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��Banks and Bankers of Concord.
��CRIPPEN, LAWRENCE & CO.
The active manager of the firm in the East is Henry J. Crippen, the son of Henry and Elizabeth (Stockwell) Crippen, who was born in Canterbury, England, from which place the family migrated to this country when he was five years old. His ancestry on the father's side were of French descent, and on the mother's of the old Anglo- Saxon stock. After a brief residence in Maine the family removed to Bos- ton, and remained in that city and vicinity for about seven years, then moved to Grafton, Mass., where the parents now reside.
Henry's early education was re- ceived at the public schools of Bos- ton, which, by permission of the com- mittee, he continued to attend for several years while residing outside the limits of the city. At the time of his removal to Grafton the town had no high school, and finding himself in advance of the district school he decided to go to work.
Grafton was a shoe manufacturing town, and at the age of thirteen he learned the shoemaker's trade, and worked on the bench for three years. Having saved the greater part of his earnings he resolved to obtain a lib- eral education, and with that end in view became a student iu the New London (N. H.) academy. He grad- uated from that institution in 1857, and was the valedictorian of his class. In the same year he entered the fresh- man class of Dartmouth college. Here he took the regular academic course, and graduated in 1861, and was class poet. He paid his expenses at New London and in college by teaching during the winters, and one spring and two fall terms ; but, notwithstand-
��ing these interruptions, he graduated among the first scholars in his class. He taught his first school in Hopkin- ton, N. H., when sixteen years old. After graduating from college he taught for two terms at Upton, Mass., and in March, 1862, came to Concord, and commenced the study of law with Henry P. Rolfe, and later studied with Anson S. Marshall. In Septem- ber, 1862, he entered a competitive examination for the position of assist- ant teacher in the high school, and was the successful candidate. At that time the principal of the high school was also superintendent of schools, so that a large pai"t of the work devolved on the assistant. The following year that arrangement was discontinued, and Mr. Crippen was elected as principal of the Merrimack grammar school, which place he re- signed iu March, 1865, to accept a position in the office of the state treasurer, an office then filled by Hon. Peter Sanborn. In 1869 he received the appointment of clerk of the joint committee of the U. S. house of rep- resentatives and senate on retrench- ment, and the following year was ap- pointed clerk of the senate committee on the District of Columbia, which office he resigned in 1872, when he was chosen cashier of the National State Capital Bank, of Concord. About this time he commenced in- vesting for personal friends in West- ern mortgages, but so satisfactory and successful were those investments that what was commenced as a matter of accommodation soon grew into a large business, and the firm of Crip- pen, Lawrence & Co. was formed, having offices at Concord, N. H., and Salina, Kansas.
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