Page:Life of Isaiah V Williamson.djvu/60

42 that sent his medicines all over the land. David Freed, another country boy, had just started in for himself in the retail flour trade. Charles Oakford, whose hat manufacturing later occupied many "palatial stores," was not done learning his trade, and not until two years later did he start out with his first order of four hats taken in "a little cubby hole" on Lombard Street. Edmund A. Souder, to whom belongs the credit of beginning the coasting trade to Maine and beyond, was still a young clerk in a commission house. Charles S. Boker—who in later years as president of the Girard Bank rescued it from its difficulties—had at that time scarcely more than made a start in the business of hats and shoes. The young Samuel Bispham had in a few years pushed the wagon trade of Alter & Bispham all over the State, and was laying the foundation for the future strength of Samuel Bispham & Sons. Six years older than Williamson, Benjamin W. Richards—son of a wealthy father, and a Princeton honor man—had married a daughter of Joshua Lippincott, and in 1825, the firm of Lippincott & Richards, commission merchants, was one of the largest in the