Biographie Index

 

Rutland County Biographies

History of Rutland County Vermont
Written by H. P. Smith and W. S. Rann
Published by D. Mason & Co. in 1886


 

 

TARBELL, MARSHALL, was born March 14. 1829, on the homestead settled by his grandfather, Edmund Tarbell, in the town of Mount Holly, Rutland county, Vt. His life has been passed within sixty rods of the place of his birth. His father's name was Luther Tarbell. and his mother was Fidelia Tucker, daughter of Stephen Tucker, of Mount Holly. Marshall Tarbell is the eldest of five children (three boys and one girl beside himself) all of whom are deceased except one brother and himself His early life was passed in attendance at the district school and assisting his father and mother about the home, which comprised a small farm and one of the old-fashioned saw-mills. When he had reached the age of fifteen years his time was constantly employed in arduous toil about the mill and in driving team to haul logs and lumber, and flour from Whitehall, N. Y. This period of labor called out in his early years those qualities which in later life enabled him to conquer the obstacles he encountered, and developed within him a spirit of energy and habits of industry and activity which have since given him prominence in the town.

On the 14th of March, 1852, he was married to Finett E. Chapman, of Mount Holly. At this time he bought of his uncle, Calvin Tarbell, a homestead interest in the saw-mill, and in September, 1852, he and his father purchased the old potato starch factory across the river from the saw-mill. Lacking capital, this last purchase was made on credit. A portion of the factory was taken down and the remainder rebuilt as a factory for the manufacture of hand and drag rakes and tool handles. He associated with himself a blind man named Addison Warner, who was familiar with the use of the lathe, and the making of fork handles, etc., and they met with deserved success. But after a profit of about $5,000 was made, it was all swept away by fire on the night of February 4, 1858. The loss was a severe one, as beside the total loss of the property, it being uninsured, the burning of the factory caused a break in the business and disappointment to many customers. Mr. Tarbell's house was burned at the same time. Willing friends offered to contribute to aid in rebuilding the factory ; the offers were respectfully declined, and he showed the energy and tenacity of purpose for which he is noted, by erecting a new factory 30x40 feet and two stories high, with an ell 16x20, sheds, etc., with a new house for himself and a barn. These buildings were all erected in the spring and summer of 1858. Daniel P. Tarbell and S. H. Chaffee were taken into the old firm of L. & M. Tarbell, under the new style of L. Tarbell & Co. Lester Tarbell died in August, i860, and the remaining members of the firm purchased the interest of the deceased, and the firm name became M. Tarbell & Co. In the spring of 1866 M. & D. P. Tarbell (the firm name) purchased Mr. Chaffee's interest. D. P. Tarbell died in December, 1876, since which time Marshall Tarbell has carried on the business alone.

In 1867 he erected an additional shop, 30x40 feet, two stories, and the manufacture of chair stock was added to that of rake making. The business was successfully carried on until the night of January 5, 1878, when both factories, the house, barn and other structures were all destroyed by fire, with small insurance ; both factories were filled with stock and nothing was saved. But his characteristic energy and hopefulness enabled him to rise above his misfortunes. An old building which had been used for sawing clapboards, attached to the saw-mill, was taken, some of the machinery repaired, some borrowed, and amid these unpromising surroundings, a considerable stock of goods was turned out for the 1878 trade. "This old building is still in use. In 1871 a circular saw-mill was substituted for the old perpendicular saw, and the business thereby vastly increased. In the same year he erected a fine house of modern style and one of the largest and most convenient country stores in the county. A hall is connected with it and other accessory structures. In that year he also moved and repaired four other buildings, devoting to these various enterprises a small fortune. In 1875 he, in company with A. W. Dickerman and S. H. Livingston, built a cheese factory 26x70 feet, two stories high and first-class in every respect. He soon afterward became sole owner of this factory and still successfully operates it, using the milk of about 400 cows. Mr. Tarbell now owns and uses one circular saw-mill, a rake factory and jigger shop combined, a cheese factory, blacksmith shop, with office, dry house, ice house, three barns, two carriage houses, repair shop and store room, tool-house and eleven tenements. In short he has done more in the way of building and improvements connected therewith than any other man in the town.

It is proper to state that during the busy manufacturing career of Mr. Tarbell. his rakes and other products have not only supplied a large home demand, but have been extensively exported and are well known and approved in England and other foreign countries.

This is a brief record of a busy and successful life, during which obstacles have been overcome and misfortunes withstood which would have appalled men of less perseverance, less energy, and less capacity to accept and conquer the severer ills of life. It is a record of a life without a shadow of dishonor, of uprightness and integrity, which has brought with it the respect of the entire community where his life has been spent.

To the other misfortunes that have been mentioned, Mr. and Mrs. Tarbell have been compelled to endure the loss of their only child, a daughter of more than ordinary intelligence and amiability, who was called away at the age of twenty-nine years.

Mr. Tarbell has never been a seeker for office and has often refused to accept public station. He has preferred to give his attention to his own extensive affairs. Possessing a disposition and temperament prompting him ever to deeds of kindness and courtesy, he lives surrounded by many friends and knows few enemies.


 

TAYLOR, DANIEL WALTON. The ancestors of Daniel Walton Taylor came to Vermont 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 possession 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 August 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 Rochester, 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 fanner. He removed to Sherburne on the 1st 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 1, 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 district 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, fie 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 conveyance 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 selectman eight years ; auditor eleven years ; town agent sixteen years ; overseer three years ; justice 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 eloquent of Mr. Taylor's character, abilities and the general esteem in which he is held throughout the county, without additional comment here. He enjoys his honors modestly and has apparently many years vet before him for the public and 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 January 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.


WARDWELL, 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 members 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 member, 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 Rumford 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 lime 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 having 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 woodwork of looms for the Middlesex corporation. He then, with his brother Charles, took a contract 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 boots 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 cleverly 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.

!n 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 manufactured furniture, sleighs, etc., for eighteen months. Mr. Wardwell then removed to Coaticook. 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 machine 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. Mr. Wardwell's natural tastes have also led him outside of his chosen occupation, and he studied deeply the sciences of geology and chemistry, and has probably the finest geological collection in the State. The degree of A. M. was conferred on him in 1885 by Middlebury College, and he is a member of both the American and the British Associations for the Advancement of Science.

Mr. Wardwell was married on the 4th of October, 1850, to Margaret Moore, of Hatley, Canada. They have had four children, the two eldest of whom were sons and died at the age of five years. The two living are George Alvin, now in Hatley, Canada, and Lizzie O., wife of Thomas Mound, of Rutland. Mrs. Wardwell died November 10, 1883, while on a visit to her friends in Hatley.

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