Francis Henry Paradice (1857-1923)

Frances Henry (Frank) Paradice was an entrepreneur, inventor, and like his father George, an adventurer.  It was Frank who relocated the Paradice family to Denver, Colorado. 

Frank was born on September 27, 1857 at 3 Lower Bellevue in Clifton (Bristol), Gloucestershire, England.  He was christened on October 18, 1857 at St. Andrew's Anglican Church in Clifton with the reverend Edward C. Streeten officiating. 

In 1869, at the age of 12, Frank accompanied his family to St. Catharines, Ontario, where his father found work in the shipbuilding industry.  There he met Catherine (Kate) Cuffe, who was born in St. Catharines on August 3, 1857 to John Evers Cuffe and Jane Sinnett.

Frank and Kate were married in St. Catharines on August 19, 1878.  The wedding was a double ceremony with Kate’s sister Margaret, who along with her new husband George Havens witnessed Kate’s and Frank’s marriage.

Frank and Kate had 11 children, all of whom lived to adulthood, a fact so notable that Frank’s obituary said, “His death is the first to occur in a family of thirteen in over fifty years.”  The children were: 

Francis Henry (Frank) Paradice Jr. was born in St. Catharines on April 5, 1879 and died on February 22, 1952 in Pocatello, Idaho,

Catherine May (Kate) Paradice was born in St. Catharines on August 18, 1880 and  died on June 3, 1958 in Palo Alto, Santa Clara Co., California.

Frederick James (Fred) Paradice was born in Denver, Colorado on November 30, 1881 and died in Denver in September 1952.

George Evers Paradice was born in Denver on Aug 15, 1883 and died in Ault, Colorado in February 1966.

Charles Edwin Paradice was born in Denver on March 8, 1885 and died in April 1971.  His last residence was in Orange, Essex Co., New Jersey.

Jane Edith Paradice was born in Denver on May 5, 1886 and died on June 5, 1976 in Washington State.

Albert Edward Paradice was born in Denver on November 13, 1887 and died there on July 31, 1969. 

Lida Elizabeth Paradice was born in Denver on January 21, 1889 and died there on June 10, 1980.  Her name at birth, as recorded in the family Bible, was Lida Isabel, but she renamed herself “Lida Elizabeth.”

Mary Margaret Paradice was born in Denver on July 24, 1892 died there on August 25, 1962.

Frances Alice (Fran) Paradice was born in Denver on March 4, 1900 and died on May 15, 1991.  Her last residence was in Aurora, Arapahoe Co., Colorado.

During the first few years of their marriage, Frank and Kate lived in St. Catharines where Frank

Kate (Cuffe) Paradice and daughters

worked as a tinsmith.  Their first two children were born in St. Catharines.

In about 1880, Frank went to Denver, Colorado.  A family story says that the family had set off for California but only got as far as Denver.  They liked it and decided to settle there.  However, the 1880 census shows a Frank Paradice living by himself in a boarding house.  It appears that Frank went alone to seek opportunities in the United States and later sent for or returned to bring his family to Denver.  By November 1881 the family was reunited in Denver and had settled at 644 South 12^th where Frank and Kate’s third child, Fred, was born.

Denver was a rapidly growing frontier town.  In 1858, the settlement that became Denver had been established by miners at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the Platte River.  The town languished until the railroad arrived in 1870, setting off the period of growth.  In 1880 over 35,000 people lived in Denver.  The population would soar to over 100,000 by 1890.

A contemporary, Robert Latta, wrote a description of Denver at the time the Paradices settled there:

Larimer was then the principal street… The corner of Colfax and Broadway was a pasture ground for cattle, which was later known as the ‘Million Dollar Pasture,’ because the owner still kept his cows there after the land had become very valuable.

Broadway was one of the "speedways" of Denver; it was the rule to go out Broadway slowly, but to race back…

In the early '80s the sidewalks downtown as well as elsewhere were made of planks. Water was running in the gutters, and trees grew on the sides.  A hail and rain storm came and washed the sidewalks into the streets, and I saw boys using them for rafts at 16^th and Curtis streets… 

Cheesman Park was then a burial ground, and many a gravemark said, ‘Killed by Indians.’  The Federal Government afterwards gave the ground to the city, and most of the bodies were removed.  The west end of it was made into a park and called Congress Park.  After the death of Walter Cheesman his widow offered to build a pavilion there if the city would change the name to Cheesman Park…

Saloons, gambling houses and houses of ill-fame were flourishing and wide open.  Ed Chase was then one of the leading gamblers, and owned the Palace Theater, gambling house and saloon on Blake Street.  He allowed no cheating in his house.  It was reported that it was a common event for someone to be shot there, but he told me that the only time a gun was discharged there was one time a drunken man dropped a gun, and it was discharged.

Frank initially established himself in Denver as a plumber.  The 1881 Corbett & Ballenger's 9th Annual Denver City Directory lists him as a gas fitter with Brown & Kiefer.  The following year he is listed as a plumber with the same organization.  By 1884 he was in business with a partner, J.P. Ratican, as Paradice & Ratican plumbers, steam and gas fitters located at 447½ Lawrence.  He remained in this partnership through 1888, and the business grew as shown by an increasing number of employees.  These employees included Frank’s brother-in-law, Joseph Cuff (Kate’s brother), who was an apprentice in 1885 and a plumber in 1886.  Frank’s brother William also joined the firm as an apprentice in 1886.

The partnership with J.P. Ratican had dissolved by 1889, and Frank was in business by himself.  He branched out, operating a company that sold wholesale plumbers’ supplies.  In 1890, The City of Denver and State of Colorado described Frank’s business as follows:

“F.H. Paradice, wholesale dealer in plumbers’ supplies, manufacturer of closet tanks and anti-siphon traps, and agent for Richardson & Boynton’s “Perfect” hot water heaters, at 1540 Blake Street carries $50,000 in stock, and is doing business everywhere in Denver’s trade territory.  He was formerly in the plumbing business, but has followed this line for the past year and has, perhaps, the best trade of the kind in Denver.”

Frank’s business was doing well.  According to the 1889 and 1890 city directories, Frank had a number of employees, including two drivers, a warehouseman, a porter, a bookkeeper, and a city salesman.  His brother-in-law, Harry White, was also working for him as a carpenter.

Around this time, Frank purchased a house at 2902 Colfax Avenue, which had space in which to raise his large family.  According to Frank’s daughter Lida, the house became a center of social activity.  Meals were major occasions, as usually one or two of the children brought friends for dinner.  In the winter, Frank would flood the lawn to make an ice-skating rink, and the children would bring friends home to skate all winter.

Frank and Kate joined the Baptist Church, where they would take the children each Sunday.  They went in a mule-drawn cart.  The services were long, and (according to Lida) boring.  The mule disliked the long wait outside the church as much as Lida disliked the sermons.  When it saw that the driver was steering the cart onto the street where the church was located, the obstinate mule would turn the other way.  Getting to church became a weekly struggle between driver and mule.

Frank took time from working to share his sense of adventure with his family.  He two wrote letters to his parents in St. Catharines describing family camping trips.  On December 12, 1893, he wrote the following:

Frank and Fred and the smaller boys, and even Katie had been all summer coaxing me to take them out camping, and I had promised them that I would try to take them for a short trip at least, as I had taken the five boys out the year before, and we greatly enjoyed ourselves.  Frank and Fred considered themselves great campers and hunters after their experience up the Clear Creek Canyon, camping out, as we did, three or four nights, and becoming scared by an imaginary bear and other wild animals, and I can tell you that this experience was not to be considered lightly, for our hunting dog experienced such a shock to his nervous system that he ran out of nerve before we got to Morrison, although, he had been riding all the way, and he just lay down and died-- fact, I assure you.

Excuse this digression; I started out to tell you of a trip to the mountains that occurred in September of 1893, so will break away from the trip that took place in 1892.  So then, to come back, or rather forward, to '93:  After many of the delightful camping places of Colorado and Wyoming had been talked over, we finally decided to go to Middle Park, an elevated plain about one hundred miles northwest of Denver, to reach which it would be necessary to travel sixty or seventy miles right up in the mountains through Idaho Springs and on up towards Georgetown and then northward to Berthoud Pass, and down the range into the Park…

It being thought that our commissary was stocked sufficiently (with the addition of deer, antelope, jack rabbits, sage hens, etc. that the boys figured on as a certainty, without mentioning the many messes of mountain trout George, Charlie and Albert were to catch), we now paid attention to the munition of war.  There was the double barreled shot gun for Frank, and two single shot guns for myself and Benton, the driver we were taking with us to drive one of the wagons and to be generally useful around the camp, there was a twenty-two rifle for Fred, and a Winchester for any such emergency as bear, mountain lion, or wolf, all of which were possibilities up where we were going-- and I must not forget to mention a forty-five revolver I carried in case we should meet a knight of the road who had lost such a necessity of his profession-- as I am of a charitable disposition and feel sure I should have relieved his needs and given it him if he had hinted that he needed it.  But I am pleased to say that I have no occasion to record any interviews with these gentlemen proverbially so pressing in their demands.

Then, there were powder and shot cartridges for the small rifle and the large, fishing rods and fish hooks and lines, camp stools and camp stove, pots and pans innumerable, tin plates and cups; for though we had only intended to take our driver and the five boys and myself, we wound up by making arrangements to take the whole family excepting the baby.  This would be nine children, myself and Kate and Mr. Benton, twelve in all-- and Kate, thinking to give one of the neighbor's children at treat, added her to the list-- a girl about fourteen years of age-- and then Kate's sister, Eliza, was also added; this made fourteen to provide for…

Well, when we had loaded on all the things we could think of, and that I can't think of now, we put on the wagon covers and then our rigs looked like the typical prairie schooners or the wagons of the Oklahoma boomers, and at last the horses were hitched up, the tent and camp stove were tied on and the tent poles were slid under the wagon, and Frank's saddle, pots and pans, cans of gasoline and coal oil were hitched on to every available projection, and we fourteen tourists, of all ages, from two years to fifty, climbed in, all the boys excepting Arthur, with the old man for driver in one wagon, and the remainder, consisting mostly of girls and women, with your humble servant for driver, in the other…

We were to experience some rough driving before we made Idaho Springs, and were to learn the name of a hill which I think the children and women folks will remember when they have forgotten how old they are, and I don't think I'll forget Floyd's Hill, myself.

This is a mountain road like you see in pictures, where a man and donkey are trying to hang on by their whiskers, with the road about two inches wide, only more so.

There were big round rocks in a curve of the road where it pitched down at about the angle of Uncle Tom's cabin roof, and the wagons would swing around dangerously near the edge of a precipice three hundred feet high.

But we got down safe to the bottom of the mountain, and I emitted a sigh of relief and straightened out the kinks in my leg after the terrible strain holding the break chuck up to the wheel for a straight two or three hours.

As the middle of our third day's outing was getting near, the clouds came up with all the indications of a mountain storm.  We were beginning to climb up into the hills pretty high by this time, and the notion began to dawn on us that we were getting a pretty damp reception in a country like Colorado, where it hardly ever rains.

We had left the road that runs alongside of the railroad and were fast leaving that indication of civilization behind us, and were making toward a small town called Empire, perched right up in, and surrounded by mountains...

We went on through Empire, and then began to climb the range at a heavy grade some of the steep and rough places making us think we had undertaken more than we could accomplish in trying to go over the range with our heavily loaded wagons, and after just climbing a particularly difficult piece of mountain scenery we came in view of what appeared to be the continuation of our road leading up the face of the rocky hill side, where a man's nose and his toes would both come in contact with the road at the same time if he preserved a perpendicular position while walking up this road.  I came to the conclusion, and I believe that the rest did also, that, if it was necessary to climb that road to get into the park, we would do our camping on this side of the range, and outside the park gates.

Coming up closer to the road we saw that it was a jack trail and that although our road was pretty tough, it was an asphalt boulevard, compared with this burro's sky path which led to a mine perched somewhere up among the clouds.

Our hopes and ambition to get over the pass became elevated as our road became depressed, and we now determined to keep on and get over the top, no matter what difficulties we should encounter, unless we should have to undertake such a terrifying performance as to travel over such a road as we had just passed.

We were now getting into a different kind of country-- beautiful mountain ferns and flowers are now becoming plentiful, and occasionally a wild raspberry bush and some patches of strawberry plants were noticed as we drove along at a lively pace on a pretty good road, but away up on the side of the mountain, where we had a beautiful view of the valley, hundreds, or perhaps I might safely say, thousands, of feet below with the mountain stream, clear and bright as melted silver winding and twisting on down through the valley as far as the eye could reach, and the road that we had been driving all day on, appeared in some place as a different road entirely, and running paralel [sic] with ours in many part-- and, in fact, several of us thought it was another road; but it was all the time, and is now, I expect, the same road, doubling itself to climb the sugar loaf hill we are now on…

After a very hard day's pull we are on top of the range, about twelve thousand feet high, on a level with snow.  We could have secured some if we had walked a short distance off the road, but the girls and boys were all tired out, and as they had walked most all the distance, picking the beautiful mountain flowers and gathering wild raspberries, strawberries and gooseberries, and at the same time relieving the horses of considerable averdupois.  

We were all anxious to get down into the park for it was quite cool and we did not relish the idea of camping on the range with a possible snow storm.

Now came the tug of war-- holding down the breaks, for we had a down hill drive for several hours, but we got to the bottom without any casualty, and at the first ranch we came to we bought some fresh milk and home made bread and continued our drive into the park...

After driving about twenty-five miles, and thinking we must be close to Grand Lake, we met an old man, and asked him how far we were from the Lake.  We noticed him smile as he said about thirty miles, and then we all had a fit for we had been struggling along all day through the rain, hoping to get to the Lake by night, and here we had passed the turn off on the road and were now a full day's drive from the Lake, and had come to the Hot Sulphur Springs instead.

After buying the town out of bread we started in the morning for Grand Lake, where we arrived after a long hard drive of about thirty-five miles.

This is a beautiful mountain lake, and almost surrounded by nearly perpendicular hills rising about a thousand feet and is a great place for fisherman campers to congregate. The trout had just quit biting when we got there, so after stopping a couple of days, we started back to Denver, where we arrived safely after five days on the road.

*****

By 1892, Frank may have sold his plumbing supply business to a larger company, L. Wolff Manufacturing Co. of Chicago.  From 1892 to 1905 the Corbett & Annual Denver City Directories list Frank as the manager for L. Wolff Mfg. Co. at 1533 to 1537 Blake. 

In 1892 the economic conditions in Denver were deteriorating, which may be the reason for Frank’s association with L. Wolff.  An agricultural crisis had hit the Great Plains in the late 1880s.  Drought coupled with low prices for wheat and corn left many farmers with debts they could not pay.  In addition, railroad companies were overextended financially.  In early 1893, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad went bankrupt, setting off a chain reaction that pushed one-quarter of American railroads into insolvency.  Subsequently, the stock market collapsed, beginning the depression of 1893.

Colorado’s economy was devastated.  A project to convert the railroads serving the mines from narrow-gauge to standard gauge was suspended.  Making matters worse, Congress repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which had required the government to purchase a prescribed amount of silver every month.  The price of silver dropped, destroying the livelihood of many Colorado miners.  Thirty thousand miners and smelter workers lost their jobs.  A bank panic occurred in Denver with four major banks closing in one day.  The unemployment rate in Colorado rose to about 10% and remained near there until a slow recovery began around 1900.

Working with L. Wolff Manufacturing Co., Frank appears to have weathered the depression.  His daughter Lida never mentioned having experienced any hardship during her childhood, although she might have been too young to remember much (four years old when the Panic began in 1893).  Frank’s letters to his parents written during this period were upbeat, describing adventures on which he had taken the family, although one letter alluded to the bank failures:  “Thinking that perhaps we could replenish our treasury before leaving the little bit of civilization we were in, I sent to the postmaster… to see if he would cash a check on a Denver bank.  This request nearly took his breath away, and he stated that the only way he could cash it would be to send it to Denver, a wait of about six days.  We concluded not to accept his kind offer, and excused him for his precaution, as we remembered the number of banks that had just then gone to the wall all over the country.”

During his tenure with L. Wolff Manufacturing Frank was involved in a lawsuit involving an accusation that could have destroyed his reputation.  The decision in his favor was reported in The Idaho Daily Statesman on January 29, 1909 (pp. 3 and 6):

PARADICE WINS DENVER CASE

A number of Boise people have been interested in a suit, in a Denver court, which involved among other contracts, the money paid by the government for the plumbing at the Boise barracks and which resulted in judgment for the defendant. F. H. Paradice, father of Frank Paradice of this city.  Mr. Paradice was the manager of the L. Wolf Manufacturing company of Chicago and his firm had furnished the supplies for L. H. Balfe, who had contracts for plumbing at Boise barracks, a post In Colorado, one in New Mexico and one In Wyoming. Balfe was rather a high roller and got behind in his accounts with the firm and to protect the company Mr. Paradice was obliged to come on to Boise and attach the checks from the government to Mr. Balfe.  

The scene in the office of Captain Winn, then constructing quartermaster at the barracks, was a very stormy one and Balfe swore he would get even with Paradice.  This he did a short time ago by getting the Wolf company, from which Mr. Paradice had retired on account of deafness, to bring suit against Paradice, in which it was alleged Paradice made charges on the books of the company, while its manager, against Mr. Balfe for $8000, when he in fact had drawn the money personally.  The judgment entirely exonerated Mr. Paradice.

In 1911, Frank apparently was again operating his own business as Paradice-Crean Plumbing Co. at 1425 Tremont Place.  However, according to a family story, the business was not doing well.  Frank was going deaf.  Customers were taking advantage of his hearing loss and cheating him.  Frank decided to convert his large house to apartments to supplement his income.

A family story says that at this time Frank’s daughter Lida was engaged to be married.  The wedding was to take place in the family home.  However, Frank had installed a plumbing fixture (a sink or a toilet, depending upon who told the story) in the living room.  Lida was so embarrassed by this development that she eloped.

In addition to running the plumbing supply business and subsequently managing Paradice Apartments, Frank was an inventor.  He obtained patents for a variety of plumbing-related devices, including:

·         1888:  Automatically operating flushing tank for closets, anti-siphoning trap, and service or water tank for water-closets (3 patents);

·         1896:  Specification book;

·         1900:  Hose connection and water-closet (2 patents);

·         1901:  Water-closet;

·         1904:  Hose connection and grease trap (2 patents);

·         1906:  1906:  System for sprinkling lawns, gardens, greenhouses, parks, etc.;

·         1923:  Hose mender, band, and coupling.

The hose mender was still in use forty years later, but Frank did not profit from the royalties.  He died the year it was patented, and the family may have sold his patent rights.

One invention of Frank’s never made it to the patent office.  With eleven children and usually a few friends having dinner each night, dish-washing was a challenge.  To meet the challenge Frank tried to invent an automatic dishwasher.  Unfortunately, he tested his prototype on Kate’s best set of china, and it pulverized the dishes.  Apparently he gave up on the dishwasher after that incident.

Frank died in Denver on July 4, 1923.  According to his obituary, he had been ill for a short time with heart trouble.  Frank was buried in Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, on July 9, 1923.

Kate lived for another 13 years, residing in Denver with her unmarried daughter Fran and daughter Mary, a widow.  She died on August 11, 1936, and was buried beside Frank on August 14, 1936.

Sources:

1871 Ontario Census for St. Catharines (#9922, b 4).

General Register Office, England, Certified Copy of an Entry of Birth Francis Henry Paradice (Original registration in the District & Sub-district of Clifton, City & County of Bristol, 1857.  Registration Year 1857, 4th Quarter, Clifton, Vol 6a, Page 63).

Church of England. St. Andrew's Church (Clifton, Gloucestershire), Parish registers, 1538-195.  Baptisms 1824-1883, Salt Lake City, Utah : Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1997.  FHL BRITISH Film #1749585, Page 470, #3026.

Certificate of Death - Francis H Paradice (Photocopy of Original supplied by Colorado Vital Statistics (City & County of Denver).

FH Paradice Obituary (Newspaper clipping in Lida Paradice LeBert's scrapbook; source not given.)

Information Extracted for Genealogy - Marriage - Francis H Paradice and Catherine Cuff (Ontario Vital Records).

Certificate of Death - Catherine Cuffe Paradice (Photocopy of original supplied by Colorado Vital Statistics (City & County of Denver).

Information Extracted for Genealogy - Marriage - Francis H Paradice and Catherine Cuff (Ontario Vital Records). .... Province of Ontario, Vital Registrations (Births, Deaths and Marriages), Images available online at www.ancestry.ca or photocopies through the Family History Library, Lincoln Co. Schedule B - Marriages, page 619, record #005866.

Paradice Family Bible.

State of California. California Death Index. (Accessed online through Ancestry.com).

US Social Security Act Application for Account Number SSN 067-10-5403. (Photocopy of original application by Charles Paradice filed 27 Nov 1936.).

Social Security Administration, Social Security Death Index, Social Security Death Index, Master File. Provo, Utah: MyFamily.com, Inc., 2005.  Index online at www.ancestry.com. and http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/.

Paradice, Jane Miles Obituary (Unidentified newspaper clipping found among Lida Paradice LeBert's effects).

Fairmount Cemetery, Burial information sheet.  Denver, Colorado, USA.

Province of Ontario, Vital Registrations (Births, Deaths and Marriages), Images available online at www.ancestry.ca or photocopies through the Family History Library, Lincoln Co. Schedule B - Marriages, page 619, record #005866.

Boston University, Physics Department. Population history of Denver from 1880 – 1990.  [online] http://physics.bu.edu/~redner/projects/population/cities/denver.html.  Accessed January 20, 2018.

Latta, R.H. 1941. Denver in the 1880's.  Colorado Magazine Volume XVIII, Issue 4, July 1941, pp. 131-136. http://legacy.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/files/Researchers/ColoradoMagazine_v18n4_July1941.pdf. Accessed January 16, 2018.

Morrison, A., Ed.  1890.  Page 92 in The City of Denver and State of Colorado.  Geo. Engelhardt, publisher.

Hewitt, N.A. and S.F. Lawson. 2014.  Chapter 14: The Depression of the 1890s, in Exploring American Histories: A Brief Survey, Volume II, Since 1865.  Bedford/St. Martin's.  [Online] https://erenow.com/modern/exploringamericanhistories2/.  Accessed January 20, 2018. 

Anonymous.  2008.  The Panic of 1893 hit Colorado hard.  Broomfield Enterprise (Oct. 19, 2008).  [Online] https://caturner.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/the-panic-of-1893-hit-colorado-hard/.  Accessed January 18, 2018.

U.S. Congress. 1889.  House Annual report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1888. Serial Set Vol. No. 2658, Session Vol. No.5, 50th Congress, 2nd Session, H.Misc.Doc. 109, p. 235.

U.S. Congress. 1897.  House Annual report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1896. Senate, Serial Set Vol. No. 3472, Session Vol. No.6, 54th Congress, 2nd Session, S.Doc. 183, p. 274.

U.S. Congress.  1901.  House Annual report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1900. Serial Set Vol. No. 4041, Session Vol. No.13, 56th Congress, 2nd Session, S.Doc. 138, p. 311.

U.S. Congress.  1902.  House Annual report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1901. Serial Set Vol. No. 4232, Session Vol. No.14, 57th Congress, 1st Session, S.Doc. 151, p. 323.

U.S. Congress. House.  1905  Annual report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1904. Serial Set Vol. No. 4856, Session Vol. No.77, 58th Congress, 3rd Session, H.Doc. 266, p. 374.

U.S. Congress. House.  1907.  Annual report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1906. Serial Set Vol. No. 5198, Session Vol. No.95, 59th Congress, 2nd Session, H.Doc. 558, p. 369.

U.S. Congress.  1924.  House Annual report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1923. Serial Set Vol. No. 8329, Session Vol. No.68, 68th Congress, 1st Session, H.Doc. 104, p. 413.