Cumberland County, Maine - Alonzo Libby
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Biography
Alonzo Libby
Biographical Review
Cumberland County, Maine
Boston
Biographical Review Publishing Company
1896
Page 469-470


Alonzo Libby, prominent in Westbrook as a farmer, stock breeder, and milk
dealer, belongs to a family that for many generations have been residents of
Cumberland County. He was born in the town of Gorham, Me., on February 5, 1841,
son of Andrew and Sophronia (Small) Libby, and grandson of Edward and Jane
Libby.

Andrew Libby was a native of Gorham, born April 2, 1800. He was an educated man,
and for a number of years was employed as a school teacher. Following that he
conducted a general store in the town of Gorham, and died there in 1848. In his
political views he was a Whig, while he was an attendant of the Congregational
church. His wife, Sophronia Small, was a daughter of Francis Small, of
Limington, York County. They had eight children, of whom six are living, namely:
Melissa, who married Oren Babb, of Westbrook; Sophronia, who successively
married George E. Cole, of Limington, and Alonzo Chapman, of Naples, Me. ;
Alonzo, the subject of this sketch ; Henrietta, the wife of B. M. Edwards, of
Portland; Laura F., who married Alonzo Cook, of Malden, Mass. ; and Mary A., the
wife of Fred Walker, of Elizabeth, Me.

Alonzo Libby was educated in the public schools of Gorham and at the Limington
Academy. Soon after leaving school he went to Little Falls in the town of
Gorham, and there learned the trade of a shoemaker. In 1861 he enlisted in
Company Q, First Maine Regiment. After returning to civil life, he secured a
position in the paper-mills of Grant, Warren & Co. (now S. D. Warner & Co.) at
Cumberland Mills, where he remained a few years. Following that he went to
Davenport, Ia., where he conducted a grocery business for about six months. In
1864 he returned to Westbrook and took up farming and stock breeding, at which
he has since been very successful. He makes a specialty of the breeding of fine
horses and cattle. At his home in Westbrook he has eighteen head of Wilkes,
Elector, Almont, and Mambrino Patchen bred horses, and about sixty head of pure
bred Jersey and Ayrshire cattle. His barn is a model in its convenient and
orderly arrangement. His real estate includes a large grass farm, on which he
cuts about two hundred tons of hay each year.

Mr. Libby married Miss Alice Anna Boothby, of Buxton, Me., a daughter of Levi
and Mary Ann Boothby. Their union has been blessed by the birth of four
children, of whom three are now living. They were : Alice Josephine, a teacher
in the high school building in Westbrook; George Johnson Libby, who died at the
age of fifteen years, when a student of the high school; Sarah Boothby, a
student of the Westbrook High School ; and Ella Bartlett, who attends the
Westbrook Grammar School. The family are attendants of the Congregational
church. Mr. Libby casts his vote with the Republican party. He was Chairman of
the Board of Selectmen for the old town of Westbrook in 1874 and 1877. For the
past fifteen years he has been one of the Trustees of the Maine State
Agricultural Society, and he is a Trustee of the Cumberland County Horticultural
and Agricultural Society. He is one of the Directors and founders of the Rigby
Trotting Park Association of Portland, Me., and was one of the associate
managers of the New England Fair in 1895. Mr. Libby is a prominent Mason of this
section, and has taken the thirty-second degree of the Order. He is a member of
Temple Lodge, No. 86, A. F. & A. M., of Westbrook ; of Eagle Chapter, No. 11,
Royal Arch Masons, in which he served as High Priest for four years; and for
twenty-five years of St. Albans Commandery, Knights Templars. He has also
affiliation with the Grand Army of the Republic, being a comrade of Cloudman
Post, No. 100, Westbrook, of which he was the first Commander.