Erastus Fairbanks (October 28, 1792 – November 20, 1864) was an American manufacturer, a Whig politician, a founder of the Republican Party, and the 21st and 26th governor of Vermont. An industrialist and businessman, he was a co-founder of what became the Fairbanks Scales company.
Biography
Fairbanks was born in Brimfield, Massachusetts, to Phebe (Paddock) Fairbanks and Joseph Fairbanks. Ephraim Paddock, the brother of Phebe Paddock, was his uncle.[1] He studied law but abandoned it for mercantile pursuits,[2] and operated a store in Wheelock, Vermont. He married Lois Crossman (1792–1866) on May 30, 1815.[3] The couple had nine children.[4]
Career
Marble bust of Fairbanks on display at the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium, St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
Finally settling in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, in 1824, Fairbanks formed a partnership, E. & T. Fairbanks & Co., with his brother Thaddeus for the manufacture of scales, stoves and plows.[2] Thaddeus Fairbanks later invented the first platform scale, which made it possible to calculate the weight of farm products and other goods shipped by wagon and railroad car; the device proved so successful that the renamed Fairbanks Scales company became the largest employer in the state.[citation needed]
The Fairbanks family was involved in numerous charitable and civic endeavors throughout St. Johnsbury and the surrounding towns, including the 1842 founding of St. Johnsbury Academy.[5]
Fairbanks was one of the founders of the Republican Party, and a delegate from Vermont to the first Republican National Convention in 1856.[citation needed] He was 26th Governor of Vermont from 1860 to 1861. During his second term he rendered valuable aid in the equipment and dispatch of troops in the early days of the American Civil War.[2]
Fairbanks was a Congregationalist. He died in St. Johnsbury, Caledonia County, Vermont, on November 20, 1864 (age 72 years, 23 days). He is interred at Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
^ ab"Erastus Fairbanks". National Governors Association. Retrieved November 7, 2012.
^"Our History". stjacademy.org. St. Johnsbury, VT: St. Johnsbury Academy. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
^"Holyoke". History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers. Vol. II. Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts; Press of J.B. Lippincott and Co. 1879. p. 917. OCLC866692568. In the autumn of 1846, George C. Ewing, of the firm Fairbanks & Co., of New York, began negotiations for the property at this point, which at the close of three months were finally and satisfactorily concluded, and the transfer of about 37 acres was made in March, 1847. Soon after, the property of the Hadley Falls Company, and the mills mentioned above, were also purchased by Mr. Ewing, and thus he succeeded in accomplishing what others had failed in. Mr. Ewing is still a resident of Holyoke, and may justly point with pride to the success of his mission, which added another flourishing city to the constellation that has rendered the commonwealth of Massachusetts famous both at home and abroad. The first company was incorporated for the development of Fairbanks & Co., of which firm Mr. Ewing was a member, together with a number of Boston and Hartford capitalists... The Messrs. Fairbanks withdrew from the enterprise in January, 1848, when Mr. Ewing resigned
Further reading
Fairbanks, Lorenzo Sayles, Genealogy of the Fairbanks Family in America 1633–1897, Boston, 1897.
