Gardner Colby

Gardner Colby (1810–1879) was a prominent businessman and Christian philanthropist. He is the namesake of Colby College in Maine.

Personal life

Colby was born in Bowdoinham, Maine in 1810 and spent part of his childhood in Waterville, Maine. His father, Josiah Colby, died in 1814 after having lost his fortune during the War of 1812, and Josiah Colby had spent time manufacturing gunpowder in Waterville before his death. To aid Colby's mother, Jeremiah Chaplin, a Baptist minister who served as the first President of Waterville College (later Colby College) arranged for the Colby family to operate a store in Charlestown, Massachusetts.

Colby had a son, Gardner Roberts Colby.

Career

Gardner Colby eventually started his own store in Boston and became involved in various other businesses including railroads, shipping and manufacturing. As a lifelong Baptist, Colby was very involved in various Christian causes. During the Civil War in 1864 the college in Waterville was facing hardships, so Colby made the first of several large donations to the college and it was subsequently renamed "Colby University" in his honor. He served as a trustee from 1864 to his death and many of his descendants became involved with the school. Colby also served as treasurer and made several large donations to what is now Andover Newton Theological School, which was a Reformed seminary located near Colby's home in Newton, Massachusetts.A tribute to the memory of Gardner Colby
(Franklin press., 1879)

Maverick Woolen Mills

Following Benjamin Bussey's 1842 death, his woolen mill on Mother Brook was sold in November 1843 to J. Wiley Edmands, who was then one of the partners in the company that served as the mill's selling agent, Amos & Abbot Lawrence. The land was purchased for $30,000 while the machinery, the stock, and materials were sold for more than $45,000. In 1850, he sold half of the company, which he renamed Maverick Woolen Mill, to Colby, who was also a selling agent in Boston.

Merchants Woolen Company

In 1863, Colby and Edmands took in new partners, including Charles L. Harding, to form the Merchant Woolen Company. The new company purchased the Maverick Woolen Mills and eventually all of the other mills on Mother Brook. By the 1870s, the Merchant's Woolen Company had monopolized all of the water in Mother Brook. In 1870, they were the largest taxpayer in Dedham, Massachusetts and, when the New York Times wrote about them in 1887, it described the company as "one of the largest ndustrial operationsin the state."

Places named after Colby

* Colby Hall (Newton, Massachusetts)
*Colby Chapel at Andover Newton
*Colby College

References

Works cited

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Further reading

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Colby, Gardner
1810 births
1879 deaths
Philanthropists from Massachusetts
Colby College
University and college founders
People from Waterville, Maine
American Civil War industrialists
Baptists from Maine
History of Wisconsin
People from Bowdoinham, Maine
Philanthropists from Maine
Baptists from Massachusetts
19th-century Baptists
19th-century American philanthropists