History of Rutland County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 112

Author: Smith, H. P. (Henry Perry), 1839-1925. 1n; Rann, William S
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y., D. Mason & co.
Number of Pages: 1170

USA > Vermont > Rutland County > History of Rutland County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 112

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In the year 1857 Charles Sheldon purchased the interest of Mr. Morgan in the business and the firm was reorganized under the name of Sheldon & Slason. In 1865 was purchased the share of Dr. Lorenzo Sheldon and then he associated his own sons, John A. and Charles II., with himself in partnership. In 1881 Mr. Slason's interest was purchased and William K. Sheldon, another son of Charles, entered the firm and the title was changed to Sheldon & Sons, which it still bears.

In political affairs Mr. Sheldon was formerly an active participant. While residing in Troy and New York he was an ardent and active Whig. After coming to Rutland he declined further political participation and has persistently declined official political station of any kind. His attention has been devoted to his large and growing business and for a long series of years he was seldom absent from his office.

Charles Sheldon was married on the 30th of June, 1838, to Janet, daughter of John and Janet (Somerville) Reid. Mrs. Sheldon's mother was born in Scotland ; her patronymic is of high social and scientific distinction. They have had seven children, six sons and one daugh- ter. All of the sons are living, four of them in business with their father, and two in business in New York city. Mrs. Sheldon died in February, 1859. Mr. Sheldon subsequently married Harriette, daughter of George Reddington, of St. Lawrence county, N. Y.

S HELDON, JOHN ALEXANDER, eldest son of Charles and Janet (Reid) Sheldon, was born in Troy, N. Y., August 14, 1839. His education was received principally at the Sand Lake Academy, Sand Lake, N. Y., and at Williamstown, Mass. Just before he reached fifteen years of age he left school and entered the store of Sheldons, Morgan & Slason. He filled a minor station here for several years, and then accepted the position of book-keeper for the same firm. He remained in this office until the breaking out of the War of the Rebellion. The call of the government for volunteers, which drew from their homes so many of the sons of Vermont, stirred his sense of patriotism and he joined the First Regiment of Vermont Vol- unteers (three months men) as sergeant. Returning home at the expiration of this term, he remained until the organization of the Tenth Regiment, in which he again went to the front as captain of Company C. The record of this gallant regiment has been preserved in a historical volume and will be found in brief in this work. Mr. Sheldon remained in the field through the remainder of the war, and on his return purchased an interest in the great marble business of his father, as described above. As a member of this firm his excellent business qualifications, his untiring industry and his general popularity have enabled him to exert an influence for its

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HISTORY OF RUTLAND COUNTY.

prosperity second only to that of his father. These qualifications have not gone unrecognized by his townsmen ; he has filled the office of selectman three years ; was trustee of Rutland village and one year president of the board. In 1876 he was elected to represent the town in the Legislature of the State ; in this year he also acted as senior aid-de-camp on Governor Fairbank's staff. He was for several years a trustee of the old Rutland Savings Bank and is now vice-president of the Merchants' National Bank of Rutland. Immediately succeeding the war he took up his residence in Rutland village, where he purchased his beautiful home in the spring of 1870.

Mr. Sheldon was married on the 20th of December, 1866, to Caroline A., daughter of Au- gustus M. Eastman, of Brooklyn, N. Y. They have seven children, four sons and three daugh- ters, as follows : Charles Alexander, born October 17, 1867 ; Angustus Eastman, born June 20, 1869 ; Mary Hatfield, born March 3, 1871 ; Francis Marion, born February 1, 1873; John Somerville, born February 4, 1875 ; Carolyn Pearl, born November 9, 1876 ; Archie McDaniels, born April 23, 1885.

MITH, WARREN H. The subject of this sketch was born in Brookfield, Vt., March 25, S 1818. Here his grandparents and parents had settled as farmers. The grandfather, Tim- othy Smith, died in 1824 at the advanced age of ninety years, his widow surviving him, and died at the extraordinary age of ninety-four years. Norman Smith, the father of Warren, was born in Hanover, N, H., July 18, 1776. Susannah Worden, his mother, belonged to a leading and influential family of Scotch descent, in Halifax, Vt., where she was born October 15, 1780. His parents were married January 29, 1803, and raised a family of seven children, of whom three survive, Warren being the youngest.

Norman Smith died October 27, 1823. His widow remarried and died July 11, 1850,

Thus at the early age of six years Warren was left to care for himself. He was put out to service to make his way in life as best he could, enduring the trials, afflictions and inflictions of a poor boy among strangers during the earlier years of his boyhood, which he has never for- gotten, and which begat in him a tender feeling and sympathy for poor children ever since. Warren remained in Brookfield till he was about fourteen years of age, working at farming summers and attending school winters, and then removed to Randolph, Vt., and there attended the academy and completed his education ; in the mean time working on farms in the summer and teaching school every winter for seven years, beginning when fourteen years of age.

He began the study of the law with the Hon. Wm. Nutting, at Randolph, at the age of twenty-one, and was admitted to practice at the Orange County Court, June term 1843. He had quite a practice and several cases in the County Court before he was admitted to the bar. His necessities for means to meet his expenses required him to do what work and business he could while getting his education and studying his profession.

In August, 1843, he came to Rutland county and engaged in active practice in his profession, devoting the energies of a healthy body and mind in the faithful service of his clients, and his practice became quite extensive and fairly remunerative ; in which practice he has continued to the present, though of late years he has measurably retired from active practice and allowed himself the luxury of travel with his family in his own country and abroad. He never sought for political distinction or office, although a Whig and Republican and interested generally in politics and the success of the measures and principles of his political party.

Of late years he has given his attention more to financial affairs and has become connected as director in two of the national banks in Rutland.

Mr. Smith was united in marriage, on the 8th of December, 1857, with Miss Helen B. Wey- mouth, of Walpole, N. H., where she was born on the 28th of February, 1837. They had born to them two sons and two daughters, and felt themselves especially favored and blessed with their four promising and healthy children, all of whom with their parents became members of the Congregational Church at Rutland, and the cup of human happiness for parents and chil- dren seemed full. But alas ! in the year 1883 affliction and extreme grief came in the death of their two older children, a son twenty-three and a daughter twenty-one years old.

Norman Weymouth, their eldest son, was born May 21, 1859, and died January 7, 1883. Theo Linsley, the eldest daughter, was born April 14, 1862, and died October 24, 1883. Guy Leslie was born April 21, 1866, graduated at Rutland High School, and is now a clerk in a bank in Rutland. Helen B., their youngest child, was born August 3, 1869, and is now in Rut- land High School.

The death in one year of the son and daughter, under the circumstances, was painfully afflictive to parents and friends as well as to their acquaintances. Norman had from his early boyhood manifested a disposition for earnest and profitable study, was a very bright boy and intelligent young man, specially calculated to attach himself to friends and acquaintances. He had received his classical education at Middlebury and Williams Colleges, and pursued his medical studies at Vermont University and Atlanta (Ga.) Medical College, and had fully and

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WARREN H. SMITH.

ably prepared himself for the practice of medicine at Atlanta, where he had formed a partner- ship for practice. Being severely afflicted with rheumatism, he went to Atlanta in the hope that the milder climate of the South would benefit him ; but the dread enemy of the living had placed his seal upon his brow.

" God's finger touched him and he slept."

Theo died at her home in Rutland of typhoid fever. The loss sustained by her circle of friends and acquaintances in her death is best expressed in the language of Rev. Dr. John- son, her pastor, and Mrs Dorr, the authoress, who knew her well, in their " Memorial " of her. Extracts. - " It is no ordinary loss that has fallen upon a wide circle of friends in the death of this most estimable young lady. It is one of those instances when human lips are dumb. Human wisdom can give no solution to the mystery.

" Miss Smith was of studious and thoughtful nature, and was finely educated. Naturally intelligent and of clear, quick mind, she had acquired many accomplishments, in which she was constantly growing. It is but a few weeks since she returned from a four months' trip in Europe with her parents, for which she had prepared herself by much reading, and from which she brought rich stores of knowledge.

" But in character she was more marked still. One who knew her intimately could hardly speak of her truthfully without a tone of extravagance. She was amiable with all, but had a most winning affectionateness toward those nearest her. There was an elevation of mind, a singular gentleness and dignity, alike in her bearing, and in her conversation, which was no- ticeably free from uncharitableness of spirit or carelessness of speech. Into that inner circle of her home, with whose sacred grief ' the stranger intermeddleth not,' has come a sorrow that words cannot measure. A large part of the joy of life came to her parents through her bright young spirit. Many hearts who share in a degree that loss extend to them a warm sympathy. We shall see her no more, but the thousand remembrances of a rich and beautiful life cannot be taken away."

The following words were written by Mrs. Julia C. R. Dorr, president of the Fortnightly, and read by her before a large gathering of that society at its first meeting for the year, No- vember 17, 1883:

"This should be a festal day ; the day on which we meet after our long vacation, to resume our pleasant intercourse and the work in which we take such delight. It is a happy day, in spite of all losses and bereavements. Yet with this empty chair beside me, how can I ignore the fact that in all our hearts there is the cry, -

' O, for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still !'

" In the death of our late secretary, whose beautiful name, Theodora - Gift of God - seems in the light of what she grew to be, to have been given her in a moment of prophetic in- spiration. The Fortnightly has met with a loss that cannot be adequately measured. How great it is no one knows better than I, by whose side she sat last winter. To her rare intel- lectual gifts and acquirements, she added a practical executive ability, a steadiness of purpose, a wise foresight, and a faithfulness in the discharge of duty, that are rarer still. She knew instinctively the right thing to do, and she did it ; the right word to say, and she said it ; quietly, modestly, unobtrusively, yet with a grace and dignity that were all her own. Theo was faith- ful as the sun. Only once last winter was she absent from her post. When the shadow of death fell with awful suddenness upon the threshold of her own home, the young feet faltered for a moment. She was absent from one meeting. At the next she was in her place again, paler and sadder, it is true, but as calm and self-poised as ever.

" This society never had a more faithful and efficient officer than Theo Smith. When a sol- dier falls at his post, it is fitting that his comrades should drape their colors and fire a salute over his grave. We do not go forth to our battles with waving of banners, or blare of trumpets. But I propose to you that our badges and the standard that bears the motto of our society, shall be draped with emblems of mourning for the rest of the current year. I would also sug- gest that, as a token of our regard, the secretaryship should be held vacant during the season, and its duties performed by a secretary pro tem."

It will not seem strange that extreme sorrow pervaded the "inner circle " of the home thus stricken, but knowing they cannot bring back to them the loved ones gone before, each stricken one fully trusting to meet in happy reunion in heaven, can say with the Psalmist, " Truly my soul waiteth upon God, from whom cometh my salvation. He only is my rock, he is my defense, I shall not be greatly moved.

"O Lord, as for me I will behold Thy face in righteousness, and shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness."

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HISTORY OF RUTLAND COUNTY.

T AYLOR, DANIEL WALTON. The ancestors of Daniel Walton Taylor came to Ver- mont from Massachusetts, in the person of his grandfather, John Taylor, who was born in 1765, and raised in Carlisle, Mass. When he was seventeen years old he came to Plymouth, Windsor county, Vt., where he worked seven years before removing his family thither. His wife was Abigail Wheeler. The old homestead where they settled has remained in the pos- session of the family to the present time and is now owned by Reuben and John Taylor (sons of Reuben and grandsons of the elder John). The children of John and Abigail Taylor were as follows : John, jr., born September 22, 1789. Abel, born April 12, 1792. Reuben, born May 28, 1794. Patience, born January 17, 1797. Nathan (father of Daniel Walton), born Au- gust 9, 1799. Nathaniel, born March 26, 1802. Nabby, born August 29, 1804. Betsey, born March 22, 1807. Polly, born November 7, 1809, is the widow of Luther Coolidge, jr., of Roch- ester, Vt., and is the only surviving child of John and Abigail Taylor.

Nathan Taylor spent his early life in Plymouth, where he married Mary Walton, of New Ipswich, N. H. Mr. Taylor was a respected farmer. He removed to Sherburne on the Ist of March, 1831, and settled on the farm now occupied by the subject of this notice, where he died on the 12th of August, 1844. His widow survives him and lives with her son, D. W. Taylor. Their children were as follows : Daniel Walton, the eldest. Harriet, born November I, 1825, married Oliver Coolidge, jr., first, and, second, Abijah Ellis, and now lives a widow in Sherburne. Abby P., born March 11, 1828, married Ora J. Taylor, of Ludlow, and is now pastor of the Baptist Church in East Bethel, Vt.

Daniel Walton Taylor was born in Plymouth, Vt., June 18, 1823. His youth was spent at his paternal home chiefly in the laudable effort to secure a fair English education in the dis- trict schools, supplemented by two terms at the Black River Academy, Ludlow, Vt. His studies finished he continued at home until his father's death, which occurred just as the young man reached his majority. He took the homestead of two hundred acres, the improvement and culture of which has since been his chief occupation. The buildings on the farm have been greatly improved and added to by Mr. Taylor, and are now among the best in the county.

But this quiet farm life has not sufficed by any means to satisfy Mr. Taylor's ambition. He was well fitted for other duties, both by natural gifts and education. He was elected first selectman in the years 1863-64 and 1865, and enlisted nearly all the men to fill the quotas of the town in those years. After the war he took out a license as claim agent for procuring pensions and bounties for the soldiers and their families, and as a conveyancer of real estate. He was also connected with a union store in Sherburne as one of its directors and treasurer for nearly eleven years ; closed up the business and paid twenty-four members (who had paid only $3 each for their membership) $140 each. He has been appointed by the county court on six road committees in Rutland county, and has settled eleven estates as administrator. These matters are not mentioned on account of their great importance to the public or for public record, but as showing the confidence reposed in him by his neighbors and those who know him best.

Turning again to Mr. Taylor's public career we find that he has held the office of select- man eight years ; auditor eleven years ; town agent sixteen years ; overseer three years ; jus- tice of peace four years ; treasurer ten years ; lister three years; town clerk seven years ; town grand juror two years; represented the town in the Assembly in 1865-66 and 1876, and was county senator in 1860-61. During the four years from 1879 to 1882 inclusive, he was assistant judge of Rutland County Court.

This honorable record, honorable both for the varied character and the number of offices held, and for the manner in which their duties were invariably discharged, is sufficiently elo- quent of Mr. Taylor's character, abilities and the general esteem in which he is held through- out the county, without additional comment here. He enjoys his honors modestly and has apparently many years yet before him for the public aud private labors of life.

Mr. Taylor was married on the Ist of November, 1848, to Almyra A. Tyrrell, of Ludlow, daughter of John Tyrrell. Their children are Nathan J., born December 7, 1849, died Janu- ary 12, 1874. Arden G., born May 21, 1852, is now a farmer in Windsor, Vt., and married to Nellie Damon, of Cavendish, Vt .; they have three children, two daughters and a son. George R., third son of Mr. Taylor, was born January 15, 1854, lives in Proctor; Henry W., born May 20, 1855, married Mary Tottingham, of Pittsford ; he lives in Washington, D. C., where he is assistant engineer in the capitol building ; Amanda A., born December 27, 1858, died August 12, 1860. The sixth child of Mr. Taylor is Mary A., born December 12, 1862, married Heman B. Slack, of Royalton, Vt. The seventh child is Walter Daniel born March 12, 1870, and now in attendance at the Black River Academy.

W TARDWELL, GEORGE JEFFARDS. The grandfather of the subject of this sketch was Joseph Wardwell and an early resident of Salem, Mass., and later of Rumford, Me. He served as second lieutenant in the Revolutionary army and was one of the original mem-

DANIEL W. TAYLOR.

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GEORGE JEFFARDS WARDWELL.

bers of the Society of Cincinnati, a mutual benefit organization, formed by officers of the army, with General Washington at the head, who contributed one month's pay each to a fund for the benefit of destitute members. This fund descended to the oldest male heir of each mem- ber, and is still in existence. Joseph Wardwell's wife was Sarah Hemingway. They had two sons, Joseph (father of George J.) and Moses. The latter mysteriously disappeared while lying in New Orleans harbor about 1830 ; he had followed a seafaring life. They had also three daughters, Sarah, Mary and Jane. Sarah married Samuel Bartlett, of Rumford, Me .; Mary married Phineas Stevens of the same place, and Jane died unmarried.

Joseph H. Wardwell married Lydia Howard, of Rumford, daughter of Asa Howard, a farmer and blacksmith. They had twelve children, all but two of whom lived to maturity.

George J. Wardwell is the fourth son and fifth child in this family, and was born in Rum- ford September 24, 1827. His father was a mechanic and naturally desired that his sons should learn some trade. George J. was, therefore, apprenticed to his cousin, Jeremiah Ward- well, from the time he was thirteen years old until he was sixteen. Previous to the first named year he had attended the district schools ; but he was not satisfied with his education, and hav- ing served his apprenticeship, he worked at making sleighs until he accumulated enough money to enable him to attend two fall terms at a select school and one term at Bridgeton Academy, in Bridgeton, Me. The summer of his seventeenth year he worked in a Boston coach-painting shop, which was followed by one summer in Brookline, Mass., at house painting. When he was nineteen years old he went to Lowell, Mass., and spent two years in building the wood- work of looms for the Middlesex corporation. He then, with his brother Charles, took a con- tract of the same corporation, covering a certain amount of work. This finished, the brothers entered into a contract to build forty broad looms for weaving shawls. After they had spent two months on this work, their shop was burned, consuming not only their partly finished stock, but their tools also. They, however, made such arrangements as enabled them to properly finish the contract. In the summer of 1850 they gathered a little material and fitted up a small wood-working shop in Hanover, Me., using the water-power on the outlet of Howard's Pond. In the fall of that year they built twenty-five sleighs for the cousin with whom George J. served as apprentice, and in the following summer they filled a contract for sash and doors for the California market. That summer their dam was carried away by a flood and rebuilt by them on a more extensive plan ; but the very next season a still more destructive flood swept away everything they had except the building itself, which was left on a sort of island. In the following year Charles removed to New Hampshire, and George J. carried on the shop another winter. It was then leased and later sold. he removing to Andover, where he kept a hotel until 1854, at the same time carrying on his former business in another shop, building furniture, etc.

We now come to a period in his life during which was developed his strongest natural characteristic - inventive genius. This he possesses in a high degree, and, coupled with his natural and acquired taste for mechanics, has enabled him to solve several very difficult and important mechanical problems. While in Andover, in 1854. he invented the first pegging machine for making hoots and shoes. It was a very ingenious piece of mechanism, each blow of its hammer piercing the hole in the leather, splitting and driving the peg. It was so clev- erly constructed, as to combination of parts, that it could be carried in one's pocket, and yet would peg a woman's shoe, eight pegs to the inch, in a minute and ten seconds. It should have made him wealthy ; but as is too often the case, the man to whom he transferred a half interest for $500, being the capitalist, grew rich out of the invention, while the inventor secured little for his labor.

In 1855 Mr. Wardwell removed to Hatley township, Stanstead county, Canada, where his wife's relatives lived. There he erected a shop and carried it on two years. He then removed to Moe's River and formed a partnership with a man who owned a water power ; they manu- factured furniture, sleighs, etc., for eighteen months. Mr. Wardwell then removed to Coati- cook, on the line of the Grand Trunk railway, where he made his home until 1865, working at his trade and constantly experimenting on various devices.

It was while here that he experimented with a machine for sawing marble, visiting, for the purpose, many quarries, and among them the marble quarries in Rutland. The sawing ma- chine was not successful, and after laying it aside he remained at the quarries three weeks, during which time Charles Sheldon suggested to him that he should turn his attention to a machine that would cut the channels in the rock of the quarries and save the excessive cost and slow progress of hand labor. In a statement by Mr. Wardwell to Congress in 1880, in a fruitless effort to secure a renewal of his original patents, this old process of quarrying is thus described by him : -

" The process of quarrying consisted in cutting channels hy hand labor, longitudinally, and as nearly at right angles with the strata as the workmen could do so ; this was very difficult to accomplish, as it compelled the workman to direct his cutting-tool (a round rod of iron with

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HISTORY OF RUTLAND COUNTY.

a cutting point at each end, and from six to eight feet long), at right angles with the strata - often lacking ten to twenty degrees of being at right angles. Sometimes channels were cut up and down the face of the strata, the workmena standing on board ladders. The depth of these channels would be equal to the thickness of the marble vein or strata, say three to four feet. After these long channels had been cut, and short ones across the ends, the strip of rock thus cut around was "raised " from its bed by means of the " plug and feather," and after- wards broken into short blocks by the same means, after which they were ready to be removed from the quarry. Some of these quarries had been worked down to a depth of 100 feet or more ; and in order that the workmen might see the bottom of his " cut," and deliver his blows with effect, a narrow tin lamp was let down into the channel after it had reached the depth of twenty inches or so. When channels were cut to the depth of four feet, each workman would average to cut about one and one-half foot per day of eleven hours. Each workman was allotted three feet of the length of a channel so that a channel sixty feet long would give employment to twenty men, each working on a section of three feet. Each man was expected to average to cut six inches deep in his section per day, making one and one-hall foot per day. The working sur- face of the quarry consisted of a series of angular ridges, extending lengthwise of the quarry, of various height and thickness. The upper veins were worked to the greatest depth, as they were the first to be quarried and removed - leaving the lower or back veins the most elevated of the working surface. Thus it will appear that the system of working the quarries at West Rutland was not favorable for experimenting with or of working with machinery.'

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History of Rutland County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 112

Author: Smith, H. P. (Henry Perry), 1839-1925. 1n; Rann, William S Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y., D. Mason & co. Number of Pages: 1170

Author: Smith, H. P. (Henry Perry), 1839-1925. 1n; Rann, William S
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y., D. Mason & co.
Number of Pages: 1170