Webber Family Papers

John Prescott Webber, born in 1832 in New Portland, Maine, began the Webber family business interests. After establishing general stores in Ripley, Exeter, and East Corinth, Mr. Webber moved to Bangor in 1864 and established a land ownership and lumbering business. He eventually owned land in Somerset, Piscataquis, Penobscot, Aroostook, Hancock and Washington Counties and operated mills in Lincoln and Alton.

John Webber's two sons, Charles Prescott and Franklin R., continued in the land and lumbering business, also owning the firm of C.P. and F.R. Webber, mill owners and dealers in short lumber and lumbering supplies. Charles P. Webber was born in 1853 in Ripley, Maine, and Franklin R. Webber was born in East Corinth, Maine, in 1854. Charles P. Webber studied at Hebron Academy and a Minneapolis business college. When he returned to Maine, he went into business with his brother in Oakfield, Maine, until the 1870s when they moved to Lincoln to operate a sawmill and conduct their lumbering operations. They also owned a general store there. Franklin R. moved to Minnesota after being in business with his brother for a few years. There he successfully invested in timberlands, moving to Boston only a few years before his death in 1949.

About 1880, Charles P. Webber moved to Bangor and opened a wholesale grocery store; he operated this store until about 1892 when he began to work full-time in his timberland and lumbering operations. In 1909 he moved to Brookline, Massachusetts, to manage the family's business interests in Boston. He died in 1940.

His son, Charles J. Webber, born in 1881, was the third generation to manage the family's timberlands, entering the business in 1905 and remaining there until his death in 1961. His son, G. Peirce Webber, began management of the Webber Timberlands in 1933, becoming the fourth generation of the family in the land and lumbering business.