Men of Vermont : an illustrated biographical history of Vermonters and sons of Vermont, Part 118

Author: Ullery, Jacob G., comp; Davenport, Charles H; Huse, Hiram Augustus, 1843-1902; Fuller, Levi Knight, 1841-1896
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Brattleboro, Vt. : Transcript Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 842

USA > Vermont > Men of Vermont : an illustrated biographical history of Vermonters and sons of Vermont > Part 118

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RICE, EDMUND, of St. Paul, Minn., was born in Waitsfield, Feb. 14, 1819 ; received a common school education ; went to Kala- mazoo, Mich., November, 1838; read law ; was appointed register of the court of chan- cery in 1841 for the third circuit; was appointed master in chancery ; was appoint- ed clerk of the Supreme Court, third circuit ; served as register and master until 1845, when the court was abolished, and clerk until 1849 ; in 1847 enlisted to serve in the Mexican war ; was commissioned Ist Lieut. Co. A, Ist Regt. Mich. Vols. ; , was detailed as acting assistant commissary subsistence, and acting assistant quartermaster ; was mustered out in August, 1848 ; removed to St. Paul, in July, 1849, and practiced law until 1856 ; was president of the Minnesota & Pacific Railroad Co., from 1857 to 1863, St. Paul & Pacific R. R., 1863 till 1872, and trustee till 1879 ; president St. Paul & Chi- cago, 1863 till 1877 ; was a member of the territorial Legislature 1851 ; was state sena- tor 1864-66, 1874-76 ; was a member of the state House of Representatives 1867, 1872, 1877 and 1878; was mayor of St. Paul 1881-83, re-elected in 1885 and resigned in February, 1887 ; and was elected to the Fiftieth Congress as a Democrat.

RICE, HENRY M., was born in Vermont : emigrated to Pennsylvania when it was a ter- ritory, and after that time lived in three other territories, viz., Iowa, Wisconsin and Minne- sota, much of his life having been spent among the Indian tribes of the Northwest ; in 1840 he was appointed a sutler in the army ; has been employed as commissioner in making many Indian treaties of great im- portance ; in 1853 he was elected a delegate to Congress from Minnesota ; re-elected in 1855, having secured the passage of the act authorizing the people of Minnesota to form a state constitution ; and in 1857 he was elected a senator in Congress from Minne- sota for the term of six years.

REDINGTON, LYMAN W., of New York City, son of George and Loraine WV. (Shel-

don) Redington, was born at Waddington, N. Y., March 14, 1849, and is a direct descendant on his father's side of John Redington, who came from the vicinity of Hemel-Hempstead, near Windsor, England, prior to 1640, and located in Topsfield, Mass. He died there in 1690, and his descendants lived there and in the adjoining town of Boxford, and in Windsor and Rich- mond, Mass., for many years. Lyman W. Redington's grandfather, Jacob Redington, was a Revolutionary soldier. He lived for some years in Vergennes, and held a number of local offices in the early history of that city, being a member of the first common council of the first city government of Ver- gennes in 1794. He emigrated from Ver- gennes in 1800 to Waddington, N. Y., where with his family he lived and died. Mr. Redington, on his mother's side, was a great-great-grandson of Capt. Amasa Shel- don, of the Revolutionary war, and a direct descendant of Samuel Bass, of Plymouth, Mass., whose wife was a daughter of the historical John Alden. The father of the subject of this sketch was an able lawyer and judge of the Court of Common Pleas of St. Lawrence county, and for several terms a member of the New York Legislature, where he wielded considerable influence. He aided very materially in the construction of the Northern R. R., from Ogdensburg to Rouse's Point, and was one of its directors. He was an energetic business man of large capacity, and highly respected for his sound judgment and upright, straightforward deal- ing. He was a staunch Democrat. Lyman WV. Reddington's mother was a daughter of Medad Sheldon, of Rutland, and a sister of Charles Sheldon, deceased, of Rutland, head of the firm of Sheldon & Sons, marble dealers.

L. W. Redington prepared for college at Williston Seminary, Easthampton, Mass., and entered Yale College in 1866, but ill- health prevented him from completing the collegiate course. He attended law school at Columbia College, New York City, and concluded his professional studies in the office of the late United States Senator Matthew H. Carpenter, in Milwaukee, Wis. He was admitted to the Milwaukee bar in 1871, and for some time afterward made an extensive tour of Europe, to regain his health and round out his education, remain- a year abroad. In 1875 he located in Rutland. In 1876 he was elected to the office of grand juror, which position he held for five years, and then refused to stand longer. He was the nominee of the Demo- cracy for representative at Rutland in 1876. '78, '80 and '82. In 1878 he was elected to the Legislature, and was the Democratic nominee of the House for speaker. He was

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a delegate-at-large for Vermont to the Dem- ocratic national convention in 1880, and was the nominee of the Democracy in Congress in 1882. He was chairman of the Demo- cratic state convention in 1882, and on the 17th of March, 1884, was appointed municipal judge for Rutland, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Martin G. Everts, and re-elected in 1885. He was corporation attorney for Rutland for the year 1883-'84, and was president of the New England Fire Insurance Co., of Rutland, which was organized under a Vermont char- ter in 1881. In 1884 he was the Demo- cratic candidate for Governor, and made a spirited canvass, cutting down by several thousand the normal Republican majority in the state. He was appointed postmaster of Rutland July 17, 1885, by President Cleve- land.

Mr. Redington was married Oct. 6, 1875, to Catherine Russell Merrill, daughter of Col. George A. Merrill, of Rutland, and has three children : Mary Patterson, Thomas Gregory, and Paul Merrill.

He is a man of many scholarly attainments, with a broad and healthy sympathy, with democratic ideas, a powerful speaker, an in- dependent and progressive thinker. In the Legislature of 1878 he was the author of the " Redington Bill," so called, for a local op- tion law to apply to the liquor traffic; of course the bill was defeated, but his speech in its advocacy was most masterly.

In 1889 he resigned the office of post- master, and moved to New York City to prac- tice his profession. He is a member of the Tammany Hall general committee ; of the N. Y. Society of the Sons of the Revolution ; of Kane Lodge and Cœur de Lion Command- ery, Knights Templar, and is president of the Powhatan Club.

RICHARDSON, DAVID NELSON, of Davenport, Iowa, son of Christopher and Achsah Richardson, was born March 19, 1832, at East Orange.

The common schools and three terms at the Franklin Academy, Malone, N. Y., were his early educational advantages, while farm life, teaching, and a printing office filled his life until the age of twenty-three, when he became editor and co-proprietor of the paper which he still continues to edit and own.

Iowa people say of him: "Nowadays in Iowa when it becomes necessary to give con- sideration of matters of literature and art, whenever the opinion is needed of an expert of good judgment, who has knowledge and practical common sense, the thought of all instinctively turn towards Mr. D. N. Rich- ardson. In the broad range of acquaintance with books, with architecture, with art, with traveled knowledge and with the many

things that go to make up the culture of life, he is easily the first citizen of the state. Ever ready to interest himself in these mat- ters where the good of the state is concerned and in his charming, modest manner, to give the public the benefit of his learning acquired by travel all over the world, with its accompanying personal investigation, be- sides by the more ordinary method of study, no undertaking of statewide scope is deemed to be on its best footing unless his co-opera- tion is secured. He has interested himself in the State University for the past eighteen years, and had done as much as many others together to put that splendid institution on a firm basis, and to bring it out of difficulties. When it was decided to erect a monument to the soldiers of Iowa that would be a credit to the state as a work of art, Mr. Richardson

DAVID NELSON RICHARDSON,

was naturally selected as a member of the commission to have charge. More than any other member has he interested himself, and given the project the benefit of his learning and investigation of memorial structures the world over. So, too, when an association was formed to further the progress of art in Iowa, he was made its president. We have writers in Iowa who, perhaps, have made more of a name among the reading public of the nation ; artists who in their specialties have acquired more renown ; but, taken all together, in literature, university extension, monumental architecture, art and other forms of culture, no man in Iowa surpasses Mr.

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Ku hardson. He is a citizen of whom the state is prond."

Mi. Richardson has been a busy man. He is editor and co proprietor of the Dayeu port Daily Democrat, and president of the Northwestern Associated Press ; also of the Richardson Land and Timber Co. : of the lowa Art Association. For twenty- five years he has been a director of the Citizens Na- tional Bank : also of the Lindsay Land and Lumber Co .; the Davenport Water Co., and of the Davenport & Rock Island Ferry Co., and is interested in five banks, and many other commercialinstitutions. For eighteen years he has been regent of the State Uni- versity of lowa.

In Masonic circles he has reached high honors, was master of Trinity lodge No. 208, and in Scottish Rite Masonry has reached the 32d degree.

Mr. Richardson was married April 15, 1858, in Groton, to Jennette, daughter of John and Janet Darling, and is blessed with a family of four children, both of his sons be- ing engaged with him in business.

ROBBIE, REUBEN, was born in Ver- mont, and, having settled in New York, was elected a representative in Congress from that state from 1851 to 1853.

ROBINSON, GEORGE STEWART, of Sycamore, Ill., son of George and Harriet (Stewart) Robinson, was born at Derby, June 24, 1824.

Judge Robinson received his early train- ing in the schools and academy of Derby, and worked on a farm until about twenty years of age except when teaching. He studied law with Hon. S. B. Colby and Hon. Lucius B. Peck, and was admitted to the bar at Montpelier, in 1846. Failing health compelled him to go south in 1847, where he became a teacher in Hamilton, Ga. He was admitted to the bar in Cuthbert, Ga., in 1852 and practiced until 1866. During the civil war he maintained his pronounced Union principles and openly opposed seces- sion, and at a great pecuniary sacrifice kept out of the Confederate service.

In July, 1866, he took up his residence in Sycamore and engaged in the practice of his profession, occupying a leading position and becoming city attorney and drafting many important ordinances. In 1873 he was ap- pointed to the office of master in chancery, which he held until he was elected judge of the county court in 1877. In 1869 he be- came a member of the board of state com- missioners of public charities and served nearly fifteen years, and was for eight years president of the board, spending two to three months annually in its service without compensation.

Judge Robinson has taken the Blue Lodge, Chapter and Knights Templar degrees in Masonry and has been master, high priest of the chapter and is now prelate in the Knights Templar Lodge.

GEORGE STEWART ROBINSON.

He was married Oct. 13, 1853, at Derby to Olive A. Colby, daughter of Nehemiah and Malinda L. Colby. None of their three children survive.

ROLFE, HERBERT PERCY, of Great Falls, Mont., son of Gustavus and E. L. (Martston) Rolfe, was born at Tunbridge, August 30, 1849.

Judge Rolfe as a youth worked his way through the best institutions of learning that his means could reach. He attended Essex Academy, and graduated from the State Nor- mal School at Randolph in 1868, and from Kimball Union Academy (N. H.) in 1870. At Dartmouth College he was graduated from the classical department in 1874, and in 1877 received the degree of A. M. He then began his legal education in the office of Henry Noble, Esq., at Columbus, Ohio. He afterwards studied with ex-Governor Edger- ton of Akron, Ohio, in 1875 and 1876, and with Senator Sanders of Helena, Mont., in 1877, and was admitted to practice at Helena in 1878.

As a teacher Judge Rolfe passed much time while working his way along, and at- tained much proficiency both in the East and West. He was principal of Lancaster

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ROLFE.

(N. H.) Academy in 1873, and senior teacher of the Institute for the Blind at Col- umbus, Ohio, from 1874 to 1876. He served as superintendent of the city schools of Helena, Mont., from 1876 to 1879.

As a journalist he edited the Butte (Mont.) Daily Miner in 1879. From 1880 to 1884 he practiced law at Fort Benton, Mont., and was first judge of Cascade county from 1887 to 1888. In 1888 he became interested in journalism again and has since been editor and proprietor of the Great Falls (Mont.) Daily and Weekly Leader. He is also a director of a national bank.

HERBERT PERCY ROLFE.

Judge Rolfe has always been active in politics and was first to organize the Repub- licans of Choteau county, Mont., in 1880. He was the secretary of the first county com- mittee and is frequently a delegate to county and state conventions, and has been many times chairman of the conventions. In social organizations he is a leader. He was WV. M. of Cascade Lodge, F. & A. M. during the years 1887 and 1888, and H. P. of Great Falls Chapter No. 9 R. A. M. in 1892 ; emi- nent commander of Black Eagle Command- ery No. 8, K. T., in 1894. In 1888 he was M. W. of Great Falls Lodge, A. O. U. W. He built the first house at Great Falls in 1884, which now has 12,000 population, and is the owner of the Black Eagle Falls addition.

Judge Rolfe was married at Akron, O., August 8, 1876, to the daughter of ex-Gov.

Sidney Edgerton and Mary (Wright) Edger- ton, and has seven children.

ROY, JOHN ALEXANDER, of San Fran- cisco, Cal., son of Nathaniel and Margaret (Gilfillman) Roy, was born in Barnet, July I, 1832.

He received his education in the public schools of his native town, and at intervals worked on his father's farm during the years of his minority. On Jan. 2, 1854, he left the home of his boyhood to seek his fortune in the gold fields of California, going there via the isthmus. Having reached his destination he at once engaged in mining in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties, until June, 1858, when he went to Fraser's River, where he followed the same occupation until July, 1859, when he returned to San Francisco and purchased a "water route." This was at a time in the history of the city when the greater part of it was supplied by

JOHN ALEXANDER ROY.

watermen who conveyed the aqueous fluid from house to house in barrels. Mr. Roy found this to be a lucrative business and fol- lowed it until 1863, when on account of ill- ness, he returned to Vermont. In 1865 he returned to San Francisco and established a milk dairy in the southern part of the city, and after several years formed a partnership with C. W. Taber, L. A. Hayward, Frank H. Johnson and Oliver Crook. This company was incorporated and is known as the Guadaloupe Dairy Co. J. A. Roy was

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elected its first president, which office he has sice hell.

Mr. Roy owns besides his interest in the Guadaloupe Valley, property in San Mateo county, and a dairy ranch of 985 acres in Marin county.

Hle has always been a member of the Re- publican party, but has never hell any office, except to serve as one of the county committee.

For many years he has been a member of the Pacific Coast Association Native Sons of Vermont ; also an Odd Fellow, a Mason and he belongs to the A. O. U. W.

Mr. Roy has been married twice. His first wife was Rebekah, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Lackey, a native of Vermont, who died in San Francisco many years ago ; and in 1878 he was united to Barbara, daughter of John Walker and Barbara Hun- ter, of Rothesay Island, of Bute, Scotland. Of this latter union is one son : : Allan J.

RUSSELL, WILLIAM AUGUSTUS, of Lawrence, Mass., son of William and Almira (Heath) Russell, was born in Wells River, April 22, 1831. The Russell family is of pure English blood, and allied to a family honored in Anglo-Saxon history.

Mr. Russell, while at his home in Frank- lin, N. H., to which town his father had removed, attended the public schools and the Franklin Academy, occupying his vaca- tions at work in the paper mills of Peabody & Daniels until the age of sixteen. He subsequently attended a private school in Lowell, which completed his early educa- tional training. In 1848 he commenced work in his father's paper mill, where he remained until 1851. Two years later the father and son formed a copartnership and moved their works to Lawrence. The senior Mr. Russell's health failing, he was compelled to retire from active business, leaving the entire interests in the hands of his son, who proved equal to the task, and began to meet the growing demands of the business by leasing, in 1856, two mills in Belfast, Maine. In 1861 he purchased a mill in Lawrence of a firm that had failed in business, and later on two mills fell into his hands, having pre- viously been overtaken by misfortune.

Having found by costly experiments that wood-pulp was the fibre needed for improv- ed machinery and rapid work, he established a wood-pulp mill in Franklin, N. H., in 1869, for the production of this new fibre. He succeeded in this where many had failed, and instituted an entirely new department of industrial art in this country. He began to convert the product of his pulp mills into paper by the purchase, in 1879, of the Fisher & Aiken mills in Franklin. He also erected one the same year at Bellows Falls.

To carry out his scheme successfully, he was obliged to purchase the entire water power here, build a new dam and enlarge the canal. Through his enterprise, this small town grew into one of the thrifty towns of the state, ranking third in valia- tion. Mr. Russell's principal works are at Bellows Falls and Lawrence. He has also large interests in other mills at several points in Maine.

WILLIAM AUGUSTUS RUSSELL.

Politically, Mr. Russell began life as a Whig. At the dissolution of that party he allied himself with the Republican party and has unwaveringly supported it since. He uniformly declined to accept any public office until 1867, when he was elected alder- man in the city of Lawrence. The follow- ing year he was chosen a member of the state Legislature. In 1868 he was also chosen a delegate to the national Republi- can convention in Cincinnati.

He was elected to the Forty-sixth Congress from the seventh Massachusetts district ; served on the committee on commerce, and was a member of a sub-committee to investi- gate the cause for the decline of American commerce. His report showed a thorough knowledge of the subject, and resulted in Massachusetts leading off in a change of the laws in relation to the taxation of property in ships. He was re-elected to the Forty- seventh Congress, serving on the committee of ways and means, a position he was amply

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SANBORN.

qualified to fill. Here he achieved distinc- tion during the discussion of the tariff issues from the protection standpoint. Yielding to the demands of his constituents, he was again nominated by acclamation and elected to the Forty-eighth Congress. In his church connections Mr. Russell is a Congrega- tionalist.

. He was married in Bradford Feb. 1, 1859,

to Elizabeth Haven, daughter of William Hall. Of this union were three children : Mary Frances, Annie Elizabeth, and Grace Dunton Russell, deceased. Mrs. Russell died at St. Paul, Minn., Dec. 18, 1866. June 25, 1872, Mr. Russell married Frances Spafford, sister of his first wife. Their chil- dren are : William Augustus, Jr., Elizabeth Haven, and Richard Spafford.

SANBORN, BENJAMIN HYDE, of Bos- ton, Mass., son of Seth C. and Sarah C. San- born, was born at Morristown, May 11, 185 1. Mr. Sanborn graduated at the academy of his native town, began preparation for the law, and had passed some time in its study when he entered Dartmouth College.

BENJAMIN HYDE SANBORN

In 1872 he became connected, as he sup- posed temporarily, with the publishing house of Robert S. Davis & Co., Boston. Meeting with a business life most congenial to his tastes and making therein rapid and success- ful promotion, he decided to abandon his plan of a college course and the uncertain- ties of a profession and continued with this publishing house for eleven years.

In 1883 he became a member of the firm of Leach, Shewell & Sanborn, publishers of school and college text books. The firm have houses in Boston, New York, and Chi- cago, and control an extensive list of nearly

two hundred standard works, devoted to nearly all departments of education, from the primary school to the university, and edited or written by educators connected with many of the leading educational institutions of the United States and Europe.

Mr. Sanborn has always closely devoted himself to business, and while he has served for several years upon the school committee of his town and upon the visiting board of a leading educational institution, he sought no political or public honors. He is a Mason, and a member of the Wellesley and Congregational Clubs; the Aldine Club, New York ; of the American Philological Association ; the American Educational Association ; and the National Institute of Instruction.

Mr. Sanborn married, Nov. 24, 1875, Ida A., daughter of Hiram and Hannah A. Doty, of Elmore. They have one child : Alice D.

SARGENT, JAMES, of Rochester, N. Y., son of William and Hannah Sargent, was born Dec. 5, 1824, in Chester.

He remained upon the farm, having the usual district educational facilities, until eighteen years of age. His mind was of a mechanical turn and he went into a woolen factory in Ashuelot, N. H., where he was placed in charge of a weaving room and re- mained until 1848. He then became a traveling daguerreotypist with marked suc- cess, which occupation he followed four years and then engaged in manufacturing at Shelburne Falls, Mass., in the firm of Sar- gent & Foster, making apple parers. His mechanical skill and business sagacity re- sulted in a highly successful prosperity until 1857, when he became associated with the Yale & Greenleaf Lock Co., selling Vale locks. His peculiar genius had found a congenial field. He soon became the mas- ter of the most intricate devices and saw his golden opportunity to invent a lock which should be proof against his own skill, as well as that of others. After years of work he de- veloped the Sargent automatic bank lock, the prevailing lock in use today. In 1873 he perfected his first time lock, famous the

SATTLEY.

world over and universally used in financial mstitutions. The factories of bis firm are located at Rochester, N. Y. Other intricate and valuable devices have been invented by Mr. Sargent, among them a smoke preventer. The practical side of Mr. Sargent's life shows what strict integrity, inflexible deter- mination, persistent industry and high pur- pose will accomplish. His personal charac- teristics show an irrepressible individuality, aggressive, practical, versatile and generous.

JAMES SARGENT.

Mr. Sargent has never been in politics. While living in Shelburne Falls, Mass., he became an Odd Fellow ; though maintaining high respect for the order he withdrew therefrom, upon removing to Rochester. He is a member of the F. & A. M., joining a lodge in Greenfield, Mass., in Rochester identifying himself with the Monroe Com- mandery ; receiving his 32d degree as a Knight Templar.

Mr. Sargent was married at Ashuelot, N. H., April 29, 1847, to Angelina M., daugh- ter of Job and Hannah Foster. They have one adopted daughter : Josephine.

SATTLEY, ELMER C., of Kansas City, Mo., son of Robert P. and Harriet Foot (Newell) Sattley, was born Feb. 3, 1863, at Ferrisburgh.

His parents were Vermonters and of New England lineage and remote English ances- try. He attended the district schools until 1873 when he removed with his parents to

Burlington, there attending the public schools until 1878.

At this period he was engaged as clerk in a general store at North Ferrisburgh and lived with his grandfather Newell, attending school in winter at Charlotte Seminary.

In 1886 he entered the employ of the Sutherland Falls Marble Co., which is largely owned by Hon. Redfield Proctor, at Suther- land Falls (now Proctor). After two years in Governor Proctor's employ at this point and at Rutland he left to pursue his further education, this time at the well-known Phillips Exeter Academy, at Exeter, N. H. He remained here two years, and in 1884 removed to Chicago, Ill., and entered the employ of the Chicago & Northwestern R. R. Co., in the freight auditor's office. In 1885 he removed to Cawker City, Kan., and entered the employ of H. P. Churchill & Co.,

ELMER C. SATTLEY.

negotiators of farm loans, as private secre- tary to the manager, but after a few months was himself made manager. In 1886 he removed to Kansas City to take the manage- ment of the safe deposit department of the Kansas City Safe Deposit and Savings Bank.

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Men of Vermont : an illustrated biographical history of Vermonters and sons of Vermont, Part 118

Author: Ullery, Jacob G., comp; Davenport, Charles H; Huse, Hiram Augustus, 1843-1902; Fuller, Levi Knight, 1841-1896 Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Brattleboro, Vt. : Transcript Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 842

Author: Ullery, Jacob G., comp; Davenport, Charles H; Huse, Hiram Augustus, 1843-1902; Fuller, Levi Knight, 1841-1896
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Brattleboro, Vt. : Transcript Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 842