Person Page - 686

Funeral services for Charles Whitall Valentine, 74, retired president of Bagley and Sewall Company of Watertown, who died Monday at his home in that city, will be held from the home at 3 p.m. Wednesday and at 3:30 in Trinity Episcopal church, Watertown. Interment will be in Brookside Cemetery, Watertown.
Mr. Valentine had been ill for eight years and confined to his bed since last fall.
He was born at Millville, N.J., son of Levi B. and Leslie Bandriff Valentine. He married Edith Norton Sewall, daughter of Edmund Q. Sewall of Bagley and Sewall Co., who survives.
Prominent in Watertown's industrial, civic and philanthropic activities, Mr. Valentine rose to head of the internationally known paper manufacturing corporation from an apprenticeship as a machinist in the Jeansville Iron Works, Jeansville, Pa.
After four years in that shop he entered Purdue University and was graduated in three years. He then located briefly in Chicago, where he shared an apartment with George Ade, humorist and author, and John T. McCutchin, cartoonist.
For six months he was test engineer with the Foos Gas Engine Co., Springfield, O., and then became a gas engine salesman. In 1899 he joined the engineering staff of the New York Air Brake Co., in Watertown, two years later being dispatched to Russia to direct the company's branch in Moscow, where he remained for two years before returning to Watertown. In 1904 he left the air brake firm to join the Bagley and Sewall firm, which nine years later made him its secretary. In 1915 he became vice president and in 1937 president, heading the firm until he retired in 1938.
During his association with the plant he had invented and perfected many papermaking gadgets, which he turned over to the company, and he saw paper making machinery improved to turn out 1,500 feet of finished paper in a minute. For eight years he was president of the board of trustees of the House of the Good Samaritan of Watertown, and was president of Jefferson county organization of the Red Cross during world war 1. He headed the Lake Shore Electric Co. merged with the Adams Electric Co. and aided in the extension of service throughout southern townships. Memberships included the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, National Association of Manufacturers, Black River Valley club, Crescent Yacht club and Watertown chamber of commerce. He was a member of the former Fortnightly club.⁵