Ilion High School - Class of 1892

Herkimer Evening Telegram - March 27, 1950

Frank Pelton, Long Herkimer Merchant, Dies

Article 2

Frank Pelton, Long Herkimer Merchant, Dies

Photo Caption - ONE OF HERKIMER'S best known businessmen, Frank E. Pelton, shown here at his desk at the Pelton Bros, hardware store, N. Main St., who died Saturday at Alexandria, Va.

Frank E. Pelton, 74, dean of Herkimer merchants and long active in civic and church affairs here, died Saturday in Alexandria. Va., after a long period of ill health.

For the past few months, he had been staying near Arlington, Va.

Dean of Herkimer merchants, Mr. Pelton had been engaged in the hardware business here since 1898, when he bought the controlling interest in what was formerly the Prowse & Thompson store at 107 N. Main St.

Edward Trompson, one of the partners in the business, had died in 1897. The other partner, William H. Prowse, continued in association until May, 1904, when he sold his interest to Mr. Pelton, who thus became sole owner.

Store Expanded

The store at that time occupied a small room next to the Louis Jones drugstore. Mr. Pelton later bought out the space occupied by the Jones store and expanded the floor area to its present dimensions. He later took into partnership his brother, Edwin C. Pelton, then a student at Cornell University, and the firm became Pelton Brothers.

This association continued until the death of Edwin Pelton in November, 1940. In 1946, George G. Hoy, former merchandise manager and assistant treasurer of the Clark Hardware Co., Division of Pitts Corp., Jamestown, became affiliated with the firm.

Retired After 45 Years

He was born Oct. 18, 1875, in Ilion, a son of J. Randolph and Florence Caswell Pelton, and was graduated from Ilion High School and Cazenovia Seminary.

On Jan. 14, 1898, he married the former Grace H. Weaver of Rochester, who died on Dec. 21, 1945.

He leaves a son, Frank E. Pelton, Jr., St. Louis, Mo.; two daughters, Mrs. Schuyler G. Harrison, Short Hills, N. J., and Mrs. Floyd C. Devenbeck, Arlington, Va., and six grandchildren, Lt. F. C. Devenbeck, Jr., Hope H., Thomas Pelton and Nancy E. Harrison, and Frank E. Pelton 3rd and Pamela Culver Pelton, as well as two nieces and a nephew.

The funeral will be held at 2 p.m. tomorrow from the First Methodist Church, with the Rev. Fred G. Cotnam. minister, officiating, assisted by Dr. Albert G. Judd, and burial in Oak Hill Cemetery.