The Earle family : Ralph Earle and his descendants

Gen.] GENEALOGY. Il7
891-10. Phebe Earle, b. Feb. 22, 1816; d. July, 1817.
892-1 r. Timothy Earle, b. Aug. 14, 1820 ; m. 1st, Ann Newton ;
2d, Phebe Varney.
Robert Earle [887-6] , having completed his school education at
Leicester Academy, at the age of about eighteen years, immediately
began to take an active part in the management of his father's
business. His natural predilections and his taste were in the direc-
tion of mercantile rather than literary pursuits, and his energy of
character and promptness and vigor of action gave early promise of
ultimate success. He soon took charge of the out-of-doors part of
the business, or that which required travel, while his father, giving
him instructions therein, remained chiefly at home conducting the
practical processes of the factory.
In this way Robert was not long in making the acquaintance of
merchants in the larger cities, particularly New York and Phila-
delphia, and through them, extending his knowledge and enlarging
his ideas of trade, as it was at that time developing in the rapidly
expanding States.
Not long after the attainment of his majority, having resolved
not to pursue the manufacture in which his father was successfully
engaged, he went to Worcester and opened a store for the wholesale
and retail trade in flour, at the depot of the Blackstone Canal on
Central street. A good business was soon established, and, expanding
from year to year, at length became so extensive that he removed
it to Boston where were greater facilities for its prosecution. He
travelled, from time to time, through the Western States, establishing
an acquaintance and a trade with the flour manufacturers, in that
comparatively early period of the business which has since grown to
such immense proportions, and become one of the leading interests of
the country. His business, like that of nearly every individual
engaged in any one of the many departments of manufacture, trade
and commerce, had its fluctuations, but, upon the whole, was a
successful pecuniary enterprise ; and at an early period in life, he
had acquired what was regarded as a competence. He was not
ambitious for what is now called a very large estate ; and he had the
wisdom to manage his acquisitions with safety, rather than to attempt
any of those extensive and hazardous enterprises which are liable to
terminate in financial ruin to him who has the hardihood to under-
take them.