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WILLIAM R. SAMPSON , partner in the queensware house of James A. Rhea & Co., 225 South Fifth Street, was born in Medford, Massachusetts, and is twenty-eight years of age. He enjoyed the advantages of the superior public schools of his native place; at the age of sixteen entered the employ of a wholesale leather firm in Boston, and had become one of their leading salesmen before attaining his majority, when they sold out and retired from business. In August, 1874, Mr. Sampson came to Springfield, Illinois, and passed some four years as traveling salesman for Springfield and Chicago houses, three of these years, he represented the extensive wholesale queensware, glassware, cutlery and house furnishing goods, which they handle at wholesale and retail. They are all practical, thorough-going business men, which, with the liberal trade the house has enjoyed during its brief history, augurs a successful future. Mr. Sampson united in marriage with Miss Minnie A. Hawk, of Cleveland, Ohio, May 26, 1877. One son, Odiorne, aged three years, is the fruit of union.