Chemung County NY
History of Tompkins, Schuyler, Chemung, Tioga 1879
Page 248 - Lorenzo Webber Biography
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1879 Four County History - Table of Contents
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Lorenzo Webber was born in the town of Newbury, Orange Co., Vt., Sept. 12, 1817.  He was the eldest son in a family of six sons and five daughters of Andrew Webber and Sophia (Wilkins) Webber, -the former a native of New Hampshire, born 1794, followed the occupation of lumbering during a large part of his life, and in the year 1828 removed to Orange, Schuyler Co., N.Y., where he died at the age of fifty-three years.  The latter was a native of Windham, Vt., and died at the age of forty-six, in the year 1840.

Mr. Webber was eleven years of age at the time of his parents’ removal from the State of Vermont and settlement in Schuyler County on a wilderness tract of land of about two hundred acres.  From that age until he was twenty-one he spent his time assisting his father in clearing off the forest and preparing the land for cultivation, but did not neglect the winter opportunities at school and evenings for getting a fair education, by which means he was enabled to teach, and for five terms before and after becoming of age he was engaged as teacher.

In the year 1840, Mr. Webber bought a farm and for two years was engaged upon it, and for the next twenty-four years was successful in various enterprises as a dry goods and lumber merchant, and also in the milling and tanning business.
 

In the spring of 1867, May 1, he came to Elmira, where he has since resided.  In 1865 he was one of eight -the others being John Arnot, Constant Cook, Charles Cook, Henry Cook, F.N. Drake, F.C. Divinny, and Henry Sherwood - to form a company called the “Bloss Coal Mining and Railroad Company.”

This company bought several thousand acres of coal land in Pennsylvania, bought the Tioga Railroad, and extended it to their mines at Arnot (named after one of the company), and engaged extensively in mining and shipping bituminous coal and lumber from Arnot, Pa., and anthracite coal from Pittston, Pa.  At the end of six years Mr. Webber disposed of his interest in the company, and has since been engaged in the real estate business in Elmira, and in the banking business in Michigan.

In his early life he was a member of the Whig party, and since the formation of the Republican party has been an ardent supporter of its principles.  He has not been active in Political circles.  While a resident of Schuyler County, Mr. Webber represented that Assembly district two terms in the State Legislature of New York, in the years 1864-65, and was, under the administration of Lincoln, until his removal to Elmira, postmaster of Monterey, Schuyler Co.  His life has been one of activity.  In the year 1840 he married Miss Jane A., daughter of Almer Welch and Bulah Kent, of Dorset, Vt.  She was born Nov. 28, 1818.  Their children are Sophia, wife of C. B. Pomeroy, of Troy, Pa.; John A., in the banking business in Portland, Mich., in partnership with his father; and J. Adele, wife of Stephen C.,  youngest son of Judge Hiram Gray, of Elmira, N.Y.
 

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