INSTRUCTIONS: Change the folder ID below to match the sub-folder you wish to use as sub-pages/sub-navigation. DO NOT USE THIS WITH THE "Generic Single-Column" TEMPLATE.

Your Silent Neighbors

Take a tour through the past with “Your Silent Neighbors", which introduces readers to people out of Canton’s past.

“Your Silent Neighbors” introduces readers to people out of Canton’s past.  Readers are encouraged to visit these gravesites and pay their respects to the people who have helped make our community what it is today.

Choose a name from the list to begin your journey into Canton's past:

3/23/2022 - Samuel N. Codding

YOUR SILENT NEIGHBORS, Samuel N. Codding, Banker, Public Servant  
by David K. Leff
Town Poet Laureate and Deputy Town Historian 

Born in Plainfield, Connecticut where his parents were early settlers, Samuel Codding (1819-1891) was the second of nine children.  He came to Collinsville at age 26, and except for a year in Williamsburg, Massachusetts, lived in the village for the remainder of his life. 

Codding worked for the Collins Company between 1857 and 1869, and then served as treasurer of the Collinsville Savings Society until his death.  He started with a yearly salary of $500 at the bank, and under his stewardship the institution prospered, even during the collapse of the real estate market during the national financial crisis of 1873 when many banks failed.  Renowned for his business acumen, Codding also represented several insurance companies.

Energetic and civic minded, Codding served as state representative in 1873, and on the Canton board of selectmen in 1874.  He was judge of probate from 1871 until 1889, and a longtime member of the school board.  He performed these offices “with efficiency and good judgment” according to the New Hartford Tribune. 

Codding lived for many years on Spring Street, near the church.  Around 1875 he built a fine Victorian house on Collins Road with frontage on the Farmington River.  The house burned in the late twentieth century.\ 

Electa Mills of Canton was Codding’s first wife.  She died ten years after they were married in 1846.  He remarried in 1858 to Fidelia Moses of Burlington.  He had a son and a daughter by each marriage. 

“Mr. Codding was held in the highest esteem by all who knew him” wrote the New Hartford Tribune on July 3, 1891, “and is mourned alike by all classes in the community; a self-made man himself, he was ever ready to lend a hand to the working man who was striving to make himself a home.” 

A member of the Congregational Church, the funeral was held at Codding’s home and attended by the church’s Rev. Cooledge. 
  
Samuel N. Codding is buried in the Village Cemetery, Collinsville. 

“Your Silent Neighbors” introduces readers to people out of Canton’s past.  Readers are encouraged to visit these gravesites and pay their respects to the people who have helped make our community what it is today.

Archives

INSTRUCTIONS: Change the content ID below to match the "Contact Us" page you wish to reference in the "sidebar".