Lavern Frederick Saxton
born - December 1, 1874, died - July 19, 1967

(from The History Of The Mohawk Valley: Gateway To The West©1925 page 212 - 213)

V.F. Saxton.

V.F. Saxton, the president and manager of the company which bears his name, came to Fort Plain, Montgomery county, from Cooperstown, New York, where he had peviously been engaged in business for about five years, and in the past sixteen years has built a retail that is a great credit both to his ability as a merchant and to the village in which it is located. In 1908 Mr. Saxton purchased the stock of Dillionbeck Brothers of this village and a little later bought the store the store that was operated for years by the Shear brothers, Joseph and Robert H. Shear. Under the able management of Joseph Shear this establishment became so well known in this part of the state that people came to Fort Plain from places as far away as Utica to shop, and this unusual prestige was enjoyed by Robert H. Shear who succeeded his brother as head of the store and ran it until 1908. When therefore, Mr. Saxton took over the Shear store and consolodated it with the business he already was conducting in Fort Plain, he fell heir to a patronage that would satisfy the ambitions of many a merchant. To him, however, this prestige simply spelled opportunity and he straightway set about studing means and ways by which he could increase his business. A number of years of retail merchandising had given him an intimate, and yet wide, knowledge of the preferences and needs of the buying public, both urban and rural. He provided for these needs with an extreamly broad range of choice; few customers could fail to find in his large stock exactly the type of article for which they were looking. And the people continued to come from long distances to trade at his store in ever-increasing numbers. Today his sixty-thousand dollar stock is the largest in this section of the country, while the floor space of three floors and a basement is required to house and display it. A complete line of dry goods, ladies' and childrens ready-to-wear goods and house furnishings are all to be found in his well appointed establishment. The V.F. Saxton Company now occupies a leading place among the commercial concerns of Montgomery county and its head is rightly regarded as one of the most capable business men in Fort Plain, which is pround to claim him as one of its citizens.