| FAIRBANKS,
COLONEL FRANKLIN, was born in St. Johnsbury in 1828. His education was
completed in the Peacham and St. Johnsbury academies. At the age of seventeen
he entered the scale works and by actual labor in the various departments,
aided by a natural genius for mechanics, made himself familiar with the
details of scale manufacture. At the age of twenty-seven he became a partner
of the firm of E. & T. Fairbanks & Co. For many years he was superintendent
of the works, a position for which he was eminently fitted. In 1876, at
the organization of the firm as a corporation, he was elected vice-president,
and at the death of Governor Horace Fairbanks in 1888, he was made president,
and held that office until his death in 1895.
He was aide-de-camp with the rank of colonel on the
staff of Governor Hall in 1858, and filled the same appointment from Governor
Fairbanks in 1861. He was elected by the Republican party as representative
from St. Johnsbury in 1870, and again in 1872; at the latter session was
chosen speaker of the house. For more than twenty years he was a member
of the state Republican committee.
He was president of the First National bank for seven
years, and for more than a third of a century superintendent of the Sunday
school of the North church. Deeply interested and profoundly intelligent
as a student of natural science, especially of ornithology, he presented
the magnificent gift of the Museum of Natural History to the town of St.
Johnsbury, which was dedicated in 1891.
Source:
Successful Vermonters, William H. Jeffrey, E. Burke, Vermont, The Historical
Publishing Company, 1904, page 120.
Prepared
by Tom Dunn, April 2006
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