Frank C. Partridge’s biography, net worth, fact, career, awards and life story

Frank C. Partridge (May 7, 1861 – March 2, 1943) was a diplomat, business executive and United States Senator from Vermont.

Early life and start of career

Frank Charles Partridge was born 7 May 1861 in East Middlebury, Vermont to Charles Frank Partridge and Sarah Ann (Rice) Partridge. He graduated from Middlebury High School in 1878, and as a teenager worked as a messenger for Redfield Proctor during Proctor’s term as Governor of Vermont. He attended Middlebury College, graduated from Amherst College in 1882 (with classmate Fletcher Dutton Proctor), and received his law degree from Columbia Law School in 1884.

Partridge worked as a lawyer in Rutland and then began a career with the Vermont Marble Company in Proctor, Vermont. Vermont Marble was owned by Redfield Proctor, and Partridge’s decision to join Vermont Marble continued his lifelong association with the Proctor family. He served as Vermont Marble’s Treasurer (1886); Vice President (1891); and President (1912) and Chairman of the Board of Directors.

He was also President of the Proctor Trust Company and the Clarendon and Pittsford Railroad, as well as a member of National Life Insurance Company’s Board of Directors.

Partridge was a Trustee of Middlebury College, and received an honorary LL.D. degree in 1909.

Political career

A Republican, he held several positions in local, state and national government, including: Proctor Town Clerk (1887–1889); school board member (1888–1889); Private Secretary to Secretary of War Redfield Proctor (1889–1890); Solicitor of the Department of State (1890–1893); United States Ambassador to Venezuela (1893–1894); U.S. Consul in Tangier, Morocco (1897–1898); Vermont State Senator (1898–1900); Member of Vermont’s World War I Committee of Public Safety (1917–1919); Member of the American Society of International Law’s Executive Council (1906-1923); Chairman of the Commission to propose amendments to the Constitution of Vermont (1909); Delegate to the Fifth Pan-American Conference in Santiago, Chile (1923); Member of the New England Council (1925-1927); and President of the Vermont Flood Credit Corporation (following the Flood of 1927).

United States Senator

In December, 1930 Partridge was appointed by Governor John E. Weeks to fill the Senate vacancy caused by the death of Frank L. Greene. Partridge ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination in the special election to finish Greene’s term, losing to Warren R. Austin, who won the general election and succeeded Partridge. Partridge served in the Senate from December 23, 1930, to March 31, 1931, and during his brief term he was Chairman of the Senate’s Committee on Enrolled Bills.

Retirement and death

Partridge retired from Vermont Marble in 1935, and died in Proctor on March 2, 1943. He was interred in Proctor Cemetery.

Rice family and relations

Partridge was a descendant of Edmund Rice, an English immigrant to Massachusetts Bay Colony, as follows:

• Frank Charles Partridge, son of
  • Sarah Ann Rice (1835 – 1919), daughter of

• • Luther Rice (1799 – 1876), son of
  • Eliakim Rice (1756 – 1834), son of
  • Zebulon Rice (1725 – 1799), son of

• • • • Elisha Rice (1679 – 1761), son of
      • Thomas Rice (1626 – 1681), son of

• • • • Edmund Rice (1594 – 1663)

• “Edmund Rice 6-generation database”. Edmund Rice (1638) Association. Retrieved 16 May 2010. 

External resources

• United States Congress. “Frank C. Partridge (id: P000091)”. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.