From the Manchester Journal:
On Monday morning last Charles H. Willard passed from this life at the age of 55 years.
Mr. Willard had been in very poor health for more than a year and while it was expected that he would hardly live through the spring, still is was a shock when the news of his passing away was announced.
Mr. Willard was a son of the late Barton and Almeda Willard and was born in Pawlet, October 11th, 1855, his parents moving to Manchester soon thereafter, and it was in the town that he grew to manhood.
Entering the employ of the late Franklin H. Orvis in Palatka, FL in the winter of 1889, he decided to make the hotel business his life’s work. On coming back north with Mr. Orvis he continued in his employ for a season and later took a position with H.B. Ellis at Castleton. He later was connected with the Hygia Hotel at Old Point Comfort, VA and was manager of the Putnam in Bennington, the Track-a-pousha Inn at Far Rockaway, NY and then of the Niagara Hotel in Buffalo, from which place he came to Manchester four years since and started the Orchard Park Hotel and garage.
With the advent of the automobile the necessity of a proper place for of accommodation of this rapidly increasing line of business made Mr. Willard’s business assume large proportions and it was necessary for him to increase his accommodations each year and he was finally doing probably the largest business of his line in the state.
Mr. Willard had been married three times. In 1899 he married Mrs. Vina Nelson, who, with her daughter, Mrs. Jos. V. Newman, survives him, together with a son by his first marriage, a brother and two sisters and a half brother.
The funeral will be held at his late residence on Thursday afternoon at 2:30 o’clock, and will be under the auspices of Adoniram Lodge No. 42, of which Mr. Willard was a member. Rev. S. K. Perkins will officiate the services will be public and all Mr. Willard’s friends are invited to be present. The internment will be in Dellwood Cemetery.
Dellwood Cemetery 