from his earlier experiences in the glass and chemical industry, was a general retail and wholesale operation in France and throughout Europe into Russia. Through his earlier experience in Berlin, Atwater had become familiar with the continental way of doing business, but he found the French language and customs unfamiliar. He ran the Paris office where only one clerk could speak English, learning French without any formal instruction. His freight and docking facilities for the shipping and receiving of goods were so well organized that when relief shipments were sent to France after World War I, the Harvester Docks in Paris were used for this purpose. During this time Richard and Abby Sophia were very active, enjoying tandem bike rides to destinations outside the city. The years were also successful for the business. At the end of the six-year term, the Johnson Harvester Company asked him to extend his contract, but by then all of the children had returned to America, and he had adequate savings for retirement. Honors and retirement In 1904 Atwater attended the meeting of the International Chemical Congress in Berlin to present a paper on his work on glass graduates in Millville, New Jersey (from 1886), and was elected honorary Vice-President of the Congress. He was elected president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris and held that honor there until his return to the United States in 1906. Atwater retired in 1906 to a large farm in Chadds Ford in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, which contained the site of the Battle of Brandywine, eventually given to the state of Pennsylvania for Brandywine Battlefield State Park. Atwater put all of his 9 children through college, and 7 of them survived him, as well as 20 grandchildren. He died in 1922. References Richard Mead Atwater -- Abby Sophia Greene Atwater: Their Ancestors, Their Lives, Their Descendants, Ed. by Sylvia Bothe, Lucy M. Bullock, Sarah A.G.Smith, and Anne M Thomson. Atwater Books, Origin of Our Summer Home, Vol I, 1881-1889 The Atwater Papers - 1891 - 1899, Ed. by Norma P.H. Jenkins, Corning Museum of Glass Library, 1971. Records of the Sea Isle City Historical Society, Sea Isle City, NJ, including the above Atwater books. Chapter on the Atwaters, in Shore Chronicles -- Diaries and Travelers' Tales from the Jersey Shore, 1764-1955. By Margaret Thomas Buchholz: http://www.down-the-shore.com/chronexp.html Atwater, R. M. (1893) "The Glass-Making Industry in America". Engineering Magazine