Downs served in the Civil War, enlisting in August 1862 for three years or the duration and was a private in Company H. 15th Connecticut Volunteers. He participated in the battle of Fredericksburg and the siege of Suffold. He was captured in the battle of Kingston, N.C., and taken to Richmond, Va. He was paroled and taken to Annapolis, Maryland. Returning home on furlough, he was in Oxford at the close of the war but went to Newborn N.C., for his final discharge.
    Downs was a firm supporter of the Republican party and served many years as grand juror of Oxford. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Naugatuck.

SAMUEL R. DEAN

    Samuel R. Dean was a prosperous merchant in Seymour. He was the son of Samuel H. Dean, an immigrant from Ireland. He sailed from that place in 1812, but was captured by the British who took the vessel to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The father escaped from there and traveled on foot to New York where he settled.
    Samuel R. Dean was born in 1832. It is said that he earned his own living from the age of ten years. He spent time in Ithaca, New York and then went to Oswego, where he was in the dry goods business as a clerk. From this experience he laid the basis for his future success. He went to Minnesota in 1858, due to problems of ill health. After a year and a half he recovered and returned to Oswego. In 1862 he married Miss Anna Curtis Fairchild, and in 1868 the couple moved to Seymour.
    He became associated in business with V.H. McEwen, under the name Dean & McEwen in a store at the corner of
Bank and Second Streets. This partnership was dissolved in 1868, and Dean joined C.B. Wooster and Virgil Buckingham.
In 1882 he became the sole proprietor of the business.
    Dean was a Republican and represented Seymour in the State Legislature in 1886-87. He served as chairman of the local Board of Relief for seven years. Socially he was affiliated with the F. & A.M. Morning Star Lodge, No.47; and the I.O.R.M., Nonnawank Lodge No.9. In religious faith he was a Baptist, but attended the Congregational Church.
    He died on March 25, 1900.