Elbridge N. Streeter
AN EXPERT MECHANIC.
Career of Mr. Elbridge N. Streeter Marked by Painstaking Industry as a Mechanic and Commendable Bravery and Fortitude in the Military Service of His Country.
The face of another member of the famous “Boys’ Club” of Danby graces the first page of the MIRROR this week —Mr. Elbridge N. Streeter—who has been a resident of Danby for very nearly a fifth of a century past, and of the adjoining town of Dorset previously for nearly all of the balance of his lifetime.
Mr. Streeter was born in the town of Townshend, this state, March 3, 1837, and will therefore be 66 years old the coming March. His parents were Israel and Betsey (Hildreth) Streeter, and both were natives of Townshend, but removed to North Dorset and took up their abode when the subject of this sketch was about six years of age, the mother dying there about five years afterwards.
Mr. Streeter’s education was gained during his early boyhood in the public school at North Dorset, although it was his father’s intention to provide him with advanced educational facilities at Manchester, then known as Burr Seminary. Conformatory to this desire, the father took the lad to Manchester at the commencement of a term of school, and sent him to the seminary building to take observations and get acquainted while he arranged for his board with a cousin who resided near by. It seems that the lad did not get nearer than the school grounds, where he waited and watched the pupils file out for the noon hour. He was immediately attacked with homesickness, and returning to his father told him he guessed he had better stay at home and learn the wheelwright and carpentering business, that being his father’s occupation.
Learning the trade, Mr. Streeter continued to work at it till he enlisted in the army, August 11, 1862. At the time of his enlistment he was working in Danby for William Kelley, but he was recruited by the town of Fair Haven and became a member of Company C, First Volunteer Regiment of Vermont Artillery. While Mrs Streeter enlisted as an artificier, to act in the capacity of carpenter of the regiment, and was not supposed to carry a gun, he always went armed and took active part in all the engagements of his regiment.
For nearly a year of the first part of the period of his enlistment Mr. Streeter’s regiment was stationed at Washington as a part of the defending force of the national capital, and he built the barracks occupied by them during their stay there. In entering active service the regiment went down the valley with the Sixth Corps under General Grant, their first engagement being in the battle of Spottsylvania court house. Among the other engagements his regiment participated in were the battles of the Wilderness, Winchester, Fisher’s Hill, Cedar Creek, Cold Harbor, Monocacy, etc.
Mr. Streeter went through the period of his enlistment without receiving a wound, although he had some pretty close calls from the enemy’s bullets, at one time a minnie ball plowing a fur-rough through the hair at the side of his head and grazing the scalp. He also experienced considerable sickness and spent some time in different hospitals, ill with erysipelas and chronic diarrhoea. In fact his health was so impaired during his service for his country that he never regained the good health that he enjoyed previous to entering the service. He was about twenty-three years of age at the time of enlistment and twenty-six when honorably discharged June 24, 1865. As a memento of his war experience Mr. Streeter wears a corps badge, in the form of a cross, which he made from a silver half dollar while on the Virginia campaign.
Some three years previous to his enlistment, Mr. Streeter was married to Melissa, daughter of Austin Ladd of North Dorset, and to them one son was born, William, who now resides in Rutland. Mrs. Streeter died while they resided in North Dorset, some twenty-five years ago, and three or four years afterwards Mr. Streeter married Mrs. Viola Waite Moorehouse, and they now reside in a comfortable home in this village, which they purchased some three years ago and have since added to and improved.
Mr. Streeter worked for and had charge of the woodworking shop of Mr. S. L. Griffith here for nineteen years, which position he relinquished about nine years ago on account of ill health, and has since been able to do but little work at his trade. He is the present town liquor agent, and has held that position for some time in the past. While he is not so spry as some of our citizens who are older in years, it is the hope of his friends and acquaintances that he be able to round out his years to a ripe old age, and while doing so experience better health than it has been his fortune to possess for many years.