Denver, History of Colorado, BIOS: JOSLIN, John Jay (published 1918)
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"History of Colorado", edited by Wilbur Fisk Stone, published by The S. J. 
Clarke Publishing Co. (1918)  Vol. II


p. 362, 264
photo and signature, p. 363


JOHN JAY JOSLIN.

	J. Jay Joslin, president of the Joslin Dry Goods Company, of 
Denver, is a native of Vermont having been born in Poultney, May 11, 
1829. Born of a long line of Colonial and Revolutionary ancestry, he 
inherited those sterling principles of character which marked the 
sturdy men and women who had part in the stirring events incident to 
our country's formative period. Thomas Joslin, the progenitor of the 
family in America, came from England and settled at Hingham, 
Massachusetts, in 1635. One of his descendants, Lindsey Joslin, 
grandfather of our subject, was one of the minute men of the 
Revolution, and as a regularly enrolled soldier in the Continental 
army, was present at the surrender of General Burgoyne, in 1777.

	J. Jay Joslin is the second child in a family of five sons and 
one daughter born to Joseph and Caroline C. Ruggles Joslin, who were 
married in 1825, the mother likewise being a scion of a prominent 
colonial family. The lad spent his boyhood days in his native town, 
enjoying the educational opportunities afforded by the public school 
and, later supplementing this by attending at different times, during 
the years 1844 to 1847, the Troy Conference Academy, exhibiting even 
then qualifications which foreshadowed the success which was to be his 
in later life. In 1847, he put aside his textbooks and took his initial 
step in the commercial world by accepting a clerkship in a store in the 
neighboring town of Castleton. In 1850, ín response to the wishes of 
his father, he assumed the management of the farm, the title to the old 
homestead having been offered him, if he would make it his home. He did 
not, however, enjoy farm life and it seemed that he had been destined 
by nature for a commercial career. Accordingly he opened a store in 
Poultney, ín 1852, and he conducted this business until 1873, having in 
the meantime given substantial and graceful evidence of his prosperity 
and his loyalty to his home town by erecting. in Poultney, the largest 
and finest business block then in the state. One story of this building 
was equipped and used as a lecture and concert hall, a natural though 
unusual expression of his cultivated taste, his high ideals of 
mercantile life and his desire to contribute to the public good-
characteristics which have continued to distinctly mark his career.

	Disposing of his business interests in Vermont, he sought 
opportunity elsewhere and, coming to Denver in 1873, cast in his lot 
with the rapidly growing west. In April of that year he purchased the 
establishment then known as the New York Dry Goods Store, located at 
the corner of Larimer and Fifteenth streets. The business was continued 
at that location until 1879, when it was removed to a more commodious 
three-story block on Lawrence street, opposite the Times building. Ten 
years later, in 1889, the steady expansion of the business, coincident 
with the growth of the city, demanded still larger quarters and another 
move was made, this time to the present location at the corner of 
Sixteenth and Curtis streets, where has since been conducted one of the 
most handsome and most thoroughly equipped drygoods emporiums in the 
west-an establishment that has long enjoyed the confidence of a 
discriminating public, and the reputation of which for honest values in 
merchandising extends far beyond the limits of the city and the state.

	It is worthy of note, in passing, that in years of continuous 
service, Mr. Joslin is the oldest merchant now in business in Denver, 
and he may truthfully be termed "Denver's Nestor of Commerce." The 
years in their passing have removed from the stage of their earlier 
activity those who were contemporaries with him in the early seventies, 
while he alone remains, active in the work of the day.

	Mr. Joslin is of literary and scholarly tastes and as an 
interesting writer has contributed many articles to the secular press 
on subjects of current and public interest. He has always found time 
during the course of a busy life for active participation in those 
interests which make for cultural progress and the betterment of the 
individual and the community. He has ever been an ardent lover of art 
and music and was identified, at different periods, with a number of 
the leading musical societies. He served as president of the Handel and 
Haydn Society during its existence, and when later it was merged into 
the Choral Union, he served as president until 1886. He was one of the 
earliest members of the Chamber of Commerce, known in later years as 
the Denver Civic and Commercial Association, and during its early 
existence he contributed in no small measure towards its maintenance, 
both from his purse as well as by personal effort, serving in various 
official capacities in the organization. He is a member of the Denver 
Riding and Driving Club, having always been a lover of good horses. He 
is also a member of the Colorado Society, Sons of the American 
Revolution, and has been a Master Mason for more than fifty years, 
having joined the fraternity while still a young man, in the old home 
town of Poultney.

	In his religious tendencies, though broad and liberal in his 
views, Mr. Joslin has long maintained membership in the First Baptist 
church, of Denver. He served as chairman of the building committee 
during the construction of the present edifice, one of the most 
beautiful churches in the west, and it was through his effort and 
influence that the amphitheater form of audience chamber was installed, 
a radical though wonderfully efficient departure in church 
construction.

	In Aprll, 1851, Mr. Joslin was united in marriage with Miss Mary 
E. Andrus, likewise a native of Poultney, Vermont, and to this union 
were born three children: Hattie A., now Mrs. F. P. Allen, of Denver; 
Edna, now Mrs. W. H. Milburn, of Denver; and Frank A., secretary of the 
Joslin Dry Goods Company, and long associated in business with his 
father.

	Though he now stands at the ninetieth milestone on life's 
pathway, Mr. Joslin retains the vigor of one many years his junior. 
Each day finds him at his office and his wise counsel and advice still 
continue potent factors in guiding the affairs of the business he 
founded forty-five years ago, and his is the counterpart of the career 
of the Shakespearean character, to whom have come "the blest 
accompaniments of age-honor, riches, troops of friends." Looking back 
over the past, he can trace his progress in such tokens as awaken only 
admiration and esteem, and will leave to his posterity the priceless 
heritage of a good name, upon which there can be found no stain.