JOHN WILLEY CRAMTON, merchant, who lives in Rutland, Vt., was born in Tinmouth, in that State, Nov. 10, 1826. He comes from that early colonial stock of English descent, which helped to conquer the red man and the wilderness in Connecticut, and finally joined the migration to Vermont. No romantic episodes attended his debut in the world of affairs. Inured to labor from boyhood, he earned his first money after coming of age, as a wood chopper and brick maker. In January, 1853, he rented a house in Rutland, Vt., and engaged in the manufacture of tinware, which, being sold in country towns all around, was there exchanged for wool, hides, old metal, paper rags, and any other commodities, which would sell to advantage in town, and in this honest and laborious vocation he made excellent headway. A saving disposition soon enabled him to invest in other kinds of business, and he has always shown himself ready to help other men who have been ready to help themselves. His firm of John W. Cramton & Co., carry on a large trade in stoves and hardware, and the Bardwell House in Rutland has belonged to him for the last thirty years. He is now president of The Baxter National Bank, The Steam Stone Cutter Co., The True Blue Marble Co. and The Rutland Street Railroad, vice president of The Howe Scale Co., and an owner in a grocery store and a horse livery. Vermont elects men to public office with more discrimination and closer scrutiny of private character than some other States, and it is a sufficient commentary on Mr. Cramton's merit, that he was a State Senator in 1886; State Prison Director, 1882-92; and president of Rutland village for several terms. His wife is Florence B. Gates, whom he married in Rutland. (from "America's Successful Men of Affairs: An Encylopedia of Contemporaneous Biography, Vol. 2"; edited by Henry Hall; pub. by the New York Tribune, 1896)