Trenor W. Park

Trenor William Park (December 8, 1823 – December 13, 1882) was an American lawyer, political figure, businessman, and philanthropist.

Trenor William Park was born in Woodford, Vermont on December 8, 1823. He was raised in Bennington and began working at an early age, including selling candy and carrying letters to and from the Bennington post office.

At age 15 Park became the proprietor of a candy store on Bennington's North Street, and at age 16 he began to study law with Bennington County State's Attorney A.P. Lyman, attaining admission to the bar as soon as he was legally eligible in 1844. Park began a practice in Bennington, and maintained it until 1852, also becoming active in lumbering and other business ventures. On December 15, 1846 he married Laura Van Der Spiegle Hall, the daughter of Congressman and Governor Hiland Hall. They had three children Eliza, Laura and Trenor Luther Park.

In 1851 Hall was appointed Chairman of the U.S. Land Commission empowered to settle Mexican land titles after the annexation of California, and Park traveled to San Francisco with him. He practiced law successfully, soon becoming a partner in the state's leading firm, Halleck, Peachy, Billings & Park. In 1855 Park played a key role in San Francisco's political reform movement by establishing the San Francisco Bulletin newspaper. He also became active in several commercial enterprises, including real estate and mining, and managed the Rancho Las Mariposas gold mine owned by John C. Frémont. Park lost some of his investments in the Panic of 1857, but eventually became very wealthy.

At the founding of the Republican Party, Park became an active member, serving as a delegate to several state conventions. In the late 1850s he served as Chairman of California's Republican State Central Committee. In 1863 he was a Unionist candidate for the U.S. Senate, narrowly losing election in the California legislature. In 1864 he was a California delegate to the Republican national convention that nominated President Abraham Lincoln for reelection and named Democrat Andrew Johnson as its vice presidential candidate.

In 1864 Park returned to Vermont, where he incorporated the First National Bank of North Bennington, was an original investor in the Central Vermont Railroad, and again speculated in several successful business ventures, including timber and mines. He also established a second residence in New York City. In 1868 he was a Vermont delegate to the Republican National Convention that nominated Ulysses S. Grant for President and Schuyler Colfax for Vice President. The same year, he was elected as Vermont's member of the Republican National Committee, serving until 1870.

In 1870 he was one of the founders of Rutland, Vermont's Baxter National Bank, and he often continued to invest in partnership with the bank's President, Horace Henry Baxter. In 1871 Park's daughter Eliza married John G. McCullough, former Attorney General of California, who became active in several of Park's business ventures and later served as Governor of Vermont. Also in 1871, Park was an owner and promoter of the supposedly depleted Utah Emma Silver Mine. Unsuspecting English citizens invested millions of pounds in the mine. In 1876 and 1877 his partners and he were accused of defrauding the group that purchased the mine from them, and they were acquitted in a nationally publicized trial.

Park was a candidate for the 1874 Republican nomination for Governor, but withdrew in favor of the eventual nominee and general election winner, state Supreme Court Justice Asahel Peck. The same year, Park purchased controlling interest in the Panama Railway and was elected its President, succeeding Russell Sage. During the rest of the 1870s he engaged in a well-publicized contest with rival financier Jay Gould for control of Pacific Mail, the company that shipped cargo between the eastern and western United States by moving it overland across the Isthmus of Panama.

Active in civic affairs, Park served in the Vermont House of Representatives, was a member of the committee that oversaw design and construction of the Bennington Battle Monument, and was a Trustee of the University of Vermont. His philanthropic donations included the Bennington Free Library (with Seth B. Hunt), and the building and land for the Vermont Soldiers' Home (again in conjunction with the Hunt family). He also donated the University of Vermont's Park Gallery of Art, the exhibits of which were later incorporated into the university's Robert Hull Fleming Museum.

Trenor Park died on December 13, 1882, while aboard the ship "San Blas" between New York and Aspinwall, Panama while en route to San Francisco. His funeral took place at New York City's Collegiate Reformed Church, and he was buried in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery. He was later re-interred at Bennington's Old Cemetery.

His Bennington home, the Park-McCullough House, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and is open to the public.

Trenor Luther Park (1861-1907) studied at Harvard University and was a successful businessman, yachtsman and golfer. He was married to Julia Hunt Catlin (1864-1947). Trenor L. Park died during surgery for an intestinal ailment, and his friends and family believed his decline had been hastened by despondence over the death of his nine-year-old daughter Elliott, who had been killed in an accident earlier that year.

Laura Hall Park (1858-1939) married Frederic Beach Jennings (1853-1920), a Bennington and New York City lawyer and businessman. They donated the site of their Vermont home to become the location of Bennington College.