Rolland Harty Spaulding was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 manufacturer and Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

. He was elected Governor of Hew Hampshire in 1914, where he served one term.

Early life and education

Rolland Harty Spaulding was the third son of Jonas Spaulding. He was born in 1873 in Townsend Harbor, Massachusetts

Townsend Harbor, Massachusetts

Townsend Harbor is a village in Townsend, Massachusetts, containing Harbor Pond dammed from the Squannacook River. At this location Jonas Spaulding and his brother Waldo started a mill in 1873 that made leatherboard . They did business as Spaulding Brothers...

, where his father and uncle had a fiberboard mill. His father founded a mill at Rochester, New Hampshire

Rochester, New Hampshire

Rochester is a city in Strafford County, New Hampshire, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 29,752. The city includes the villages of East Rochester and Gonic. Rochester is home to Skyhaven Airport and the annual Rochester Fair....

 and moved his family there. The young Spaulding was educated at Phillips Academy

Phillips Academy

Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...

, (class of 1893).

Career

With his two older brothers, Rolland Spaulding joined their father in the family business, renamed J. Spaulding and Sons, which ran mills to produce leatherboard (typically produced by pulping and compressing scrap leather and wood pulp). In addition to mills in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, his father had founded one in Tonawanda, New York, which became the largest.

Rolland Spaulding became a prominent businessman, working with his father and brothers in the family industry. Their family-owned company manufactured fiberboard, later adding a type of resin laminate named Spauldite (to compete with Bakelite) and fiberglass

Fiberglass

Glass fiber is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass.Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the invention of finer machine tooling...

 tubing to their product lines.

Spaulding became active in Republican Party state politics. He was elected Governor in 1914, but declined to run for a second term.

Like his brothers and sister Marion, Rolland became a philanthropist

Philanthropist

A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...

. He died the day before his 69th birthday, in Rochester, New Hampshire.

External links

• Spaulding at New Hampshire's Division of Historic Resources