Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men
prevented by pulmonary disease. He married Ella S. Melcher, of
Springfield, Mass., daughter of William Melcher, and has a family of
three young children. He is superintendent of the Gilford Hosiery
Company, and has been so for many years.
Ida Lettice Moulton, was born June 4, 1850. She married Joshua B.
Holden, of Boston, Mass., and they have a young family of four children.
Mr. Moulton married his second wife, Sarah A. McDougal, Aug. 18, 1866.
Her many virtues and useful charities have endeared her to a large
circle of warm friends.
The lives of men who are absorbed in the exacting duties of many
diversified and burdensome pursuits are not crowded with incidents which
interest remote posterity; but the successful and many-sided enterprises
of such men exert a wide and beneficial influence in their day and
generation. Such a man is Mr. Moulton. He has always been an
open-handed, public-spirited citizen. To him, and to two or three
others, we owe the building of the finest church in Laconia and the
support of a liberal ministry. Long after he has passed away, the town
of his adoption will continue to exhibit many evidences of his liberal
contributions to whatever tended to promote the growth of the town, the
prosperity of its business, or the public welfare.
HON. ALVAH W. SULLOWAY.
By H. H. Metcalf.
From an industrial, as well as a political standpoint, the town of
Franklin has long occupied a prominent position in the state. Highly
favored by nature with the facilities most conducive to the development
of manufacturing industry, there has grown up within its limits, or been
attracted thereto from other localities, a large class of citizens
possessing the enterprise, energy, and sagacity requisite to the most
advantageous use of those facilities. There are, indeed, few among our
New England towns of corresponding size, which include among their
inhabitants a larger number of active and successful business men, or
whose progress has been signalized during the last quarter of a century
by a more substantial industrial development.
ALVAH W. SULLOWAY is one of the best-known, most practical, energetic,
and public-spirited among the enterprising business men of this
prosperous and progressive town. While the state of Massachusetts has
drawn from our midst a large proportion of the men whose labors have
brought the prosperity and distinction which that proud old commonwealth
enjoys, she has given New Hampshire in return some of her own sons,
whose efforts have contributed in no small degree to advance the honor
and welfare of the state of their adoption. Among these is the subject
of this sketch. Born in Framingham, Mass., Dec. 25, 1838, Mr. Sulloway
is now in his forty-fourth year. He is the only son and eldest child of
Israel W. and Adeline (Richardson) Sulloway, to whom three daughters
were also born, two of whom are living, one unmarried, and the other the
wife of Herbert Bailey, Esq., a prominent manufacturer of the town of
Claremont. Israel W. Sulloway is a native of Boston, and sprang from
revolutionary ancestry on both the paternal and the maternal side, his
mother being a Woodbury of Salem, daughter of Capt. Israel Woodbury, who
served in the patriot army throughout the war for independence. He
engaged in manufacturing service in youth, and was for some time an
overseer in the Saxonville woolen mill. When his son Alvah was about ten
years of age, he removed to the town of Enfield in this state, where he
engaged in the manufacture of yarn hosiery. Here he introduced the
process of manufacturing the celebrated Shaker socks by machinery, being
the first manufacturer to engage in the enterprise, where he established
a prosperous business, which he carried on about sixteen years, when he
sold out to his son-in-law, Mr. Bailey, and retired from active life,
locating at Waltham, Mass., where he still resides. In his father's mill
at Enfield, Alvah W. Sulloway gained that practical knowledge of the
business in which he has since been engaged, which constituted the sure
foundation of the success he has attained therein. He secured a good
academical education at Canaan, Barre, Vt., and the Green Mountain
Liberal Institute at South Woodstock; but spent a considerable portion
of his time between the age of ten and twenty-one years in active labor
in the mill, thoroughly familiarizing himself with the various
processes in hosiery manufacture, and the general conduct of business in
that important line of industry.
Upon attaining his majority, with that ambitious and independent spirit
which so generally characterizes the youth of New England, and to which
the development and prosperity of all sections of our country are so
largely due, Mr. Sulloway determined to go into business for himself.
His purpose received the ready sanction and encouragement of his father,
and after due deliberation he formed a partnership with Walter Aiken of
Franklin, in the manufacture of hosiery. The partnership continued for
about four years, when it was dissolved by mutual consent, and another
firm was organized, which put in operation a new mill. This firm
consisted of Mr. Sulloway and Frank H. Daniell of Franklin, who carried
on business together until 1869, when Mr. Daniell withdrew, and Mr.
Sulloway has since been sole proprietor. The mill is situated upon the
lower power of the Winnipesaukee, opposite the mills of the
Winnipiseogee Paper Company, the power being used in common by the two
establishments. The building is of brick, three stories high, with
basement, contains four sets of woolen machinery, with about
seventy-five knitting-machines, and furnishes employment for about
ninety operatives, besides a large number of women in the vicinity, and
surrounding towns, whose labor is required in finishing the work which
the machines leave incomplete. The goods manufactured are the Shaker
socks, or half-hose, of which about three hundred dozen pairs are
produced daily, giving an annual product of about one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. The monthly pay-roll averages about two thousand five
hundred dollars, aside from the amount paid for outside labor.
Mr. Sulloway is a business man in the true sense of the term, and as
such he has been thus far eminently successful. But while devoting his
energies and ability to the development of his own business interests,
and thereby indirectly conferring large benefit upon the community in
which he moves, he has never failed to contribute, by direct personal
effort, to the advancement of all measures of public utility and
material progress; and to his labor and encouragement, personally and
pecuniarily, as much as to any other among its many enterprising and
public-spirited citizens, the town of Franklin is indebted for the
advanced position which it holds, when regarded from a business, social,
or educational standpoint. He was a prime mover in the organization of
the Franklin National Bank, which went into operation in November, 1879,
and has been president of the institution from the start. He has also
been a trustee of the Franklin Savings Bank ever since its
establishment, and for several years past a member of the committee of
investment. In 1880 he was chosen a member of the board of directors of
the Northern Railroad, which position he still holds.
In politics, Mr. Sulloway is an ardent Democrat, an earnest and
enthusiastic worker in the party cause; and his labors in this direction
have been largely instrumental in bringing his party into ascendency in
Franklin, which was for many years one of the hardest-contested
political battle grounds in the state, numbering, as it does, among its
citizens several of the most active leaders of the two great parties. In
1871, although the town was then decidedly Republican, he was chosen a
member of the state legislature from Franklin, and was re-elected the
following year. In 1874, and again in 1875, he was elected to the same
position. In the legislature, as everywhere else, he proved himself a
thoroughly practical man, devoting himself actively to business, and
leaving speech-making to those inclined to talk rather than work. In
1871, he served on the committee on elections; in 1872, upon railroads;
in 1874 was chairman of the committee on manufactures, where his close
acquaintance with manufacturing interests fitted him for most efficient
service; and in 1875 was again a member of the elections committee. In
1874, when the Democratic party managers set to work systematically to
win a victory in the state, Mr. Sulloway was nominated for railroad
commissioner upon the ticket headed by James A. Weston for governor.
Although there was no choice by the people in the election that year,
the Democracy won a substantial victory, in that they secured a majority
in the legislature, and the election of their candidates for governor
and railroad commissioner followed at the hands of that body. To this
triumph of his party in the state, the energetic labor of Mr. Sulloway
in the general conduct of the campaign contributed in no small degree.
As a member of the board of railroad commissioners for the term of three
years, the last year as chairman of the board, he rendered the state
efficient service, carrying into his official labors, so far as they
extended, the same practical sagacity and judgment exercised in his own
private business.
In January, 1877, Mr. Sulloway was nominated by the Democracy of the
second district as their candidate for congress, against Major James F.
Briggs of Manchester, the Republican nominee. The district was strongly
Republican, and that party had a popular candidate in the field; yet Mr.
Sulloway, with no expectation of an election, made a vigorous canvass,
and ran largely ahead of his ticket. He was also the candidate of his
party in the district at the next election, and again in 1880, making
lively work for his successful opponent, Major Briggs, on each occasion.
He has been an active member of the Democratic state committee for more
than ten years past, and for the greater portion of the time a member of
the executive committee of that body, having direct charge of the
campaign work. He was a member of the New Hampshire delegation in the
national convention at St. Louis in 1876, which nominated Samuel J.
Tilden for the presidency, and was an enthusiastic supporter of the
great New York reformer, not only in convention, but also in the
subsequent campaign in which he was actively engaged as a member of the
Democratic national committee from this state. In 1880 he was again a
delegate to the national convention of his party, at Cincinnati, where
Gen. Hancock was nominated, and was again elected as the New Hampshire
member of the national committee, holding the position until the present
time.
In religion, Mr. Sulloway is an adherent of the liberal faith. He was
reared a Universalist, and is now an active member of the Unitarian
society in Franklin, a young but flourishing organization which is
already taking active measures for the erection of a fine church
edifice. In this organization, as in business and politics, Mr. Sulloway
is an earnest worker, and his labor and encouragement have contributed
materially to its success. He is a trustee of this society, and, with
Governor Bell, a vice-president of the New Hampshire Unitarian
Association. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the
Unitarian Educational Society, under whose auspices the liberal
educational institution known as Proctor Academy, at Andover, is
conducted.
In 1866, Mr. Sulloway was united in marriage with Miss Susan K. Daniell,
an accomplished daughter of the late J. F. Daniell, a member of the
noted paper-making firm of Peabody & Daniell, and a sister of the Hon.