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Continued: John Calvin Skinner graduated from the Royalton Academy. He taughtschool. He lost his right arm when 17, because of being shotaccidentally, whilel hunting, by a boy being cared for at the Skinnerhome. He was kept in bed for a major part of three years because ofadditional amputations, after the first, due to gangrene and medicalnotions of the times as to the desirability of bleeding, and denyingnormal amounts of food and water to those possessed of fevers. Hewent to Cincinnati in 1869 where his elder brother, Lewis EdwardSkinner, was connected with the Little Miami Railroad. He went to thePilgrim Church the first Sunday there, where his robust-tenor voicewas noticed in the congregational singing, and he was invited to choirpractice at his un-introduced wife-to-be's home (she being organist).He became chorister of both the Church and the Sunday School. He wasgiven "Deserved Testimonials" of "a handsome copy of the Bible", onSunday, by Sunday School Teachers of Pilgrim Church, and, on theTuesday following, "an elegant dressing case" preceding his "departurefor the West" in 1872. He left the terminal of the railroad in Iowa,and, with four others, gathered and herded a large flock of sheep asfar west as Denver. He sold his interest to partners. He returnedfirst to Vermont and then Cincinnati. He was married June 3, 1873,and tended the bridge between Cincinnati and Covington Kentucky. Heengaged in the coal business in 1875 at Cleveland. He sold this in1878 to founder Eugene R Grasselli who made him Superintendant of the5-mile and 8-mile-lock sulphuric-acid-restoring plants of the GasselliCompany. He became General Superintendant of Grasselli plants atCleveland within a year. He was one of the organizers of theHege-Farm Sub-division in southwest Cleveland about 1882. He was oneof the incorporators of the Canfield Oil Company, but, because John DRockefeller resented the formation of this and other competitors tothe Standard Oil Company, and the Grasselli Company was furnishingmuch sulphuric acid to the Standard Refineries, he sold out. Heresigned February 1891 from GCCo. He built his own sul-acid-restoringplant at Overton (10 miles north of Pueblo Colorado), adjacent to theRocky Mountain Oil Refinery, then being constructed by Clevelandparties, but the latter venture proving a failure, he had no spentacid to restore. He acquired a financial interest in and became VicePresident and General Manager and Director of the Western ChemicalCompany in Denver in Oct 1891. He retired from active connection in1909, but remained a Director of Western Chemical ManufacturingCompany. He was long on the Board of Home for the Blind. He was oneof five City and County Commissioners of Denver in 1912-1913. He wasa member of Board of Trustees of First Av. Presbyterian Church andlater of First Congregational Church. When the Denver Union WaterCompany was acquired by the City and County of Denver in 1918, hebecame one of five Water Commissioners, in which connection heremained to a third term when he passed away, as a result ofthrombosis. He was on the World War Draft Board, Division 3, Denver1917-1918.
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