Читать книгу History of Bridgeport and Vicinity, Volume 2: Biographical - George Curtis Waldo jr. - Страница 24

Not by leaps and bounds but along the steps of an orderly progression did William Avery Grippin advance during the years which he devoted to business, becoming at length the head of some of the important industrial enterprises of Bridgeport. Experience, study and close application gave him a knowledge of successful management and he was one of the substantial citizens of Fairfield county, being president of the Bridgeport Malleable Iron Company, the Troy Malleable Iron Company of Troy, New York, and the Vulcan Iron Works of New Britain, Connecticut. He was born in Corinth, Saratoga county. New York, February 23, 1851, and was of Welsh and English descent, although the family has been represented on American soil for many generations, his great-grandfather having been a soldier of the Revolutionary war. His parents were Alonzo J. and Mary (Burritt) Grippin, the former a highly respected farmer of Corinth.

The son received somewhat limited educational opportunities. He attended successively district schools, the village public schools and an academy at Ballston Spa, New York, but his textbooks were put aside when he was fifteen years of age save that he afterward had the benefit of a course in Eastman's Business College at Poughkeepsie, New York, in the spring and summer of 1869. In September of that year he took up general office work with Harrison & Kellogg, manufacturers .of malleable iron castings at Troy, New York. A quarter of a century passed and he had become president of the company, having been advanced through various stages and intermediate positions, during which he thoroughly acquainted himself with every phase of the business. Extending his efforts in the same field, he became treasurer of the Bridgeport Malleable Iron Company, was elected its vice president in July, 1904, and in November of the same year was chosen president. After November, 1894, he was also president of the Vulcan Iron Works of New Britain and a director of several other companies. With every phase of the iron industry in its manufacturing and sales departments he was familiar and his broad knowledge and long experience constituted the foundation upon which he built his success. He also extended his efforts and investments into banking circles and was a director of the Pequonnock National Bank of Bridgeport and the Century Bank of New York city.

On the 10th of November, 1875, Mr. Grippin was united in marriage to Miss Adele Jackson, of Ballston Spa, New York, and their two children are William J. and Edna Adele, the former now treasurer of the Eastern Malleable Iron Company and mentioned elsewhere in this work, while the latter is Mrs. Dudley M. Morris, of Bridgeport. Mr. Grippin married for his second wife Miss Minnie Tillou, of New Haven, in November, 1910, and she survives him. He died March 1, 1911, at Grand Canyon, Arizona, and is buried in Bridgeport.

Mr. Grippin's interests outside of business were broad and varied and of a nature that contributed to individual and public progress. His political endorsement was given to the republican party and he served for two unexpired terms and for one full term of three years on the board of apportionment and taxation in Bridgeport. He belonged to the Seaside Club, to the Contemporary Club, to the Bridgeport Yacht Club and to the Scientific and Historical Society, but his chief interest, perhaps, was in his church work. He was a very active member of the Baptist church and from 1896 until 1898 was president of the Connecticut Baptist convention, while after April, 1904, he served on the board of the American Baptist Home Mission Society of New York. His interests and activities were never concentrated along a single line to the exclusion of those interests which develop character or affect man in his relations to his fellowman. His standards of life were high and his ideals found expression in his efforts in the practical workaday world — efforts that have called forth the best in those that he met, for he was a believer in working on the constructive side of life, both for the individual and for the community at large.