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HON. PHINEAS C. LOUNSBURY, RIDGEFIELD Ex-Governor of Connecticut; President Merchants' Exchange National Bank
of New York city.
P. C. Lounsbury is a native of the town where he still resides; he was born in 1840. His father was a farmer, and
like most farmers' sons he worked on the farm during the years of boyhood and early manhood. He found time, however,
to acquire a thorough academic education in the schools of learning in his native state. He then went to New York
city where he secured a position as clerk in a shoe store, and in time familiarized himself with all departments
of the business. Having laid the foundations for a successful commercial career he began, upon attaining his majority,
the manufacture of shoes with his brother in New Haven under the firm name of Lounsbury Brothers. The business
was afterward removed to South Norwalk, and carried on under the firm name of Launsbury, Matthewson & Co. When
the civil war broke out he enlisted as a private in the Seventeenth Connecticut Regiment, but after four months'
active service wag compelled by severe sickness to return, being honorably discharged and recommended for a pension,
which he would not accept.
Mr. Lounsbury represented Ridgefield in the Connecticut house of representatives in 1874, and occupied a leading
position throughout the session. He was a prominent factor in state politics for the succeeding decade, and his
name was before the republican state convention in 1884, unsuccessfully, however, as a candidate for the chief
executive office. In 1886 he was the only prominent candidate for that position before the convention, and received
the nomination for governor by an overwhelming majority on the first ballot. His incumbency of the office of chief
magistrate during the succeeding two years gave signal satisfaction to his constituents and the state. He maintained
the position with becoming dignity, performed its duties ably and well, and achieved distinction among the many
conspicuous citizens who have administered the affairs of the commonwealth.
Ex Governor Lounsbury is a life long and consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal church, in which his liberal
views and enlightened sentiments have always been duly recognized; and he now occupies an honored relation to her
foremost schools, notably to Wesleyan University at Middletown in this state, of which institution he has long
been a trustee. His business connections are largely in New York, and he has for some years been president of the
Merchants Exchange National Bank of that city, which under his control has become one of the most solid and prosperous
of the banking houses of the metropolis.
From:
Illustrated Popular Biography
Of Connecticut
Compiled and Published by J. A. Spalding
Press of the Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co.
Hartford, Conn. 1891
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