Jacob Winchell Everett is president of the Connecticut Fat Rendering and Fertilizing Corporation and is also active in the business circles of New Haven as head of the grocery and market firm of J. W. Everett & Son. His life is one of intense and well directed activity, purposeful and resultant. He was born in Ulster county, New York, February 22, 1863, a son of Henry Everett, a native of New York and a representative of an old New York family of English lineage. He came from the same ancestry as Hon. Edward Everett, of whom he was a distant relative. Throughout his life Henry Everett was active in educational circles, as were many others of the family. He died in May, 1872, and after his death his widow, became a resident of New Haven, where she died in September, 1917. She bore the maiden name of Phoebe Winchell and was a native of New York and a daughter of the Rev. Jacob Winchell, a Baptist clergyman, who belonged to one of the old and prominent families of the Empire state, of Dutch descent. Mr. and Mrs. Everett became the parents of six children, four of whom are living: Ella, who is now Mrs. Edwin A. Morris; Jacob Winchell; Edward D., a grocer of New Haven; and William H., also of this city.
     Jacob Winchell Everett was a pupil in the public schools of his native county to the age of ten years, after which he was employed at farm labor to the age of fourteen. He then removed to New Haven in November, 1877, and learned the pattern maker's trade with the Peck Brothers Company, with which he remained from 1877 until 1887. In the latter year he became general secretary for the Young Men's Christian Association at Alexandria, Virginia, occupying that position until November, 1888, when he returned to New Haven and opened a store for the sale of groceries and meat. In this business he has since continued successfully, occupying his present store at the corner of York and Crown streets for twenty-nine years. Its neat and tasteful arrangement, his reasonable prices, the courteous treatment accorded patrons and his straightforward business methods have been the salient factors in his growing success. He is also the president of the Connecticut Fat Rendering and Fertilizing Corporation, a large and growing cooperative industry, which has a complete and splendidly equipped plant at Allingtown. This company was incorporated in October, 1902, and capitalized for one hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Everett as president of this company has done much to promote its success. He is a member of the Butchers Protective Association.
     He has been married twice. On the 8th of November, 1884, at Morris Cove, Connecticut, he wedded Hattie H. Morris, a daughter of the late Julius H. Morris, who was a descendant of an old and prominent family and who passed away in August, 1917, at the advanced age of ninety-five years. Mrs. Everett passed away in New Haven in 1910 at the age of fifty-two, leaving five children: Ray H., born February 17, 1886; Herbert L., born in November, 1887, at Alexandria, Virginia; Ethel M., who was born December 18, 1890, and is the wife of W. Purdue Johnson, of New Haven; Edward B., who was born January 8, 1899, and died in 1916; and Sidney M., who was born February 1, 1901. The eldest son is a graduate of Yale of the class of 1907, at which time he won the LL. B. degree, and he is now practicing law in New York city. The second son, Herbert L., is in partnership with his father in the grocery and market. On the 15th of July, 1915, Mr. Everett was again married, his second union being with Mrs. Ida May (Moe) Baker, a native of Brooklyn, New York, and a daughter of H. R. and Alma (Everett) Moe.
     Mr. Everett belongs to the Chamber of Commerce and is interested in all that pertains to the welfare and upbuilding of the city. He is also a member of the First Methodist church and takes an active mid helpful part in its work. In politics he is a republican and on his party ticket was elected a member of the common council from the second ward for one term. The man is fortunate who has back of him an ancestry honorable and distinguished. Mr. Everett comes of a family who have made a notable record in educational circles. While he has directed his efforts in other lines, he manifests the sterling traits of character which have been seen throughout the family in different generations. When he came to New Haven his cash capital consisted of three dollars. A stranger in a strange city, necessity compelled him to find immediate employment. This he did and he early showed conspicuously the traits of character which have made his life a prosperous one. He performed all the duties that devolved upon him, however humble and though small the recompense, conscientiously and industriously, and advance followed as a natural sequence. His strict integrity, business conservatism and judgment have always been so uniformly recognized that he has enjoyed public confidence in an enviable degree and has naturally received a liberal patronage.