Edwin L. Furness, BiographyPorter County biographical sketches . . . .
Transcribed biography of Edwin L. Furness
EDWIN L. FURNESS was born May 9, 1832, in Portland, Me. He is the youngest of three children born to Benjamin C. and Mary J. (Roberts) Furness, both natives of Maine. The elder Furness was a sea captain. His maternal great-grandfather was in the Revolutionary war, and donated a vessel for the Government war service, but refused a pension he was entitled to. His paternal great-grandfather was a Revolutionary soldier and one of the founders of South Berwick (Me.) Academy, a college well know in the East. Thomas Leigh, an uncle, was a Major in the war of 1812, and founded the town of Leigh's Mills. Nearly all of Mr. Furness' ancestors were sea-faring men. When our subject was about eight years old, the elder Furness was lost at sea, and his mother died a short time after. He then went to live with his grandmother at South Berwick. When thirteen, he was attacked by the prevalent 'sea fever' among boys, and ran away to sea, on board the 'California,' to the Carolinas, to London, to Wales and back to New York. He was now persuaded to go to school, to the above-mentioned academy, where he took a classical course. He then began teaching and farming for two years, when he came West to Kane County, Ill., where he taught two years. In 1853, he went East, and was married to Louise M. Graves, of Thomaston, Me. He then went to Batavil, Ill., where he bought a store and stone quarry. In 1856, he came to Furnessville, and engaged in lumbering in the firm of Morgan, Furness & Co., continuing until 1862, when the firm dissolved, and he has continued in the same business ever since, in connection with farming, and about three years in a stave factory, in which he lost considerable money. His attention is now devoted principally to farming his possessions, of between two and three thousand acres in Westchester and Pine Townships. Through the efforts of Mr. Furness, the station and post office of Furnessville was established, of which he was the first agent and Postmaster, and near which his residence is situated. He was a member of the Grange and Good Templar orders. He has always been a strong Republican, and was a candidate in 1874, for State Senator, but was in the then unpopular temperance movement and was defeated. He is the father of six children living - Clara N. Leigh, of St. Louis; Winnie F. Rose, of Valparaiso; Leigh, of St. Louis; Martha, Dwight, Mary.
Source: Goodspeed, Weston A., and Charles Blanchard. 1882. Counties of Porter and Lake, Indiana: Historical and Biographical, Illustrated. Chicago, Illinois: F. A. Battey & Company. 771 p.
Page(s) in Source: 295-296
This biography has been transcribed exactly as it was originally published in the source. Please note that we do not provide photocopies or digital scans of biographies appearing on this website.
Biography transcribed by Steven R. Shook