USA > Vermont > Caledonia County > Successful Vermonters; a modern gazetteer of Caledonia, Essex, and Orleans counties, containing an historical review of the several towns and a series of biographical sketches > Part 20
USA > Vermont > Essex County > Successful Vermonters; a modern gazetteer of Caledonia, Essex, and Orleans counties, containing an historical review of the several towns and a series of biographical sketches > Part 20
USA > Vermont > Orleans County > Successful Vermonters; a modern gazetteer of Caledonia, Essex, and Orleans counties, containing an historical review of the several towns and a series of biographical sketches > Part 20
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HOVEY, EMORY E., represents a staunch family of men, well known as extensive and successful farmers, and a century of continuous owner- ship and occupation of a fine old homestead, where four generations have appreciated and enjoyed the solid advantages of a permanent home. He was a son of William and Lydia (Richardson) Ilovey, and was born in 1841. Receiving a good practical training in the district school, in the privileges and labors of the farm, and the duties of eiti- zenship, he has been content to achieve a modest competence, "far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife." He remained on the pater- nal acres and solaced the deelining years of his aged parents. When the toesin of war sounded he enlisted in Company K, Fifteenth regiment, Vermont volunteers, Colonel Red- field Proetor.
Returning from the tented field, he found a suitable life partner, Emily, daughter of Orson and Julia Cushman of Waterford, and they have reared a family of six children, all living and well settled. Fred E. is located at San Francisco, Califor- nia. Frank O., Stephen R., and Edna E. are residents of New York city, Nellie C. is the wife of Conrad Beck of St. Johnsbury, and Guy W. takes the active management of the old homestead, a fine farm of about 200 aeres at West Waterford. Emory E. Hovey is a loyal son of Waterford in every relation of life, a member of Chamberlain post, G. A. R., and in 1896 was a member of the legisla- ture. He has held several promi- nent offices in town and has often been called upon to preside on pub- lie occasions.
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HASTINGS, FRANK W., son of Warren and Lydia (Richardson) Hastings, was born in Waterford, December 31, 1856. He comes of strong pioneer stock, by his paternal and maternal ancestry. Warren Hastings was a man of strong con- victions, resolute will, an ultra tem- perance man in principle and prac- tice. He was a successful farmer and prominent citizen of Waterford, and a representative in the legisla- ture of '64-'65.
Frank W. Hastings, until recently a resident of St Johnsbury, was practically a lifelong citizen of Wa- terford. His education was com- pleted at St. Johnsbury academy, from which he graduated in the
FRANK W. HASTINGS.
class of 1875. He married, in 1878, Emilie, daughter of John and Eliz- abeth (Ballou) Houghton of Water- ford, and they resided on the pater-
nal farm at. West Waterford twenty- five years, until the recent sale.
The members of the family were excellent amateur musicians and their accomplishment was in fre- quent demand at the social func- tions of church, grange, and neigh- borhood. Mr. Hastings entered the ranks of Vermont authors by the production of "Wed to a Lunatic," a work saturated with wit and humor, of which two editions have been issued. He has also corre- sponded for several periodicals. Elected to the legislature in 1898, he was a member of the general com- mittee and was recognized by his apt repartee and liberal tastes. In 1900 Mr. Hastings bought the Judge Ross residence at St. Johns- bury, and was in trade a year or more. During the past year he has become the agent of the New York Life Insurance company of New York. F. W. and Emilie (Hough- ton) Hastings have four children: Edith, a teacher in the Orphan school at Lawrence, Massachusetts; Ira B., who is connected with the wholesale commission house of I. H. Ballon & Co. of Boston; Hugh W., a law student at Western Reserve university, Cleveland, Ohio., and Frances, who resides with her pa- rents.
HASTINGS, STEPHEN J., son of Warren and Lydia (Richardson) Ilastings, was born in Waterford, February 10, 1850. Josiah Hast- ings, his grandfather, and a brother, Amasa, came from Royalston, Mas- sachusetts, in 1:98, and settled on Hastings' hill. Warren Hastings was a substantial citizen, and town representative in 1864-'65. Stephen J. Hastings attended St. Johnsbury
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academy and was a member of the class of 1873 at Dartmouth college. In 1871 Mr. Hastings married Al- thea C., daughter of Amos and Cosbi (Parker) Carpenter, and soon after settled on a fine farm in Wa- terford, one mile from Passumpsic, where he has since resided. The farm contains about four hundred acres, and everything considered is one of the best in town. Mr. Hast- ings is well known as a successful Jersey breeder and dairyman, and now keeps about seventy-five head of cattle, including thirty cows. His sugar place of fifteen hundred trees is equipped with new tin buckets and modern appliances.
During the past two years, Judge Hastings has given attention to mar- ket gardening for the St. Jolmsbury market, and the sale of beef. His farmhouse was consumed January 1, 1897, but six months later the family moved into their present fine residence, which was handsomely finished in hard woods growing up- on the farm when the fire occurred. Judge Hastings is widely and favor- ably known in fraternal and politi- cal circles. He has held the usual town offices, and served three con- secutive terms as school director. He was sent to the legislature in 1882, and in the following year was appointed by Governor Barstow one of the Vermont representatives at the Farmers' congress in New York city, and later reappointed. He served as assistant judge of Cale- donia county in 1894-'96, also mas- ter of Passumpsie Valley grange. Judge Hastings is a Knight Tem- plar of Palestine commandery, and has been noble grand of Caledonia lodge, also C. P. of Caledonia chap- ter, Odd Fellows, of St. Johnsbury.
Harold S., his eldest son, associated with him in business, is a graduate St. Johnsbury academy, sergeant of Company D, Vermont National
STEPHEN J. HASTINGS.
Guard, and won the highest score of his team at Seagirt. He is active in church and social circles, and is overseer of Pleasant Valley grange. Althea L. Hastings is a graduate of the Johnson Normal school and a teacher at Saxton's River. Frank B., a student at St. Johnsbury acad- emv. and Dora E. reside at home.
BROWN, ELISHA W., son of Bradley D. and Mary M. (Ross) Brown, was born in Waterford, May 22, 1852. He is descended from the earliest and most respected of the
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pioneers of Waterford. William Brown came to Waterford about 1800, and located on the place where Elisha W. Brown now lives, and
ELISHA W. BROWN.
which has been the home of five generations of the family for more than a century. His son, Elisha, married Mehitable, daughter of Oli- ver Taylor, in 1807, and they had two sons and six daughters. Brad- ley D. Brown, son of Elisha, born in 1818, remained on the farm during his entire life, was a substantial citi- zen, long a deacon of the Congrega- tional church, and a representative in the legislature. He died in the spring of 1900. Amanda (Mrs. J. C. Ensminger), eldest of his three chil- dren, resides in Florida; Dwight died in 1880; Elisha W. married Ella H. Blodgett in 1880, who died in 1882. He married for his second wife. Eliza C., daughter of Willard and Jane (Parker) Kinne, and they have two sons: Harry, born in 1884,
and Dwight, born in 1889. Willard Kinne was a very enterprising far- mer and citizen of Waterford, hold- ing many town offices.
The home farm contains 160 acres, including about fifty acres of Connecticut river intervale, and car- ries thirty-five to forty head of cat- tle, including a dozen or more grade Durham cows and several horses. The farm is au excellent one, with commodious buildings, located one mile from Lower Waterford.
The main part of the house, one of the oldest in town, and built nearly a century ago, is still in good repair.
Elisha W. Brown is one of the most substantial and useful citizens of Waterford. He completed a good education at St. Johnsbury academy, and has been superintendent of schools and school director two terms. He has served as selectman and represented Waterford in the legislature of 1890. For the past five years he has been town clerk and treasurer.
BLODGETT, VOLNEY B., son of Ephraim and Louisa (Kidder) Blod- gett, was born in Waterford in 1847. His boyhood years were spent upon a farm in Waterford. At the age of twenty-one he began life without a dollar and with only a common school education as a farm hand, and worked out on farms about six years. He married Adell M. Nutting of Danville in 1822, and bought a small farm and carried it on very success- fully until 1897, when he bought Meadow Brook farm of Mosely Hovey. This is one of the very best farms in Waterford, with spacious buildings, situated about two and one half miles from West Concord depot.
He still owns the little farm of
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100 acres where he laid the founda- tions of the well-earned competence which he now enjoys. Mr. Blodgett is a successful dairyman, usually keeping about thirty good cows, and annually sells several, replacing them with well bred heifers which he raises. He keeps about fifty head of cattle and the farm team. Mrs. Blodgett died in 1876, leaving two children, Elbert, who owns a neigh- boring farm, and Adell, principal of the Saxton's River graded school. In 1877 he married Emma, daughter of John Davis of West Concord, and six children have been born to them: Marcia, wife of Fred Cummings of Richmond, Province of Quebec; Pearl W .; Wilber, now attending the St. Johnsbury Business college; Ed- son, Harold, and E. Ruth Blodgett. By steady industry, economy, and good judgment, Mr. Blodgett has made farming a financial success. He has served the town several terms as chairman of the board of selectmen.
BROWN. FRANK W., son of Mar- cus and Ruth (Woodbury) Brown, was born in Bethlehem, New Hamp- shire, in 1845. He married Jennie L., daughter of Nathan W. Millen of Waterford, in 1868, and nine years later bought Mr. Millen's farm, and cared for the declining years of the aged couple. The farm, long known as the Deacon Luther Pike farm, one of the earliest settled in town, is located a mile northwest of Lower Waterford, and originally contained 125 acres. When Mr. Brown came here the farm was in a neglected condition, with old build- ings and fences, and carrying only a small stock. He cleared the fields of stone, rebuilt fences, took down the old barns, one of them the oldest
frame barn in town, and in 1886 built a modern barn, 100 by 44, two floors and entire basement. He has recently rebuilt and modernized the house for two tenements, with a model dairy room, furnace heat, and every needed convenience. The home commands a fine view of the lovely Connecticut river valley, with its mountain background. Mr. Brown is recognized as one of the most energetic and progressive far- mers in town and a most successful dairyman. Some years since he pur- chased a hundred-acre pasture, and he now keeps about fifty head of cattle, including from twenty-eight to thirty cows, and five horses, and sells about three tons of gilt-edge butter annually, at Littleton, at twenty-five cents per pound. For a dozen years he has supplied Thayer's hotel. A public-spirited citizen, he has served the town several terms as school director and selectman.
Celia H., his eldest daughter, is an accomplished music teacher and pianist: Edward M. married Nellie Pugh of Haverhill, and is associated with his father in farming; Ruth E.
RESIDENCE OF FRANK W. BROWN.
married Solon Merrill of Littleton, New Hampshire; Beulah is a stu- dent of music residing with her pa- rents.
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PARKS, HIRAM MANN. The subject of this sketch is the worthy living representative of a once nu- merous and prominent family, best known as country merchants of the old school. He was a son of Ephraim Curtis and Almira Mann Parks, and was born in Waterford in 1829. His grandfather, Levi Parks, formerly a prosperous merchant at Hanover, New Hampshire, but impoverished by paying bondsman paper, came to Waterford early in the century, and the town records show that he was warned out of town as an expected pauper, but he remained and reared a thrifty family. E. Curtis Parks engaged in trade in the old Water- ford store about 1820, and for nearly half a century was a familiar figure at the trade and social center of the little village, where he pre- sided as postmaster more than forty years. Two of his sons were mer- chants there: Curtis, who was known far and near as the leader of the Parks orchestra, and Hiram M. Parks. The latter remained in his native village during his minority, when, having married Alice M. Moulton of Lyman, New Hamp- shire, he engaged in farming in that town, some fifteen years. Having buried his wife and several infant children, he returned to Waterford in 1869, and soon after purchased the store and stock of goods, which his father superintended for a time, and later he conducted it very suc- cessfully some twenty years. Mr. Parks is a man of benevolent nature, sound, practical judgment, and proved integrity. He was postmas- ter and assistant postmaster many years at Waterford, has assisted in the settlement of estates, and held various town offices. In 1884 he represented Waterford in the legis-
latnre. For many years his home has been with his neice, Miss Caroline Streeter, and her father, the late Timothy Streeter, at the historic old house, formerly the Waterford hotel, the scene of many interesting social gatherings.
CROSS, FREDERICK ALANSON, was born in Waterford, Decem- ber 9, 1802. His boyhood was spent in St. Johnsbury. He was taken. when a young child, by Jo- siah Thurston, a former sheriff and business man of St. Johnsbury, where he remained until he became of age. During the next twenty years Mr. Cross was engaged in farming and keeping hotels, for a time in company with Otis G. Hale. His business was not extensive, but it was managed with unusual judg- ment and economy, and he laid the foundations of a prosperous career.
Mr. Cross kept a hotel seven years where Marshall Dodge now resides, near the toll-bridge in Littleton, New Hampshire. In 1849, he moved to his present farm home, about three fourths of a mile from Waterford village, where he has since resided. The farm contains about 125 acres, and Mr. Cross has always superin- tended this farm until within the past two or three years. He did not possess a specially vigorous constitu- tion, but by prudence, temperance, plain and wholesome living, and cheerful activity, his life has been prolonged to the remarkable age of 96, his birthday occurring the day of our call.
He has helped many a poor man, and has been a worthy citizen. He is to-day the oldest person in town, and the oldest representative of the subscribers for SUCCESSFUL VER- MONTERS.
His mind and memory are still
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clear, and he has never used specta- cles. Mr. Cross has recently sold his farm to Mr. and Mrs. John J. Mc- Iver, still remaining with these ex- cellent people, who have lived here for eight years and who anticipate his every want.
He married Mary Snell of St. Johnsbury in the early forties. Mrs. Cross died in 1876, leaving two chil- dren: Miss Ellen E. Cross of Balti- more, Maryland, who is a teacher and medical practitioner; Charles A. Cross, who is located at Fitch- burg, Massachusetts, as a prominent business man and wholesale grocer.
HORR, STUART B., son of Josiah and Cora (Heald) Horr, was born at Lovell. Oxford county, Maine, Feb- ruary 28, 1846. He was reared upon a farm. He enlisted in 1864 in the Thirty-second Maine regiment, and took part in the battles of Wilder- ness, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and others. He came to Waterford in 1871, and for several years worked here for different farmers. He mar- ried in 1878, Celia, daughter of Samuel and Lucinda Church of Wa- terford. Soon afterwards he bought the Huntoon farm and conducted it about a dozen years, when he pur- chased the paternal home farm of his wife, a fine farm of 165 acres on Connecticut river, where he has since resided.
Mr. Horr found this farm some- what neglected. only keeping a small stock. He engaged in dairying, and as his wife is an excellent butter maker. soon found a ready and con- stant demand for all of his butter at Littleton, New Hampshire, at re- munerative prices. He keeps a dairy of twenty or more well-selected cows and makes about 5,000 pounds of butter per annum. He usually keeps
about forty head of cattle, ten horses and colts, and twenty swine, and the farm has so increased in fertility that in 1899 he built a model barn, 75x44 feet, with ell 35x26, with en- tire basement. Mr. Ilorr is an ex- cellent horseman, and has reared and sold many good ones, and also kept and trained horses and colts for others.
Mr. Horr has acceptably served the town of Waterford many years as constable and collector. Hle is a man of quiet habits, a good neigh- bor, public-spirited citizen, and suc- cessful farmer.
பா
EDWIN BOWMAN'S HOTEL.
BOWMAN, EDWIN, son of Wil- lard and Tryphena (Abbot) Bow- man, was born at Littleton, New Hampshire, in 1842. At twenty years of age he enlisted in Company D., Thirteenth New Hampshire vol- unteers, and participated in the bat- tles of Fredericksburg, Cold Har- bor, Drury's Bluff, Petersburg, and others. He married Irene H., daughter of Abial and Jane Rich- ardson in 1865, and has three sons and one daughter: Nellie I., wife of Luther Jewett. a prosperous mer- chant at St. Johnsbury; Eddie A.,
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Willie R., and Charles H. Bowman. Mr. Bowman is the genial proprietor of the Lower Waterford hotel, a his- toric old building with solid Doric pillars turned from old growth pine, formerly a noted resort for farmers' teams on the road to Portland and Boston. It is the only hotel on this line between St. Johnsbury and Littleton, commands a beautiful view of the Connecticut valley, with the White mountain peaks in the background, and Mr. Bowman, with his twenty-eight years' experience here, is securing an increasing pa- tronage of summer company. He is one of the landmarks of the village, having been postmaster here fifteen years.
RESIDENCE OF TOBIAS H. LYSTER.
LYSTER. TOBIAS H., son of Philip and Jane (Martin) Lyster, was born in Durham, Province of Quebec, December 9, 1849. At the age of twenty he came to St. Johns- bury, and found employment for the ensuing five years on farms in the town of Waterford. In 1876 he pur- chased the Joseph A. Gould farm
for $5,000, a fine hill farm of 323 acres, located two and a half miles from St. Johnsbury. The land was fertile, a strong, heavy loam, with a southeast slope, but the barns were old, the house had been burned, and the sugar place cut down by the for- mer owner. In 1877 he erected his present residence, a neat, tidy farm- house, and the next year found a suitable life partner in Miss Ida Hall of Marlborough, New Hamp- shire, and together they began the Herculean task of lifting the mort- gage and building a farm home. For many years they engaged exten- sively in the poultry business for the St. Johnsbury market. Mr. Lyster set out a small sugar orchard, and an orchard of improved fruit trees. He engaged extensively in dairying, using the De Laval separator, and making and marketing his own but- ter. He has raised young cattle to replenish his growing dairy, and for beef, but his specialty has been the rearing and selling of White Chester pigs and shoats, in which he has made a decided success, securing many premiums at the county fairs. He now keeps about sixty cows and nearly one hundred head of cattle, the largest stock in the town of Waterford. Globe Stone farm now contains 340 acres, beside a half of a two-hundred-acre back pasture. In 1892 he built his large barn, the sec- ond largest in town, 46 by 120 feet, with two floors, deep bays, and en- tire basement, a model of comfort and convenience.
Mr. Lyster is a busy man, but keeps in touch with modern meth- ods, and is an active member of the Vermont Dairyman's association. His main reliance for carrying his large stock is hay, first and second
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crop, supplemented with Hungarian, green oats, and barley, and a small area of fodder corn.
Starting heavily in debt, the Lys- ters have surmounted many obsta- cles and achieved financial success. They affiliate with the N. E. O. P., Green Mountain lodge, of St. Johns- bury. He is a stockholder and di- rector of Passumpsic creamery, and has served the town as selectman, and is a most estimable man in all the relations of life. Mr. and Mrs. Lyster have four children: Junie B., wife of Herbert Lyster of Gil- manton, New Hampshire .; Morton D .; Care T., and Lyle H., the three youngest residing with their parents.
CARPENTER, EZRA PARKER, son of Amos B. and Coshi (Parker) Carpenter, was born in West Water- ford, Vermont, in 1864. The first of the family who emigrated to America was William Carpenter, who came from Wherwell, England. and was one of the early settlers at Weymouth, Massachusetts. Jonah Carpenter, the great-grandfather of Ezra P., was a minute-man of the Revolution, and Isaiah, his son, came to Waterford, where he cleared a farm which has since been the fam- ily home. Amos B. Carpenter, his son, now eighty-six years of age, is the oldest granger in New England, the oldest member of the Congrega- tional church of Lower Waterford, and of Moose River lodge, No. 82, F. & A. M. His is a strong person- ality, with faculties well preserved. He has published a very compre- hensive and able genealogy of the Carpenter family, and is now pre- paring an appendix. Six of his eight children are now living.
Ezra P. Carpenter remains on the ancestral homestead, and cares for
the declining years of his aged pa- rents. He graduated from St. Johns- bury academy in 1887, and four years later married Mabel F., daugh- ter of Capt. Edwin L. Hovey of St. Johnsbury. They have six chil- dren: Burleigh N., Edwin H., Cosbi P., Amos B., Miner Herbert, and Edith May.
Mr. Carpenter is a successful dairyman, having a dairy of more than forty cows. In company with his brother, Miner, he estab- lished, in 1893, "Trout Brook creamery," the nucleus of an im- portant enterprise.
Ezra P. Carpenter is a progressive and enterprising young man. He has served his native town as super- intendent of schools, selectman, six years justice of peace, and is now school director and overseer of the poor. He was the first master of Pleasant Valley grange, Patrons of Husbandry. He was appointed by Governor Stickney one of the four delegates from Vermont to the Farmers' National Congress in 1902. In religions views Mr. Car- penter is a Congregationalist and a deacon of the church.
"HIOMORIENT FARM." This fine farm of three hundred and twenty-five acres is pleasantly lo- cated one half mile from Passump- sie village, and two and a half miles from St. Johnsbury. It is historic ground. For more than half a cen- tury it was the home of Hon. Ezra A. Parks, a familiar and prominent figure in the agricultural, business, social, and political circles of Cale- donia county. It is now owned and carried on by his only living daugh- ter, Emilie L. Eastman. Judge Parks was a member of a once numerous and influential family, a son of Levi
15
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Parks, many years a leading mer- chant at Passumpsie. He married Louisa M., daughter of Preston Thayer of Concord, Vermont. Of their six children, only two, Mrs. Eastman and Charles E. Parks of Boston, are now living.
Judge Parks represented his town in the legislature, served as asso- ciate judge, but was perhaps best known as the long-time and popular president of the Caledonia County Agricultural society, and of the Fair Ground company. He died in 1897, at the age of seventy-six.
Richard B. Eastman was a prom- inent architect in Brooklyn and married Miss Emilie L. Parks in 1880. At the death of Judge Parks, the Eastmans moved to the fine old paternal homestead, which was hal- lowed by so many fond associations, and which has since been the family home. Judge Parks was esteemed a successful dairyman, and at the time of his death the farm carried forty-three head of cattle, including twenty-three cows and a few swine. Mrs. Eastman took up the work of developing the dairy business with characteristic thoroughness and en- ergy, put in a butter plant, and within a year secured excellent and remunerative markets for a large and constantly increasing output of strictly gilt-edge butter. She en- joys the patronage of the New Al- gonquin club, Hotel Brunswick, and Hotel Somerset of Boston, also Iles- boro Inn, Dark Harbor, the Louis- burg, and Bar Harbor, Maine. Twice each year she visits her Bos- ton enstomers. "Homorient Farm" is one of the best located and most productive farms in the Connecticut valley, and under the present inten- sive system of culture is rapidly in-
creasing in productiveness. During the past three years the farm has averaged to keep eighty head of Jersey cattle, including sixty cows, also about fifty swine. Even last year a fine erop of well-matured field corn was raised, beside filling two silos of three hundred tons ca- pacity. The early Mastodon ensi- lage corn is immensely productive. Among the many improvements re- cently made we note the purchase of a neighboring house, where the foreman boards the farm help.
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