Chester Pike (1829 - 1897)
Born and died at Cornish (NH).
Farmer, banker, state legislator.
Portrait by U.D. Tenney, 1887.

Pike (1829 - 1897) was born and is buried at Cornish (NH). Educated at the Hartland (VT) academy, Pike graduated at age fifteen from Kimball Union Academy (Meriden, NH). He then taught during the winter term and farmed on the family farm for the next six years.

In 1850, aged twenty-one, Pike became a trader in cattle and "a merchant in the products of the soil." ["Chester Pike," Granite Monthly vol. VI no. 10 (July, 1883), 291 - 294.] Pike was good at what he did, and his farm gained a reputation for the quality of its stock and produce. He served as Sullivan County Commissioner (1859 - 1861) and was elected a State Representative (1862,1863).

In 1863 Pike was appointed Provost Marshall for the Third New Hampshire District (served 1863 - 1865)., and in 1866 he was appointed United States Collector of Internal Revenue. He stayed with this latter position until all New Hampshire's districts were consolidated.

Pike was director of the Claremont (NH) National Bank for twenty-five years. He served in the State Senate (1883 - 1887; President of the Senate, 1885 - 1887), and again in the State House of Representatives (1887, 1888). He died at Claremont, November 29, 1897.

Reference: "Chester Pike", Granite Monthly vol. VI no. 10 (July 1883), pp. 291 - 294.