Monday, August 8, 2011

CDV of 3 distinguished New Hampshire Gentlemen: Williams, Hosmer, Wainwright


Carte Visite of three distinguished gentlemen, taken by the J. Pollitt studio of Manchester, New Hampshire.

The men are C. H. Williams, J. L. Hosmer and a Mr. Wainwright, whose first initial I'm not sure of.


From online research, hopefully correct:

C. H. Williams was likely Charles H. Williams, born 20 August 1825 in New Hampshire, the son of Charles King Williams and wife Abigail "Nabby" (Emery) Williams.  Charles King Williams, son of Jonathan and Elizabeth (King) Williams, moved to Pembroke, New Hampshire around the year 1817, according to the History of Pembroke, New Hampshire (1730-1895), by Rev. N. F. Carter.  

Nabby was Charles King Williams' second wife.  His first wife was her older sister, Phebe Emery, who died almost a year after their marriage, in October of 1818.  The sisters' parents were Joseph and Dorcas (Holt) Emery.  

Charles H. Williams became a hard wares dealer in the Pembroke and Suncook area.   He married twice: 1) Arintha S. Greer, who died in 1858 and 2) Elizabeth G. Buss, whom he married on 10 March 1859.  In the 1860, 1870 and 1880 Censuses, Charles and second wife Elizabeth were living at Pembroke, New Hampshire.  No children were recorded with them. 

I believe Charles and Elizabeth were living at Woburn, Massachusetts when the 1900 Census was enumerated.   I found Buss family members in New Hampshire and in Massachusetts, including Woburn, if that is a clue.

There was a business tie, and perhaps a family tie as well, that bound Charles H. Williams to another man in the CDV, J. L. Hosmer.  

J. L. Hosmer was likely Joseph Lawrence Hosmer, born 31 July 1836 in Weld, Maine, the son of Ira and Annie (Bass) Hosmer.  

In the 1870 Census, J. L. Hosmer was living in the house of Charles H. Williams and his second wife Elizabeth at Pembroke, New Hampshire, along with Charles' father Charles K. Williams, by then age 81, and a woman enumerated as Sarah Bass Williams.  She could have been a later wife of Charles K. Williams.  Intriguingly, perhaps Sarah was a relative of Joseph Lawrence Hosmer's mother Annie (Bass) Hosmer.

 Much of the following information comes from Genealogical and Family History of the State of New Hampshire, compiled by Ezra Stearns in 1908.

Joseph Lawrence Hosmer and Charles H. Williams were business partners in several ventures in the Pembroke/Suncook, New Hampshire area.  

In 1873, Joseph Lawrence Hosmer married Alice C. Potter, born 14 February 1852 at Newburyport, Massachusetts, the daughter of Dr. Frederick Frye Potter and wife Calista (Lucas) Potter.  Her paternal grandparents were David and Nancy (Frye) Potter.  Her maternal grandparents were Samuel and Elsie (Beverly) Lucas.

Joseph left New Hampshire for Indian Territory about 1885, where he worked in the cattle business in Kansas and Iowa for nearly a decade.  Whether or not his family went with him, I don't know.  

One of his children was born in 1888 at Pembroke, New Hampshire.  Either the family stayed in New Hampshire during all or part of Joseph's time in Indian Territory, or Alice returned to New Hampshire during her pregnancy.

Joseph returned to New England to work in the real estate business in Boston, Massachusetts, for seven years or so, before retiring to Manchester, New Hampshire in 1900. 

Joseph Lawrence Hosmer and Alice C. (Potter) Hosmer had four children:
  • Grace Bell Hosmer; born about December 1874; married Dr. J. Franklin Robinson, a Manchester, New Hampshire physician
  • Harriet Potter Hosmer, who died at age eight
  • Potter Frye Hosmer, who died at the age of nineteen
  • Joseph Bass Hosmer, born 30 June 1888; graduated from Norwich University; m. Rosamond; in the real estate business in the Manchester, New Hampshire area

As for Mr. Wainwright, I assume that he was another businessman of note in New Hampshire.  Hopefully a reader will recognize his face or name and provide the link between the three men, and, even better, his family history.

A map of Pembroke, New Hampshire:



Thanks for stopping by!


2 comments:

  1. The initial looks like a 'T' to me.
    There is a Thomas Wainwright, born in England in 1812, in Pembroke, NH, in 1870. He was an overseer in a mill with a personal estate of $1200. I don't know if that puts him in the same class as store owners. And there is a mention of a Thomas Wainwright who drowned along with Ira Swain and William Millette in Pembroke, in the Merrimack River, on May 25, 1876. (History of Pembroke, N. H.: 1730-1895, Volume 1 at Google Books.)

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  2. I thought it was a T, too, but wanted readers to come to that conclusion without any hints. I'll bet you have the correct person. I wonder if it was the Thomas in the CDV who drowned or a namesake. I've been transcribing an early 1900s diary of a farmer in rural Ellsworth, Maine, and it's frightening how dangerous it was to cross rivers in the spring, even on a bridge. Horses spooked at the rushing water, water was high and undermined the bridge, water was over the bridge and people decided to take a boat instead, and drowned. Thanks for your continued help, Ed!

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