Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

and solid honors that came to him from
the larger outside world.
The depth, as well as the breadth of the
character of the man was apparent in the
less conspicuous activities for the public
good which always commanded his cor-
dial interest and earnest support. While,
as one of the most distinguished attorneys
of his time, and as an honored judge, the
arduous duties of his professional life
might have excused him from many pub-
lic offices in which his talent was needed,
still he served most devotedly wherever
he found the opportunity. The financial
world of his town and county has reason
long to appreciate the prosperity which
was founded largely on his sound common
sense and sagacious judgment. At the
time of the organization of the Greenwich
Trust Loan and Deposit Company, he
turned his great ability to most practical
use in establishing it securely in the con-
fidence of the public. For many years he
was president of this company, the honor
being entirely unsought so far as he was
concerned, indeed his election to this
office took place while he was absent from
home on an extended vacation, one of his
rare periods of relaxation, and continued
as its president up to the time of his death,
a period of twenty-seven years. He was
a director of the Greenwich Gas and Electric
Light Company, being one of its most
enthusiastic promoters, this at a period
when few communities of similar size as-
pired to the dignity of city conveniences.
He was for some time secretary of the
Hawthorne Mills Company, manufac-
turers of high-grade woolen fabrics, cap-
italized in the millions, and located in
Greenwich and New York City ;
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president
of Abendroth Brothers Foundry at Port
Chester, New York, manufacturers of
boilers, coal and gas ranges and soil pipe,
a successful concern employing about five
hundred men, of which he was president
442
up to the time of his death. Also president
of the Greenwich Water Company,
the water supply for Greenwich, Port
Chester and Rye, New York, holding
office up to his death. He was also deeply
interested in real estate development, and
there are many evidences about the vicinity
of Greenwich of his taste and good
judgment in the laying out of residential
sections. He was also president of the
Putnam Cemetery Association ; director.
New York & Stamford railroad; trustee
of Greenwich Y. M. C. A. ; trustee of
Greenwich Library Association; charter
member of Greenwich Country Club
member of Blind Brook Country Club
of Indian Harbor Yacht Club ; of Republican
Club of New York; Acacia Lodge,
Free and Accepted Masons, of Greenwich
Empire Lodge, Independent Order of
Odd Fellows, of Greenwich.
Perhaps in these varied activities one
can measure the man more accurately
than in his professional and political ca-
reer. In the latter, unquestionably, he
reached an enviable position, but in those
civic and business interests to which he
turned as relaxation, in a way, his world
found the human and warmly personal
side of the man. He had a genius for the
right thing—the kind thing—and his
world was not slow to learn to love him
as loyally and deeply as it had long admired
him.
Still another side of his rich and wholesome
nature, but a side known only to his
closest friends, as the home life in which
he was a devoted husband and father. He
married Anna A., daughter of Matthew
Merritt, a very prominent resident of
Fairfield county. They were the parents
of three charming daughters : Lucy M.,
who is the wife of Walter B. Todd,
son of Dr. William S. Todd, makes her
home in Greenwich ; Edith B., who was
the wife of A. W. W. Marshall, vice-presi-
;