ERASMUS D. AVERY
GROTON
Mr. Avery is now eighty-three years of age, having been born May 12, 1808. Groton is the place of his nativity. In childhood he attended the village schools there, afterward spent some time at Plainfield Academy, and finished his education in the private school of Rev. Timothy Tuttle in Ledyard. At the age of eighteen he embarked in the mercantile business in New York city, continuing there for about ten years, when, his health failing, he went to Florida and engaged in similar business at Pensacola. He regained his health, established a prosperous trade, and remained until 1861, when at the breaking out of the war of the rebellion he was compelled to leave suddenly and abandon a very considerable property, entailing great pecuniary loss. Returning to Groton, he established his residence there, and has maintained it ever since, although his business connections are mostly with New London, just across the Thames. Mr. Avery was one of the incorporators of the Mariners’ Savings Bank in New London, in 1867, and has been one of its directors ever since; he is, and has been for several years, a director in the New London City National Bank; also a trustee of the New London Savings Bank. He has been connected with the settlement of upwards of twenty different estates, and is now the agent and trustee of various properties. He is trustee and treasurer of the Bill memorial library, director and treasurer of the Groton Cemetery Association, and president of the Groton Monument Association. Mr. Avery has represented his town or district six times in the legislature, three times in the senate and the same number of times in the lower branch. He was a member of the Groton war committee for raising troops throughout the entire period of the civil war. As a member of the general assembly he has assisted in the election of three United States senators, - Hon. LaFayette S. Foster of Norwich, Hon. James Dixon of Hartford, and Hon. Orville H. Platt of Meriden. He has been assessor and auditor of accounts in his native town for a number of years, and for a some time clerk and treasurer, as well as committee-man, in the Groton Congregational church, of which he has been eight years a member. His life has been one of great activity and usefulness, and his public services to the town and state have been of inestimable value. Mr. Avery married Miss Sarah Hinckley, who, with three of their four children, is still living. He was formerly a Henry Clay whig, but since the organization of the republican party has been prominently identified therewith.
Source: Illustrated Popular Biography of Connecticut - 1891, Compiled and Published by J. A. Spalding, Hartford Conn., Press of the Case, Lockwood and Brainard Company, 1891
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