Starr, Frederick Ratchford (19 June 1821 - 1889) Didley Dumps or John Ellard

Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he moved to Philadelphia to become president of an insurance company. After retiring in 1870, he moved to Litchfield, Connecticut and became a dairy farmer on Echo farm. Later, he organized the Echo Farm Company, which controlled large creameries throughout a great part of Litchfield County. Starr served a term in the Connecticut legislature from 1883 - 1844. Interested in temperance and other reforms, Starr lectured extensively and published Didley Dumps, the Newsboy (Philadelphia, 1866), May I Not? or Two Ways of looking through a Telescope (1867), What Can I Do? a Question for Professing Christians (1867; revised, 1887); Farm Echoes (New York, 1881), and From Shore to Shore (Philadelphia, 1887).

Wilson, James Grant and John Fiske, eds. Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. V. New York: Appleton, 1888. 654.

Also in:

Adams, Oscar Fay. A Dictionary of American Authors. Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 1904. 357.