The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1877-06-01

who died last week Thursday evening
was a Vermonter Nv birth, the Youngest
of siy. sous, and b e was born in Fairfax.
Franklin count y. His property Is esti-
mated at a mi lion dollars.
The Bostor. Journal gives an extend
cd notiie OF Mr.. Brigham, from which
we copy the following:
Peter Brent Brigham was born in
nortbern Vermont. His ancestors were
oil Marlboro, Massachusetts, whence his
family removed TO Vermont in 1899.
ltlS fatk,er died some years before he
was OF aye. The mother, Il smart wo-
loan IN humble circumstances on n
small farm, babe her SONS seek their
fortunes in the world, keeping only one
\ with her. When this youngest's turn
came, well in his teens, he started of
for Boston on an old grey horse, with
a pair of saddle bags, stores of lunch
con, a stout will, big hopes, and FOUR
teen dollars in money. The horse was
to be sold, and the money for it, togeth.
err with the saddle-bags and bride, sent
to his mother. The animal, weak
kneed, broke down at Tyngsborough.
Peter snapped with the minister of the
town for an old mare and sixty dollars
1OOtf oCAo ttiC q lulu luIlItI OIL
for fifteen dollars and O watch; got
aboard a freight boat on the Middlesex
Canal, so working his way to Charles
town. The boatmen liked him: he
stood treat at Simon Robinson's grocery
END of the bridge-rum and molasses,
All things gave him ideas: they show
ed him, too, how to get square meals
for q shilling. The second dav in, he
said ne saw a big fish, almost filling a
hand cart; he thought it might be a
whale, but the boatmen told him ii was
a halibut; then he puzzled over a lob
ster. His first night In this city he
lodged IN Bowdoin square. Next day
he footed IT to Marlboro to see some un-
cles, stayed with them ten days and re-
turned to see Levi Lincoln take his seat
on the Common as governor. After
the show was over he at once sought
work, and hired himself in a grocery
store i'll Sea street. Thrown out of en-
ploy in the winter, he went home to his
mother. Returning in the spring OF
1926, he took a job Of selling HOLSTERS,
at twenty dollars q month. His en-
ploNr, finding he generally sold his
w~heelbarrow full, promoted him, in
1927, to the Faneuil Hall stand, and
soon after TO Concert Hall street corner,
These busy spots opened his ewes Ia
chances for trade. So, in 1928, getting
the good will of Mr.. Eaton, who kept
Concert Hall, he hired a little shop on
Hanover street side, on condition that
he should live with the Eatons, and
opened an oyster shop. Working early
and late, resisting all manner of temp
tations, among them offers to go into
the lobster business with his first en-
ployer, he had earned and got. by 1886.
$4,000. Then he took the whole es.
Enlistment of Concert Hall. For forty
years his business career was in that
one spot. Here was made, night and
day, the bulk ola great fortune. and,
too, the only great mistake he ever
made, in a business point of view,
namely, that of not buying the estate.
Peter Brigham and Concert Hall were
one and the same expression for nearly
two generations of Boston people
When Concert Hall, for a century noted
Tor balls, all sorts of entertainments
and junkctings, ceased to be what IL
always had been, becoming only an his
torical memory, then, at the same mo-
ment, stepped forth into Boston streets,
looking like the great Professor Agas-
siz, Peter Brigham, the capitalist, the
big, sagacious real estate owner, the
Fitcbburg railroad director, the man OF
positive opinions, the sympathizer with
radicalism, but ever the same geniaT,
aftable, unstuck-up, plain, sensible man,
as when he smiled on the passer-by
with n winsOme invitation to buy a lob.
ster.
Mr.. Brigham was too devoted q per.
son to his affairs to be styled what i:
termed a public spirited man. Yet he
was free and ready with opinions upon
? all topics with intelligence and evidence
of close observation on the general con.
Germs of the community in which he
lived. In 1912 he was made a member
Of st. Andrews Lodge of Masons, and
withdrew in l848. He never belonged
to any religious society, nor did he at
tend church. His religious ideas were
all his own. In the heat ofan animated
protest against what he considered big.
otry, priestcraft, intolerance or cant,
he might be taken for a %scoffcr, but nc
was not a scofier. With the light he
had, he felt strongly and spoke strong
". In the n~eighborhood of his birth
there were no religious illustrations al
all. He said his mother told him when
he started for Boston, that they were
church-going folks there and he had
better fall in with the current, and he
did go for a few Sabbaths to the "Old
South" with as good an appearance as
he could make, but he took il that they
did not like to give him a good seat,
and the last time, after asking the sex.
ton, that hnctionary went off and did
not return to him, '~fwhereupon," said
Mr.. Brigham, ~ never went inside Of
a Boston church to worship afterward.'