Carroll Smalley Page of Hyde Park, son of Russell S. and Martha Malvina (Smalley) Page, was born in Westfield, Jan. 10, 1843. He was educated at the People’s Academy at Morrisville, the Lamoille county grammar school of Johnson, and the Lamoille Central Academy of Hyde Park.
Governor Page is identified with many of the important business enterprises of his county and state, being president of the Lamoille County Savings Bank and Trust Co., of the Lamoille County National Bank, of the Hyde Park Hotel Co., and of the Fife Lumber Co. He is the treasurer of the Hyde Park Lumber Co., of the Morse Manufacturing Co., of the Buck Lumber Co., and a director of the St. J. & L. C. R. R.
Although always a very busy man he has found time to give good service to his party and to his state. He represented Hyde Park in the House from 1869 to 1872, was senator from Lamoille county from 1874 to 1876, and was county treasurer and register of the probate court for the district of Lamoille for about ten years. In 1880 he was a delegate to the Republican national convention at Chicago, that nominated James A. Garfield for President. From 1872 to 1890 he was a member of the Republican state committee, serving from 1878 to 1884 as its secretary, and from 1884 to 1890 as its chairman, his chairmanship covering the notable campaign of 1888.
As a financier he became well known to the people of the state while filling the office of inspector of finance (examiner of savings banks) from 1884 to 1888. In 1890 he was elected Governor–the highest office in the gift of the people. To this position, which he filled till 1892, he brought the same administrative ability that has characterized the conduct of his private affairs.
But first and always a business man, it is not in political or official life that Governor Page’s reputation has become most widely extended, but rather as a dealer in Green Calf Skins, in which line of business his trade is confessedly the largest in America, if not in the world, extending not only to the Pacific coast, but through all the British provinces in America, and to England, France and Germany.
Governor Page is a Mason, an Odd Fellow, and a member of the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.
April 11, 1865, Mr. Page was united in marriage to Ellen F., youngest daughter of T. H. and Desdemona Patch, of Johnson. They have three children: Theophilus Hull, Russell Smith, and Alice.