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Lane's Store -- J. A. Lane & Co., Present Proprietors

Four of the five sons of the late Ebenezer Lane, are merchants. In 1848 Edwin B., the eldest, built the store, still occupied, and having carried on the business some years, moved to Boston; and ;his brother, George W., became proprietor of the Hampton store. After a successful run of fifteen years, during much of which time, the next younger brother, Joshua A., was associated with him, Mr. G. W. Lane removed to Salem, Mass., where he is now a coal, four and grain dealer. He was for some years the principal coal merchant in Hampton, before his removal. Mr. J. A. Lane was now sole proprietor of the store till 1891, when he took into partnership Ernest G. Cole, of this town, just graduated from the New Hampshire State College. Mr. Lane has carried an annual business of thirty thousand dollars or more, in groceries, grains, dry goods and the various departments that go to make up the typical country store. Two order teams are kept on the road the year round, and often, four, in summer.

After Mr. Edwin B. Lane removed to Boston, he went into company, in the flour trade, with his father's cousin, David Lane, from Chichester, who, in later years retired, leaving the junior partner sole proprietor.

The fourth son, Charles H. Lane, has had a somewhat romantic career. When a young man he went to Iowa and was one of six to buy a township, incorporate the city of Red Oak and set up a sawmill. With the first lumber sawed, Mr. Lane built a store, with his own hands, bringing glass and other building material many miles by rowboat. Then he sent to his brothers to buy goods in Boston, to stock a store similar to the one kept in Hampton.

The proprietors of Red Oak laid out a square of nine acres, for the center of the city, and drew lots for the property. Mr. Lane's lot fell on the west side of the squire. The city grew and established a bank, of which Mr. Lane has long been the president. He now owns with one partner, an agricultural implement and hardware store, covering an acre of ground. He also owns two other stores, each built of brick, twenty five by eight-six feet on the ground and three stories high; the one a grocery store, and the other a dry goods, boots, shoes and clothing bazaar, in the building of which our townman, Samuel W. Dearborn, was head carpenter.

It has always been Mr. Lane's pleasure to take young men into his employ, teach them the business and then help them to set up business for themselves. In this way, his nephews, George E. and Charles G. Lane, sons of George W., have become established, the former as proprietor of a variety store in Hampton, Neb., and the latter as cashier of a bank in Hastings, Neb. Both these young men are natives of Hampton.

Another business man of Red Oak, born in Hampton, Capt. Thomas H. Dearborn, may be mentioned in this connection, as he was once Mr. Lane's clerk. After the war, in which he bore an active part, he was in trade in Seabrook for two years -- then went to Red Oak, and has long been a successful dealer in coal and ice.

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