EPHRAIM KINGSBURY TAFT BIOGRAPHY AS RECORDED IN: COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF TOLLAND AND WINDHAM COUNTIES CONNECTICUT. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PROMINENT AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS AND
OF MANY PUBLISHER: J.H.BEERS & CO., CHICAGO; 1903 P. 355
EPHRAIM KINGSBURY TAFT, who was in his lifetime one of the most respected Evander Taft, the father of Ephraim K., was born in Uxbridge, Mass.,
Dec. 27, 1801, and died in Willington, Conn., March 7, 1863, having been
in the employ of the Willington Glass factory for a number of years. Personally
he was a man of quiet and unassuming habits and was much respected for his
sterling worth and character. In early life he was a Whig, but became a
Republican on the formation of that party. In religion he was a pronounced
Methodist, and his good life cast no shame or discredit upon his faith.
Evander Taft was married Feb. 14, 1827, to Lydia Kingsbury, who was born
in Uxbridge, Mass., June 9, 1809, and died Aug. 16, 1867, in Stafford.
To them Ephraim K. Taft was born in Webster, Mass., and attended school at
Willington, to which point his parents removed when he was quite young,
and at Wilbraham Academy, which institution he left when he was about eighteen
years old, to take a clerkship for William A. Foster, in his store on Stafford
street. In his later youth he also clerked for Lyman W. Crane and Francis
A Harwood. In 1865 he purchased an interest in the dry goods store of James
Medbery, the two doing business under the firm name of Medbery & Taft,
and continuing together for some two years. At the end of that time Mr. Taft was a charter member of Winter Post, No. 42, G.A.R., of which
he was chaplain at the time of his death. His military experience was gained
with Co. D, 25th C.V.I., in which he enlisted Aug. 27, 1862, and was first
sergeant. After making a gallant and creditable record, he was wounded
at Irish Bend, La., April 14, 1863, and the effects of this wound necessitated
his discharge, Aug. 26, of the same year. Mr. Taft was a very active and
devoted member of the Methodist Church, of which he was steward and Sunday-school
superintendent for many years. In his political relations he Mr. Taft was married April 27, 1866, to Frances Augusta Field, a daughter of Abizer and Asenath (Every) Field, of Hamden, N.Y. To this union were born: (1) Mary Field, born April 25, 1867, who on Aug. 15, 1892, married Francis Asbury Bagnall, superintendent of the city schools of Adams, Mass., and who has three children, Katherine, Frances and Margaret; (2) Ernest Kingsbury, born Jan. 4, 1870, who graduated from the local high school, in 1893 completed the course of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, and is now in charge of the store at Stafford. Mrs. Taft is also a licensed pharmacist.
Reproduced by: Linda D. Pingel great-great granddaughter of Cyrus White of Rockville, Ct. |