| PERCIVAL WOOD
CLEMENT(1846-1927) was a politician, railroad owner, newspaper
publisher, banker, mayor and governor.
He was born July 7, 1846, in Rutland, son of Charles and Elizabeth
(Wood) Clement. His father was in the marble business. Clement attended
Rutland High School, St. Paul's Prep School in Concord, NH, and
graduated from Trinity College in Connecticut. He married Martha
Hinman Goodwin of Hartford, CT, on Jan. 13, 1868. They had nine
children.
After graduation he started
as a clerk in the family marble business, which was soon sold to
the Vermont Marble Company. Then he went into banking, investing
in railroads. He became manager of one in 1883, selling it to the
Delaware & Hudson Railway in 1887. But he continued as major
owner of the Rutland Railway. In the early 1880s he became chief
owner of the Rutland Herald. As Rutland Town representative in 1892
he worked on the chartering of Rutland City.
City mayor in 1897-1898,
and 1911-1912, he was a Republican who opposed the faction of that
party run by Redfield Proctor of the Vermont Marble Company. But
he settled his differences after Proctor's death and served as governor
from 1919 to 1921. Owner of a private railroad car, he attended
many Republican national conventions, wearing a large cape and calling
himself a "farmer."
He died Jan. 9, 1927,
while on a visit to Philadelphia. President Calvin Coolidge sent
a note of condolence to the family.
Kendall Wild
Rutland Historical Society
For Further Reading:
- Resch, Tyler. The Rutland Herald History: A Bicentennial
Chronicle.Rutland Herald, 1995.
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