Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men
present substantial prosperity. He has identified himself not only with
the ample support of the ministry of this time-honored church, its
mission work, its charities, local and remote; its Sunday-school,--of
which, up to 1878, when he retired from the position, he had been for
more than twenty years the superintendent,--but with the improvements
and additions to its buildings and grounds, and the erection of its
parsonage. At an expense of some two thousand five hundred dollars, he
has placed a large and fine-toned organ in the choir, as a memorial of a
beloved daughter (Elizabeth) who died in the year 1868, in the
twenty-first year of her age.
To complete the list of interests that wait on Mr. Richards for his
attention, we find his name as one of the directors of the Eastern
Railroad in New Hampshire; and, also, one of the directors of the N. H.
Fire Insurance Company, at Manchester. He is the president of the First
National Bank of Newport. He was also one of the founders and the first
president of the Newport Savings Bank, chartered July 1, 1868, and now
in successful operation.
He married, January 27, 1847, Louisa Frances, daughter of the late Dr.
Mason Hatch, a long time highly esteemed physician and citizen of
Newport. Of the six children born to them in the years from 1847 to
1867, three only survive: Seth Mason, born June 6, 1850, now a partner
with his father in the Sugar River mills establishment, in which he has
exhibited superior business qualities, and bids fair to become a useful
and influential citizen of the town and state. Josephine Ellen, born
October 30, 1855, a graduate of the Female Seminary, at Andover, Mass.,
and the founder of a scholarship in honor of her _alma mater_. During
the years 1880 and 1881, Miss Richards, with a party of friends, sought
entertainment and culture from an extended tour in Europe, visiting
Egypt and Palestine in the course of their trip. William Francis, born
January 28, 1867, is now (1882) a student connected with Phillips
Academy, Andover, Mass.
The Richards family have a delightful cottage at Straw's Point, Rye
Beach, where an unaffected hospitality, as well as the breath of the
sea, await their friends during the summer months.
There are several instances in the history of Newport of men who, having
acquired wealth in their dealings with its citizens, have removed to
more important places to enjoy the spending and investing of their
incomes, without leaving behind them any visible improvement in the way
of buildings, or a public good of any kind,--nothing but a memory of
their insatiate avarice, followed by unsparing criticisms. Such a record
can never be made of Dexter Richards. With increasing ability in the way
of means, he has manifested a corresponding disposition to improve the
physical aspect of his native town. He has placed on the street not only
his elegant private residence, but houses for rent, and substantial and
sightly blocks of buildings for business purposes. He has improved his
factory buildings and grounds, built barns, cultivated lands, produced
crops, interested himself in improved breeds of cattle and horses, thus
giving employment to many working men and hands, and increased the
productive industry of the town and its general valuation in many
respects, aside from his manufacturing interest, as indicated by the
assessment for taxation. He is by far the largest tax-payer in Newport,
and one of the largest in Sullivan county and the state of New
Hampshire.
He has managed his private affairs and the public business, as far as it
has been intrusted to his care, with superior ability; and now in his
mature prime of life, should the state require his further service, his
past record and present position would afford an abundant guarantee for
the able fulfillment of any future or more important trust.
HON. DAVID HANSON BUFFUM.
DAVID HANSON BUFFUM was born in the town of North Berwick, county of
York, and state of Maine, on the tenth day of November, 1820. He was the
oldest child and only son of Timothy and Anna (Austin) Buffum. His
mother was a native of Dover,--a daughter of Nathaniel Austin. His
father--who manufactured furniture and carriages to a limited
extent--died when the subject of this notice was but six years of age,
leaving also two sisters still younger. Subsequently his mother was
united in marriage with William Hussey, and at her death, fifteen years
afterward, two children were left as the result of this marriage. Still
later Mr. Hussey was united in marriage with Mary J. Hanson, and, at his
death, in 1870, two children remained as the result of this union. This
presented the rather singular and unusual occurrence, that three
children by one marriage and two children by another were _half-brothers
and half-sisters_ to two children by a third union, and yet were _in no
way related to each other_.
The care of the fatherless six-years-old boy and of the two little
sisters still younger was too much for the very slender resources of the
widowed mother. The family was broken up, and the "child David" was
taken into the family of his father's brother. The next eleven years of
his childhood and boyhood were spent with this uncle. He was a country
merchant who "kept everything," as the old-time merchants of fifty years
ago all did. The boy was taught to work in the store, "to do the
chores," and was sent to the district school as opportunity
afforded,--which generally consisted of two terms of eight or ten weeks
each per year. The Quaker uncle was a kind but sturdy master, and habits
of temperance, thrift, untiring energy, steady perseverance, and a love
of buying and selling were ingrained into the very bones of the boy.
Leaving his uncle when seventeen years old, he made his home with his
step-father for two years, during which time he attended two terms at an
academy, and taught a country school "to pay his way." At nineteen years
of age, in the autumn of 1839, with few dollars and much courage, he
commenced as a clerk with two brothers in a general store at Great
Falls, in Strafford county, of which place he has since been a citizen.
His salary was eight dollars per month and board, for the first six
months. At twenty-one he bought out one of his employers, at
twenty-three he sold out to the other and erected a brick block which
contained three stores, one of which he occupied as a merchant in
general merchandise, always keeping abreast of the times, until called
to a new business.
The legislature of 1846 granted the charter of the Great Falls Bank, the
first in the town, and its originators had got together the one hundred
thousand dollars of capital stock by such efforts of labor and
persuasion as would astonish the railroad builders and bankers of these
days. The directors, December 5, 1846, selected Mr. Buffum as its
cashier, which position he held until April 20, 1863. On the 5th of
August, 1857, he was elected treasurer of the Somersworth Savings Bank,
which position he held for ten years. While he filled these positions,
both of which he resigned in order to give his exclusive attention to
manufacturing, he had become interested, by way of investments, in real
estate, shipping, and manufacturing.
In 1857, Mr. Buffum, in company with John H. Burleigh, organized the
Newichawanick Woolen Company at South Berwick, Me., an enterprise at
first unprofitable, but which proved to be a financial success. In 1862
he organized the Great Falls Woolen Company with a capital of fifty
thousand dollars, which, from fortunate earnings in the next few years,
was increased to one hundred thousand dollars; and he has since been
treasurer and general manager of it excepting for a period of six years,
when he was compelled to withdraw from the active management by reason
of impaired health, occasioned by too close application to business,
three years of which time he spent in travel.
For twenty years Mr. Buffum has been engaged in the manufacture of
woolen fabrics, gradually extending his operations, until, at this
writing, he is owner of a felt-mill at Milton, N. H., a partner in the
wool-pulling establishment of L. R. Hersom & Co., in Berwick, Me.,
treasurer and manager of the Great Falls Woolen Company, and treasurer
and director of the Newichawanick Woolen Company at South Berwick, Me.;
he has also been a director of the Great Falls Manufacturing Company
since 1877. He has been connected with the Great Falls Bank, both state
and national, from its commencement, as cashier, director, and
president, which latter position he now holds; and, with the exception
of the first two years, has been connected with the Somersworth Savings
Bank as treasurer, trustee, and vice-president.
In local affairs, Mr. Buffum has taken an active and leading part. The
same nervous, physical energy which made him the first player in the
game of ball in his youth afforded just the qualities needed in the fire
department, in which he was always among the foremost, and for many
years at the head. He was chosen town clerk in 1843-44, moderator in
1848 and 1857, and selectman in 1846 and 1871-72.
In political affairs, Mr. Buffum has acted with the Whigs and
Republicans. In 1861-62 he was chosen representative to the legislature,
serving the first year as a member of the committee on banks, and the
second year as chairman of the committee on the reform school. In 1877
he was elected to the senate from district number five, and served as a
member of the committees on judiciary, finance, banks, and state
institutions. In 1878 he was re-elected to the senate, and chosen its
president. He was the last president of the senate of twelve members. Of
the sixty-two presidents of that body, he was the only one from district
number five, or from Strafford county as now constituted. In 1880 he was
elected as a delegate-at-large to the Republican national convention at
Chicago.
In his domestic relations, Mr. Buffum was happily connected, and his
home reflected the results of a successful business career. He was
married, January 26, 1853, to Charlotte E. Stickney, daughter of
Alexander H. Stickney, one of the old-time citizens of Great Falls. The
issue of this union was three sons and a daughter. The wife and mother
died March 8, 1868, and the daughter, May 23, 1877. Two of the sons,
Edgar Stickney and Harry Austin, are graduates, and the third, David
Hanson Jr., is now an undergraduate, of Yale College. Of the two little
sisters left fatherless with him, one is the widow of the late Hon. John
H. Burleigh, of South Berwick, Me., and the other is the wife of Isaac
P. Evans, an oil-manufacturer, of Richmond, Ind. The half-brother is
Timothy B. Hussey, plow-manufacturer, of North Berwick, Me., and the
half-sister has presided over his household since the death of his wife.
Mr. Buffum received his youthful impressions and early religious
training among the Society of Friends, whose tenets have exercised a
marked influence upon his career. At Great Falls he has been a regular
attendant at the Congregational church, to which he has been a liberal
contributor. The many trusts committed to his care fairly prove the
esteem and respect in which he has been held by his neighbors and
townsmen.
HON. CHARLES ADAMS, JR., A. M.
BY REV. W. R. COCHRANE.
It appears from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register,
Vol. VII., and also from Drake's History and Antiquities of Boston,
folio edition, 1854, that "Ap Adam (the Welsh for Adams) came out of the
Marches of Wales." Their descendants appear to have lived for many
generations in the English shires of Lancaster, Gloucester, and Devon.
From the latter, Henry Adams, the first of this family in America,