Source: https://cantoncompass.com/category/history/page/2/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 04:49:28+00:00

Document:
Howard V. Follert (1896-1960) was born in Collinsville, attended local schools and Huntsinger Business College in Hartford. During World War I he started working in the Collins Company forging department as a clerk. In 1920, he took a transfer to the main office and was appointed assistant secretary-treasurer in 1941. In 1953 he was appointed secretary-treasurer, a post he held until his death.
Follert lived at 162 Hill Street. He was a member of the Village Lodge of Masons, Trinity Episcopal Church, and the Cawasa Grange. His death at Hartford Hospital followed a long illness, and the family’s suggestion that donations be made to the Heart Fund suggests he had cardiac problems.
Funeral services were held at the Charles H. Vincent & Sons Funeral Home on Maple Avenue in Collinsville with Reverend John Lee of Trinity Episcopal Church officiating. Honorary bearers included several Collins Company notables, among them president Clair Elston, former president H. Bissell Carey, vice president Leonard B. Hough, and plant engineer Guy F. Whitney.
Howard V. Follert is buried in the Village Cemetery, Collinsville.
A lifelong Canton resident, Burton V. Chineis (1906-1962) attended local schools. He served in World War II and later became commander of the local American Legion post. Early in his career he was a developer and builder. Later he became a salesman for the John Hancock Insurance Company. He worked for Hancock about seventeen years and received a citation and admission to the company’s Honor Club for his excellent sales in 1961.
Chineis was also involved in local affairs, serving as third selectman for a number of terms and eight years as a justice of the peace. He died after a long illness. His funeral was held at the Vincent Funeral Home on Albany Turnpike with Reverend John Lee of Trinity Episcopal Church officiating. He was survived by his wife Alma and his daughter Victoria.
Burton V. Chineis is buried in Dyer Cemetery, Canton.
Born in Germany, Henry Napy (1848-1919) came to the United States with his parents at age 11. He was employed by a dairyman in Hartford before coming to Canton and working for the Collins Company for about eight years. Afterward, he devoted himself to farming on land along Albany Turnpike near the Ned’s Brook Creamery. He ran a milk route in Collinsville “and he never missed a day, going the mile and a half through severe storms and deep snow,” according to the Hartford Courant.
Napey was killed at age 71 when his horse and wagon was struck by an automobile driven by a traveling salesman from Auburn, N.Y. The accident occurred around 10 a.m. on April 22 near his home. Napey was returning from his fields and turning into his yard. The salesman blew his horn as he was about to pass, but Napey turned and the vehicle hit him. He was thrown from his wagon and suffered a fractured skull. The salesman stopped to render assistance and Dr. George Eddy of Main Street in Collinsville was called to the scene. Unfortunately, Napey was dead when the doctor arrived.
Funeral services were held at the Napey home. He was married in 1869 to Caroline Ingram of Collinsville, and was survived by his wife of over 50 years.
Henry Napey is buried in Dyer Cemetery, Canton.
Born in Collinsville, Mildred V. Follert (1898-1960) went to local schools and lived her entire life in the village. She worked at Lord & Taylor in West Hartford. She was a member of Trinity Episcopal Church and the Order of the Eastern Star, Ruby Chapter.
Mildred died at her home on Collins Road five days after the death of her brother Howard, who was the Collins Company secretary-treasurer. Services were held at her church with Reverend John Lee officiating. Calling hours were at the Charles H. Vincent & Sons Funeral Home on Maple Avenue in Collinsville.
Mildred V. Follert is buried in the Village Cemetery, Collinsville.
Son of a parsimonious and severe Canton Center farmer, Lewis S. Mills (1874-1965) grew up on Barbourtown Road. At age three he sustained an injury that caused him to wear a steel leg brace for the remainder of his life, but that did not stop his father from putting Lewis to work doing farm chores. He attended the one-room Canton Center schoolhouse, Collinsville High School and the Willimantic Normal School.
Mills’ first job was teaching in a one room school in Woodstock, Connecticut from 1897 to 1900 where he had 40 students ranging in age from three to eighteen. He was principal of the Plainfield Grammar School from 1902 to 1906. Mills later became a rural schools supervisor in Burlington between 1916 and 1928, and in Harwinton from 1927 until his retirement in 1939.
Born in Canton, Margaret Dyer (1893-1963) lived her entire life on the Dyer Farm in a rambling center chimney colonial house built in 1789. For most of her adult life she operated a small roadside candy shop beside her home along what was then Albany Turnpike (now Dyer Cemetery Road). She was famous for her fudge, salted nuts and handkerchiefs. Customers delighted in her confections and the shop was a magnet for travelers and a regular stop for people from nearby towns.
A member of the Canton Center Congregational Church, Dyer never married and died at age 69. Her funeral was held at Vincent Funeral Home on Albany Turnpike with Reverend Evans Sealand of her church officiating.
Margaret Dyer is buried in Dyer Cemetery, Canton.
Born just over the town line in Simsbury, Burton O. Higley (1842-1919) started his career as a schoolteacher in Simsbury and West Avon before becoming a farmer and getting into the milk business. He was educated in one-room district schools and attended Wilbraham College.
Higley married Emma Josephine Woodford of Avon. No children were born from their marriage, but they brought up two daughters and a son. Eight weeks before Higley’s death one of his daughters died of pneumonia. Overcome with grief, it began “the undermining of his general health and was in part the cause of his sickness and death,” according to a newspaper report.
Higley was an active Democrat and was a member of the Village Lodge of Masons where he was a past master. He was the oldest member and senior deacon of the Canton Baptist Church. He became ill at a Ladies Aid Supper, leaving the church hall with a severe chill which developed into pneumonia and other complications causing his death six days afterward.
Burton O. Higley is buried in the Canton Springs Cemetery on Canton Springs Road.
Christa Humphrey (1885-1919) was born on Christmas Day and died on Easter morning after a few days with pneumonia following a bout of influenza. She was born and schooled in Canton Center, one of twelve children (seven of whom survived). Humphrey was a graduate of Collinsville High School, class of 1903. Afterward she attended the Northfield Seminary. She taught school for a few years in Canton Center and Nepaug.
A lifelong resident of Canton, Frederick A. Bidwell (1850-1907) was a farmer and very active in the Cawassa Grange. He served as master of that organization for four years. A public spirited man, he served the town in a variety of capacities including fifteen years on the board of selectmen. “In that office he was painstaking and careful, and the town has lost a good guardian of the taxpayer [and] a considerate official” according to a newspaper account. Bidwell was elected state representative from Canton in 1889. He was a member of the Village Lodge of Masons.
Although he met with business difficulties and “severe blows due to sickness and death in his family, he always maintained a cheerful disposition and gained the respect and admiration of all who knew him.” Bidwell died in Hartford Hospital after a week’s stay. He was operated on for a severe strangulated hernia and was on the road to recovery when complications arose requiring another surgery. Weakened by the second operation, he failed to rally.

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