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Sanford, Horatio G.
View related Fitz Henry Lane catalog entries (1) »
According to the notes on View from Rocky Neck, Gloucester, 1850s (inv. 137), a painting was made for Horatio Sanford from a sketch.
Horatio G. Sanford was born in Belchertown, New Hampshire, in 1808, a son of Ichabod and Nancy Howe Sanford. By 1825, Sanford was working in Boston for Charles Warren in the dry goods business. According to Sanford’s obituary, he also worked for a while “in the mills” in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. (1)
In 1835, Sanford was married to Harriet D. Harkin, a daughter of James Harkin and Elizabeth Plummer (Hough) Harkin of Gloucester (Harriet was born in Gloucester in 1809.) Presumably around the time of his marriage, Sanford went into the dry goods business on Main Street—then called Spring Street—in Gloucester.
Sanford moved to Worcester for a few years during the mid-1850s, taking his wife and child with him. They were back to Gloucester, however, by 1870, and back in the dry goods business on Spring Street; it was a Boston Branch grocery business. The business was later sold to Messrs. B. Haskell & Sons. Harriet D. Harkin died on June 15, 1878 in Gloucester. Horatio G. Sanford died in May 1891.
They had one son, H. Frank Sanford, who lived at 49 Middle Street—the “old Hough House.” H. Frank later boarded on nearby Church Street and spent his last years in the “city home.” H. Frank is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston.
(1) Cape Ann Advertiser (Gloucester, Massachusetts: Procter Brothers, May 1, 1891).