of Ver- mont. She died in 1848, and he subsequently married Caroline A., the youngest daughter of the Rt. Rev. Bishop Hopkins, of Vermont, who is still living, and by whom he has two sons and three daughters. He remained in Williston until 1847, when he removed to Burlington, Vt., where he still resides, to take the place in the firm of Fol- lett & Bradley, the leading wholesale merchants and forwarders in Northern Vermont, made vacant by the withdrawal of Judge Follett, who had taken the presidency of the Rutland and Burlington Railroad, then in course of construction. Mr. Canfield for some time resisted this arrangement, believing himself too young and inexperienced for the important position tendered him, but finally was induced to yield to the persistent en-

727

THOMAS HAWLEY CANFIELD.

treaties of Follett & Bradley, who had recognized in his short business career at Willis- ton the peculiar traits in his character which fitted him particularly for the responsible position which they desired him to occupy. Their office and headquarters were at the stone store on Water street, Burlington, near the steamer wharf and railroad depot.

At this time there were no railroads in Vermont; but the two roads from Boston, the one via Concord and Montpelier, and the other via Bellows Falls and Rutland, were being extended across the Green Mountains by two different routes to Burlington. His firm, Bradley & Canfield, with two or three other gentlemen, were engaged in building the one from Bellows Falls by the way of Rutland, which was completed in December, 1849. At the same time, in connection with George W. Strong, of Rutland, and Merritt Clark, of Poultney, they built the Rutland and Washington Railroad from Rutland to Eagle Bridge, N. Y., connecting at that point with a railroad to Troy and another to Albany, thus opening the first line of railroad to New York, as well as to Boston, from Northwestern Vermont. While these were in progress Messrs. Bradley & Canfield, in connection with T. F. Strong and Joseph and Selah Chamberlin, built the Ogdensburgh Railroad from Rouse's Point to Ogdensburgh, as well as other railroads in New York and Pennsylvania. Mr. Canfield was now fairly enlisted with a fleet of boats in the transportation business between Montreal and New York, as well as in mercantile pursuits, and in the building of railroads, which at that time but few contractors under- took. In the management of these great interests Mr. Canfield formed an extensive acquaintance and gained a knowledge of the resources of the country on both sides of Lake Champlain, which gave him an experience in handling and transporting the prod- ucts of the country that attracted the attention of the directors of the Rutland and Washington Railroad, and commended him as a fit man to manage its affairs, and to open and organize it for business. As soon as completed they selected him for super- intendent, which he declined. But so many of his friends were interested in it, and it being a new departure in the transportation of Western Vermont, he yielded to their appeals and accepted the situation, retaining at the same time the management of his former business at Burlington. Mr. Canfield afterwards became president of the Rut- land and Washington Railroad, and subsequently took a lease of it and operated it on his own account, being probably the first railroad in the country ever leased by a private individual.

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History of Chittenden County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 87

Author: Rann, W. S. (William S.) Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co. Number of Pages: 1054

Author: Rann, W. S. (William S.)
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 1054