My Genealogy Hound

HOFFMAN, CHAS. HENRY, Postmaster and dealer in hardware and groceries, Mendon; was born in New York City, April 23, 1824. In 1834 he went to North Carolina, and attended school up to 1840; then moved to Boston, Mass., to learn the daguerreotype business under John Plumb (one of Daguerre’s students), during which time he went to New York City and opened rooms and made the first picture ever made in the city according to those principles; remained there a short time, and went to Philadelphia; opened rooms there, remaining just long enough to start the business; then went to Baltimore, and from there home, for a brief period, and assisted one of his former pupils in starting the business in Washington, N. C., after which time, until 1846, he was engaged in the lumber business in that State; in that year he moved to this county, and settled in Quincy, but was out of business up to the following fall, when he engaged in farming, on the Mound farm, in Ellington, until 1849. He then went to California, and there assisted in building the first frame house in Sacramento, for B. P. Cornwall; returned to this State in 1855, since which time he has been in this township; for the last fifteen years has been in mercantile business. He was married to Miss Elizabeth A. Cook, in June, 1856. She was born in Portage county, Ohio. He is a Republican, a member of the Episcopal church and one of those enterprising citizens to whom Mendon and Adams county owe their present flourishing condition.