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Subject: [GM-L] John Jay Joslin - The History of Colorado desc. from Thomas of Hingham
Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 00:27:05 EST

"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.

http://searches1.rootsweb.com/usgenweb/archives/co/denver/bios/joslinjj.txt

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