Charles Fred Duncan of Portsmouth, N.H. Biography from A History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire (1915)

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Page 829

   CHARLES FRED DUNCAN, a prominent shoe merchant of Ports-
mouth, New Hampshire, has conducted a store at No. 9 Market Street
for a period of seventeen years. He has an extended acquaintance
throughout this vicinity and his enterprise is a thriving one, four clerks
being employed to wait upon the trade.
   Mr. Duncan was born in the navy yard at Kittery, Maine, February
28, 1861, and is a son of Charles L. and Mary J. (Higgins) Duncan.
The father is now living a retired life at Kittery, Maine, and his wife,
now deceased, was buried at that place. Charles L. Duncan spent his
active business life in the employ of the United States Government. He
was for a time a gunner in the navy, and was a machinist in the navy
yard at Portsmouth at the time of birth of our subject. He has always
been a Republican in politics, and he and wife attended St. John's
Episcopal Church. They reared the following children: Nellie F., wife
of W. J. Rogers; Charles Fred; William B.; and Frank C. Duncan.
   Charles Fred Duncan attended the public schools at Kittery, and
there received all the school training he ever obtained. Early he learned
the trade of machinist in Boston, and followed it until he was nineteen
when he went on a steamboat as engineer. After one year as such, he
went into the pilot house, and for a period of thirty years was captain
of a passenger steamboat, or of a tow boat. During nine years of that
period he was superintendent of the Bay State Dredging Company, but
held license as captain and engineer. In 1897 he purchased the shoe
store of J. K. Manning in Portsmouth, N. H., his present establishment,
and has since continued without interrupted success at No. 9 Market
Street. In connection with this store, he, for a period of five years
owned and maintained a shoe store at Lynn, Mass. He has always
taken a public-spirited interest in the affairs of his home community,
and at the present is serving in the council of Portsmouth, having
been elected on the Republican ticket for the term of 1913-1914.
   Mr. Duncan was united in marriage with Miss Delia E. Crosley, a
native of Boston, Mass. Her father, Thomas H. Crosley, was president
of the Bay State Dredging Company. He is now deceased, as is his
wife, and two children survive them: Delia E. (Duncan); and Fannie,
wife of David Nicholson. Mr. Duncan has always been a Republican in
politics. Fraternally he is a member of Blue Lodge, F. & A. M. at Ports-
mouth, and of the Knights of Pythias at the same place. He and Mrs.
Duncan attend St. John's Episcopal Church.