Canfield, Thomas H. (Thomas Hawley), 1822-1897.

Thomas Hawley Canfield was born in 1822 in Arlington, Vermont, one of two children of Mary Ann Hawley and Samuel Canfield. His sister, Maria, was born in 1824. In 1844 he married Elizabeth A. Chittenden, daughter of Eli Chittenden. She died in 1848 and Canfield married Caroline (Carrie) A. Hopkins, daughter of the Rt. Rev. Bishop Hopkins, in 1860. They had five children: Emily, John, Marion, Flora, and Thomas Jr.

Canfield began a mercantile career in Williston, Vermont, in 1844 and continued it in Burlington a few years later. He also worked with various partners and associates to establish telegraph lines, railroads and shipping routes throughout Vermont, New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and eventually in the western United States. He was particularly involved in the Rutland and Washington Railroad and the Northern Pacific Railroad. After 1873 he worked to develop his farm in Lake Park, Minnesota.