OUR LOSS, BENNINGTON’S GAIN.
Career of Mr. Milo G. Remington, Formerly of Danby, a Most Creditable and Honorable One. – A Faithful Public Official and Successful Business Man.
It gives the editor of the MIRROR much pleasure to this week present to the readers of the paper an excellent portrait of Mr. Milo Gibbs Remington of Bennington, who has hosts of friends not only in his own bailiwick, but all along the line from Bennington to Rutland—with many more scattered about this glorious country of ours. Mr. Remington was a resident of Danby in his earlier manhood days, acquiring here much business knowledge and one of the best helpmeets man ever possessed.
Mr. Milo G. Remington was born October 23, 1827, in the town of Hinesburgh, Chittenden County, this state. His father was Joshua Remington, Jr., and his mother, Polly Sayles of Wallingford. His father was a farmer, and his boyhood days were spent on the farm, where he assisted with the work till sixteen years of age, when he went into the shop of Elhanan Davis, of Hinesburgh, to learn the trade of wagon making, but served only a short time there.
Leaving the Hinesburgh shop, Mr. Remington came to Danby and served an apprenticeship of three years at wagon making and painting with Samuel Croff. After completing his period of apprenticeship With Mr. Croft, he followed the occupation of house painting, and while thus engaged in business did the very sensible thing, on August 17, 1848, of marrying Mary M., oldest daughter of Anthony and Lurance (Scott) Colvin of Danby.
Shortly after his marriage, Mr. Remington purchased the Samuel Emerson place, and the newly wedded couple there commenced their housekeeping experience. After living there about two years, Mr. Remington secured a position, through the influence of the late William Palmer of Danby, to manage and operate the stone blacksmith shop in Bennington, then used by the wellknown firm of Graves & Root principally for the building and repairing of tin peddlers’ carts, which then traversed the country in this section in all directions from Bennington, picking up rags and other barter and giving in exchange therefor needed articles in tin, glass, etc.
After working for Graves & Root for seven years, Mr. Remington engaged his expert services to James H. Bennett of Bennington, as foreman of his establishment for the building of farm wagons and the very heavy species of wagons that were in large demand for the moving of blocks of marble from the quarries to the mills at different points in this valley.
Mr. Remington remained with Mr. Bennett till 1861, when he leased the Graves & Root stone shop and there carried on the business of manufacturing wagons and doing general black-smithing and painting. For twenty years he annually manufactured from fifty to one hundred tin peddlers’ carts —or wagons, in reality, for they were four wheeled and not two wheeled, as the name “cart” suggests. During this period Mr. Remington furnished about all the tin manufacturing firms in the eastern and western states with their carts, his sales reaching into the territory five hundred miles west of the Mississippi river. Some of the firms which he supplied with carts operated as many as fifty of those vehicles at a time.
In the manufacture of tin carts Mr. Remington became widely known, and although he has built very few such vehicles within the past dozen or fifteen years—the low price of barter and the handling of tin goods by nearly all the country merchants, together with the junk dealers who now traverse the country buying barter for cash of late years, having about ruined the old-time peddling business—nearly all the carts that are still running are the product of Mr. Remington’s establishment. The type of these carts, with their thorough-brace gear, roomy body and high curved dash, is no doubt familiar to most of our readers of mature years. That Mr. Remington built them substantially, as the heavy loads they were to carry and the rough and hard roads they were to traverse required, there is ample evidence still in existence, though many of them have been put out of commission long before their usefulness had been seriously impaired.
Mr. Remington has continued his wagon making up to the present time, and has built many wagons of all species, such as are used by bakers, meat and milk peddlers and all classes of mer-chants, etc., as well as farm wagons and sleighs. He also continues the blacksmithing and general repair department of the business and handles light and heavy vehicles that are built in some of the big factories with which the country now abounds. His son, Alonzo, has charge of the smithing and wood-working departments, while another son, Frank, looks after the painting of the new work turned out as well as the repainting of the many old vehicles that are annually brought to the establishment for that purpose.
In politics, Mr. Remington has been a steadfast democrat all his life, and has been a member of the board of selectmen of Bennington for many years, a part of the time during the most critical period of the civil war, when he was a firm supporter of the Union cause. He has also been an officer in the corporation of the village of Bennington, and we think is such at the present time. He erected his spacious and pleasant residence at 114 Jefferson Avenue, in that village, thirty-three years ago, where he and his estimable wife are passing their declining years in peace and happiness, surrounded by several of their children and grandchildren.
Eight children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Remington, and they have nineteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. The names of their children are Alonzo N., who is associated with his father in the business, as before noted ; Lura A., Leonard J. (who died in 1882), Frank A., who looks after the painting end of the business ; Catherine L., Mary L., George M. (who is doing a prosperous grocery business in Bennington) and Alice M., who died young.
Mr. Remington became a member of the “Boys’ Club” of Danby on the occasion of their outing at Lake Griffith last June, and drops into Danby occasionally to shake hands with the “boys” and visit with his old friends-and acquaintances, who wish him many more years of health and happiness.