Fred B. Coleman of Portsmouth, NH Biography from A History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire (1915)

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Source: A History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire and Representative Citizens
         by Charles A. Hazlett, Richmond-Arnold Publishing Co., Chicago, Ill, 1915

Page 1073

   FRED B. COLEMAN, owner and proprietor of a well equipped drug
store at the corner of Congress and Vaughn streets, Portsmouth, N. H.,
where he has been located for the last forty years, is a well known and

Page 1074

popular citizen who has taken an active part in local affairs.  He was born
in this city February 17, 1855, a son of Joseph Wiley and Catherine (Rand)
Coleman.  Both parents were natives of Rockingham County, the father being
a contractor and builder for many years.  He is still living, being now in his
ninety-first year.  He and his wife had five children, of whom the only sur-
vivors are Fred B., and Florence, wife of Rev. John Everingham, a Baptist
minister of Warren, Maine.  Mrs. Catherine Coleman is now deceased.
   Fred B. Coleman, after acquiring his education in the common and high
schools of Portsmouth, entered the drug store of J. H. Thacher where he
learned the business.  June 1, 1874, he took charge of his present store,
which had been established by Mr. Thacher in 1865.  On May 1st, 1878, he
bought out the business and has since conducted it very successfully on his
own account.  A Republican in politics, he takes an active interest in local
affairs and for two years was a member of the common council.  He is a
Free Mason of high rank, having taken all the degrees in the order including
the 33d, which he took at Chicago in September of the present year (1914).
   Mr. Coleman was married in 1876 to Mary Griffin, a daughter of Orwin
and Mary (Locke) Griffin.  Her father, a native of Lowell, Mass., is now
in the employ of the Rockingham County Light & Power Company.  He is
one of the old and original members of the Independent Order of Odd Fel-
lows.  His wife, Mary Locke Griffin, was a member of the old Locke family
of Rye, N. H.  They were the parents of five children, of whom three are
now living, Mary, who married Mr. Coleman, died in June, 1913; Mr. and
Mrs. Coleman were the parents of three children, namely: Florence, who
married John Horace Peverly and has one child, Donna; Fred W., who is
associated with his father in the drug store, and Ruth Abbott, who is an
accomplished musician of the Boston Conservatory of Music.  Mr. Coleman
and family attend the Christian Church.  They have a large acquaintance
and stand high among the representative people of the city.