| RANNEY,
CHARLES H., son of George and Eliza Jane (Hall) Ranney, was born in St.
Johnsbury in 1844. Deacon George Ranney was born in 1813 at Westminster
West, Vermont, came to St. Johnsbury in 1841, and settled on the farm now
occupied by George Morrill, now known as Maplewood farm, where be resided
until his death in 1899, at the age of eighty-six. He was a substantial
and respected citizen, served many years as lister, and also as selectman
and was for nearly forty years deacon of the Congregational church at St.
Johnsbury Center.
The
five children of George and Eliza J. Ranney are: Charles H., Crawford,
Olive E., wife of F. A. Pierce, Fremont H. and Sarah Jane, wife of George
Morrill, all of St. Johnsbury. At the age of eighteen, C. H. Ranney enlisted
in Company K, Fifteenth Vermont regiment, Colonel Redfield Proctor, and
was honorably discharged with his regiment. In October, 1866, he entered
the service of the Passumpsic railroad as a brakeman, was promoted as conductor
of a way freight a year later and remained in that capacity seven years,
when he was appointed conductor on the Portland & Ogdensburg, now the
St. Johnsbury & Lake Champlain railroad, which position he still fills.
He
has been a passenger conductor for a longer time than any other man now
living in eastern Vermont, and while his integrity and good judgment have
won the approval of the management, his genial good nature and dry humor
have made him universally popular with the traveling public. Mr. Ranney
has been thrice married, first, in 1870, to Sarah A. Hawkins, who died
in 1880, leaving a daughter, Etta M., now wife of B. A. Donaldson of Portland,
Maine. His second wife, Nancy P. Bennett of Lyndon, died in 1898, and he
married in June 1900, Mrs. Mary H. (Wakefield) Joubert of Boston.
Conductor
Ranney is a member of Chamberlain post, G. A. R., of St. Johnsbury.
Source:
Successful Vermonters, William H. Jeffrey, E. Burke, Vermont, The Historical
Publishing Company, 1904, page 97.
Prepared
by Tom Dunn, August 2005
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