Smith, Edwin C

EDWIN C. SMITH.

     Edwin C. Smith is a director, stockholder and the manager of the Meigs Company, Incorporated, of New Haven, dealers in clothing and men’s furnishings, theirs being one of the leading commercial establishments of the city. He started in the business world in a humble capacity, and the steps in his orderly progression to his present position of importance are easily discernible. He is numbered among the native sons of Massachusetts, his birth having occurred at Hadley, March 29, 1873.

     His father, Henry E. Smith, now deceased, was also a native of Hadley and a representative of one of the old families of Massachusetts, where they were residents for many generations. In fact the family was founded in America in colonial days, and some of the ancestors of Edwin C. Smith participated in the Revolutionary war. His father successfully followed farming at Hadley, Massachusetts, where he passed away in 1912 at the age of sixty years. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Carrie Louise Cook, was also a native of Hadley. She passed away in 1894 at the age of forty-eight years, leaving two sons and a daughter; Herbert, a merchant and farmer of Hatfield, Massachusetts; Carrie Alice, the widow of F. Bixby and a resident of Springfield, Massachusetts; and Edwin C., of this review.

     The last named, after attending the public schools, became a student in Hopkins Academy, an endowed school of Hadley, Massachusetts, and started out to earn his own living at the age of twenty years, being first employed as a conductor by the street railway company of Holyoke, Massachusetts, where he remained for six years. He spent the succeeding six years as an employe of Meigs & Company at Springfield, Massachusetts, serving in the capacity of salesman. He was then transferred, in 1901, to New Haven to become manager of the New Haven store, which position he has since continuously and successfully filled. He is also a director and stockholder of the Meigs Company, which was established in New Haven and incorporated May 12, 1878, with a capitalization of ninety-nine thousand dollars, an amount that has since been greatly increased. The original incorporators and officers were: William H. Rothwell of Brookline, Massachusetts, president; James E. Rothwell, of Brookline, treasurer; Frank D. Bell, vice president; and Edwin C. Smith, manager of the New Haven store. The Meigs Company also conducts a branch store at Bridgeport, having the leading establishment in that city engaged in the sale of men’s clothing, hats, shoes and haberdashery. A large sales force is there employed, while the New Haven store employs on an average of twenty-three sales people. The New Haven business utilizes three floors of a building twenty-six by two hundred feet in the sale of clothing, furnishings, hats and shoes, and in point of trade theirs is one of the largest establishments in New Haven.

     Mr. Smith also has other important interests. He has been quite an important factor in building operations, and with Judge C. J. Martin has developed a beautiful residence district known as Washington Manor avenue, on which they have erected a score or more substantial and attractive homes. This property is situated in West Haven and has added very materially to the city’s growth and development. Individually Mr. Smith has also developed a tract on Hall street in West Haven, upon which he has erected eighteen residences that have been sold, and has also built several houses in Westville.

     On the 6th of December, 1910, Mr. Smith was married in Thompsonville, Connecticut, to Miss Mabel Parsons, a native of that place and a daughter of Mrs. M. E. Parsons, a representative of an old Connecticut family. They have two children, Doris Louise, born January 3, 1912; and Marion Parsons, born December 8, 1915. Mr. Smith is devoted to the welfare of his family and he has never sought to figure prominently in any  public connection, preferring to spend his leisure hours at his own fireside. He has, however, never neglected the duties of citizenship, and has done some important public work in his relation with organized interests. Politically he is a republican. For the past four years he has been a member of the town and city improvement committee and he is also a member of the Chamber of Commerce and of the Business Men’s Association. He belongs to the Young Men’s Republican Club, to the Masonic Club and to the Union League Club, and he is identified with the Masons and with the Odd Fellows. His military experience covers service with the Governor’s Foot Guard. In social intercourse he is genial, kindly and sympathetic, and in business is the personification of the highest ethics and most rigid integrity
 
 


Modern History of New Haven
and 
Eastern New Haven County

Illustrated

Volume II

New York – Chicago
The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company 
1918

pgs 729 - 730

Return to New Haven County Page

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NEW HAVEN 
COUNTY BIOGRAPHIES
pages / text are copyrighted by
Elaine Kidd O'Leary &
Anne Taylor-Czaplewski
May 2002