Samuel A Tamposi

Samuel A. Tamposi, who rose from modest beginnings as a farmer and vacuum cleaner salesman to become New Hampshire's largest commercial real estate developer, died at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston in May 1995. He was 70 and lived in Nashua, N.H., and Hernando, Fla. The cause of death was lymphoma, said his son, Samuel A. Tamposi Jr. He began by buying up vacant Nashua mill buildings, factories and farmland, including some parcels that sold for as little as $7 an acre. Those purchases were the foundation of a real estate empire that at his death stretched from New Hampshire to Florida. Mr. Tamposi made his fortune buying and selling land and persuading Fortune 500 companies like Anheuser-Busch, Digital Equipment and Raytheon to build plants in New Hampshire. Mr. Tamposi's other great interest was baseball. He was a limited partner in the Boston Red Sox, rarely missing a home game and occasionally traveling with the team. In the late 1960's Mr. Tamposi enlisted the help of Ted Williams, the Red Sox star, in the development of Citrus Hills in Florida, a 15,000-acre tract about 75 miles north of Tampa. During the Bush Administration, Mr. Tamposi's daughter, Elizabeth M. Tamposi, was head of the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, which issues passports and visas. During the 1992 Presidential campaign, Ms. Tamposi supervised a search of the passport records of Bill Clinton, an action that generated considerable controversy and led to her dismissal. In addition to his children Elizabeth and Samuel, who live in Nashua, Mr. Tamposi is survived by his wife, the former Eileen Maloney; four other children, Michael A., of Nashua, Nicholas E., of West Palm Beach, Fla., Celina Tamposi Griffin of Bedford, N.H., and Stephen A., of Hernando, Fla.; three stepchildren and 19 grandchildren. The stepchildren are Richard M. Doyle, Jr. of Boston; Charles R. Doyle of San Francisco and Katharine S. Doyle of Nashua. Mr. Tamposi's first marriage, to the former Barbara St. Pierre of Nashua and Palm Beach, Fla., ended in divorce in 1986.