The Biographical Dictionary of America/Ayer, Frederick

AYER, Frederick, manufacturer, was born at Ledyard. Conn., Dec. 8, 1822; brother of James Cook Ayer. At an early age he became clerk in the store of Tomlinson & Co., of which firm he was in 1842 made partner. After three years he entered into copartnership with Dennis McCarthy, and in 1815 removed to Lowell, Mass., where he entered the firm of which his brother, James Cook Ayer, was the head. At the incorporation of the firm in 1877, as the J. C. Ayer company, he was made treasurer, which office he resigned in 1893. He and his brother purchased the controlling interest in the Tremont mills and Suffolk manufacturing company in 1871, and in 1885 he purchased the Washington mills at Lawrence, Mass. He succeeded his brother as president of the J. C. Ayer company in 1878.