WETHERBEE, WILLIAM, son of Ira and Sally Chase WETHERBEE, was born
in Concord, Vermont, in 1851. Ira WETHERBEE was the youngest of a family
of the fifteen children of Jackson WETHERBEE and came to Concord during
his minority, where he continued to reside until his death in 1892. He
was an industrious and skilful carpenter and mechanic, traveled several
years in the west for the Fairbanks company, built half a dozen or more
houses in West Concord and several in that vicinity; was in trade there
nearly twenty years, and was highly esteemed as a neighbor and citizen.
Sally Chase WETHERBEE was one of the twenty children of Archibald CHASE,
and was a woman of unusual energy. William WETHERBEE inherited many of
the characteristics of a stanch ancestry, and withal a vein of humor and
droll wit, united with an optimistic good nature, that has always been
equal to every emergency.
He received a fair education in the village schools
and learned the carpenter and joiner's trade of his father. He participated
with hilarity and vim in the local sports of the period at West Concord,
and was the bright particular star on the dramatic stage in any role of
comedy. His genius for comedy was displayed at Music hall in the drama,
“Battle of Gettysburg.”
Mr. WETHERBEE married Edna G., daughter of Mason Hall of West Concord
in 1873, and in 1880 moved to St. Johnsbury and entered the employ of the
Fairbanks and soon became foreman of the planing mill and saw shop. He
has continued in this employment until the present, with the exception
of a year or two spent in Pasadena, California, and has been foreman of
the lumber yard during the past dozen years. Mr. WETHERBEE became a Mason
in 1883 and his abilities and good fellowship have won him unusual distinction
in the work of the craft.
He has passed all of the chairs of Passumpsic lodge, Haswell chapter,
Caledonia council, and Palestine commandery, of which he is at present
eminent commander. For twenty-three years Mr. WETHERBEE has been a member
of the Knights of Honor and was for several years grand dictator of the
state of Vermont and later supreme representative of the Grand lodge of
Vermont to the Supreme lodge of Knights of Honor at Nashville, Detroit,
and Buffalo. In politics he is an independent Democrat and a Universalist
in religious belief.
Source: Successful Vermonters,
William H. Jeffrey, E. Burke, Vermont, The Historical Publishing Company,
1904, page 58-59.
Prepared
by Tom Dunn January 2004
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