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Rushford
and
Rushford People
Planned, Edited and Published by
Helen Josephine White Gilbert
Historical Committee of Rushford's Centennial
1910
Printed by Chautauqua Print Shop
Copyrighted 1910
BY MRS. HELEN WHITE GILBERT
(T CI.A28O07O
PREFACE
This book is a result ol the Rushford Centennial which was held August 16-21, 1908. It has been written to keep in memory not only the names but the noble deeds and the bright sayings of those who helped to make the town what it was and is.
The preparation of the material which appears here was begun February i, 1908, and has been continued to the present time. Old letters, diaries, deeds, records of various kinds, and copies of the Republican Era, the Neivs Letter and the Spectator have been used. The books which have been consulted are "75th Anniversary of the Baptist Church of Rushford, N. Y.," "Home Life in Colonial Days" by Alice Morse Earle, "Nathaniel Ely and his De- scendants," compiled by Heman Ely, "History of the Gene- see Conference" by Conable, "Allegany County Directory" (1874-5), "History of Allegany County" (1879), "Allegany and its People" (1896), "Pioneer History" by Turner, and "History of Cattaraugus County." I must express my great obligation to my son, Allan H. Gilbert, for his assistance in copying the manuscripts and for his valuable criticisms; also to Miss Ellen Lyman for her aid in getting school matter ready for publication. In preparing the roster of soldiers I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness to Miss Mildred Hil- dreth, Philander D. Ellithorpe, John R. Heald and Abram J. Lyon. The list of pastors of the Free Methodist Church was furnished by the Rev. C. E. Pike, that of the Methodist Episcopal Church by Miss Ellen Gordon. In writing the sketch upon the Methodist Episcopal Church I received help from a paper written by James Benjamin, and in writ- ing the one upon the Presbyterian Church I was aided by
Preface
Mrs. Aurora Thompson Green. Martin Lyon, F. E. Ham- mond, S. E. Kilmer, Chauncey Williams, Newell White, Mrs. Cornelia Metcalf, Chester Perry, and last but not least, my husband, Eddy C. Gilbert, have been especially helpful to me in my work. I wish to express my appreciation to the many for their interest, their good wishes and their generous response both to numerous questions and to requests for written contributions.
In any revision of the papers it has been my aim to preserve not only the thought but the individuality of the writer. Owing to the great variety of matter, there is something in the book to interest everyone. As a work of reference it will be of value since no pains have been spared to make sure of accuracy.
If the readers of the book receive in its perusal some- thing of the pleasure and profit which have been derived from its preparation, I shall be satisfied.
Helen J. White Gilbert.
Rush ford. New York, July, 19 lO.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE.
CHAPTER.
I Centennial AcUli-ess ^
II Soil and Forests— F. Engene Hammond 4
III Families • ^^
The Gary Family— Frank Eneas Woods n
The Swifts ^7
William Vanghan ^9
Abel Belknap 20
The Gordons 22
Josephus Young 3i
The Woodses— Clarissa Woods Calkms 2,2
Abraham J. Lyon 39
Thomas Pratt 4i
The Bennetts— Allan H. Gilbert 42
Samson Hardy 47
The Bannisters— Albert W. Bannister 49
The Bannisters— Amelia Bannister DeBerczy 51
The Bannisters— The Ely Book 56
The Thirds— Nancy E. DeKay 58
The Perrys "0
Luther Woodworth 02
John Hammond o4
Amba Alderman ^
The Freemans ^7
The Goings— Harriet Going Colby 08
The Orcutts— Allan H. Gilbert 7i
Matthew P. Cady 75
James McCall 70
Levi Benjamin 79
Samuel Persons oi
David Board °3
James Kendall °5
David Kinney 88
Daniel Ely— Julia Williams Straight 89
The Gillettes, including a story told by Charles B.
Kendall— V. R. Gillette 9°
Asa Benjamin 94
Elijah Lyman 95
The Butterfields 97
Charles Hapgood — Emer Corse lOO
The Taylors 100
B. T. Hapgood and Family 102
The Tarbells I05
Chapman Brooks I07
The Searls I09
Contents
Samuel White— Helen J. White Gilbert in
The Griffins Ii6
George Scott 120
Charles White 122
Joseph Bell— Mary Bell Dickey 124
Riifus Adams — Viola Adams Farwell 127
Micah Hall 128
The Sextons 131
Alvin K. Morse 132
The Smiths — Irene Smith Kendall 134
The Kingsburys 138
The Leavens 142
Billings and Hannah Walker — Julia Tarbell Merrill 149
Newbury Eddy — Eddy C. Gilbert 151
Nahum Ames — Augusta Ames Woods 153
A. W. E. Damon — Charles M. Damon 153
Harmon Hvde — Mary Ann Hyde 157
Harris Gilbert— Eddy C. Gilbert 158
Aaron Rice 161
Israel Thompson — Julia Thompson 162
The Hillarys — Maude Howard Brady 164
The Rev. Elijah Metcalf — Flora Mctcalf Thomas.. 166
James H. Green — Ellen Green Nye 172
The Moores— Eddy C. Gilbert 174
The Colburns 175
Robert English — Victoria English Gordon 177
John Lamberson — Frank Lamberson 180
Randolph Heald 181
John G. Osborn 183
Isaiah Lathrop — Alice Lathrop Holden 184
David Babbitt— Allan H. Gilbert 186
Michael Warren — Albert L. W^arren 189
The Beecher.s — David Herbert Beecher 190
The Georges — David Herbert Beecher 193
The Georges — Agnes George Taylor 193
Robert Morrow 196
John W. Hill — Jennie W. Bush 197
The Thomases — John J. Thomas 198
IV The Churches 201
The First Baptist Church 201
Mission Circle — Jennie A. Westcott 207
Social — Jennie A. Westcott 208
The First Methodist Episcopal Chureli .?oq
Reminiscences — Frank Eneas Woods 219
Reminiscences — ^Esther B. Woods Eldridge 220
Reminiscences — T. W. Chandler 221
Remodeling of the M. E. Church — Anon 225
Ladies Aid Society — Ellen E. Gordon 227
F.pworth League 230
Contents
The Freewill Baptist Church 231
The Presbyterian Church .. .^ J>
The Wesleyan Methodist Church • ■ J>^
The UniversaHst Church-Ellen Green Nye 236
The First Free Methodist Church. 239
Bequests or Requests-Arhe White Ives 241
V The Schools / ■ " V^,", t 9i\
History of the Schools— Ellen Lyman 243
Snuifscences of V. R. GiUette-EUen Ly-an 248
Reminiscences of W. F. Bennett-Ellen Lyman.... 250
Memory Pictures-Sarah Ford Crosby .....■• -53
The^FiSt ^PhUomlthean' Society^W . ' F. Bement . . . 258
The Mystic Association-E L., H. J. VV. G -bo
The Second Philomathean Society ^^^
The Polyhymnian Society ■•■•■■.••••• ^ •>••■ 'tV" " V The Present Philomathean Society— E. L., n. J.
Alumni Poem— Lucy Marsh Poate ^73
College Graduates, etc '. ' ' 279
Artists 280
VI Physicians ; 280
The Medical Profession ^g^
Anecdotes, etc • _• X ' '• ' ' V ' Cf o^,"r -^.Sfi
Recollections of a Physician-Ornn T. S acy 285
VII Town Meetings, Supervisors and Town Clerks .... . . -94
VIII Societies • • • • •; : ^^q
Lodges of Free and Accepted Masons 29»
Rushford Lodge ■ • • • • • ■ ■„; , ■ • • ^
Joseph Enos Lodge-Eddy C. Gilbert. 303
Banquet of the Rushford Historical Society....... 304
^^ ^ An' Interesting ' Letted' of " War "Time-A.' W. E.
Damon ,q„
Roster of Soldiers -f ^
War of the Revolution i'
War of 1812 ^^^
Celebratim/in Rushford 'of the' Taking of Richmond 338
^ ^^The Historv' of' "M'usic-S'ophi'a 'Benjami'n Taylor. . 340
The Rushford Band-Sumner E. Kilmer, Abram ^^^
The 'Rns\°fo'rd 'Cornet 'Band-Frank Eneas Woods.. 347
XI Our Bells ^S^
XII Reminiscences .••••. ~
Reminiscences— Maria Benjamin ^5
Wolves— Julia Williams Straight 35^
Recollections— Ellen White Hubbell .^. . . . . . .^ - • • • 3-°
Reminiscences of Rushford-Corneha Gilman Green 358
Contents
XIII
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI XXII • XXIII XXIV XXV
Recollections — B. J. Jewell 361
Reminiscences — Esther B. Woods Eldridge 36^
Reminiscences of Podonque — Esther B. Woods Eld- ridge, Clarissa Woods Calkins 364
Rushford Reminiscences^Harrison L. Wilson.... 366 Recollections of Kelloggville, Rush Creek and East
Rushford— Hosea B. Ackerly 3/6
Reminiscences — Mary Smith 386
Recollections and Characteristics — Helen M. Judd.. 392 Reminiscences of Rushford— Charles M. Damon... 399
Rushford and Rushford People— Mary E. Lane 414
Recollections — Orrin Leslie Elliott 433
Retrospection — Clara Bristol Tiffany 437
A Picture — Florence Octavia Munger 444
Moriturus Ave !— G. W. F. Buck 445
Great Celebrations 449
Semi-Centennial 449
A Leaf from My Journal — Cynthia Woodworth. . 455 Rushford's Centennial and Home Coming Week... 458
The Relics 470
The Choir, the Orchestra, the Double Quartet and the Band— Clara Elizabeth Poate, Helen
J. White Gilbert 477
The Farmers' Parade— Russell M. Wilmarth 481
The School Day Parade— Lucy Marsh Poate,
Clara Elizabeth Poate, Allan H. Gilbert 486
Old Home Week at Rushford— Mary Sherwood 494
Baseball Team — Abram P. Benjamin 497
Cheese 500
Early Cheese Making 500
Pineapple Cheese 50i
The Rushford Cheese Factory ._ 502
Cheese Box Factories *.'. S03
Fires 505
Asheries 5ii
The Storm of 1838 513
The Flood of August 16 and 17, 1864 514
Railroads 5^7
Our Lost T. V. and C. R. R 5i7
The Railroad— Lucretia Elmer Morse 518
Miscellaneous 521
Public Entertainments 532
Movements— Ellen Lyman 543
The Press— Eddy C. Gilbert 548
Rushford 554
An Editorial, Entitled Rushford— H. E. Puidy 554
Rushford in 1848 555
A Comparison 560
Rushford 564
List of Illustrations
PAGE.
Helen White Gilbert Frontispiece
Old Home Week at Rushford, 1908 10
Mr. and Mrs. William L. Gary 15
Jedediah Buckingham Gordon 23
Daniel Clark Woods 29
Mrs. Ely ( Nancy Gary) Woods 33
Marena W^oods 38
H. Nelson Hammond 65
John Hammond 65
Mrs. Myra A. Persons Farwell 82
Charles Han ford Kendall 86
Hiram B. Gilbert 91
Mrs. Hiram B. Gilbert 91
^Irs. Cynthia A. Woodworth 108
Frank E. White and sons Thomas and Robert 112
Henry Kirke White 1 14
Store Built by Oramel Griffin 119
Mrs. Harriet Swift White 123
C. K. B. Smith 135
Grover M. Pratt 143
Inez L. Leavens 145
Eddy C. Gilbert i59
Residence of George Gant 160
Rev. Elijah Metcalf ; 167
Levi Metcalf 167
Mrs. Cornelia Metcalf English 169
John R. Heald 182
Obed T. Wilmot 202
William Gordon 210
William H. Thomas 242
Rushford Acadeniv 246
Allan H. Gilbert. ." 278
Orrin T. Stacy, M. D 281
Alamanzo W. Litchard 297
Sumner E. Kilmer 329
Harvey Crocker 385
Mr. and Mrs. Abraham J. Lyon 450
Samuel White 453
Rev. Thomas L. Pratt 453
Mr. and Mrs. Irving McCall 467
Among the Relics 471
Farmers' Parade— Old Home Week 482
Old Home Week — School Parade 487
Clothing Rooms and Post Office, 1859 507
Jesse P. Bixby, AL D.. and grandson, Clarence Wilmot 563
Tarbell House 565
Upper Main Street 567
The Man with the Shovel 570
Map
I
CENTENNIAL ADDRESS
Helen J. White Gilbert
ALTHOUGH the writing of the history has been a task, it has been a pleasant one. At first it seemed as if a thick veil were hung before our eyes, through which we were vainly trying to peer into the past, but at times the curtain has been lifted and we have seen visions. The dry bones of the valley have been clothed with flesh and we have walked and talked with the worthies of old.
The relationships in our town are marvelous to con- template. Probably there is no man in the country who has more relatives than Fred G. Gordon,* belonging to the large family of Gordons and related to all the Garys, all the Tar- bells, all the Kendalls, and — as if that were not enough, he must marry a Woods. H Mr. Gordon should make a din- ner party some day and invite all his relatives we would all go.
The Holland Purchase was an immense tract of land in western New York, comprising (with the exception of the State mile strip along the Niagara River and the Indian reservations) Niagara. Erie, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties and the western portions of Orleans, Genesee, Wy- oming and Allegany counties. It was owned by a number of rich merchants of Amsterdam, Holland, who formed the Holland Land Company. In a deed dated 1818, their names were Wilhelm Willink, Henry Vollenhoven and Rutger Jan Schimmelpennick. The surveyor and local land agent who had charge of the settlement of the Holland Purchase was
*W. H. Leavens rivals Mr. Gordon in the number of relatives.
Centennial Address
Joseph Ellicott, an able man, rich, single, and melancholy. His name still lives in ElHcott Square, Buffalo, and in Elli- cottville. It was to Ellicottville that the settlers went to make their payments. The first six to take out articles for land in Rush ford, in 1808, were Chas. Swift, Eneas Gary, Othniel Perry, William Vaughan, Andre Bennett and Joshua Wilson.
The Indians who roamed through the forests belonged to the tribe of Senecas, a part of the Iroquois Confederacy.
As many of the inhabitants came from Windsor County, Vermont, they decided to name the town Windsor; but it was given up as there was already in the State a place by that name. Wilson Gordon of Topeka, Kansas, says that it was named Rushford because of the rushes growing along the Caneadea Creek. Samuel White said that it was named after Dr. Rush of Philadelphia, an eminent physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
The pioneers were not effeminate but men of strength with interesting individualities. If intemperance and pro- fanity were more common then than today, it was the fault of the times. The cause of temperance has made great progress since 1808, when the members of the first temper- ance organization in the country agreed not to drink rum, except at public dinners and when they did not feel well. During the first fifteen years no indictable offense was com- mitted in town. Some one has said that Rushford, with its industry, its thrift, and its morals, was a second New Eng- land.
For the golden days of Rushford we must look back before the Civil War took the flower of our youth, before steam power was used in manufacturing, before and soon after the Erie Railroad was completed, when timber was
Centennial Address
abundant, when children numbered nine, and when the gar- ments a man wore, the chair he sat upon and the wagon in which he rode to church might all have been labeled "Made in Rushford." Before 1850 Rushford was the liveliest place in Allegany County. In 1855 the population was at its height, numbering two thousand.
The past of our town has been glorious. If we develop the best that is in us and are loyal to her institutions her future may be glorious.
The territory of the following towns of Allegany County was included in the Holland Purchase : Centerville, Rushford, New Hudson, Cuba, Clarksville, Genesee, Hume, Caneadea, Belfast, Friendship, Wirt, Bolivar. When Can- eada was formed, March 11, 1808, it embraced the terri- tory of all the towns named above except Centerville and Hume.
Rushford was formed from Caneadea in 1816, and Haight, now New Hudson, was formed from Rushford April 10, 1825. The present township of Rushford was known as township five, range two, in the survey of the Holland Land Company. It was divided into lots by Wm. Rumsey in the summer of 1807, and the land was imme- diately offered for sale. The township is divided into sixty- four lots. Lot number i is in the southeast corner of the township, north of it is lot number 2, and west is lot num- ber 9. The village of Rushford is in the center of the town- ship where lots 28, 29, 36, and 37 corner.
II
SOIL AND FORESTS (Farmers' Day Address) F. Eugene Hammond. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow-Farmers:
IT is a pleasure to be here this day of the "Old Home Week," and take part in your exercises by presenting to you a short address relating to the soil and forestry of Rush ford township. This subject has been of deep inter- est to me from boyhood — an inheritance, perhaps, from my mother, who passed most of her life in this vicinity, and who had, like myself, an especial love for those lesser chil- dren of Nature — the trees of the forest.
During the ages past — an eternity to us — the rocks were formed at the bed of the sea. Later, these were elevated above sea-level, and in a still later period, were broken to pieces and changed into soil through the two giant forces, ice and fire, or in other words, through the action of water, heat and cold.
Through all of the western part of the State of New York, as well as in the township of Rushford, the soil that lies upon the surface, varying in depth in valley and upland, has been produced from the primitive rocks in this man- ner, and largely, too. in a comparatively recent age known as the "Drift or Ice Period."
Prior to the "Drift Period," the surface of this area was, in all probability, at a higher elevation than the pres- ent hill-tops, and also nearly level. The bed rocks as we find them now along the western slope of the Alleghany Mountains, lie nearly horizontal, dipping a little faster to
Soil and Forests
the southwest than the average level of the surface. In proof of this, we find the pebble sand-rocks of Venango County, near Oil City, Pa., that lie nearly four hundred feet below the river-level along the Allegheny River, grad- ually rise to the surface at Warren, Pa., and coming still further northeast, remnants of this same rock strata are found in Allegany and Cattaraugus counties on the hill- tops, known to us as "Rock Cities." Lying under these sand-rocks are shales and slates that make a rich soil when broken or dissolved into dirt.
You may ask, "How is it known that the slates and shales make good soil, and that the rocks He horizontal, also, that our hills are formed by erosion instead of vol- canic action ?"' One answer is, we have found these facts in drilling for petroleum or rock-oil. In this work, we find that our uplands and hills have slates and shales that are not found when drilling in the valleys, while the bedrocks be- neath the soil of our valleys are found under our hills, at a depth equal to the elevation of the well being drilled above the level of the valleys. As to the quality of the soil formed from shales and slates, we have set fruit trees in the drill- ings brought to the surface from these rocks, and found that the trees grew faster and larger than in common soil, also that the surrounding vegetation was afifected in a like man- ner.
Geologists who have made a study of that area of the Imited States which extends from the New England States southwesterly to the Mississippi Valley believe that the time which has elapsed since the close of the "Ice Period," to be from forty thousand to sixty thousand years. This seems a very long time to us, but it is merely yesterday when compared to the total age of the rocks which form
Soil and Forests
the planet on which we Hve. How this immense field of ice (which is believed to have been a mile or more in thick- ness) happened to be placed on this part of the earth, as well as over northern Europe, is a matter of mere conjecture. There are many theories, but not one that wholly explains the phenomenon. However, it seems certain to have been here, and to have remained centuries before the alternating temperature of summer and winter came to change it into rushing, whirling waters, that tore the rocks to pieces and cut channels and gorges in a mad rush to the sea.
The 'Tee Period" was ushered out in a slow and grad- ual manner, which, while it tore the sand rocks, slates, and shales in pieces, also mixed the substances composing them in varying proportions, and left a part along our val- leys and dells, even as we see the process being carried out in a small way today. Some of the deposits of this mixture of rocks, left along our streams and valleys, compose the banks of gravel with sand and clays mixed, making the loam-land soil found in the eastern part of this township. In other places on our hills and hill-sides, the clay made from the shales predominated, with little or no sand and gravel.
The continued action of the seasons on this soil, further dissolving it and making it finer, at length prepared and made it ready for that new life which we name the tree kingdom, to come, take root, and flourish. And it came, but from where, and in what manner, we do not know. But we do know that for centuries it was here in all its beauty and majesty, adding its contributions of wood and leaf-mold to the soil, which through the whole process become the best for producing a greater variety of fruits, grains, and grasses than any other on the planet.
Soil and Forests
Here, a century ago, only a century, stood the most magnificent forest on the globe. Rooted to this soil was a variety of trees unequaled in value. Here stood the white pine, tlie hemlock, the maple, the beech, the ash, the cherry, the oak, the chestnut, the birch, the elm, the basswood, the cucumber, the hickory and other smaller kinds. Thick they stood, each kind rooted to the soil best adapted to its needs, reaching their twigs and branches from the long trunks, high and higher in the struggle of life, that each might drink in through its foliage the breath of the sunlight. Beneath them, in the shadow, close to earth, nestled the vege- tation— vernal wild-flowers, ferns and mosses. Such luxu- riance, such panoramic pictures of sun and shade, such changing scenes of virgin wilderness could only be por- trayed by one hand — the Artist-hand of God painting the pictures of Nature. Among these forests, as our earth gradually became fitted for his life and maintenance, came another form of life — Man. A pygmy he seemed, in com- parison to the giant trees beneath which he crept. One hundred years ago the first white settler came to this town- ship to make his home. Many others, year by year for a period of thirty or more years, followed. Each settled upon a parcel of the forest-land, usually a hundred acres or less, dividing a section of three hundred and sixty acres into three or four parts.
Each settler, on arrival, with ax in hand, and a pair of oxen, either his or borrowed from a neighbor a mile or more away, began to cut and dispose of the trees that cov- ered his ground. He could utilize for fuel and a log habita- tion only a mere fraction of them. Acre after acre of timber was cut, logged and burned on the ground. Nearly all the timber was destroyed in this manner, the work continuing
Soil and Forests
until 1850. Since then the waste has gone steadily on in other ways, until now hardly an acre of virgin forest stands in the township. Practically the some condition prevails all over New York and Pennsylvania. The fact is, we are facing a timber famine. From the State of Maine to the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, and south to where the long and short leaf pitch-pine grows, there is prac- tically no timber of any consequence. Even that outside of this area is disappearing so rapidly that it is no wonder the government has taken steps to save the remaining timber- lands of our country.
It would have been almost impossible for our early settlers to have lived in this hilly district, with its rugged winters, had it not been for the protection offered them by the forest, and the wonderful capability of a soil, made fertile by centuries of forest mold, to produce a diversity of products. What a change in this place today ! The for- ests gone ; the soil impoverished through lack of proper cul- tivation ; land abandoned, except for the scanty pasturage it affords! Would it not be well for the farmers and land- owners to give serious attention to more scientific methods of agriculture, and to use every effort for the preservation of the little ill-kept timber we have left? If we would all begin a systematic effort to set out trees in waste places, such as ravines and steep hillsides, it would accomplish much. Future generations would heed the lesson given, and continue the work. Our children would thank us and re- member us kindly for our forethought. We should soon see the reward for our efforts, for trees grow rapidly in this climate with its natural tree soil. I hope the Grange in this township will take the initiative in this tree preserva- tion and culture, thus starting and extending the educational work to other agricultural societies of our State.
8
Soil and Forests
Something of the story of the rocks, soil and forests of this township, as I have endeavored to tell it, is por- trayed in the following brief poem of twelve lines:
About the trembling, palpitating Earth,
Their weapons Ice and Fire, with ruin soiled,
A thousand epochs ere the Pygmy's birth. The planetary Giants fought and toiled.
The Artist-dream of an eternity —
They wrought the ^"ision as the ages fell —
A varied Eden, clothed with flower and tree From shining upland to each dusky dell.
Then, while they slept, the crafty Pygmy came With tiny ax — and in a century's haste
Crept o'er the Picture — gave it bounds and name, And marred the Vision to his human taste.
Ill
RUSHFORD FAMILIES . THE GARY FAMILY F. E. Woods
ENOS GARY, the first settler of the township of Rush- ford, New York, was born in Taunton, Bristol County, Massachusetts, September 23, 1757. He with two brothers, Seth and Loved, and one sister, Hannah, comprised the children of the household. These brothers kept the family lines of their descendants separate by each spelling the sur- name differently as Gary, Garey and Geary. Governor Gerry of that State, said to be a relative by one versed in Gary genealogy, had still a different spelling of the name. The daughter of the sister Hannah married a Mr. Bridg- man. Their daughter, Laura Bridgman, was in her day about as celebrated as Helen Keller, having been rendered deaf, dumb and blind by scarlet fever when two years of age. Dr. Samuel G. Howe, husband of Julia Ward Howe, won great notoriety by educating Laura Bridgman, and has been called the Cadmus of the blind. Miss Bridgman became a skillful teacher of the blind at Perkins Institute, Boston. Charles Dickens, the English novelist, visited her and wrote of her in his 'American Notes."
Enos Gary early moved to Lebanon, Connecticut, where he enlisted for the Revolutionary War. He was in the mer- cantile business as an importer. His partner, a relative, took funds to England to pay on account and make purchases but died while on this business, and as no papers of pay- ment were found on him, Mr. Gary was again obliged to send funds for settlement which he made in full and closed the firm's business. The opening of the Holland Purchase
Rush ford Families
attracted eastern people so Mr. Gary, as the records in the Allegany County Atlas show, took up lot number thirty, about half a mile north of Rushford Village, in 1808, moving his family from Weathersfield, Vermont, where he had been in business about one year. The journey was made with an ox team. The party consisted of himself and wife, his son William and wife, and three other children, the youngest about five years of age. Arriving at Center- ville, where Mr. Maxson had a few years before begun the settlement of that township, and leaving most of his family there, he and his son William and the lively girl Nancy, then nearly nine years of age, drove south six miles, having previously blazed the way through the unbroken forest, on January i, 1809, to found a home and begin life anew in the wilderness. It was a great change from a mercan- tile life. On the ox-sled they had brought a kettle of coals the fire from which was probably kept for many years and kindled again on the hearth stones of many newly arriving settlers. Going to the neighbors to borrow fire was no un- common thing in those days. The son William felled the first tree. They put up that day a log shanty, a lean-to, covered it with cotton cloth and there spent the night, hav- ing tied the oxen to trees and built seven fires about to keep ofif the wild beasts. The rest of the family came soon, and the next year his sons-in-law, William Gordon and Cephas Young, arrived, and a year and a half later his son, Charles Gary, and wife, also.
After making improvements for five years on this well located place, now the Isaac Weaver farm,* Mr. Gary sold it for $1,000 and moved on to the road west, a half mile farther north, to what is now called the Thomas farm.
*This farm has since been sold to Benjamin Williams.
12
The Gary Family
liere he built a two-story house and set out an orchard, perhaps the first one in town. His son-in-law, Mr. Young, lived on the same farm on the lower road.
Of course Mr. Gary had to keep open house for the new comers, and as he was very sociable and friendly, his home was somewhat of a hotel for a while. Born about thirty miles from Boston, living in the stormy times that preceded and followed the long struggle for liberty, him- self a soldier in it, he had a fund of anecdotes, stories and reminiscences and withal business experience, fitting him for an agreeable entertainer.
How he became acquainted with the Gordons is not known. Mr. James Gordon, a Scotchman, came to this country as a British soldier, but afterwards joined the Con- tinental army. In one of his genial banters with his friend, Mr. Gordon, Mr. Gary, alluding to Gordon, said to those about, "This is the man I took prisoner." "Well," Mr. Gor- don replied, "my son captured two of Mr. Gary's daughters, so I guess we are about even." Just how much of the taking prisoner was warlike no one now living can say. Mr. Gor- don said as he took his pension, "I came over to fight you Yankees and now you are paying me for it," and also, "I have held the stirrup many a time for Washington."
Mr. Gary surveyed what is now Rushford township and marked the center by embedding a grind-stone in the middle of Main Street a little below the High School grounds. Nearly opposite this point, in a cottage which is now the rear of the Morgan home, the early settler and his wife spent some of their later years till, too old and feeble for house- hold duties, they were tenderly cared for in the home of their son-in-law, William Gordon.
Mrs. Gary, honored and respected, filled well her sta- tion, caring for her family and welcoming the new settlers.
13
Rushford Families
Before her marriage she was Miss Esther Buckingham, daughter of Jedediah P. Buckingham of Lebanon, Con- necticut, a man of large family and of name somewhat noted in that State. A letter to Rev. F. E. Woods from the war governor. William A. Buckingham, also born in Leba- non, states concerning "Gary-Buckingham" genealogy, "no doubt we are relatives, for I have known no person bear- ing my name, residing in this country, unless it be a family in Maryland, who is not a descendant of Thomas Buckingham, one of the first settlers and one of the 'seven pillars' of the church, in Milford, Connecticut."
Mr. and Mrs. Gary were people of refinement and rather genteel manners. He wore continental style of cloth- ing (knee breeches with gold buckles), powdered hair and a wig for dress up. Mrs. Gary had silk and satin dresses. They were Presbyterians and had family prayer. Mrs. M. B. Champlin of Cuba when a young girl called on these her grandparents one morning and finding them at family prayer waited at the door till their devotions were over.
Mr. Gary was also a member of the Masonic fraternity, record of which is with Miss Ellen Gordon of Rushford.
Until their golden wedding anniversary and three years after, this worthy couple were permitted to journey together, then the beloved wife fell asleep, August 27, 1841, aged seventy-eight years, and Mr. Gary died three years later, August 17, 1844, aged eighty-seven years. On the morning of his departure he said, "I saw Esther last night and she was just as beautiful as when I married her." Their re- mains rest in Rushford cemetery. Seven children and about forty grandchildren survived them.
COMMENDATORY
With due honor to his helpmeet, we may say of Mr. Gary that by his service to his country in the long and un-
14
William L. Gary and Wife
Rush ford Families
certain struggle of the Revolution ; by beginning again when past fifty years of age bravely to battle with difficulties and regain a competence; by his service to the community in which he lived ; by his love for his f ellowmen and to God ; by these things he made himself an honored pioneer in the founding of a well-famed town.
DESCENDANTS
The children of the first settler were :
William, called Capt. Gary.
Esther, wife of Josephus Young.
Mira, first wife of William Gordon.
Charles.
Martha, second wife of William Gordon.
Nancy, wife of Ely Woods.
Caroline, wife of Oramel Griffin.
These all lived and died in Rushford, excepting Charles, who with his family embarked on a raft at Olean, went down the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers and settled in Rising Sun, Indiana. His eight children grew up to honorable estate; two of them were Methodist preachers in Kansas. Two of Enos Gary's sons-in-law, William Gordon and Oramel Griffin, were prominent business men in Rushford. The latter earned his first hundred dollars by felling trees for a clearing. With this money he early opened a store in Rushford and continued in that business over twenty-five years, accumulating, it was supposed, $100,000.
The daughter Nancy, by accompanying her father, Mr. Gary, on the first day of settlement, became thus the first white woman to stay in the town over night. On March 31, 1818, she was married to Ely Woods. For a wedding trip they drove with an ox team from Mr. Young's down to the present site of Rushford, where the people gathered
16
The Swifts
to attend the raising of the first tavern, a log structure, at the present location of the village. To begin housekeeping they placed the furniture on an ox-cart and drove to the farm on which they both lived and died, having reared a family of eight children. A year after celebrating their golden wedding Mrs. Woods departed this life aged nearly seventy, Mr. Woods about ten years later aged nearly eighty- five. They were both earnest, religious people, he a class leader in the Methodist Episcopal Church nearly forty years. Descendants of Eneas Gary who reside in town : Miss Ellen E. Gordon, Fred G. Gordon, Mrs. Verna Gordon Tarbell, Bertram Crocker, Fred H. Crocker, Nora B. Crocker, Carrie D. Crocker, Mrs. Minnie Osborn Jagers, Albert Far- well and Dorrance Farwell.
THE SWIFTS H. J. W. G.
MOSES WARD of Cheshire, Ontario County, said in his reminiscences that when he was a boy he staid for a time with his sister, Mrs. Andrey Hawley, who lived on Oil Creek (Cuba was at first called Oil Creek). Speaking of the settlers who came in the summer of 1807, he mentions Mr. Swift, eight miles north. The Holland Purchase records show that the first man to take a contract for land in township five, range two, was Charles Swift, from Cazeno- via, Madison County. In 1809 he was probably living on what was later called the English farm, on the Cuba road ; his son Neman lived* farther west on the same road. The late Porter Swift of Wisconsin said that his father, Heman,
*The farm on which Heman lived is now owned by the Ack- erly Company, and joins the English farm.
17
Rush ford Families
came to Rush ford "when the Indians were painted up and were going to kill the whites off," and that his father moved back to Cazenovia three times because he was afraid of the Indians. The children of Heman and Ann Swift were Harriet (Mrs. Charles White) born in 1806, Van Lansing, Heman and Porter. Harriet said that one afternoon when she and a woman sat visiting they saw a bear come down the road and go into the cellar. They went out and stopped up the window\ When the men came home they shot the bear. The skin sold for forty dollars. Heman and Ann Swift both died in 1853. lone, William, Charles and George VanDusen are the great-grandchildren of Heman Swift who live in Rushford.
Charles Swift was a Revolutionary soldier.* His grand- son, the late Porter Swift, thought he set out the first or- chard in town. If he did not have the honor of being the first permanent settler he had the distinction of having the first horses and sleigh in the settlement. The whiffletrees were attached to the runners of the sleigh. Charles Swift kept a tavern. There was a great demand for taverns in Rushford because people were passing through to a new country or driving cattle or hauling lumber. Oats were a shilling a bushel, lodging a sixpence, meals a shilling, and whiskey sixteen cents a gallon.
Charles Swift, Jr., was elected to office at the first town meeting. March 18, 181 7. he became one of the char- ter members of the Rushford Masonic Lodge, having pre- viously belonged to the Angelica Lodge. He married Electa, daughter of the widow Butterfield, about 1820. In 1847 l^^ sold his farm to Robert English and moved to Pennsylvania.
Jackson Swift, another son of Charles Swift, lived on
*See list of Soldiers of Revolution.
18
J
William Vaughan the same road nearer the village. He moved to Wisconsin in 1842.
Mrs. Johanna Swift, wife of Charles Swift, in 1838 went to Missouri with many others from Rushford. She went ahead of the ox team and picked out the places to stop for dinner and to camp at night. Later she came back to Rushford. One Christmas she was in a sleigh with the Gillettes and ]\Irs. Amanda Baird on her way to the home of her grand-daughter, Mrs. Harriet White, where they were to spend the day. The horses got into a big snow drift near the Enghsh schoolhouse and the grandmother, although eighty-three years old, insisted on walking to the house, which was in sight. When she reached it she went onto the bed and by the time all were in the house she had gone to her long home.
WILLIAM VAUGHAN H. J. W. G.
WILLIAM VAUGHAN, the grandfather of Chester Perry, Jay Vaughan, the Rev. Frank Himes, Mrs. Philo Taylor and Mrs. C. C. Gould, was brought up by a sailor. Since he suffered from fever and ague in Oneida County, in 1808 he took a contract for land in township five, range two, upon the Holland Purchase. In 1809, when he came, there were only three families in the township, those of Eneas Gary and Charles and Heman Swift. He boarded with Charles Swift and cleared ten acres of the land now owned by Jay Vaughan. In April, 1810, he brought his wife and five children to their new home, a log house with a stone fireplace.
19
Rushford Families
No man in the settlement was so strong as he to cHmb upon the corner of a log cabin when it was being built and put the logs in place. Once when his neighbors were without food he killed a deer and thus saved them from starving. He was able to make plows and drags and was so quick and strong that he could get a bushel and a half of potatoes' for a day's work when others received only a bushel. He used to tell of a race that took place when there was a neighborhood party. It was between oxen and horses over logs and against stumps. The oxen won. He was the first one in the settlement to capture a swarm of bees. Saw- ing off the part of the log containing the swarm, he carried it home and set it up in his yard, using it for a beehive a number of years. He built one of the first frame houses in town. He was eccentric, honest, and a reader of the Bible, although he made no profession of religion.
His children were Betsey (Mrs. Stewart, later Mrs. Joseph Dolph), William, David, Daniel, Laurana (Mrs. Ran- dolph Himes), Abram, Julia (Mrs. Austin Perry), Henry and Charles. Charles was a drummer of unusual skill. He lived eighty-one years on the land taken up by his father. Five generations of Vaughans have lived on the same farm.
ABEL BELKNAP H. J. W. G.
ABEL BELKNAP first saw the Hght of day in Massa- chusetts the January before the battle of Concord. The latter part of 1809 he and his wife Clarissa Torry with four children set out for the Genesee country. Abel wished to remain at Rochester, but Clarissa said, "No."
Abel Belknap
"When a woman will, she will,
You may depend on't, But when she won't, she won't,
And that's the end on't."
She didn't like the water ; she wanted to settle near a spring, so they traveled till they came to the sulphur spring near the Cuba road, on the farm now owned by James Wil- son, and there on the south side of the road they built their log house. January 20, 1810, there came to their home the first white child born in the settlement. They called her name Bethiah. Eight more children were born to them. All but two of the thirteen children lived to maturity. Sally (Mrs. John Bristol), born in 1828, was the youngest.
Once the family heard a frightful sound under the floor of the house. Polly tried to have the dogs go down, but they would not go. At last Ezra, a strong, strapping fellow, came home. Taking his gun and the dogs he went down and killed a large gray wolf, probably driven there by hunger. A man once came to look at Abel Belknap's oxen. "How much do you ask for them?" he said. "One hundred dollars," was the reply. The man started to go. "Hold on there," called Mr. Belknap, "I can be beat down half." One day when Mrs. Belknap was alone several Indians stopped and asked for something to eat. She generously shared with them her fresh bread and doughnuts. Then they wanted salt pork, but she said, "No, you can't have any." They insisted, brandished knives and threatened, but she stood her ground. Then one of the Indians said, "Me like you, you spunky."
In character Abel Belknap was of the Puritan type, upright, and strict and stern in his family. Novel-reading was one of the forbidden things. His daughter, Sally, bor-
Rushford Families
rowed novels and read them secretly. By mistake she left one where her father found it. He read it and became so interested that he never afterward said anything against novel-reading. He knew his Bible from cover to cover. Mention a passage of Scripture and he could quickly turn to it. He was one of the first assessors and one of the first inspectors of schools in the town of Rushford. He lived to be eighty-one years of age, surviving his wife by only seven weeks.
His grandson, E. R. Belknap, son of Erastus, has done a commendable work for the prevention of cruelty to calves while they are being shipped to the city.
TPIE GORDONS H. J. W. G.
JAMES GORDON, "the root of all Gordons," was born in Leeds, Perth County, Scotland, in March, 1752. His father's name was James and his mother's name was Kastorn. He came to America with the British forces under Burgoyne. but he afterwards joined the Continental army. He mar- ried Jerusha Tarbell, sister of Edward Tarbell. She was born in Groton, Massachusetts, September 25, 1753. The cliildren of James and Jerusha Gordon were Thomas, Kas- torn, James, Tarbel, William, John, Wilson and Samuel. Thomas, Kastorn and Samuel never lived in Rushford. James and Jerusha Gordon came to Rushford in 181 5. The old Gordon farm in Cavendish, Vermont, was afterwards occupied by Joab and Isaac Eddy, relatives of Newbury Eddy who settled in Rushford. James Gordon died De- cember 9, 1844. Jerusha, his wife, died March 8, 1834.
Jedediah Buckingham Gordon
Rush ford Families
James Gordon, Jr., was born in Mason, New Hamp- shire, October 30, 1783. January 10, 1808 he married Abi- gail Bowen, who was born in Woodstock, Connecticut. They came to Rushford from Cavendish, Vermont, in 181 1, and settled on the farm now owned and occupied by their son Bowen. James and Abigail Gordon were the parents of eleven children, all born in Rushford. The seven who grew to maturity were Nancy (Mrs. Isaac Rowley), born September 14, 181 1; Maria (Mrs. Eliab Benjamin); For- dyce, who married Sarah Smith; John D. Fletcher, who married Saphronia Adams; Mary Ann (Mrs. Baxter George) ; Laura (Mrs. John C. Nobles) ; Isaac Bowen, who married Malinda Rice of Sardinia; and Julia E. (Mrs. Tony Fletcher), who was born in 1834. Isaac Bowen of Rushford and Julie E. of Pony, Montana, are the only Hv- ing children. Fordyce made his home in Cuba. The grand- children of James and Abigail Gordon whose homes are in Rushford are James G. Benjamin; Frank and Lucy Gordon, children of Fletcher ; Dean Gordon and Mary Gordon Wil- mot, children of Bowen.
Tarbel Gordon was born in Mason, New Hampshire, January 21, 1785. His wife, Lucy Lawrence, was born April 12, 1783. In 1810 he came to Rushford where he cleared some land and built a log cabin, then he returned to Vermont, coming again to Rushford, with his family, in 181 1. He settled on lot 29. His land joined that of his brother John on the south, and that of his brother William on the north. The children of Tarbel and Lucy Gordon were Laura (Mrs. David Foy), born Feb. 7, 1806; Louisa (Mrs. Calvin Davenport of Randolph) ; William, who married Lois Gardner; Simon, born May 11, 181 1, who married Laura Griffin ; Ely, who married Martha Thing and after her death her sister Emily; Adaline (Mrs. David Huntington of Na-
24
The Gordons
poll) ; Myra (Mrs. Lyford Leavens) ; Elvira (Mrs. Harry Howe) ; L.uthera (Mrs. Perry Corse) ; Salome (Mrs. Elijah Metcalf ) ; and Cyrus, who married Orra Morris of Lyndon.
Tarbel Gordon "possessed a strong mind and a sur- prising clearness in opening and explaining Scripture." On the evening of February 20, 1845, Isaac Stone, who had pur- chased the William Gordon farm, called upon him and re- mained till nine o'clock. Their conversation was chiefly upon Christian purity, upon which Mr. Gordon talked with his usual cheerfulness and animation. It was startling the next day, when the word passed from mouth to mouth that "Tarbel Gordon is no more." The Tarbel Gordon farm remained in the family imtil June, 1898, when it was sold by Orra Gordon and her daughters to A. L. Ewell. It is now owned by Fred Baker whose daughter Ethel is a great-great- grandchild of Tarbel Gordon. The grandchildren of Tarbel and Lucy Gordon, now living in Rushford, are Mrs. Lucy Gordon Gant, daughter of William, Willis H. Leavens and Mrs. Flora Metcalf Thomas.
William Gordon was born in Mason, New Hampshire, October 7, 1787. He married in Vermont Mira, daughter of Eneas Gary. They came to Rushford about 1810* and settled on the east road north of the present village, on the farm now owned by Romain Benjamin. Here June 12, 1810, was born Samuel, the first white male child born in Rush- ford. On the same farm September 7, 1812, Jedediah Buck- ingham was born ; the mother died the following November, but the young child was tenderly cared for by a neighbor, Mrs. Samuel H. Morgan, who then lived near the brook on the crossroad that extends from Hard Scrabble to Po- donque. William Gordon afterwards married Martha, sister
*\A'illiam Gordon came to the township first in 1808 in com- pany with Eneas Gary to look the land over.
25
Rushford Families
of his first wife. She was the mother of Lorenzo Dow, who married Orrisa Rawson of Lyndon, Kastorn (Mrs. Avery- Washburn ), Stanbury, who married Juha Short, Stoddard, who married Harriet Jacobs of Portage, Salome (Mrs. Rus- sell Bell), John Copeland, who married in Kansas, Mrs. Mary Nichols Sellows, whose early home was in New Hud- son, New York, John Wesley, who married Louise C. Springer, Asbury, who remained single, and Tarbel, who miarried EHzabeth Morrow. Late in life William Gordon married Mrs. Laura Wilson Woods, widow of Daniel Woods.
He brought into Rushford the first bake-oven and the llrst cook-stove ever seen in the town. His home for many years was in Gordonville. Here, near the end of the road, about 1830, he built a carding-mill, to which in time was added dressing of home-made cloth, and finally weaving of cloth. One hundred yards of flannel and fullcloth were n^ade daily. People came many miles to this mill, bringing Iheir wool to exchange for cloth. In the spring of 1842, Avery Washburn entered into partnership in the woolen mill with the firm of W., S. & J. B. Gordon. The name of the firm was afterwards changed to Gordon & Washburn. In 1873 when the woolen mill burned, it was owned by J. B. Gordon & Son.* East of the woolen mill, William Gor- don built a sawmill. In 1836 southwest of his home, and across Caneadea Creek, he built a grist mill. At a later period, the name of the firm owning the grist mill was J. B., J. W. Gordon & Co. When it burned in 1883, it was owned by J. B. Gordon & Son.f
In politics William Gordon became an Abolitionist. He
*Albert. fFred G.
26
The Gordons
was for many years a prominent member and a useful local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church. In June, 1829, at the twentieth session of the Genesee Conference, at Perry, New York, he was ordained deacon. He was noted for his generosity; the needy, the unfortunate always found in William Gordon a friend. His home was on the corner near the bridge; across the road, farther east, in the first house lived his daughter Kastorn ; Samuel lived just beyond in the house now' owned by Mrs. Margaret Bullock ; in the next house but one lived Jedediah ; on the main road not far from the corner Stanbury built his home; and farther north in the house now owned by Frank Fuller, Lorenzo lived. Of William Gordon's eleven children only Jedediah, Stanbury and Wesley remained in Rushford ; the others sought their fortunes in the West, Samuel, Salome and Lo- renzo in Illinois, and Kastorn. Stoddard, Copeland, Asbury and Tarbel in Kansas.
William Gordon died at his home in Gordonville, April 5, 1870.
When Jedediah was a young man, people would say to him, "Jed. why don't you get married?" He would reply, "I am afraid if I married in Rushford I would marry one of my relatives." Attending the Baptist Church one Sun- day, while at school in Middlebury, he was strangely drawn to one of the alto singers in the choir. He afterwards sought an introduction to the young woman. Miss Juliette Hovey, who, February 21, 183Q, became his wife. Sometime after their marriage, when Mrs. Gordon was visiting her rela- tives, one of them said to her, "Juliette, what is your hus- band's name?" "Jedediah Buckingham Gordon," was the reply. "Where did he get the name Buckingham?" said her relative. Tracing back they found that the great-grand- mothers of J. B. and his wife were twin sisters.
27
Rushford Families
In the presence of J. B. Gordon, a man was once re- lating something removed from the truth. Turning to Mr. Gordon he said, "You remember, don't you, Mr. Gordon?" "Some things I remember," he repHed, "but I don't remem- ber things that never happened." He was not a member of the Methodist Church, but the following little incident will show his attitude. The Rev. W. B. Wagoner said that one hot Sunday when he was preaching in Rushford, the con- gregation seemed listless, even J. B. Gordon did not give his usual attention, so he resolved to repeat the sermon at some future time. After the repetition, Mr. Gordon came to him and said, "I am glad you preached that sermon again, I heard it this time."
Erect in stature, perhaps standing with his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, his hair slightly gray, his face smooth, his countenance lighted up with interest in aflfairs, a man whom everybody knew and whom everybody re- spected— such was J. B. Gordon when he had passed four- score.
Ellen E. Gordon, Fred G. Gordon and Mrs. Verna Gor- don Tarbell are the only grandchildren of William Gordon who live in Rushford.
John Gordon was born in Cavendish, Windsor County, Vermont, August 4, 1789. In January 24, 1810, he married Harmony, daughter of Luther L. Woodworth. Early the next year they started for the Holland Purchase where they settled in township five, range two, on the south- ern part of lot twenty-nine. Here were born James, who married Polly Bresler ; Luther, who married Florilla Cooley of Attica, New York, April 24, 1848; Matilda (Mrs. George Green), who later lived in Fairport, Monroe County; Walter, who remained single; and Wilson L., whose first
28
Daniel Clark Woods
Rush ford P\imilies
wife was Marcia Remington. John Gordon was a farmer, a brickmaker and a lumberman. Before 1830 he and his brothers, WilHam and Wilson, owned a sawmill at Kellogg- ville. He was the most unconventional of men; his dress and his pleasures were such as pleased him best. In the forties his sons, James and Luther, were among Rushford's hustling business men. They were afterwards engaged in the lumber business in Brockport; the partnership con- tinued till 1870. Walter became a Methodist minister. Wil- son L. of Topeka, Kansas, who was born in 1828, is the only living child. John Gordon died February 12, 1842. The land on which he settled is owned by his grand-daugh- ter, Mrs. Alice Gordon Hooker of Fairport.
Wilson Gordon was born in Cavendish, Vermont, June 4, 1794. He came to Rushford, March 20, 1812, and took up land below East Rushford on Caneadea Creek. After his land was partly cleared, he married Lydia Pratt, who was the mother of his four children: — Sophia (Mrs. William Merryfield), born September 23, 1818; Jerusha (Mrs. Newell McCall) ; Thomas L., who married Mary Lewis; and Orson, who never married. Thomas and Orson died of fever in January, 1864, followed by Mary, wife of Thomas, in February. Lydia Pratt Gordon died in 1859. Wilson Gordon's second wife was Paulina Walker; after her death he married Mrs. Elizabeth Ward. Mr. Gordon, beside being a farmer, was a lumberman, having a sawmill on his farm. The land on which he settled is now owned by Mrs. Fannie McCall whose children are great-grandchildren of Wilson Gordon. Wilson Gordon died February 27, 1879.
Of the five Gordon brothers who settled in Rushford, all but John were Methodists, and many were the efiforts to get John converted. In 1834 "the Gordons were many and
30
Joseph us ^'oung
strong" ill the Methodist Church. Though there were a number of people in the cluirch who were opposed to the use of musical instruments in worship, the bass viol was introduced into the choir. When James Gordon heard the music, he turned around and looking at the choir, said, "Ahem, fiddlin' and no dancin'." Tarbel Gordon went out during the performance, but returned to hear the sermon. William Gordon said, "We'll fiddle and sing the twentieth hymn." The bass viol disappeared from the choir.
The Gordons did much in the development of the town of Rush ford.
JOSEPHUS YOUNG H. J. W. G.
OCTOBER 13, 1808, Esther, daughter of Eneas Gary, became the wife of Josephus Young. She was seven- teen years of age and he twenty-six at the time of their marriage. In 1810 they left Weathersfield, Windsor County, Vermont, with an ox team and in twenty-two days reached Rushford. To them were born twelve children. Winthrop G., the oldest, was born in 1809. The others who survived infancy were William P., Esther (Mrs. John G. Osborn), Harriet (Mrs. Albert W. Bannister), and Stephen.
Josephus Young signed his name Joseph, but he was called Cephas. He located on lot thirty-one, north of Eneas Gary's, but later owned land on the Caneadea Road, joining that of Luther Woodworth, and kept tavern in a building long since burned, that stood on the west side of Upper Street on land now owned by Mrs. James G. Benjamin. According to all reports it was well patronized. Five times town meeting was held in this tavern, the first in 1818, the
31
Rush ford Families
last in 1828. December i, 1819, he joined the Rnshford Masonic Lodge. He was a quiet, peaceable man, living to be sixty-five years of age. His wife Esther lived to be over ninety.
His sons were all farmers. Winthrop, who married the widow Snow, served his town two years as Supervisor. Stephen, who never married, died when only thirty-three } ears of age ; he was the first toll-gate keeper at the Rush- ford end of the plank road. The toll-gate stood near the site of Mrs. Luther Thomas's house. The children of Josephus and Esther Young passed their lives in Rushford, with the exception of Mrs. Bannister, who after living some years in Churchville, New York, moved to Pasadena, Cali- fornia. The daughter, Esther, died when eighty-one years of age. We have never ceased to miss her sitting by the window or her friendly greeting when we entered. Mrs. Minnie Osborn Jagers is the only descendant of Josephus Young who lives in Rushford.
THE WOODSES Clarissa Woods Calkins
TEN sons and daughters of Daniel and Ruhama (Ely) Woods, all born in Windsor, Vermont, came to Rush- ford, New York, when the country was new. Clarissa was born in 1783; Sally, who remained in Vermont, in 1785; Lucy, in 1788; Laura, in 1791 ; Daniel, in 1792; Ely, in 1794; Riley, in 1798; William, in 1800; Maila, in 1802; Al- bert, in 1804; and Louisa, in 1806.
Daniel Woods married Laura Wilson in Rushford, February, 1810. His first frame house was north of the en- trance to the Podonque Cemetery. No buildings are there
32
Mrs. Ely (Nancy Gary) Woods
The first white woman who stayed in the town of Rushford, N. Y., over night.
Ritshford Families
now. In later years he bnilt the tirst honse north of the Podonque cheese factory. His farm lay each side of the road toward Centerville and the road toward Hume. Uncle Daniel was a host spiritually. He could sing the sweetest and pray the loudest, and like Daniel of old he was willing the whole world should hear him. His children were Lucia Spencer (Mrs. O. D. Benjamin). Myra Ann (Mrs. Thomas Eaton), Leverett Ethelbert, who married Ann Hill, Rebecca Ruhama (Mrs. Randolph Heald), Sarah Louisa (Mrs. John Knaggs), Lucy Lovett (Mrs. Edward Hill), Daniel Clark, who married Armena Peck, Laura Cornelia ( Mrs. Edwin Weaver), Milton McCall, who married Emily Fuller, and Mary Jane (Mrs. Frank Warren). All of his children were born in Rushford except Rebecca R. and Sarah L. who were born in Caneadea.
Ely Woods taught school in Caneadea. When the Mc- Calls built their grist mill at East Rushford, he assisted in building the dam which in part remains. He bought a farm just north of his brother Daniel's, and his first frame house was a little farther north than Daniel's, near where the old butternut tree stands. He later built a house on the Hume road, as his farm crossed both roads. His house was the first house south of the schoolhouse. He and his brother, Daniel, with others, built a sawmill in the gorge just east of his second house, and sawed logs there for ?ome years. He married Nancy Gary, the first white woman who came to Rushford, with whom he lived in harmony over fifty years. He was class leader for many years and kept a record of those who attended the class meetings of the Rush- ford Methodist Church, Sunday noons. He also held a prayer meeting in the schoolhouse Sunday evenings, which was well attended for years. He was gifted in prayer and sang the good old hymns in such a way as to convince the
34
The Woodses
hearers that they were the sentiment of his heart. His wife was there too and sang the high tenor which sounded so well to me when a child. She was present at the Methodist Clnirch without missing a Sunday for eighteen years. Their children were William Watson, who married Harriett B. Drury and after her death Eleanor Blanchard ; Caroline Gary (Mrs. John Persons); Maila (Mrs. John DuBell) ; Percy (Mrs. Asa Worden) ; Esther, who married Gilbert Richardson and after his death John W. Eldridge ; Catha- rine (Mrs. William H. Shaw); Wilbur Fisk, who married Elizabeth Claus and after her death Emma Glaus ; and Frank- Eneas, who married Mary M. Huff.
Laura Woods married David Board. Riley Woods married in Chester, Vermont, November I, 1822, Abagail, daughter of John and Esther Heald. His home was close by the entrance to the Podonque Cemetery. His children were Daniel Heald, who married Elvira Lam- berson; Albert, who married Polly Lamberson ; William Riley, who married Mary F. Champlin ; Fanny Savage; Mary Caroline (Mrs. Joseph Vinson); John Randolph; Edwin Skeels; Ann Eliza (Mrs. Stephen Tobias); and George, who married Caroline Gardner of Illinois.
William Woods married in Weathersfield. Vermont, June, 1824, Rosannah, daughter of Richard and Marian Farwell. After coming to Rushford they settled on the farm south of Calvin Leavens' and east of Mr. Board's. Their house was near the corner where the crossroad joins the East Rushford road. To them were born in Rushford six children: Marcia (Mrs. John A. Wells) ; Marian (Mrs. Alonzo Older) : Richard, who married, in Moscow, Phebe E. Grant ; Maria (Airs. Dalzell) ; John ; and William Wilson, who married, in Hinsdale, Emily D. Searle. After the death
35
Rushford Families
of his first wife. William Woods married, in 1853, Philena Peck. He died in Franklinville.
Albert Woods married in Windsor, Vermont, April 2, 1825, Betsey, daughter of Ebenezer Kendall. Leaving his wife with her parents he came to Rushford ; she died before his return. He married in Rushford Emily Lyman, sister of the late Alonzo Lyman. They had one child, Wiley. Albert Woods afterwards married, in Rochester, Abigail McCord Hagaman. Their children, born in Somerset, Michigan, were Laura Ruhama and Emma Phebe (Mrs. J. De Con). Albert Woods died in Quincy, Michigan.
Lucy Woods married Calvin Leavens.
Maila and Louisa Woods were unmarried sisters who came from Vermont with Mr. and Mrs. Leavens. Maila became a first-class teacher and founded a school in Kalama- zoo, Michigan. After she was too old to teach she came back to Rushford and died at the home of her nephew, Clark Woods. Louisa was a tailoress and for years owned and occupied the first house north of Frank Fuller's in Gor- donville.
In 1804 Clarissa married Thomas Richards in Wind- sor, Vermont. Their children were Edward Palmer, who, in Broome County, married Betsey Launders ; Hallam, who in Monroe County, married Catharine Wilcox ; James Madi- son, who married Hester Ann Bannister ; Mary Palmer (Mrs. C. G. Leavens); Sarah Gardner, unmarried; Lucy Leavens (Mrs. Albert Gallatin) ; and Clarissa Woods (Mrs. Oscar Board). The children were all born in Windsor, Ver- mont, except Lucy L. and Clarissa W., who were born in Lisle, Broome County, New York, where Thomas Richards died in 1822. After his death Mrs. Richards moved to Rushford and occupied a house on the corner opposite her
36
The Woodses
brother William's, not far north of Jacob Van Dusen's. Clarissa Richards died in Farmersville, New York.
Daniel Woods was a local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1837 he was elected deacon. Cona- ble's History of the Genesee Conference describes him as a large, fine-appearing, good man.
Only two of his children, Mrs. Cornelia Weaver, who lives in Podonqtie, and Mr. Clark Woods, who lives in Rush ford village, are now living. Mr, Clark Woods, although past four-score years, is still (1910) able to start the hymns in prayer meeting.
Of the ten Woods bj-others and sisters who settled in Rushford, Clarissa, Lucy, Laura, Daniel and Riley have de- scendants in the town. Frank Board is a grandchild of Clarissa and Laura; W. H. Leavens is a grandchild of Lucy; Mrs. Sylvia Williams, daughter of Lucia, Mrs. Myra Litch- ard, daughter of Leverett, John R. Heald, son of Rebecca, Mrs. Ella Claus, Mrs. Jennie Gordon, Jason, Grant and Wilson Woods, children of Clark, Charles Weaver, son of Cornelia, and D. W. and Newman Woods, sons of Milton, are grandchildren of Daniel Woods ; and Frank Woods, son of Albert, is a grandson of Riley.
When the Woodses came to Rushford, they brought with them the gift of music and it is here yet, even to the fourth generation. Through all the years it has been a cheer and an uplift to a multitude of people. It has been heard in the church choir, the prayer meeting, the class meeting, the social gathering, the public entertainments, the orchestra and the band.
.37
Marena Woods
Aliraham J. Lyon
Joshua and Rebecca (Spencer) Wilson, whose daugh- ter married Daniel Woods, came to Rushford from Wind- sor, Vermont, in 1810. Their three sons, Simon. Freeman S., and r.evvis, afterwards settled in Caneadea.
ABRAHAM J. LYON H. J. W^ G.
ABRAHAM J. LYON, one of eleven children, was born- in W^allingford, Connecticut, in 1789. His wife, Mary ( Bratt ) Lyon, whom he familiarly called Bolly, was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1792. They came to Rush- ford from Nelson, Madison County, about 1810. and set- tled on lot thirty-five, on a farm which until recently has been owned by some member of the Lyon family. Their coming to the uplands was due to the prevalence of fever and ague on the Genesee fiats. Their first home was a bark shanty, their second a log cabin, and their third a frame house. On this farm four children were born to them, Ebenezer P., Eliza A. (Mrs. Orrin Phelps), Emeline (Mrs. J. Nelson Kingsbury), and Merritt.
April 24, 1818. Abraham J. Lyon was appointed Cap- tain of a battalion of infantry in the County of Allegany "whereof George P. Ketchum, Esquire, was Major Com- mandant." The appointment was made by "DeWitt Clin- ton, Esquire, Governor of New York State, General Com- mander-in-Chief of all the Militia, with the advice and con- sent of the Council of Appointment at our City of Albany."' Mr. Lyon was a pettifogger or lawyer. His judgment must have been good as his services were in frequent de- mand in different parts of the county. He held the office of Justice of the Peace more than thirty years. February
30
Rushford Families
i8, 1840, the Senate having consented, William H. Seward, Governor of New York State, appointed Abraham J. Lyon "Judge of the County Courts of the County of Allegany, in the place of John Collins, whose term of office would expire on the eighteenth day of March next." After this appointment he was usually spoken of as "Judge" Lyon.
When he was called to marry a couple, his daughter Emeline would sometimes accompany him, riding behind him on the same horse. The marriage fee would be, per- haps, a pig. Once, when intending to be absent from home, he hired a man to break flax for him. When he returned he said to the man, whom he had boarded, "Would you be willing to take for pay all the flax you have broke?" He replied, "I would if you would give me enough leather for a pair of boot tops, besides." It is said that there is now a general desire for an easy job with big pay, but there were traces of it in the good old times "when people hadn't learned to cheat." Once when Abraham J. Lyon was try- ing a law suit the counsel for the plaintiff said that Mr. Lyon, his opponent, had been to his house and begged for something to eat and cried. "Yes," said Mr. Lyon, "I did go to his house and beg for something to eat, and I did cry, and you would have cried too if you had seen what I got."
In a letter dated February 27, 1838, written by Abraham J. Lyon to his daughter Eliza, then in Far West, Caldwell County, Missouri, one may read the words, "I have settled in two new counties. I know all about it. People set much more by each other than they do in an old country and take more comfort." He was sunny in disposition and wanted everybody to have a "good time." When his daughter would correct her child he would say, "Sis, I wouldn't quar- rel with a little child." He doted on circuses and enjoyed going to them with his grandchildren. After his daughter
40
Thomas Pratt
was converted she refused to let her Httle girl go to the circus. Being displeased, he said, "Sis, what a religion, to vent it on a Httle child !" He was so accommodating that he would unhitch from a drag to lend it to a neighbor. Noted for his generosity, he said a man was to blame for nothing but being stingy.
The late Mrs. Mary Ann Charles of Cuba resembled her grandfather, Abraham J. Lyon. Mrs. J. G. Benjamin and Martin and Abraham J. Lyon are his grandchildren who reside in Rush ford. Abram Benjamin is his latest namesake.
T
THOMAS PRATT
H. J. W. G.
HOi\L'\S PRATT, better known as "Uncle Tom," came to Rushford from Madison County when about six- teen years of age. He settled on the land now owned by Hosea B. Ackerly. This and the land now owned by Drew M. Seeley had been granted by the Holland Land Company to Ebenezer Lyon. He was drowned while returning to Madison County, so the land was taken by his brother, Abraham J. Lyon, and part of it made over to Thomas Pratt. He cleared nearly all of his farm alone, taking corn meal pudding with him to the woods. At noon he would listen for the cow bell, milk the cow, and have warm milk and cold pudding for dinner.
Once when his boon companion lay dead drunk on the floor. Uncle Tom, dancing the pigeonwing around him with a broad-axe in his hand, said he was measuring him for a coffin. But a change came. Mr. and ]\Irs. Thirds lost a young child to whom he was much attached. It seemed to
41
Rush ford Families
him as if he could not endure it. He jumped onto a horse and rode for miles. While riding the thought came to him that he ought to get ready to meet the child ; this led to his conversion. He became a Freewill Baptist preacher,* working on his farm during the week and preaching Sun- days. He had a maiden sister who kept house for him. She needed lielp and Sally Herrick from the "River" came. The bachelor of fifty became enamored and Thomas Pratt and Sally Herrick were made one. much to the discom- fiture of the sister. It was "Uncle Tom's" ambition to be- come worth ten thousand dollars. By labor and economy he surpassed his goal and accumulated quite a property for the time.
At tlie Semi-Centennial he spoke with so much power that peojile today speak in praise of his address. Everyone was listening so intently you could have heard a pin drop. People were so moved that tears streamed down their faces.
When old and feeble his housekeeper thought he ought to have some stimulant, but he said, "Ma'tha. Ala'tha. you don't know the blood," and refused to have it. He died in 1873 '" the seventy-ninth year of his age. Mrs. Abraham J. Lyon, Mrs. Wilson Gordon and Mrs. Oliver Cromwell Bennett were his sisters and Morton Pratt was his brother. His only child, George Pratt, is living in Lowellville, Ohio.
THE BENNETTS Allan H. Giljaert
OLIN'ER CROMWELL BENNETT came to Rushford in 1812. He passed by the flats to escape the frosts and settled near what is now the site of the house of Charles
*He was the first pastor of the Freewill Baptist Church at Rawson.
42
The Bennetts
Baker. Though he was born in Follet, \'ermont, and had hved in Connecticut he came to Rushford from Cayuga County, New York. When a Revolutionary soldier he was present at the execution of Major Andre. The noble bearing of that unfortunate English officer so moved young Bennett, then twenty years old, that he named his second son, born in 1/88, Andre.
Cromwell Bennett had studied medicine in his youth but he became tired of the human family and practiced vet- erinary medicine. The first sawmill on Rush Creek was built by Cromwell Bennett, who spent all one summer going to Vermont after the mill irons. In pioneer days cows wore bells and ran in common. Cromwell Bennett once paid the "White Woman" at Gardeau three dollars for taking care of one of his that had strayed.
One of those elected to office at the first town meeting in Rushford was Cromwell Bennett. Though a Democrat he was elected Supervisor at the second town meeting and was twice re-elected. More than once he held three town offices at the same time. He was also Justice of the Peace as early as 1820, when Justices were not elected at town meetings. In 1818 he was one of three judges in the county courts in Allegany County. On April 8, 181 7, Cromwell Bennett was one of the five who were the first initiated by the Rushford Masonic Lodge. His third wife, Zeruah Pratt,* mother of four of his fourteen children, he married in Allegany County. Seventy-five years ago he closed his eyes to earthlv things and now lies buried in Lyman Barber's meadow, not far from his pioneer home.
In the year* 181 1 .\ndre Bennett, the sixth man to take up land in Rushford, drove his ox team from Cayuga
^Formerly wife of Wm. Thirds.
43
" Rushford Families
County and settled on Taylor Hill, at the Six Corners.* Andre, who was twenty-three years old at the time, brought with him his wife, Rachel Orcutt Bennett, and their daugh- ter, Sophronia, born in Cayuga County the year before.
When the War of 1812 broke out, he enlisted and went north, leaving his wife and her child alone in the woods. On the night of September 10, 1813, Rachel Bennett in her anxiety for her husband paced the floor all night, for that day she had heard the cannonading of the battle of Lake Erie. But Andre Bennett's danger was not from the Brit- ish, for he was sick of a fever so severe that he crawled to the water's edge to cool himself. While her husband was away in the army, Rachel went through the woods to the home of William Vaughan where her son, Bushnell, was born.
Andre Bennett was well read, especially in history. One might infer something concerning his religious belief from his occasional attendance at the Universalist Church. ITis daughter Sophia (Mrs. Nelson Hammond) said that when in her childhood she came home from meeting terri- fied by descriptions of hell, Daddy comforted her by telling her that there was no such thing as a lake of fire. One of his sons, Elhanan Winchester, born in 1823, was named after a Universalist preacher well known in New England. This sont and another, Charles P., born in 1820, are still Hving. After the death of his youngest daughter, Jeanette, he and his wife adopted Aseneth, daughter of John Orcutt. Andre Bennett was independent in thought and life, not disturbed by the fashions of the world. If he wanted to wear a buckskin vest with ten-cent silver pieces for but- tons, he did it. He never forgot an ofiPense or a kindness.
*Formerlj^ six roads met at the Six Corners. One was given up years ago. Another has recently been abandoned. iDied July 9, 1909.
44
The Bennetts
The following story of an incident at general training which has been handed down in the family, is given as follows in the manuscript of Moses Ward:
"We were warned to appear on the Swift place, two miles south of where the village of Rush ford now stands. My brother Salmon wished me to go and fill his place. The day came; I took his rifle and went. It was eight miles that I had to go. Soon after I got there we were called to fall into line. As soon as the line was formed the general offi- cers rode along the line before us. A man at my right hand — the second man from me — said, 'There comes Ken- nedy.' He said that he was a soldier under the man on the lines in the war that had just passed, and had been shame- fully abused by him; and that he would make him confess before he left the ground, if it cost him his life. I looked at the man that was speaking, and thought he meant what he said. He was a man, I should say, that would weigh two hundred, of a dark complexion and stout-built, and his eyes looked terrific. While he was speaking it was ordered to pay attention to the call of the roll, and all was silent, the roll was called and we were ordered to file ofif in platoons and were soon marched out into the field. Thence we were ordered back to where we were formed in the morning. We were ordered to form a hollow square. It was soon done, and the officers were in the center. The man at my right hand, that had spoken so earnestly in the morning, said to the man between me and him, 'Take my gun.' He took it. I asked him who he was. He said that the man's name was Andre Bennett. Bennett went with a quick step up to the officer and said, 'Do you know me?' I heard no more; they talked together, I should say about a minute, and then Ben- nett stepped back a little distance. The officer took off his hat and called the attention of all, and said he was an officer
45
Rush ford Families
on the lines, and that Mr. Bennett, the man that stood be- fore him was a soldier under him, and he had not treated liim as an officer should but had abused him — 'and in the presence of this assembly I ask his forgiveness.' Mr. Ben- nett bowed and returned to his place in the ranks." (The foregoing extract was taken with slight alterations from ■'History of Allegany County, New York," 1879.)
Andre Bennett was younger at the time of his death than many of the early settlers but older than John Gordon of Matthew P. Cady. His tombstone in the West Cemetery bears the inscription. "Andre Bennett, died March 19, 1851, aged 63 years."
Reuben Bennett, the oldest son of Cromwell Bennett, was born at the foot of Rattlesnake Hill, near Canterbury, Connecticut. He came from Cayuga County in 18 12 and settled on the farm later owned by Thomas Baker.
A rail fence which he built in front of his house is still in use, though the house has long since disappeared. After browsing thirteen winters on Rush Creek, he moved to Mount Monroe where he built a log cabin near the pres- ent home of his son, Milton Bennett. Here Milton was born and rocked in a sap trough. Charles Strong, grand- son of Reuben Bennett's son Oliver, lives on the farm of his grandfather. Although his father and his brother Andre were Democrats, Reuben was a Whig. He was elected In- spector of Schools at Rushford's first town meeting. Early in June in 1859, one severe frost was followed by another a week later. When others with lack of heart were plant- ing again, Reuben Bennett went ofif fishing.
In 1820 he ploughed up a .Spanish dollar bearing the date 1805. Milton Bennett has been keeping it for a mar- riage fee, but the time to use it has not yet come. Still he
46
Samson Hardy
lias not been completely deprived of one of the advantages of niatrimon}', that of laying things onto a wife. One day when a peddler cv.Wed on this bachelor, Milton said he would ask his wife, who was down cellar, to come up. Step- ping to the cellar door he called several times. Then turn- ing to the iJcddler he said, "She don't want anything, she won't come up."
In the year 1852, the inhabitants of Rushford were alarmed by the screeching of a panther. Uncle Tom Pratt went out and called. "Bos, bos." The people who went out
I with their guns heard the sound first in one place, then in
another. One man said he was not afraid because it did not make any tracks. It was finally discovered that the panther was nothing but a thin, tapering piece of board with beveled edges, tied by a three-foot string to a pole. When this was whirled rapidly, then drawn through the air. it made an unearthly sound. The person having it would then run to another place. One night the runner mistook the width of a stream and did not land on the opposite bank as he expected. Only one person in town was angry over the joke which was perpetrated by two grandsons of Oliver f| Cromwell Bennett.
SAAISON HARDY H. J. W. G.
IN 181 1, Samson Flardy and his wife, Mary Spaulding, with their nine children came to Rushford from Cav- endish, \>rmont. The children, all born in Cavendish, were Polly (Mrs. Samuel iJpham), born in 1787; Rachel (Mrs. Blakesley) ; Lucy (Mrs. Matthew P. Cady) ; Hannah (Mrs. Ezra Nott) ; Lucinda (Mrs. Dutton) ; Stephen, born in
47
Rushford Families
1797; Samson, born in 1799; Betsey (Mrs. M. LaFayette Ely) ; and Rebecca (Mrs. Phillips). Mr. Hardy bought of the Holland Land Company two hundred acres, at two dol- lars and twenty-five cents an acre, on lot thirty-seven, which corners in the center of the town. The Baptist Church stands on what was a part of his land. Samson Hardy kept tavern on what is now the south corner of Lewellen and Buffalo Streets. He, also, owned and ran a distillery. In his tavern the second town meeting was held; here, also, in September, 1820, was held a meeting of the Baptist Church. Mrs. Mary Hardy was a member of a Baptist Church in Chester, Vermont.
Samson Hardy is one of the soldiers of the War of the Revolution, buried in Rushford. His tombstone in the First Burying Ground is an ornamental flagstone with this inscription — "In memory of Samson Hardy who died Nov. 29th, 1 83 1, AE. yy years & 11 months.
"Behold and see, as you pass by ; As you are now, so once was I ; As I am now, so you must be. Prepare for death and follow me."
Stephen Hardy lived at Hardy's Corners ; and the place still bears his name.
Samson Hardy, Jr., in 1823 married Saphronia Wright from Westford, Massachusetts. At the time of her mar- riage she was living in Rushford with a sister, Mrs. John Adams, who was a neighbor of the Hardys. The children of Samson and Saphronia Hardy were Rolon, Susan, Ar- thur, born in 1827, Maria (Mrs. Andrew Kimball), Lucy (Mrs. D. C. Butts), Webster, born in 1832, Saphronia (i Mrs. H. A. Kimball, 2 Mrs. D. D. Persons), Asa W., born in 1837, Martha (Mrs. A. H. Claus), and Mary. "As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of
48
The Bannisters
the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them." In 1836. when Elder Absalom Miner was pastor, Samson and Saphronia Hardy were received into the Bap- tist Church. Samson Hardy, Jr., was usually spoken of as Col. Hardy 'since he had held the office of colonel in the militia. During the administration of James Buchanan he was postmaster in Rushford.
Arthur, Webster and Asa all settled on farms in Rush- ford. Mrs. A. H. Claus, who resides in Rushford village,, is the only one living of the ten children. L. E. Hardy and Grace Claus Taylor are the grandchildren of Col. Sam- son Hardy who reside in town.
The Hardy s have always added much to the musical life of the town. They have been found in the band, the church choirs, the orchestra, in vocal quartets and as organists of dififerent organizations.
Note — Alarquis La Fayette Ely, bom in West Windsor, Vt., was the son of Abishai Ely ("Uncle Bish Ely") and the grandfather of Mrs. Blanche Bixhv Mnlliken.
THE BANNISTERS A. W. Bannister
MY grandfather, Silas Bannister, saw some service in the War of the Revolution, as attested by the cap- ture of an English account book, bound in rawhide and stamped with English coat of arms. It was opened by Major Gordon, July 20, 1776, in command of a company of "artificers" building sheds for military stores at St. John's and Chambli. It has been in my possession for the past half century, and has in it this obituary written by his son. Warren: "Silas Bannister, a friend of Literature and Sci-
49
Rushford Families
'ence, a belie\'er in Christian Theology and Gospel Ethics. JDied in peace April 29, 1827 — Aged 75 years."
The home of Silas and Thankful Ely Bannister at Windsor, V^ermont, was the native home of six sons and six -daughters, all of whom lived to mature age. The home had ;a local reputation as the "Methodist Tavern" — a sort of headquarters or resting place for circuit riders in the early •days of Methodism. One of the sons, Warren, joined the troop and won something of name and fame in that line. Tradition says he planted a grindstone at the center of the town of Rushford, which, although not a conspicuous land- :mark, may still be in place.
His brother Roderick made a long mark, illustrating a mode of travel a century ago, in driving a pair of steers and sled from Windsor to Rushford in the winter of 1812. He cleared up a farm on the west road just at the outskirts of the present village ; the land in later years was owned by Israel Thompson. Pliny and Wayne also joined the colony. Wayne and Warren's wife were among the first burials in the west side cemetery. Roderick married Lydia Place in 1819, and later he and Pliny owned mills at the Gorge of Caneadea Creek where they lived neighbors for a generation. There was my boyhood home. I do not re- member the incident, but tradition says my father, Roder- ick, took me to the kitchen to show me to the hired man December i, 1825. My only married sister, Mrs. Jonathan Charles, was born in Rushford in 1820.
We reverently cherish the memory of that noble band who endured the privations and hardships incident to pioneer life; although, no doubt, there was compensating novelty in the simple life, and a sustaining enthusiasm in building homes in a wilderness surrounded by wild beasts and roaming bands of Indians ; but I must leave to abler
50
The Bannisters
pens than mine the portrayal of those sturdy virtues that have left their impress upon the intellectual, moral and spir- itual life, not only of Rushford but of Western New York.
THE BANNISTERS Amelia Bannister De Berczy
WINDSOR, Vermont, noted for its staunch patriotism and resolute citizens, became interested in the in- ducements the Holland Purchase Company held out to set- tlers to buy their lands in Western New York, and their young men who had grown to manhood sharing the hard- ships and industry of their parents embraced the plan as a desirable method of getting lands and homes of their own. So they emigrated, in some instances many members of the same family. Among the many I will mention the Ban- nisters, Woodses, Elys, Hapgoods and Benjamins. They called their settlement Rushford, but it was an undivided portion of Caneadea. Pliny Bannister emigrated to the settlement in 1811, Roderick Bannister in 1812, and Wayne Bannister in 1813. Warren Bannister, a traveling preacher in the Methodist Church, brought his family, consisting of wife and two children and sister-in-law. Miss Lydia Place, to Rushford. Pliny Bannister took up a plot of land and as the brothers came they labored together on the new farm. Roderick Bannister married Miss Lydia Place and lived in Rushford and vicinity. His wife died in Rushford in 1850. He lived a number of years at Churchville, New York, where he died, but he was buried in Rushford. His children, Rowena and Albert, survived him. Miss Rowena Bannister married Mr. J. Charles of Caneadea and moved to Churchville and from there to Fort Scott, Kansas. Both
51
Rushford Families
Mr. and Mrs. Charles died in 1903. Mr. Albert Bannister resides in Pasadena, California. Pliny Bannister was bom in West Windsor, Vermont, February 5, 1790. Following the custom of the days he worked on the farm with his father. His fondness for books led him to teaching school. His first certificate, signed by the committee, Beaumont Parks and Bancroft Fowler, ministers of the Gospel, is dated Wind- sor, Vermont, September 20, 1809. Another is dated Bromfield, Massachusetts, December 6, 1809, signed by or- der of committee, Warren Fay, minister of Gospel. He taught two months to the satisfaction of the district, signed Eben Nutting by order of committee, dated February 16, 1810. There is a history of this short term.
The prevailing religion of that period was Presbyterian, quiet, severe, silent and stifif. It was a community of the one faith. A Methodist revivalist opened out upon them with noise and power. Church members and sinners took on the spirit of excitement, confessed their sins, received the Holy Ghost and fell into trances. This emotional excitement swept the entire Bannister family into the new faith, except the absent son who was teaching in far away Massachusetts. The loving father went after Pliny with his sleigh, but the boy refused to return. The school committee protested. Then the solicitous, determined parent demanded in the name of the law and the minor son yielded and heard the new Gospel but could not accept it as truth. He took to studying and searching the Bible and claimed the Bible did not teach destruction of God's children, but taught that God was love and every soul should in time confess his name. This was a great disappointment to the brothers and sisters who considered the church the only gate to Heaven. This little family episode serves to show the man Pliny as he was,
52
The Bannisters
an investigator, and independent thinker who tempered rea- son by kindness. The following year Pliny Bannister re- turned to Massachusetts and taught the same school he had taught the year previous. He then went to Rushford in i8ii and taught school in 1814 and 1815. His certificate was issued by Dyer Story and Abel Belknap, Inspectors of Com- mon Schools.
In April, 18 16, Pliny and Wayne Bannister took a tract of land of two hundred acres each, four miles east of Rushford village on Caneadea Creek. They built a saw and grist mill at the head of the gorge on Caneadea Creek. Lucy Bannister, a sister at Windsor, Vermont, joined them as housekeeper. May, 1820, Wayne fell from the dam and when found was dead. Sister Lucy could not endure the strain so returned to Windsor. Roderick with his wife came to the valley and formed a partnership to operate the sawmill with Pliny, which continued for a number of years. Later the mill was sold to other parties.
Pliny Bannister on February 19, 1823, at Angelica, New York, married Miss Abigail Whicher, daughter of Stephen Whicher, Esq., of Rochester, Vermont. Before her mar- riage she taught school and had been employed by Mr. Burbank.* Mr. Hopper and Mr. Ketchum to teach their children. Mr. and Mrs. Bannister lived in the home they built in the valley of Caneadea Creek near the mills for forty-three years. Mrs. Bannister possessed good health, executive ability, intelligence, a cheerful disposition and a willingness to help share the burdens present in an unde- veloped country, not only in her own home but in her neigh- bors' as well. She was a prized friend in sickness. Nine children grew to maturity in this home. The eldest, Thank-
*Eleazer Burbank and George P. Ketchum settled in Caneadea in 181 2, and Rockwell Hopper in Belfast the same year.
53
Rushford Families
f ul Esther, married Luther Gilman of Centerville ; Silas married Liicinda Emmerson of Rushford ; Henry C. died of fever at the age of nineteen ; Stephen Whicher died of fever also at eighteen years ; Mariett married Alfred Kel- logg of Rushford; Amelia married Chas. A. De Berczy of Toronto, Canada ; Fanny S. married Linus Kendall of Rush- ford ; Julia married Dr. V. W. Sunderhn of Michigan ; An- drew J. enHsted in Company D, 64th New York Volun- teers, Captain Woodworth, and died a martyr to his coun- try's call. He is buried in the Richmond National Cemetery, Virginia. Mrs. Amelia Bannister De Berczy is the only surviving member of Pliny Bannister's family. She lives at Fort Scott, Kansas.
Pliny Bannister was generous and kind to all, a loving friend and good conversationalist. He would always illus- trate his point by telling a story and leave his opponent in good humor but with something to think of. In that com- munity every person had opinions of his own. There were some spicy debates at the church at noon recess between the hours of twelve and one. When the church bell rang all became seated in expectant silence. Pliny Bannister was a liberal supporter of all religious denominations and was one of the builders of the Rushford Universalist Church. He was a fine musician and taught his children sacred music. His admonition to his children was, "Be true for truth's sake." He attended church in all seasons. His habits were temperate and his mind evenly poised. He was inter- ested in public improvements and in the development of the coimtry, especially in good schools and good roads. He opened quarries to furnish stone for building the locks on the Genesee Valley Canal and furnished plank for the New Hudson. Rushford and Caneadea Plank Road. He built a sawmill and planing mill in the Gorge to work up his pine
54
The Bannisters
timber, but the fire bugs got in their dastardly work and he saw his labor and capital go up in smoke. This was fol- lowed by the Belfast Bank failure, making a total loss of his surplus funds. Still undaunted he went to Michigan and purchased timber lands to begin anew, but again suf- fered disappointment because of his failing strength. He then thought of the l)eautiful prairie country and came to Fort Scott, Kansas, to be with his daughters Amelia and Julia.
I have mentioned but a few of the incidents of this one life in the new wild country but enough perhaps to give a glimpse of the many hardships of the brave little band of voung men who came to conc|uer the wilderness and did conquer it. They made for themselves homes of com- fort and reared their children. Their descendants today oc- cupy places of prominence at home and abroad and are proud to speak of their birthplace, Rushford.
A'Irs. Pliny Bannister died in Fort Scott. Kansas, Janu- ary, 1870, and Mr. Pliny Bannister died in the same place October, 1870.
In the childhood days of the Bannister children their acquaintance was limited in a degree by the school district. It gives me great pleasure to mention the worthy people we called i"eighbors, but who to us were like near relatives. From the Bannister house we could see the homes of Uncle Bill Woodworth, William Wheeler, William Ackerly, Mr. Persons, John Orcutt, Dan Balcom and Len Walker. Al! the children from these families met in a small schoolhouse builded by Pliny Bannister on a lot donated by Roderick Bannister. We were all interested in each other, ever not- ing the absence or presence of the expected ones. There was no dissension among the pupils, the little school was a veritable Arcadia. Nor is it a wonder when the strand and
Rushford Families
beautiful scenery surrounding, with its changing loveliness was ever an inspiration. There were bright sunshine, flitting clouds, quick showers, green lawns, singing rivulets and cool springs, indulgent teachers and loving homes to run to. Truly it is a beautiful oasis in the restrospection, this far away home of our childhood.
Note — Mrs. Belle Kellogg Lane is the only grandchild of Pliny Bannister living in Rushford.
THE BANNISTERS From the "Ely Book"
PLINY BANNISTER came to Rushford when twenty- one years of age. He assisted in surveying the town- ship, and was the first town clerk, the first school teacher and the first music teacher in town.
Lucy Bannister, daughter of Silas and Thankful Ely Bannister, was born in 1784 in Windsor, Vermont, where in 1832 she married Rufus Root. After his death, which occurred in 1837, she moved to Rushford where she re- mained until her death in 1855. She had no children.
Warren Bannister, son of Silas and Thankful Ely Bannister, was born in West Windsor, Vermont, July 26, 1781. He married in Rochester, New Hampshire. February 5, 1810, Sarah, daughter of Paul and Judith (Brown) Place. Warren Bannister was a Methodist preacher, having joined the New England Conference in 1800. In 18 17 he removed to Rushford, New York, where three brothers then resided. In August, 1820, his wife died leaving him with four chil- dren, the youngest two weeks old. After spending more than ten years in the State of New York he returned to Vermont. Later he went to Rochester, New Hampshire.
56
I
The Bannisters
In September, 1834, he consented to occupy temporarily the pulpit of a church in Nashua, New Hampshire, but after preaching three Sabbaths, he was prostrated with typhoid fever which resulted in his death on the 19th of October after two weeks' illness. His death was peaceful and triumphant.
His children were Pluma (Mrs. Alonzo Persons), born in 181 1 in Rochester, New Hampshire; Adam Clark, born in Barnard, Vermont; and Hester Ann (Mrs. Madison Richards), and Sarah (Mrs. Thomas Delano), born in Rushford, where they all married. Mrs. Persons and Mrs. Richards died in Rushford, Adam Clark Bannister in An- gelica, and Mrs. Delano in Fort Dodge, Iowa.
Epitaph in the First Burying Ground in Rushford
Sacred
to the
Memory of
Sarah Bani/ter, Wife of
Elder Warren Bani/ter
Who wa/ Neat, ludustriou/,
Economical and Pious.
An Ornament to her Sex.
Died Aug. 13th, 1820
Aged 29 yrs & 23 dys.
Till Christ Return/
Thy dear Remains
My Bosom Friend
Lies here for Worms
57
Rush ford Families TflE THIRDS. Nancy E. De Kay
OUR father, James Thirds, was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, December 27, 1806, of Enghsh and Scotch parents. His father was from London, England, and his mother from Boston, Massachusetts. Owing to the death of his father, which occurred when he was six years old, his mother, with her children, James and a younger son, WilHam, went to Rush ford, travehng all the way by stage, the only mode of conveyance in those days. She made her home with her brother, the Rev. Thomas Pratt. Father was a tailor by trade but followed that business only the first years of his life.
Our mother, Parthenia G. Oilman, was born in Cam- bridge, N. Y., August 16, 1807, of Scotch and American parents. She was a descendant of an old and distinguished Virginia family, that of John Randolph of Roanoke. She went to Rush ford as a guest of Dr. and Mrs. Horatio Smith, who persuaded her to remain. She there followed her oc- cupation of millinery and dressmaking. As the days passed by, she and the young tailor "met by chance the usual way." Their acquaintance ripened and resulted in a happy mar- riage which occurred on May 28, 1828, the ceremony being performed by Samuel White, Esquire, at that time Justice of the Peace. They immediately went to housekeeping in a very modest way on the upper street. We have heard our mother relate with some little sense of pride and merriment that they moved, settled and had company to tea, all in one day.
There were born to them four children, two of whom died in infancy. The two remaining are Mrs. Nancy E. Thirds De Kay, born .August 28. 1832, and Miss Zeruah
58
The Thirds
Isabel Thirds, born February ii, 1835; they Hved to hear the interesting and thrilhng events of their parents' life in a new country. The following is one of many. When a boy. father was often sent to the mill with grist. One day he was detained there unusually long and it was dark before he left for home. After going some distance he was chased by a panther. Whipping up his horse he rode into Uncle Luther Woodworth's barn. There he was kindly protected and sheltered until the next morning.
In looking backward over the cherished lives of our be- loved parents it gives us great joy and comfort to remem- ber their earnest Christian faith, a rich legacy they left to us. They were faithful members of the Baptist Church and took great interest in all the events pertaining to the wel- fare of the town. Our father was very quiet and a man of few words. The following incident will give an illustration: In our early childhood we used to sleep in a trundlebed, a bed much used for children in those days. My sister and I fell into the habit of contending about which of us had the "most room," our mother often bidding us be quiet. One winter evening after being put to bed, she and father sitting by the table reading, we began our song of contention for the "most room" as usual. After a time father came to our bedside, gently removed the covering and left the room. He presently returned with a four-foot log, well decorated with snow, ice and moss, which he carefully laid between us. He then replaced the bedding and resumed his reading. Of course quiet prevailed in that little bed immediately. After a time father asked us if we thought we could cease from further contention. W^e quickly and meekly replied, "Yes sir." He then removed the log and our dear mother ap- peared on the scene and tenderly removed the wet night dresses, replacing them with dry ones, putting us in her own
Rush ford Families
bed until she could make ours dry and comfortable again. No words were exchanged during the episode nor any al- lusion ever made to it afterward. In later years sister and I have referred to it with considerable amusement. Per- haps it is needless to say that the punishment had its lasting effect. It was the only one our father ever administered to us.
We are still holding the fragrant memories of our happy childhood days in the beautiful village of dear old Rushford.
THE PERRYS H. J. W. G.
IN the early part of the nineteenth century there lived in the old Bay State, near Deerfall River, twenty miles from Boston, three brothers, Othniel, Ebenezer and Ephraim Perry. There must have been something of the spirit of adventure in the family, since as early as 1808 Othniel took out articles for land on the Holland Purchase in township five, range two. As he soon died the land was taken by Ebenezer P. Perry who came to Rushford about 18 13 and settled on land now owned by Mrs. Chauncey Williams, on the Mount Monroe road, three-quarters of a mile south of the schoolhouse on the corner. At the first town meeting he was elected one of the overseers of the poor. He passed his life as a farmer.
Addis Perry of Belfast, son of Josiah Quincy and Em- ily (Knickerbocker) Perry, is a grandson of Ebenezer P. Perry. On an interesting gray-brown headstone in the graveyard west of the village, one may read the following: "In memory of Ebenezer P. Perry who departed this life Sept. 3rd, 1844, aged 67 yrs.
60
l^he Perrys
"jMy flesh sliall slumber in the ground Till Gabriel's joyful trump shall sound."
His good wife, Hannah (Spear) Perry, lived to be four- score years of age.
Ephraim Perry, so far as we know, was the only one of the early settlers who had attended college, though his superabundance of life did not allow him to graduate. On perhaps an unlucky day, to accommodate a friend, he signed a paper with him and thus lost the bulk of his property, so in 1818 with a team and covered wagon, he started for the Holland Purchase where his brother already lived. He settled on the Mount Monroe road, south of his brother's farm, on the farm now owned by C. E. Hartman. For a short time he lived in a log house on land near the Gordon- ville bridge. A stranger calling there, said afterwards that he found the woman weeping; she longed for the comforts and friends left behind in old Massachusetts.
Ephraim being educated beyond his fellows, taught school and was made town superintendent of schools. He was one of the brightest men in Allegany County. He had an excellent memory, was well informed in public affairs and an excellent story teller. It is refreshing, since the majority of the early settlers were Whigs, to find that he was a Democrat. As he had lived so near Boston he must have been somewhat imbued with its intellectual spirit. This, together with the fact that he sharpened his wits by fre- quent discussions with his Whig neighbors, made him so formidable an antagonist that he worsted that ardent Whig, J. B. Gordon, in political controversy.
Ephraim Perry had six children, four of whom were born in ^lassachusetts. Since Massachusetts people ate rye bread, on their journey to the new country, the children had
61
Rush ford Families
their first wheat bread and milk. What a treat it was ! When they came to Rushford there was a log fence up and down Main Street. The roads were so rough that withes were braided and fastened to the carts so that those riding in ihem could have something to hang onto and would not be spilled out.
Ephraim Perry was born in Chesterfield, Massachu- setts ; he died in New Hudson, New York. Chester and Foster Perry, sons of Austin and Julia Perry, are grand- children of Ephraim and Hannah C Jones) Perry. The Perrys are of English descent and are related to the bold and dashing Commodore Perry who won the Battle of Lake Erie and gave us the words, "We have met the enemy and thev are ours."
LUTHER WOOD WORTH, SR. H. J. W. G.
LUTHER WOOD WORTH was born in Coventry, Con- necticut, October i8, 1770. He emigrated to Caven- dish, Vermont ; from that place he moved to Saratoga Springs, and, in 18 13, he settled (as Parker Wood worth says) in "righteous Rushford," where his oldest daughter. Plarmony, who had married John Gordon, already lived. Mr. Woodworth's son, Luther, in company with John W^hite, walked from Vermont to Rushford. Mr. Woodworth lo- cated on Caneadea Creek, on lot twenty-eight, where G. C. Woods now lives. The Indians had underbrushed the woods and used it for a camping ground. A few brush- heaps then marked the site of Rushford village. He and his son Luther rolled back the logs from what is now Main
62
Luther Woochvorlli, Sr.
Street, and early in the forties some of them still formed a part of the fence.
Luther Woodworth, senior, married for his second wife the widow Wheeler, mother of Gilbert and William: and Luther Woodworth, junior, married Lucy, daughter of the widow Wheeler.
When Parker Woodworth, a son of Luther, Sr., by the second wife, was about eight years old, his father moved to Kelloggville, having bought of James Button a part of what was later known as the Colburn farm. Since this land bordered on Caneadea Creek, it was the first land taken up on Rush Creek.
In political belief Mr. Woodworth was a Democrat. When he was feeling well he had a way of holding his lines so his horses would dance. They usually danced when he came from town. Mr. W^oodworth played the clarinet and his son Parker the drum, giving much pleasure to the neighbors. Taking life easy, he never accumulated much property, but he lived to the ripe age of ninety years. Capt: William W. Woodworth, after whom the Rushford Post of the. Grand Army of the Republic is named; and Charles W. Woodworth. so many years lawyer, postmaster, super- visor and justice of the peace in Rushford, were grandsons of Luther Woodworth, Sr. Other grandchildren were Mar- tha (Mrs. Alpheus Howser), Maria (Mrs. James Napier), Helen (Mrs. R. Bonham Laning), and Georgia (Mrs. John Berry). Mrs. Helen Laning, whose home is on the corner of Church and Main Streets, is the only living child of Luther Woodworth, Jr. Parker Woodworth, eighty- nine years old, is living in Girard. Pennsylvania. Chas. Howser, Ralph B. Laning and Genevieve Laning are grand- children of Luther Woodworth, Jr., who live in Rushford.
6.3
Rnshford Families JOHN HAMMOND IT. J. W. G.
JOHN HAMMOND was born in Saratoga County. In 1814 he came from Cayuga County to Rushford and settled on Barber Hill on the land now owned by William Barber; after a number of years he moved to Taylor Hill, living on the farm now owned by E. M. Olney, at the four comers. His oldest son, Horatio Nelson, was born in Cuyaga County in 1812. While living in Rushford, John Hammond married Eliza Butterfield, by whom he had nine children, Lucretia, Hannah, Mary, Ruth, Minerva, Luthan, Thankful, Elizabeth and Benton. These all became iden- tified with spiritualism. Thankful was a medium.
John Hammond was a scholar for the times and all of the children were school teachers. Although in political be- lief he was a Jefifersonian Democrat, two years he was elected supervisor of the town of Rushford. He was promi- nent in the Masonic fraternity. He had been to Olean to address a lodge of Freemasons, when returning home afoot, he became weary and lying down by a spring on Mt. Mon- roe, slept till morning. By trade he was a carpenter. He was also a surveyor. In 1822 he was captain of a company of militia. When his son, Horatio Nelson, was united in marriage to Sophia S. Bennett, he, being justice of the peace, performed the ceremony. John Hammond moved with his family to Pennsylvania in 1850.
When H. Nelson Hammond was a boy, for two or three winters he walked daily from Barber Hill to Mount Monroe to attend school in a log building that stood on the farm now owned by Reuben Lewis; later he attended the Academy at Middlebury (now Wyoming) six weeks. His father in- structed him in land surveying, an avocation which he fol-
64
John Hammond
John Hammond
Horatio Nelson Hammond
lowed a large part of his life. Much of his fund of knowl- edge, which was unusual for that time in Rushford, was ac- quired by reading. When seventeen years old he commenced teaching winter schools ; fourteen of his twenty-six terms were taught in Rushford.
Some time in the thirties he was captain of a company of militia which in accordance with the requirements of the law frequently met to drill. F. Eugene Hammond of Cuba recalls with pleasure the shining epaulets, the cockade hat and the sword with scabbard once worn by his father.
H. Nelson and Sophia L. Hammond were the parents of seven children: F. Eugene, who in 1867 married Emma L. Scott of Cuba; H. Jerome, who married Susie Hendy; Flora A., wife of W. D. Hale; C. De Alton, who married Laura Farwell of Rushford, daughter of Lemuel Farwell ; Aurora S., who died when two years old ; and the twins, Emma F. (Mrs. Elbert Cady). and Eva L. (Mrs. Walter Finch). H. Jerome. Flora A., Emma F. and the widow of
65
Rush ford Families
De Alton live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Eva L. was living at the time of her death.
Intelligence has ever been a mark of a Hammond home.
AMBA ALDERMAN H. J. W. G.
AMBA ALDERMAN was born in Hartford, Connecti- cut, and came to Rnshford in 1814. He bought of the Holland Land Company one hundred acres, four miles northwest of Rush ford village, at three dollars an acre, pay- ing for it in oxen, a pair at a time. He married Rhoba Johnson, daughter of Pomeroy Johnson, who came to Rush- ford in 1814, and lived on the farm now owned by George Cole, on the east road north from the present village, near the bridge. It was Rhoba Johnson who longed for a silk dress. Fnally she possessed the coveted treasure. To be sure jealous eyes looked on, and some said, "How big she feels," while others said, "She hasn't got anything to go with it," but what cared she? She had her dress.
Arthur Alderman, son of Amba Harvey, tells the fol- lowing creepy story about his grandfather: A squaw laid her pappoose down by the fence and a hog belonging to Mr. Alderman ate it up. The squaw ran and told her Indian, who shot the hog. Mr. Alderman's blood was up. He seized the Indian's gun and made him. pay for the hog. The squaw mourned for her pappoose. To Mr. Alderman the loss of a hog meant much.
Two of his sons, Amba Harvey and Chauncey L., served in the Civil War. Amba Harvey came to Rushford village in 1872 and built a steam sawmill in which for more than twenty years he sawed an average of 250,000 feet of
66
.*!
The Freemans
lumber a year. Amba Alderman died January 4, 1868. Mrs. Flora Colburn of East Rushford is a granddaughter of Amba Alderman.
THE FREEMANS H. J. W. G.
IN 1808 Josiah Freeman took a contract for land in town- ship five, range two, of the Holland Purchase. After he had made a few payments, the first of which was three dollars, he died, in 1812. His father, Junia Freeman, being next to kin, came to Rushford in 1814 from Hamilton, Madison County, to secure the title to the land. He brought with him six children, Elijah, Eleazer, Maria, Sally, Zenas and Bethuel. Peter came later. Mr. William Dunham (Uncle Bill Dunham) had been hired to come and clear a place and put up a house in 1813. Junia Freeman lived north of Rushford village, on the farm now owned by Mrs. Lutlier Tliomas and occupied by George Cooper. When Elijah married he lived just above and when Eleazer mar- ried he lived next above him toward Centerville. Junia Freeman had a deed, dated 1818 of the southern part of lot thirty-two, one hundred and ninety-five acres.
Three of Junia Freeman's sons were Baptist preachers, and one daughter, Sally, married the Rev. Eliab Going. Junia Freeman and one of his sons went to Sardinia to build a church. They traveled ride-and-tie, that is, one started on the road on foot; the other, mounted on the horse, rode about a mile, dismounted, tied the horse and walked on. When the one who had started on foot reached the waiting horse, he mounted and rode on past the other for a mile or so. then dismounted, tied and walked on. This was re-
67
Rushford Families
peated until the end of the journey was reached. Bethuel Freeman was thrice married and was the father of eight children: Addison and Burton; Cynthia (Mrs. Mason La Sell), Ellen, who remained single, Albert, and Sarah (Mrs. Asa Hardy) ; Wilbur and Albert. Burton Freeman of Shiocton, Wisconsin, Albert Freeman of Franklinville, and Wilbur Freeman of Rushford are still living.
D. W. Leavens, in reminiscences written in 1890 from Pasadena, California, after visiting with Mrs. Nelson Mc- Call, says, "I could see how old Junia Freeman's high- backed wagon looked as he drove to church on a Sunday morning. It brought to mind the sermons of Eliab Going who always stammered till he got well started. It seems to me now that he always preached from the text -'Godli- ness with contentment is great gain.' (Of course I have no feeling but reverence for these old worthies.) It brought back the time when I used to sing in the Baptist choir and the later time when I was promoted to lead it, and I could almost hear the tenor of Eliab Benjamin and the deep basso profundo of Andrew Kimball and Harrison Hapgood. It brought back the time when 'Thuel Freeman — bless his memory! — brought us a ham for my services as chorister, and good Mrs. John Holmes gave Mrs. Leavens a fine cake of maple sugar for her services as organist."
THE GOINGS Harriett Going Colby
CAPTAIN JONATHAN GOING came to Rushford from Reading, Vermont, in 1814, and settled on the Cen- terville road on what is known as the Talcott farm. The children of Jonathan and Sarah Going occupied the
68
The Goings
northern part of the farm and James, who had married Anna Young in Vermont, occupied the southern part. Early in 1832 James was ordained in Rush ford by a council of delegates from several churches. He afterwards moved with his family to Pennsylvania. Eliab came to Rushford from Ovid, Seneca County, with James AlcCall, in whose employ he was for some years. On the 5th of March, 1818, he married Sarah Freeman, daughter of Junia Freeman. Their children were A. Judson, J. Bradley, Harriett, Kate R., Jonathan R., and J. Freeman. Three are now living, Bradley, eighty-six years of age is living in Michigan, Har- riett, in Holland, New York, and Kate, in Spokane, Wash- ington. In 1819 Ezra received a letter of dismission and commendation from the Baptist Church in Rushford, since they thought he possessed the gift of preaching. The same year the sister of Eliab Going married and his mother died, so he took the farm and his father lived with him. Capt. Jonathan Going was a Revolutionary soldier. He died in 1848 in Aurora, New York, but is buried in the Rushford Cemetery.
Eliab Going commenced preaching about 182 1. He attended Middlebury Academy, under the tuition of Rev. Joshua Bradley. In 1823 he was ordained pastor of the Baptist Church in Rushford. He was connected with an enterprise to benefit the Indians on the Genesee River. A school was established and sustained until the Indians were removed. In 1832 he moved to Franklinville arid preached there one-fourth the time. He organized churches in Hins- dale and Olean and supplied them. He was in Hins- dale, twelve years ; Holland ; Aurora, eight years ; Wales, and other places. At the beginning of the Civil War, he was preaching in Newport, Kentucky, where his sons were in business ; but they all moved to McHenry, Illinois, where
69
Rush ford Families
Eliab Going and his wife died. They were buried in one grave February 28, 1896.
EHab Going was a member of the Masonic Lodge in Rushford in its early existence, and, as an old lady said, "he never pronounced" it, though for many years he did not meet with the order. In the time of the war, a chaplain was needed in the lodge at McHenry so he again met with the order. Some two hundred Freemasons participated in his burial.
Elder Going was often called upon to marry a couple and many pleasing incidents occurred upon such occasions. He married a couple the week before he died ; no one else was wanted. He stammered badly at times ; this was a great annoyance to him. Once when he was very tired, a man, who came for him to marry a couple, said to him, "Elder, you stammer so, I bet you a quart of wine you can never pronounce them husband and wife." The Elder got the wine. One fellow wanted to be married and wait till he harvested his beans before he paid the fee.
Once he went horseback twelve miles over poor and muddy roads to attend a stylish wedding at Great Valley. The bridegroom gave him a fee in a sealed envelope. He felt the coin, it was about the size of a five-dollar gold piece. He did not open the envelope, but when he reached home, he gave the fee, as his custom was, to his wife. She opened the envelope and — lo, a new penny. One Saturday, in later years, when he was traveling in Michigan, he wished to find a place to stay over Sunday ; seeing a man working in a field he drove up to the fence and asked where there was a Baptist tavern. The man said, "li I am not mis- taken, this is Elder Going ; you do not recognize me ?" "No ; I don't" replied the Elder. Then the man asked if he re- membered attending a wedding at Great Valley. "I am the
70
The Orciitts
man that was married. I thought since I was engaged in a lottery I would venture a penny ; I won a prize. Come stop with me." The Elder staid over Sunday and went away with ten dollars.
THE ORCUTTS Allan H. Gilbert
THE Orcutts, a family of Scotch-Irish descent, were settled near Hartford, Windsor County, Vermont, at the time from which the first records have come down. The chief source of information for this time is an old rhyme relating the death of one of the family, which has been handed down to the present time by word of mouth.
One Isaac Orcutt was his name Who lately into Hartford came Residing with his brother James One afternoon went so it seems To cut some runners for his sled. The snow being deep he had to wade Near forty rods to an ash tree The top being dead as you shall see. He cut the tree off from the stump. The top being lodged flew back a chunk Which fell and hit him on the head And crushed him though he was not dead. There the poor sufferer senseless lay All the remainder of the day His charming face plunged in the snow While from his head the blood did flow. No search was made by anyone
71
Rush ford Families
ITntil the setting of the sun
When Mr. Donley and his -son
Alarmed set out upon the run.
They soon beheld him with surprise
And gazed on him with steadfast eyes.
They then supposed him to be dead
Till by a motion of his head.
They took him up and bore him home
Put him to bed in a warm room.
They rubbed his limbs and dressed his wound
And tried to force a cordial down.
P>ut all in vain the passage choked,
His blood was chilled, his skull was broke.
All medicine was then applied
But he on that same evening died.
The friends and neighbors gathered round
The sermon preached by Elder Brown.
His corpse with care was borne away
To mingle with his native clay.
James Orcutt, the brother, with his wife, Deborah Rood Orcutt, and their children came to Cayuga County where at Auburn, January 15, 1808, their daughter Rachel married Andre Bennett. In 181 1 Andre and Rachel, with their daughter Sophronia borne the year before, came to Rush ford and settled near the Six Corners. Some three years later, Rachel's brothers, Samuel and Stephen, arrived in Rushford and settled on land adjoining the farm of Andre Bennett. They were soon followed by their brothers, John and Daniel, their sister, Deborah Orcutt Seavey, and their mother. James Orcutt, the father, lived in Rushford a few years in a house near the Six Corners. In 1814 his name is found in a list of the lieutenants of militia in Allegany
72
The Orcutts
County and in 1816 in a list of the captains. February 12, 1816, he was one of six whose names appear in a petition for the estabhshmcnt of a Masonic lodge in Rush ford, and on March 18, 1817, he left the Angelica Lodge, of which he had been a member, to become a charter member of Rush- ford Lodge. However, he seems to have had no further connection with the lodge for in a list of members from the organization. March 18, 1817, to June 24, 1818, his name does not appear. James Orcutt was elected one of three commissioners of highways at the first town meeting in April, 18 16. The date of the last entry in the town records which contains his name is November 23, 1816.
About the year 1820 Stephen went down the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers to Lidiana. He enlisted in the Seminole war in 1840 and was never heard from again. In 1827 Samuel and Daniel followed Stephen to Indiana.
Though Daniel Orcutt left Rushford so many years ago his memory has been preserved by some of his witty sayings. Once when he went north with a party of men to assist in the wheat harvest of Livingston County one of his companions named Wilcox fell sick. "The great fool," said Orcutt. "ate all he wanted the first meal." The change from the scanty diet of leeks then attributed to Allegany County had been too much. Daniel Orcutt was once work- ing for Deacon Rawson on the County Line Road between Allegany and Cattaraugus counties. One Saturday the Deacon promised to give each of the men a drink of whiskey if they would finish a certain piece of work by night. The work was done, so the Deacon brought out a jug and a glass and commenced to pour out the whiskey which he said was eight years old. ?Ie was not very generous with his whiskey, giving only about a third of a glass to each man. When Orcutt's turn came, taking the glass, he said,
Rush ford Families
"Deacon, did you say this whiskey is eight years old?" "Yes," answered the Deacon. "Well," replied Orcutt, "it looks pretty damned small for its age." Even the Deacon laughed. Though not a steady drinker, Daniel Orcutt some- times indulged in larger amounts of whiskey than that fur- nished by Deacon Rawson. Once he hired two men to help him drink a barrel he had bought. One of them came at seven o'clock in the morning. Orcutt turned him off, say- ing that he didn't want him if he couldn't get there earlier than that. Daniel Orcutt worked for a widow on Rush Creek. When his time was up the woman, who owed him nearly a year's wages, promised to pay him as soon as she sold her oxen. After waiting a long time Orcutt took her oxen from the pasture in broad daylight and drove them off. She had him arrested for stealing, partly, it was hinted, because her hopes of marrying him had been disappointed. When he was brought into court and asked whether he were guilty or not guilty, he replied, "Guilty as hell." So he was sent to State's Prison at Auburn. While he was there he learned to make beautiful coverlids. His sister, Mrs. Andre Bennett, used to think that it did him good to go to prison, because while there he studied the Bible so thoroughly that he was able to repeat large portions of it. He was soon pardoned. One day Elder Warren Bannister, a Methodist circuit rider, labored with Orcutt because of his wild life. The latter listened in silence till the Elder finished. Then he asked permission to reph^ in rhyme and jingled off:
"Elder Bannister's face
Is an open disgrace
To every human creature.
I wonder what the Almighty thought
In making him a preacher."
74
Matthew P. Cady
The Elder said, "That will do," and walked into the house. While in Indiana, Daniel Orcutt did not marry the girl he loved because he feared his drinking habits might cause her unhappiness. Nothing is known of Daniel Or- cutt after he went to the Seminole war. He is thought to have perished in the massacre of Major Dade's command in
1835-
Deborah Orcutt Seavey lived in Rushford until her death. The stone erected over her grave by her daughter Martha, second wife of Parker Woodworth, bears the sim- ple inscription, "My Mother's Grave."
After the death of Andre Bennett, his wife, Rachel, lived with her daughters, Deborah and Rachel. She was one of the early settlers present at the Semi-Centennial. Mrs. Flora Hammond Hale says that she and the other children felt proud to think that grandma who lived with them sat on the stage.
M
MATTHEW P. CADY
H. J. W. G.
ATTHEW P. CADY, of Irish descent, was born in Windsor, Vermont, 1786. It is not known when he came to Rushford, but he was a resident of the place February 12, 1816, since at that time his name appears on a petition to the Grand Lodge of Masons of the State of New York. At the first town meeting he was elected one of the assessors. In 1819 he was elected town clerk, in 1820 supervisor, which ofifice he held for five consecu- tive years. At a session of the board of supervisors held at the public house of Alexander D'Autremont in Angelica, November 16, 1825, he was made clerk of the board. Feb-
Rush ford Families
ruary 26, 1822, he was one of the justices of the peace in Rushford. In 1835 he was one of five elected county superintendents of the poor.
June 4, 1822, he married Lucy Hardy, by whom he had six children, Patrick, Lucy (Mrs. Charles Smith), Perry, Sophia (Mrs. Peter Pettit), Henderson and Har- rison. In accordance with the wishes of his wife, after her death, he married Lucy Tarbell, June 26, 183 1. Two chil- dren were born to them, George Washington and Andrew Jackson.
Mr. Cady owned land on the west side of the Creek road just beyond the bridge, but he lived in the house on Buffalo Street, now the home of Mrs. Caroline Crocker. Matthew P. Cady, John Spencer and others built on Canea- dea Creek, in 1816, the first sawmill in Rushford. Mr. Cady caught cold while lumbering in the Pine Woods and in a week was gone, at fifty-nine years of age. The last day of his life he uttered the words, "Two o'clock and I must give it up." In the First Burying Ground in Rush- ford one may read his epitaph, "Though lost to sight to memory dear." The only descendant now living in town is Bessie Cady, daughter of George Cady,
JAMES McCALL H. J. W. G.
IN 181 5 James McCall, his wife Elizabeth and eight chil- dren came from Ovid, Seneca County, to Rushford where he purchased eight hundred acres of land. He set- tled on the east road, north of the present village, where, in 1816, in one of the first frame buildings in the settlement, he opened the first store. Before long. he moved to the farm on the Caneadea road, now owned by Watkins James.
76
James McCall
He bought and ran the grist mill which had been built
in 1813 by Warren. It stood on land now owned by
Mrs. Julia Walker. "After the almost entire loss of the small crops of the new settlers, in the cold season of 1816, there, as in most of the new settlements upon the Purchase, extreme scarcity of provisions prevailed. The Judge, own- ing a mill, controlled all the grain in the neighborhood, except a little corn that the Indians had upon the Caneadea reservation. He gave orders to sell to no one man over forty pounds of flour or meal; and not to sell to those who had teams, and the means of procuring breadstufif by going out to the older settlements after it. And when his sup- plies became reduced, he restricted the amount to be sold to any one man, to twenty pounds. In this way, the poor- est and most destitute of the new settlers were carried along until the harvest of 1817."
In 18 16 he owned a sawmill on Caneadea Creek. His first grist mill at East Rushford was built in 1818. The second burned many years ago, but the foundation still re- mains and forms part of the wall of the present mill. Carved on a stone at the east end, one may read, "J. McCall & Sons, 1831." In 1847 James McCall & Sons sold their mill to G. Grimard.
For seven years he was a member of the State Legis- lature,* being three years in the Assembly and four in the Senate. "April 10, 1818, an act was passed by the Legisla- ture appointing Thomas Dole of Nunda, John Hoyt of Caneadea, and James McCall of Rushford commissioners to lay out a road on the west side of the Genesee River through the Caneadea Reservation, and to 'agree with and satisfy the Indians owning and possessing said land for their reasonable damages for said roads passing through
*After he came to Allegany County.
•77
Rush ford Families
their improved lands.' $i,ooo was appropriated for the purpose."
1817 was the year of his first appearance as a mem- ber of the Court of General Sessions and the Court of Common Pleas. From this time he was called Judge Mc- Call.
He was one of the constituent members of the "First Baptist Church in Rush ford,'' which w^as organized in 18 16. The family altar which he reared was never neglected, though there were those who thought, since he had so many men in his employ, that it was a great loss of time. Thursday evening the chairs were put into the wagon and he and his family went to the house of prayer. ]\Ir. H. B. Ackerley said that he had heard his mother say that he often closed his testimony in Covenant meeting with these words, "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is. that they might be saved."
James McCall died March 24, 1856, when eighty-two years of age, having hved an honored and useful life. One, riding from Rush ford to Caneadea, observes in a field about a mile from Rushford village, on the left side of the road, a monument. It was erected to the memory of James McCall, his wife Elizabeth, his wife Lydia, his daughter Sophia Gofif, her husband Richard S. Goff, and other mem- bers of the AlcCall family who years ago were buried here in a family lot on the farm :
Children of James and Elizabeth McCall.
Sophia (Mrs. R. S. Gofif), born i8cx).
Milton, born j8oi.
Matilda (Mrs. E. K. Howe), born 1803.
Emily (Mrs. D. Searl), born 1805.
Seneca, born 1807.
Nelson, born 1810.
78
Levi Benjamin
Maria (]\Irs. A. Miner), born 1812.
Ansel, born 1814.
Naomi (Mrs. Ezra Cbase), born 181 5.
Eliza (Mrs. A. K. Benjamin), born 1819.
James, born 1820.
Ira Newell, born 1821.
Catharine (Mrs. P. Rappleye), born 1822.
Jacob, born 1824.
Nelson McCall left Rushford in 1855, but in the seven- ties his son, Elbert, was engaged in the mercantile business in Rushford, on the corner of Main and Church Streets.
One grandchild of James McCall, Mrs. Sophia (Benja- min) Taylor, lives in Rushford.
LEVI BENJAMIN H. J. W. G. EVI BENJAMIN was born in Ashburnham, Massa-
L
chusetts, in 1777. His first wife, Nancy (Willard) Benjamin, mother of Betsey and Nancy, died in 1800. His second wife, Abigail Kendall, was the mother of Sally,* Lucy, Albert, Eliab (1812), Almond (1813), Albert and Charles (1817). His third wife, whom he married in 1842, was Deborah Kendall, a widow. Levi Benjamin had lived in both Windsor and Woodstock, Vt., but came to Rushford from Ovid, Seneca County, in 181 5. How long he had been in Sen- eca County is not known. He settled on lot thirty, on land now occupied by Charles Hall, son of the late Arcelia (Benja- min) Hall. Here he built one of the first log taverns in the town. In one end of the tavern was a loft, the, other end was enclosed for chambers, both w^ere reached by a ladder inside. In the loft prayer meetings were sometimes held.
*Mrs. Daniel Chase, grandmother of Arthur Chase, the vio- linist.
79
Rushford Families I
The bar below, the altar above— incongruous, you say. It 1
would be today, not so a hundred years ago when at funerals there was a bountiful supply of liquors, and minister and mourners, in fact all but the dead, drank.
When Levi Benjamin first came to Rushford his neigh- bors on the north were Josephus Young, Pomeroy Johnson and the Freemans, on the south James McCall, William Gor- don, Tarbel Gordon and John Gordon.
Levi Benjamin was one of the constituent members of the Baptist Church and the first deacon. His log tavern was a historic place for in it was held the first town meeting, at which he was elected constable and one of the overseers of the poor. In 1816 a mail route was opened from Perry to Olean. Rushford then had a postoffice and Levi Benja- min was the first postmaster. May 29, 1817, he joined the Rushford Lodge of Freemasons. Meetings of the lodge were sometimes held in his tavern. Once when there was a candidate for initiation, the girl in the kitchen was heat- ing a griddle red-hot. "What are you doing that for?" said the candidate. "Oh, I don't know," said the girl, "they always have me do that when there is any one to be ini- tiated." The would-be Mason disappeared.
When Levi Benjamin came to Rushford he was in the prime of Hfe. After living forty-nine years on the same farm, he was called hence January 27, 1864. The grand- children who reside in Rushford are Mrs. Sophia E. Tay- lor, daughter of Almond Benjamin; James G. Benjamin, son of Eliab, and Romain Benjamin, son of Charles. Har- rie Hall, who so beautifully decorated the Academy Hall Old Home Week, is a great-great-grandson of Levi Benja- min.
80
SAMUEL PERSONS H. J. W. G.
O AMUEL PERSONS, son of a Universalist preacher, *<J was born in Windsor, \'ermont, February i, 1793' He and his wife, Lucinda Dodge, came to Rnshford from Kingsbury, Washington County, in 1816, when their son, Alonzo, was two years old. After staying a short time with Levi Benjamin, a relative, they moved into a log house on the Alma lot, now a part of the farm of George Eaton on the Creek road. Here were born Samuel, John, Daniel Dodge, Lucinda (Mrs. Philetus Gratton), and Adaline (Mrs. D. Ogden). About 1828 they moved to Podunk where Hosea and Myra ( i Mrs. Joseph Rice, 2 Mrs. Lowell Far- well) were born. All but Myra were born in a log house. They lived many years in Podunk. on the Hume road, in the red house north of the corners, now occupied by W. Vaname. In a shop near this house Alonzo and John Per- sons were the first in town to make sap buckets and sap- tubs. In this way they helped pay for the farm. Dodge Persons was a school teacher of repute. Years later when a boy was being tutored in mental arithmetic Barnes Blanch- ard who was present said, "Why, that's the way Dodge Per- sons used to have us do."
The child Caroline was left motherless, so Mrs. Per- sons, although she had three small children, gave the child of her sister and her husband's brother a home. Mrs. Per- sons remembered with much appreciation the kindness of Luther Woodworth, Jr., who with his ox team came every day when her husband was sick and drew the back log onto the fire.
Since there were some undesirable citizens in the east part of the town. Samuel Persons said it ought to be called Podunk. The name stays and like some other names given
81
Mrs. Myra A. Persons Farwell
David J. Board
in derision, it has come to have a good sound. Samuel Per- sons did not spell it P-o-d-on-q-u-e. Mrs. Persons said that the strife in the "good old times" was to see who should have the best rye-and-Injun bread or who should get her spinning done first.
Alonzo married Pluma Bannister in 1837; Samuel mar- ried Mary Taylor, daughter of Benoni Taylor, in 1841 ; John's first wife was Caroline Gary Woods, whom he married in 1840, his second wife was Nancy Willis; Daniel Dodge married Melissa Spoor; after her death he married Mrs. Saphronia (Hardy) Kimball; Hosea married Mary Tar- bell in 1853 ; after her death he married Olive M. Gilbert.
Samuel Persons was converted when forty years of age and joined the Methodist Church. Alonzo, Samuel, John, Hosea and Myra were also members of the Methodist Church. Lucinda was a Methodist in early life but later joined the Baptist Church. Adaline was a Universalist. All of the children of Samuel and Lucinda Persons spent their closing days in Rushford, except Samuel, who died in De- levan, and Adaline, who died in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Mr. Persons died in 1867. Mrs. Addie (Rice) Davis and Mrs. Nellie (Persons) Metcalf are the grandchildren of Samuel Persons, who reside in Rushford.
DAVID J. BOARD
H. J. W. G.
AVID J. BOARD was born in Castleton, Vermont, July 27, 1792. In 1816 the settlers of Rushford were glad to hear that a blacksmith, David Board, had come. His shop was on the east side of the road north from Elmer's cheese factory just beyond what is now Benjamin Williams'
83
D
Rushford Families house. August 2, 1818, he married in Rushford Laura Ruhama Woods, sister of Daniel Woods.
The following teacher's certificate will be of interest: "We the undersigned Inspectors of Common Schools for the town of Caneadea in the County of Allegany, do certify that we have examined Laura Board and do beheve she is of good moral character and of sufficient learnmg and ability, and in all other respects well qualified to teach a
common school.
"Given under our hands at Caneadea, the eleventh day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight
hundred and eighteen.
"Freeman S. Wilson,
"James Rice, "Daniel Woods, "Inspectors of Common Schools." Oscar F. Board, the only child of David and Laura Board, was born in Bloomfield, Ontario County, February 22 1820 When he was four years old he came with his parents to Rushford. They settled in Podonque on the southern part of lot twenty-two near the meeting of three roads. November 26, 1848, Oscar F. married h'S j:ousin Clarissa Richards. Their two children. Frank M and Anna, were born in the old homestead. Laura Board died in February, 1869, and David Board in August, 1877. Frank M Board, who resides on Church Street in Rushford vil- lage, is the only living grandchild of David Board
Mrs Laura Board used to walk 'cross lots from her home in Podonque to the Methodist Church, wearing her old shoes till she reached the village, when she would ex- change them for her "meeting"' shoes. Once while on her way to church, she fell and broke a rib. but she went on to meeting, saying nothing about her fall until she returned
84
James Kendall
home. On the walls of memory are two pictures of David Board — one of him sitting in one of the front pews of the Methodist Church, the other of him giving a young girl, late in the season, a well preserved russet apple. After all it is the kindly things we remember.
JAMES KENDALL H. J. W. G.
JAMES Kendall, of Enghsh and Scotch descent, was the grandfather of Hartwell Kendall, Mrs. Antoinette Stacy, Riley Morrison and Henderson Morrison. He lived in West Windsor, Vermont. His wife, Dorothy Tarbell, was a cousin of Abel Tarbell and a niece of Jerusha Tarbell, wife of James Gordon, the Scotchman. T, Jefferson Eddy, a cousin of Emerson Kendall, relates that Aunt Dolly, as Dorothy was called, used to wear a scarlet red cloak when she lived in Vermont. Since the land in Vermont was so stony that they had to sharpen the noses of the sheep so they could feed between the rocks, and since they had heard glowing reports of the Holland Purchase as the "land flowing with milk and honey," in 1816, with an ox team and wagon, James and Dorothy Kendall with eight children set out for the "Promised Land." John Hoyt, who came with them, remained on the "River," but they came on to the hills as fever and ague was prevalent on the Genesee flats. It was the ninth day of June when they left Windsor, Vermont ; when they arrived at Caneadea it was the third day of July. They settled in Rushford on lot forty-four, on land now owned by the Kendalls. In the new country they found their way to the village by the blazed trees.
85
Charles Hanford Kendall
James Kendall
James Kendall was a man of unusual strength, never sparing himself; once he hitched himself to a load of ashes and started for the ashery when the horse and wagon were going in the same direction. Morton Pratt called him a beech-bruiser. He excelled in gardening. In politics he was a Whig; in religon he and his wife were Methodists. Dorothy, his wife, used to burn sulphur on coals to im- press her children with a fear of hell. When the circuit rider appeared, the children were always on their good be- havior. James Kendall and wife were among the converts to Mormonism ; but when they reached Nauvoo, Illinois, they left the Mormons.
Once when Mr. Kendall was felling a tree without a top, it struck his rounded shoulders and he exclaimed, ''The Lord have 'marcy' on my soul." He was a restless man, traveling back and forth from the West many times, stopping by the wayside and building a fire for warmth and cooking. When the grandchildren saw a covered wagon heaving in sight, they would exclaim, "Grandpa's coming."
His good wife died when ninety- four years of age. ]\Iissing her strong support, the man of ninety-seven year.s decided to take unto himself another wife. The children objected, as children do, and they wrote to Mrs. Emerson Kendall, asking her to use her influence against the mar- riage. This she refused to do, saying, "Ninety-seven is just the right age to get married." Before the marriage was consummated, the angel of death overtook him and he was laid to rest in Switzerland County, Indiana.
The children of James and Dorothy Kendall were Fanny (Mrs. John Morrison) ; James, who, not liking the country, went back to Vermont; Laura (Mrs. James Mor- rison) ; Emerson, who was born in 1800 and in 1825 married Amanda Gillette; Harriet (Mrs. David Morrison); Per-
87
Rushford Families
melia (Mrs. Chauncey Moore); Lucy (Mrs. Charles Hap- good), and Mary (Mrs. Jonathan Dunham).
The land purchased of the Holland Land Company by James Kendall is now occupied by Hartwell, son of Emerson Kendall, and Charles Hanford, son of Charles B. Kendall. Five generations of Kendalls have lived on this land.
Note — John, James and David Morrison were sons of Ephraim Morrison who came to Rushford sometime between 1816 and 1820. James and David lived on lot forty-three; their farms joined and John lived on the crossroad that extended from the Kendall farm on the West Branch road to the Cream Ridge road. John after- wards moved to Indiana. Sullivan Morrison now owns the farm that belonged to his father, James Morrison, and Mrs. Rachel Kil- mer owns the one that belonged to her father, David Morrison. Charles Pettit of Hardys is a grandson of John Morrison.
(See Revolutionary record of Ephraim Morrison.)
DAVID KINNEY
H. J. W. G.
DAVID KINNEY and his wife, Mary Williston, in company with Ely Woods and Elijah and Jacob Childs came to Rushford from Windsor, Vermont, in 1816, when Mrs. Kinney was twenty-one years of age. They trav- eled with an ox team. Mr. Kinney settled on a ten-acre lot back of the Podonque Cemetery, on a road now dis- carded. Here August 6, 1820, the dinner-horn was blown to announce the birth of a child. They named him Caleb Williston Kinney. He was their only child. Later David Kinney bought a farm on the road north from East Rush- ford and lived in the second house, now vacant, below George Van Dusen's present home. In this house were born his two grandchildren, Mrs. Mary Kinney Beebe of Arcade, and Ida Kinney (deceased). For a number of
88
Daniel Ely
years David Kinney was a member of the Methodist Epis- copal Church ; he afterward joined the Wesleyan Methodist Church.
For his second wife he married the widow Maxwell; in 1859 they moved to Adrian, Michigan, where he died about two vears later.
D
DANIEL ELY.
Julia Williams Straight
ANIEL ELY was born in Southern Connecticut in 1787. He was of English descent. One of his ances- tors came to America in the historic Mayflower in 1620. He was married in 1807. In the course of a couple of years his wife died, leaving him with an infant daughter. Soon after he came to Central New York he met Mrs. May Carrier, a young widow with three children, who had recently come from Massachusetts. She became his wife. They moved to Rush ford in 18 16 and settled on the farm, in later years owned and occupied by Lyman Met- calf. While there, an Indian family was one of their near- est neighbors, and companies of Indians with their entire household possessions upon their backs frequently passed by on their way to better hunting grounds. Sometimes these companies camped in the neighborhood for a few days. These were awe-inspiring times, at least to the younger members of Mr. Ely's family. He remained on this farm about twelve years. Only a few years ago an apple orchard still remained there, the most of the trees having been grown from seeds brought in Mr. Ely's pocket from his former home. In 1827 he moved to a farm on the road from Rush ford to Fairview. Here Mr. Ely lived until
Rushford Families
about 1852, when he sold his farm to his oldest son, C. C. Ely, About a year later he bought a small place a half mile from Fairview on the road leading to Farmersville Center. Here he resided until his death in August, 1864. After his death his widow lived on the old farm with her son and. his family. In 1869 she moved with them to Rush- ford village (Gordonville), where she died a few years later at the advanced age of ninety years.
Mr. Ely was the father of six children, all but one of whom passed the age of "three-score years and ten." The youngest and only surviving child, Mrs. Cornelia Bixby, is now (1908) eighty-six years of age. For the past few months on account of the infirmities of age she has been an inmate of the home of her nephew, William Ely, at Franklinville. Mr. and Mrs. Ely lived together for more than fifty years, and three of their children, C. C. Ely, Mrs. Sarepta Williams and Mrs. Cornelia Bixby, also passed their golden wedding anniversaries.
THE GILLETTES V. R. Gillette
MY grandfather's name was Seth Gillette, and my fath- er's name was Ezekiel Gillette. The Gillettes came from Connecticut to New York State. In 18 17, grand- father moved from Ovid, Seneca County, to Rushford and settled on the hill west of East Rushford, where Colonel Raker now lives. Father, 'at that time, was eighteen years old, having been born February 2, 1799. He died April 17, 1868. Father had one brother, Linus, who left home when a young man and was never heard from after. He had four sisters, Amanda, who married Emerson Kendall;
90
ffi
3 td
O
Rush ford Families
Polly, who married Moses Gillette (he was not re- lated so far as known. Four brothers by the name of Gillette came to America from France) ; Sylvia, who mar- ried Van Lansing Swift; and Elizabeth, who married Lan- sing Buell and settled in Centerville, Michigan. Father married Lorena Swift, sister of Charles and Heman Swift; she was one of sixteen children.
When I was a year old, mother left me at Grandfather Gillette's, while she went up to Buell's Corners, as then called, to Andre Bennett's to get a tooth pulled. While she was gone, grandfather taught me to walk by reaching out his cane ; as I toddled to get hold of it, he would draw it toward him, so I was walking when mother came back.
One day a neighbor, Mrs. Hurlburt, called just before dinner ; grandfather invited her to stop with them for din- ner. "No," she said, "I am going right home." "Then the more need of it," grandfather replied. She, a little riled, said, "You think I haven't got anything to eat." "O, no ; I thought you would need it to help you up the hill ;" then she took off her things and staid to dinner.
Grandfather told that he had a calf that did not live through the winter and died in the spring. That went the rounds amongst the neighbors who could not solve the mys- tery ; so he had to tell them that it fell in the spring near the house where they got their drinking water.
Grandfather was a wooden bowl turner, and father went out peddling the bowls. The first night, when he was out on his first trip, he got in too late for supper, so he had a special one. The girl who waited on the table sat down too, and he was so bashful he couldn't eat, so he nearly starved. That taught him to eat when hungry, if there was a pretty girl looking on.
Father said they were at Eneas Gary's to dinner. When
92
The Gillettes
Gary was asking the blessing, he heard a crash and, look- ing up, saw a Inill in the garden. "Charles, Charles," he called, "that little darned bull is in the garden ; Bony, Bony." The dog didn't wait for his son Charles to open the door, but went right through the window. Then Gary went on and finished his blessing. They all enjoyed the incident.
Grandmother (Anna Warner Gillette) died in 1837. Grand fatiier lived with us on the old farm until his death in 1853. In 1^54 we sold our farm to Washington White.
Story told by C. B. Kendall, grandson of Seth Gillette.
Some time during the early years of the town of Rush- ford a partnership was formed between Seth Gillette and Eneas Gary for the manufacture at East Rushford of wooden measures, bowls, covered boxes and such like, called at that time, calamity ware. Mr. Gillette had no team but the mill and its appurtenances belonged to him, so these, with himself and his son "Zeke" were to offset Mr. Gary's team, himself and his son William.
After supplying their own and the near-by towns with the product of their labors they found they still had a quantity of calamities on hand, so they decided to visit other counties to find a market for their ware. In their journeyings they came to Seneca Lake which they decided to ferry across. When about half way over the boat cap- sized and into the lake went passengers and cargo. The boat righted itself and "Zeke" was the first to reach it. He could see no sign of the others except a rope hanging over the side which seemed to be attached to something in the water. He seized it, clambered in and began to pull. First a pair of boots made their appearance, then some blue jean trousers and a butternut colored shirt with his father
93
Rush ford Families
inside. In the meantime Eneas and his son rose to the sur- face and swam to the boat. While they were getting grand- father Gillette, spitting and sputtering, over the side into the boat, they managed to understand these words, "I want to go home to mammy, I want to go home to mammy," and "home to mammy" he went, in spite of the protests of Eneas and William, in spite of his habits of thrift, and left the calamities to be gathered in by anyone who wished.
ASA BENJAMIN H. J. W. G.
IN 1817 Asa Benjamin and his wife, Abigail Swinerton, and their children left Windsor, Vermont, with an ox team and wagon, a horse and a cow. The cow was milked and the surplus milk put into a churn. The jolting did the churning, so they had both butter and milk on the way. In about three weeks they reached Podonque and settled on the farm now occupied by George Neal.
Mr. Benjamin was a shoemaker and stone mason. He made boots and shoes and laid chimneys for his neighbors and they in return worked on his land. He raised flax, and linen sheets, towels and table cloths of various patterns were woven by the family. Miss Gratie Coburn has sam- ples of her mother's weaving marked P. P. B. Mrs. Benja- min was a tailoress of unusual skill. After seeing a suit of clothes on a person she could cut and make a suit like it. Mr. Benjamin had a cider mill to which the farmers brought their apples in the fall, carrying away barrels of cider to be used as a beverage or for vinegar or, if sweet, to be boiled down for cider apple sauce.
In 1817 he was appointed justice of the peace. He
94
Elijah Lyman
served seventeen years. His judgment must have been es- teemed, since he was frequently called upon to settle disputes. The latch string at his house was always out and if anyone needed help he was taken in. While they were living in Ver- mont, Oliver Davis, born in Windsor, Vermont, March 12, 1806, was left motherless, so he was taken as their own. It was casting bread upon the waters, since he tenderly cared for them in their declining years. The Red Man appearing at the door and saying, "Me hungry," went away full. Asa Benjamin was a Whig but, although he lived in Podonque, he was not a Methodist. One of the grandchildren remem- bers the green-covered Bible at the head of grandmother's bed. In Vermont she belonged to a sect called Christians. The sick she visited to minister to their needs. Asa Benja- min died in 1853 when seventy-one years of age. Miss Gratie Colburn, Airs. A. Fraser and Miss Flora Colburn are his grandchildren who reside in Rush ford.
ELIJAH LYMAN H. J. W. G.
ELIJAH LYMAN, of English and Scotch descent, was born in Weathersfield, Windsor County, Vermont, in 1783. When nineteen years of age he moved with his father to Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. In 1803 he married Prudency Carrier of Hebron, Connecticut. He en- listed in the War of 1812 and started for Buffalo, but hear- ing of the great victory of the Americans over the British in the Battle of Lake Erie, he returned home. In 1817 he left Lymanville, Pennsylvania, and with his wife and four children, Reuben, Emily (Mrs. Albert Woods), Maranda (Mrs. Aaron Eaton), and Dolly (Mrs. WilHam Bradford),
95
Rushford Families
came to Rushford, traveling with an ox team. He settled first on the east road extending north from the present vil- lage, but later he purchased the farm on the Creek Road now owned by Frank Gordon, where he spent the remainder of his life. Four children were born in Rushford, Alonzo, Sally (Mrs. Perry Cady), Densmore and Gideon. Gideon bore the name of his grandfather, his great-grandfather and his great-great-grandfather.
Elijah Lyman was a shoemaker. He traveled in Canea- dea, Belfast and Centerville, carrying his tools with him, staying a week at a house and making boots and shoes for the entire family. The leather was furnished by those for whom he worked. He was also a worker in wood. Like a true-born Yankee, he did not need a turning lathe to make the things he could whittle. His granddaughter. Miss Ellen Lyman, has a rolling-pin made by him with a jackknife. The logs of which his house was made were hewn so as to make smooth walls in the interior.
He was tall, erect, vigorous and active, nervous in tem- perament and well versed in all the afifairs of the day. In religious convictions he was a Methodist. Being very strict in the observance of the Sabbath he would prepare for the Holy Day on Saturday afternoon. Grace was said before each meal, the family being seated, and thanks returned after the meal, the family standing. He loved his country,, his home and his family. "Boys," he would say, "be careful not to disgrace your name ; it never has been disgraced."" The following incident illustrates his quiet determination : He was working on his farm, when a man in an adjoining field commenced w'hipping his horse, finally he began maul- ing it with a fence rail. Mr. Lyman could stand it no longer ; springing Over the fence and calling the man by name he
96
The Butterfields
said, "You have whipped that horse enough." The man looked at him and stopped.
Since Mrs. Lyman understood the medicinal properties of plants, she was often called to care for the sick. One of their neighbors being ill, it was understood by Mr. and Mrs. Lyman that if they heard a horn blow they were to come at once. The horn blew, they lighted their perfor- ated tin Hntern and following the marked trees went afoot to Fairview.
In the early morning of November 13, 1833, while it was yet dark, Mr. Lyman started for Caneadea with a bag of corn on his shoulders. As he went his way, small shoot- ing stars, which fell like snowflakes, interspersed with balls of fire, the whole followed by luminous trains of wonder- ful colors, made the most magnificent sight his eyes had ever beheld. He thought perhaps the end of the world had come, but he kept on going to mill. It proved to be a sub- lime meteoric shower seen all over the United States.
I cannot forbear mentioning the unusual afifection ex- isting between the two sons, Alonzo and Densmore, who, having one pocketbook, lived and worked together in har- mony until death separated them. Elijah Lyman died in 1 871, when eighty-nine years of age.
THE BUTTERFIELDS H. J. W. G.
OLR'ER BUTTER FIELD was born in Granby, Massa- chusetts, in 1792. Lodensy (Tilly) Butterfield, his wife, was born in the same place in 1793. Two children were born to them in Chesterfield, Massachusetts, Lucinda in 1816, and Lodensy in 1817. About 1818 they all came
97
Rush ford Families to Rush ford and settled on the Cuba road across from the present Enghsh farm. During the winters of 1823, 1824 and 1825 Ohver taught school in a log schoolhouse on ■or near the farm on the Mount Monroe road, now owned by Reuben Lewis. F. E. Hammond of Cuba has in his pos- session one of his father's writing books, the copies of "which were set by Oliver Butterfield. He was one of the first music teachers in town. In 1821 he was chosen chor- ister in the Baptist Church. Five more children. Electa, Jerusha, Louisa, Lucina and Minerva, were born in R.ush- ford. He then had seven daughters all of whom became Spiritualists and nearly all of whom were school teachers.
He moved with his family to a farm near the eastern line of the town of Cuba, adjoining Friendship. After- ward he and his wife went with their daughter, Lodensy, and her husband, David Scott, to Lake Mills, Wisconsin, where they both died in 1854, the first summer after their re- moval. Lodensy Butterfield Scott was the mother of Mrs. F. E. Hammond and Cora L. V. Richmond, a noted writer and lecturer on Spiritualism and pastor of a church in Chi- cago, Illinois, the only Spiritualist church in existence. Jerusha (Butterfield) Vreeland was the mother of Oliver Vreeland, now dead, but for many years Judge of the County Court of Cattaraugus County. He was a graduate of the old Rushford Academy. Another son of Mrs. Vreeland is the Hon. Edward B. Vreeland, now a Congressman from the Thirty-seventh District of New York State.
Not long after Oliver Butterfield settled in Rushford his mother, Hannah, a widow of Solomon Butterfield, came with her children from Chesterfield, Massachusetts, and settled on the farm now owned by Reuben Lewis. The children of Solomon and Hannah (Giddings) Butterfield were: Oliver; Elijah, born at Westhampton, Massachu-
The Butterfields
setts, in 1796, died at Cuba, N. Y., in 1848; Electa, born at Westhampton, Massachusetts, in 1798; Clarissa, born at Chesterfield, Massachusetts, in 1805, died in Pennsylvania; Eli, born at Chesterfield, Massachusetts, 1808, died in New Hudson ; Horace, born at Chesterfield, Massachusetts, in 181 1, died at Portville, New York. Electa married Charles Swift, Jr., Clarissa married Salmon Chamberlain, and Eliza married John Hammond. Mrs. Alice (Williams) Brecht, teacher of vocal music in the Rushford Union School in 1900- 1901, is a descendant of Solomon and Hannah Butter- field.
The following story is told by Hon. Edward B. Vree- land : "Just at the commencement of the Civil War my father (Simon Vreeland) bought the Salmon Chamberlain farm about three miles from Rushford village. I can just remember it as a very small boy. When the time for making the first yearly payment came around, my father drew from the Cuba National Bank the money he had saved up during the year to make the payment. The bank paid him in green- backs, the first that had been seen in Allegany County. When these were tendered in payment to Mr. Chamberlain, he strongly objected to receiving them, insisting that they had no value, that the result of accepting them would be to cheat him out of his farm. The result of it was that he paid back to my father the money that had been paid him on the purchase price and we moved back to Cuba, so I came very near being brought up near the village of Rush- ford."
99
Rush ford Families
CHARLES HAPGOOD
Emer Corse
CHARLES HAPGOOD was born in Reading, Vermont, in 1790. He married in Rushford, November 5, 1820, Lucy, daughter of James Kendall. They lived many years on the West Branch road on the farm now owned by Riley Morrison, about a mile and a half from the village. To them were born seven children. Harrison, born in Rush- ford, November 5, 1824, married Adaline, daughter of Nathan C. Kimball, and after her death married, May 30, 1868, Mrs. Aristone (Charles) Bannister; Harriet married Perry Corse ; she died when thirty-two years of age, leaving three young children ; Emily married William Emerson ; Dexter married Julia Corse and removed to Chautauqua County ; Charles, Jr., who remained single, lived in Roches- ter; Jane married George Williams and in the latter part of her life lived in Battle Creek, Michigan; Washington mar- ried Anna Bishop. Charles Hapgood died November 4, 1847. Two of his grandchildren, Emer and Elbert Corse, live in Rushford.
THE TAYLORS
SILAS TAYLOR and Lydia Towne, both of Granby, Massachusetts, were married in South Hadley, Mas- sachusetts, April I, 1790. The children of Silas and Lydia Taylor were Ozial, Justus, Allen, Clarissa, Roxanna, all born in Granby, Massachusetts ; Roland, born in Connecti- cut; Zebina, born in BrooUfield, Vermont; and Alzina, Ma-
NoTE — The matter for this sketch was taken largely from the "History of John Taylor" by Elbert O. Taylor.
The Taylors
rilla and George, probably born in Wilbraham, Massachu- setts.
Allen was the first of the Taylor family to "go West." A little before 1820, he started for the "Holland Purchase," a tract of land in Western New York which in 1800 had been opened for settlement. He made the journey on foot, and located a piece of land, known as lot 40, in the town of Rushford. Shortly after, he returned to Massachusetts, selling out his interest to a Mr. Hall, who built a house on the eastern half of the lot, occuping it, however, but a short time. In the spring of 1820, Ozial, then twenty-eight years of age, with but seven or eight dollars in his pocket, set out for the same place, footing it all the way, except when he could catch a ride. Upon his arrival he had only seventy- five cents left. With this he bought an ax and commenced clearing the western half of lot 40, where he built a log house. After living alone in it for several years, one of his sisters came from the East and kept house for him until her marriage. In 1823 Zebina came, having walked nearly all the way, as the others had done. He lived with Ozial two or three years, then returned to Massachusetts ; but in October, 1828, he and Allen, with their wives, and Riley made the journey, traveling with horses and wagons. Allen took back the land left by Mr. Hall, and Zebina located a little farther west. About 1830, Ozial returned to Massa- chusetts for his father and mother, Lydia and Silas, who lived with him until their deaths. About the time of Lydia's death, which occurred December 18, 1833, Roxanna and her husband, Laartus Fuller, came.
These plucky pioneers chopped and cleared their lands, exchanging work to get oxen to do their logging, made potash and raised young cattle, thus paying the Holland Land Company in instalments for their homes. Ozial, Allen,
Rush ford Families
Zebina, Justus and George of Silas' sons, and Benoni, a half- brother of Silas, Riley and David, sons of Benoni, all lived at various times in one neighborhood, which came to be and still known as "Taylor Hill." Plin A. Taylor and his son, Roy, and Verner, Irwin and Elmer, sons of Edwin Taylor, are the Taylors now living on Taylor Hill. In 1877, Ansel M. Taylor moved from the old homestead to Rush- ford village where he engaged in mercantile business. He was a loyal and influential member of the Baptist Church, and a public-spirited man in the community. Plin A. Tay- lor, son of Allen, and Edwin Taylor, son of Zebina, are the only Taylors of their generation living in Rushford. Frank L. Taylor, son of Ansel M., and Dell, son of Philo, live on West Main Street in Rushford village.
B. T. HAPGOOD AND FAMILY H. J. W. G.
ABOUT the year 1821, Bates Turner Hapgood came from Windsor, Vermont, to Rushford. For a time he was in the employ of James McCall but it was not long before he opened a store and, being a man of good judg- ment and upright character he was prosperous in business. He purchased land on the west side of Lower Street not far from the bridge. The white house with green blinds and Greek columns, now owned by Dr. Fred C. Ballard, was built by him and was his home for many years. The balus- trade which once adorned the roof has long since been re- moved.
In 1 82 1 Mr. Hapgood was baptized by a missionary and joined the First Baptist Church in Rushford. In 1847 he was chosen deacon, having previously served his church
B. T. Hapgood and Family
as clerk. Being interested in educational matters, he was made president of the board of trustees when the Rush- ford Academy was organized in 1852.
January 25, 1826, Bates T. Hapgood was united in marriage to Alzina Taylor, sister of Ozial Taylor. Lucia C, born March 27, 1831, was the only child of Bates Tur- ner and Alzina Hapgood who hved to maturity. She became the wife of Orrin T. Higgins of Rush ford, a man of pleas- ing address and fine business ability. By mercantile business, begim in Rush ford and later extended to other towns and' by investments in timber land in several Western States^ he accumulated a large property.
Mrs. Higgins was a woman of engaging social quali- ties. Her ready wit is illustrated by the following anecdote : A doctor from the West was visiting in Rush ford. As he sat in the stores, he entertained people by telling stories. He said, among other things, that he had performed eight amputations of the leg in one day. "Was there a railroad accident?" inquired a physician present. "Oh, no," was the reply. Mrs. Higgins in making a journey through the West stopped at the place where the doctor lived. Upon her return, as a well known physician was passing the house,, she ran out .to the gate to tell him of her trip, saying that she had visited at the home of this doctor. "How large is the place where he lives?" inquired the physician. "Oh, it's about the size of East Rushford," said Mrs. Higgins, "but I noticed a peculiarity about the inhabitants^ — nearly every man had but one leg." When the Annual Confer- ence of the Methodist Episcopal Church was held in Rush- ford in October, 1863, Mr. and Mrs. Higgins entertained the renowned Bishop Simpson. The pleasure must have been mutual, since a friendly correspondence ensued.
The children of Orrin T. and Lucia C. Higgins were, 103
Rushford Families
a child who died in infancy, Clara Alzina Hapgood who married Frank S. Smith of Angelica, and Frank Wayland who was born in Rushford, August i8, 1856. Frank Way- land Higgins was educated at the Rushford Union School, the Riverview Military Academy at Poughkeepsie and a Commercial College at Binghamton. While in business in Michigan, he married Katherine C. Nobles, daughter of Mrs. Aldura Bell Nobles, who formerly lived in Rushford. Soon after his marriage he removed to Olean, New York, where he resided until his death in 1907. His successes were not simply those of the merchant or banker. He served nine years as State Senator from the Fiftieth Dis- trict, two years as Lieutenant-Governor, and in 1904 was elected Governor of New York State. In a letter dated De- <;ember 7, 1904, R. C. Grames, Methodist minister, wrote the following: "Having a knowledge of Frank W. Higgins in his boyhood home, Rushford, and in his present home, Olean, for once in my life I turned aside from a straight Prohibition ticket, deeming it a privilege to help elect a man who will, I believe, govern this great State in fidelity and in- tegrity and for the best interests of the people." A lady who highly esteemed the late Governor Higgins, said that whenever he did her a favor, it was with so gracious a manner that it seemed as if he were the one who was being favored. On his fiftieth birthday Governor Higgins had a desire to visit the place of his birth, so, with two of his friends, he came in an automobile to Rushford. A picture taken at the time shows him standing on the steps of the house where he was born. This was his last visit to his native town.
Bates Turner Hapgood, Alzina (Taylor) Hapgood, Lucia (Hapgood) Higgins and Orrin Thrall Higgins are all buried in the Rushford Cemetery.
104
THE TARBELLS H. J. W. G.
ABOUT 1854 Thomas Tarbell, the fifth in Hne of de- scent by that name, with his wife, Esther (Smith) Tarbell, and six children, the youngest of whom was Jerusha (Mrs. James Gordon), moved from Groton, Massachusetts, to Mason, New Hampshire, where three other children were born. The youngest of these was Edward who, in Town- send, Massachusetts, December 14, 1786, married Rachel Hildreth. Many years of the married life of Edward and Rachel Tarbell were passed in Mason, New Hampshire, where, probably, all of their eleven children were born. Later they moved to Cavendish, Vermont.
In 1820, two of their sons, James, a married man, and Abel, a boy of eighteen, left Cavendish, Vermont, for the Holland Purchase, with their belongings on a wood-shod sled drawn by a pair of steers. Since the journey was long, the steers became foot-sore, lying down whenever James and Abel stopped to talk with people by the way. When they arrived at Rushford, they had only a shilling between them. This they soon spent, then they went to work. They settled on lot fifty-two, about a mile and a half west of the village. The land is now owned by M. M. Tarbell. In 1824 their father and mother and brother Joseph and sister Lucy came and lived with Abel, who at this time was un- married. In after years Abel used to tell of lumbering on the Baptist lot during the day and then cutting three-foot wood for the fireplace at night.
Abel Tarbell married in Farmersville, New York. Julia Mills, who was born in Livermore, Maine. August 10, 1801. Their children were: Nelson, born in 1826; Mary (Mrs. Hosea B. Persons) ; Emeline (Mrs. William Babbitt) ; Amelia (Mrs. Igel Peck) ; Louis;
Rnshford Families
Alyra ( Airs. Oiiincy Chamberlain) ; and Miles M., who was born in 1840. Nelson married Lucinda, daughter of Salmon Chamberlain. Louis remained single. Miles mar- ried Elsie, daughter of Alonzo Farwell ; after her death he married Janette, daughter of John W. Hill; she died in November, 1874; he afterwards married Julia Bosworth, daughter of Emory Bosworth of Belmont. The sons of Abel and Julia Tarbell were farmers and the daughters , became the wives of farmers. At one time in their early married life, Mary, Emeline and Amelia all lived in the Cream Ridge school district. In 1881 Miles M. purchased the Tarbell House of which he is now the proprietor. He and Myra, who lives with her son at Farmers Valley, Penn- sylvania, are the only living children. Nelson died in Cuba, Emeline in Dunkirk, and Mary, Amelia and Louis in Rush- ford.
Abel Tarbell and his wife were members of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church.
In 182 1 ]\Irs. James Tarbell and her two children came from Vermont to Rushford where Dana was born. Not long after, James Tarbell and his family settled in Farmersville. One of his grandchildren, Mrs. W. W. Mer- rill, daughter of Dana, lives in Rushford.
Four sisters of James and Abel Tarbell, Amelia (Mrs. Newberry Eddy), Edith (Mrs. Nahum Ames), Sally (Mrs. Asa Brooks), and Lucy (Mrs. Matthew P. Cady), settled in Rushford ; the other sisters, Mrs. Betsy Wright and Mrs. Rachel Hardy, remained in Vermont.
The youngest descendant of Abel Tarbell. by the name of Tarbell, living in Rushford, is Theodore Hyde, son of another Abel Tarbell.
106
CHAPMAN BROOKS H. J. W. G.
CHAPMAN BROOKS was born in Paris, Oneida County, October 9, 1799. In 1820, through the influence of Dr. Horatio Smith, he came to Rushford. coming afoot with a pack on his back. His first meal in town, which he ate at Ephraim White's on the hill this side of East Rush- ford, consisted of hulled corn and molasses. In 1821 he mar- ried Maria Roberts of Otisco, Onondaga County. They went on their wedding trip in a lumber wagon to Rushford, where they commenced housekeeping in a log house on the Cream Ridge road. This house had two large doors op- posite. They were surprised one day to see an Indian with a deer on his shoulders passing through the house. Since Mr. Brooks, when teaching school, left home Monday morn- ing and the neighbors were far away, sometimes Mrs. Brooks would not see a person to speak with until her husband re- turned Saturday night.
Five children were born to them, Caroline (Mrs. Dr. W. B. Alley), Cynthia (Mrs. C. W. Woodworth), Mary J. (Mrs. S. R. Remington), Homer, who married Philinda, daughter of Elihu Talcott, Amelia (Mrs. D. Atkins). On this side of the hill south of the village where there is an old orchard and where roses bloom, Mrs. Woodworth was born in a log house. Homer Brooks was born April 22, 1840, in the Brooks Hotel, now the Tarbell House, which his father kept a number of years. Mrs. Brooks used to tell with pride that she had baked a barrel of flour in one day. Mrs. Alley and Mrs. Atkins are living in Nunda, Mrs. Remington in Topeka, Kansas, and Homer Brooks in Rush- ford. Mrs. Woodworth died in Rushford in 1902.
When Mr. Brooks considered himself still a middle- aged man, some one said to him, "Uncle Chapman." He
107
..■■»»''8W»'V''TOTT^«t™»»«*>-
Cynthia A. Woodworth
The Searls
did not look up. Again, "Uncle Chapman." Still he did not look up. "Mr. Brooks." Then he heard. He was justice of the peace many years. His mental powers were good and with opportunity he would have made a scholar. He died in Rushford in 1880.
THE SEARLS. H. J. W. G.
DAVID SEARL was born in Rowley, Massachusetts, September 5, 1776. July 20, 1787, he married Judith Cragin of Temple, New Hampshire. Here three of their children were born. In 1791 they moved to Cavendish, Ver- mont, where fourteen other children were born to them. About 1814 David Searl with three children, David, Dolly and Lucy, set out for the Genesee country ; they reached Centerville, New York, and made their home on the top of Hamilton Hill. The next year the remaining members of the family came to Centerville. They lived here until 1823 when Mr. Searl bought improved property in Rushford. His land was on Lower Street extending from Main Street south to the Chase farm, the boundary line of which was between what are now the residences of George Gant and Frank E. White. The Searls family lived in one of the first framed houses in the village. A part of this house is now a part of the dwelling of W. F. Benjamin, and it was built by Elder Warren Bannister. Later, on the east side of the street farther south, Mr. Searl built a house and shoeshop combined, back of which on land now owned by Miss Ellen Lyman, he had a tannery. He donated the land for the First Burying Ground in Rush- ford, reserving a right of way from West Main Street near
109
Rashford Families the big elm. The deed of this property from David and Judith Searl to David Searl, Horatio Smith and Matthew P. Cady, trustees, bears the date May i, 1832.
David Searl and his wife returned to Centerville. He and his neighbor, James Tubbs, were both deaf in their later years. They used to meet at the line fence, and of course talked very loud. Afterwards Mr. Searl would say that he and Uncle jimmy had been talking privacy. David Searl died February 4, i854, and Judith Searl December 16, 1859, at ninety-two years of age.
Seventeen children were born to David and Judith Searl, two of whom died in infancy. Sarah married Lawson Hoyt of Connecticut. Dolly married Packard Bruce, one of the pioneers of Centerville. They were the parents of Mrs. Henry M. Teller, who was once a student in Rush- ford Academv. Salome married Justice Dayton of Canea- dea Saphronia married Rufus Adams. Alfred and David died at two years of age. Mary and Judith remianed single. Teremv remained single ; he is buried at Centerville. Nancy Harriet married Harry W. Bullock of Belvidere ; she died in 1831. Lucy married Milton McCall. David, 2nd, mar- ried Emily, sister'of Milton McCall. Daniel H. married Julia Lasell of Centerville. Steadman B. married Olive Lasell of Centerville. John D. V. died in 1830 at the age of twenty-four. David, 2nd, and his wife joined the Baptist Church in 1825. Steadman Searl and Lucy Searl McCall were also members of that church. The father and mother, Mary, Judith. Nancy Plarriet, Lucy, John and Olive, wife of Steadman, are buried in the First Burying Ground in Rush- ford.
Daniel H. Searl was born in Cavendish, Vermont, Feb- ruary 22, 1804. At first he was connected with his father in the shoe shop and tannery ; later he conducted the busi-
Samuel White
ness alone. James Green was foreman of his shop in 1832, followed by John Doland in 1840. ATr. Searl sold his land to Washington White. In a Republican Era of November, 1847, D. H. Searl advertises "Boots, Shoes and Clothing for sale in No. 5 Union Block at Riishford." About 1852 he purchased the Oramel Grififin corner and carried on mer- chant tailoring for a few years. He was a far-seeing man. In the fifties he prophesied the steam harvester and the automobile. The Searls were prominent in the development of the town.
XoTE — In writing the Searl paper I am indebted to Mrs. Har- riet Searl Haskins and Mrs. Augusta Searl Sheldon. — H. J. W. G.
SAMUEL WHITE Helen J. White Gilbert
SAMUEL WHITE, son of Thomas and Betsey (Lincoln) White, was born on his father's farm in Cavendish, Vermont. January 16, 1795. Percy Snow was born Novem- ber 8, 1797. She lived in a part of Cavendish called Whites- ville. Samuel White and Percy Snow were married, or, as Homer White of Randolph, \"ermont, once said, "Snow was made White," November 26, 1818. In the fall of 1821, with two small children, Washington and Henry Kirke, they left Cavendish for the Holland Purchase. After reach- ing Rushford they purchased seventy-five acres of land on the east side of Upper Street, portions of which are now owned by Ida (White) Woods of Rushford and Newell White of East Aurora, grandchildren of Samuel White.
The house which he built by degrees is in part occu- pied by Airs. Jane \Miite and her daughter, Jennie. In the early day it was of New England fashion, with a long slop- ing back roof, a large hall in the center and small window
Rush ford Families
Frank E. White and Sons, Thomas and Robert
lights. It was painted red, trimmed with white, and had green blinds. Stone steps led from the street to the front door and in the narrow front yard were balsam trees. It is said that in this house he kept store and kept tavern, a fav- orite occupation of the early settlers.
The first schoolhouse in town was a log building which stood where the store of F. H. Metcalf and Company now stands. It was here that Samuel White, the teacher, said to a strapping boy, "Take off your coat, sir!" Someone has said that nothing has made so many boys smart as the black birch of New England. Wilson Gordon of Topeka says that Samuel White was the best mathematician in town. His
I
Sanuicl White
name appears as a surveyor in the town records of Rush- ford of the year 1822. He framed the Academy and all but one of the churches in the village. Six years he was supervisor of the town, having been elected the first time in 1826. He was justice of the peace so many years that he was usually spoken of as "Square" White. More than anywhere else one could find Samuel White seated before a large desk writing. Among the papers which he left is a letter with regard to two Revolutionary pension claims. It is dated July 21, 1854, and signed by Jeft'erson Davis, Sec- retary of War.
How fond he was of children ! One of his grand- children recalls with pleasure the following little incident : Arlie.* Frankf and George§ were standing back of a chair, playing they were calves, and grandpa with a bowl of bread and milk was feeding them between the slats. When grandma said, "You'll spill that milk feeding them in here," he answered, "No. I won't," and on he kept. Wlien Henry brought home his young bride, Marena Sears, the mother, an embodiment of New England thrift, started them in life with this advice, "You must make one hand wash the other." In speaking of washing machines Mr. White once said, "In the old times they had washing machines that could scold." When the grist mill at East Rushford burned, Mr. White vvith many others took his pail and went to the fire. The next morning when the family were speaking of the fire he said, "What fire?" To their surprise he knew nothing of having been out the night before.
The foundry that stood on the corner of Main and Church Streets, next to Mrs. Laning's, was erected in 1844 by James and Luther Gordon, but during almost its entire
*Mrs. A die White Ives. tF. E. White. §George Blanchard.
113
jii.*SS»».
Henry Kirke White
Samuel White
existence it was owned by one or more members of the White family. Samuel White had the first cider mill in town. His second cider mill was built on the hillside back of H. K. White's (now Mrs. D. W. Woods') house. In the upper part of the mill were two upright wooden cylinders, on one of which were knobs fitting loosely into holes in the other. Between these cylinders, wliich worked in opposite directions, the apples were crushed, the pomace falling into a large shallow vat. A horse walking in a circle around the vat, moved the lever which turned the motor wheel. In the lower part of the mill was a grooved platform on which straw was placed, then a layer of pomace, then straw, and so on till the cheese was about three feet high. A board cover was then placed on top and the mass pressed by means of blocks, a screw and a hand lever, until all the juice had trickled into the tub below. The cider was then barrelled and drawn away by the farmers who had brought their ap- ples to be ground.
Not long since a man spoke of Oliver Benjamin, E. P. Richards, James Green and Samuel White, supporters of the Universalist Church, as men noted for uprightness of character. Samuel White was too honest to trade horses. He would bring a rack-a-bones into the yard and take it away fat, to return with another hungry horse. Since he was extremely hospitable, no one was ever in his house about meal time without being urged to stay to the meal. Although he was temperate in all things, the pitcher of cider was always on the bureau, near his compass, and each caller was asked to partake. This was courtesy.
He used to say that he was one-quarter Irish. He might have said that his grandfather, Samuel White, was a Revolutionary captain, that he was descended from one \\'illiam White, a Mayflower pilgrim and that John White,
115
Rush ford Families
a bishop in the Church of England, was an ancestor of his, but he did not, he was a modest man. I can see him now, short, square-built, dignified, kindly. How I love to do him honor!
Samuel White died May 15, 1874, and Percy White died September 20, 1875. Four of their children were born in Rushford, Ouincy in 1823, Thomas Jefferson in 1826, Ellen in 183 1, and Stellah in 1835. Washington White and Abigail Willard were married by the Rev. C. W. Gillam, at the home of Joel Griffin, January 25, 1844. Washington was for many years a merchant in Rushford. He, with Congdon and Dickinson, built the Concrete Block. Henry White and Marena Sears were married at the home of Elmer Sears in Great Valley, July 16, 1843. Quincy White and Emily Blanchard were married by the Rev. Mr. Lord, October 23, 185 1. After the death of Emily, Quincy mar- ried, September 10, 1862, Jane Blanchard, a cousin of his first wife. For many years he and Barnes Blanchard owned the foundry. Stellah married Barnes Blanchard, July 18, 1855. Henry, Quincy and Stellah lived nearly all their lives on the street on which they were born. Thomas mar- ried Adaline Swift, June 21, 1856. He died in the Civil War. Ellen married John A. Hubbell, May 13, 1856. She now lives in Oklahoma and is the only surviving child of Samuel and Percy White. The other children all died in Rushford, Washington in 1889, Quincy the same year, Henry Kirke in 1894, and Stellah in 1900.
THE GRIFFINS H. J. W. G.
ORAMEL GRIFFIN, son of Joel and Submit Griffin, was born in S wanton, Vermont, March 26, 1794. In early life he removed with his parents to Malone, then in
116
The Griffins
St. Lawrence County, where he experienced the struggles incident to a pioneer Hfe. After laboring all day he would study at night by the light of burning chips. On reaching maturity he started out to seek his fortune, commencing in Moscow, Livingston County, where he was first a clerk, then a teacher, and finally a partner of one of his employers. In 1822 he opened, in a log building, the second store in Rushford.
For a time he boarded at Cephas Young's tavern where he was taken ill and was nursed by Miss Caroline Gary, daughter of Eneas Gary, who afterwards became his wife. Mrs. Griffin died February, 1848, leaving in his care three children, Lovina, Solon W., and Jackson. Mr. Griffin never married again. When Mr. H. B. Ackerly was a boy he went with his mother to Oramel Griffin's store. Hearing music he asked his mother what it was. "It's a piano," she replied. It belonged to Miss Achsah Griffin, daughter of Oramel Griffin, and was the first piano brought into town.
In 1848 Mr. Griffin seemed to be preparing to leave Rushford as he wished all notes and accounts to be paid, and advertised for sale "his valuable property on the corner of Main and Commercial Streets in the village of Rushford, consisting of a store and dwelling house attached, a store house, two dwelling houses, an office, barns, and lots of about one-fourth acre each." About 1850 he made a large purchase of land in the town of Caneadea and moved to Oramel, a place named in his honor, which sprang up as if by magic on the Genesee Valley Canal of which it was for some time a terminus. Later in life he was engaged in business operations in the Western States where three of his four children settled.
Mr. Griffin was an energetic and successful business man, able to help those less favored than he. He was
117
Rush ford Families
also a liberal contributor to public institutions. After he retired from business he resided during the winter of each year with his daughter Lovina (Mrs. George Prentis) at Detroit, Michigan, and during the summer with his daughter Achsah (Mrs. Alarshall B. Champlain) at Cuba, Allegany County, where he died September 5, 1877.
JOEL GRIFFIN, JR.
Joel Griffin, Jr.. brother of Oramel, was born in 1800. In 1838 or 1839 he and his wife, Clarissa, with their only child, Wolcott, moved from Malone, now in Franklin County, to Rushford. They lived at first on the west side of Upper Street across the road from Samuel White's. The house was afterward owned and occupied by James Wier. By occupation Joel Griffin, Jr., was a small farmer and pro- duce dealer. In 1864 Wolcott Griffin was engaged in the mercantile business on the corner of Main and Lower Streets. The back room of his store where his father had stored some honey, went down the stream at the time of the flood. That night he called his father and told him that the lower part of the town was all being washed away. "Is my honey safe?" was the reply. Clarissa Griffin lived in Rushford until her death, October 16, 1869. Joel Griffin, Jr.. died in Michigan, April 22, 1871.
Wolcott Griffin married for his first wife, Rosina G. Bush of Pike, daughter of Alexander Bush. She was the mother of his only child, Ella. He was an active member of the IMethodist Episcopal Church and at one time super- intendent of the Sunday School. In 1870 he moved to Michigan where he passed the remainder of his life, dying May 4, 1892.
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Rushford Families
GEORGE SCOTT
H. J. W. G.
GEORGE SCOTT, born February 9, 1795, was the son of Calvin Scott, a doctor, who Uved in Belchertown, Massachusetts, and had slaves to do his bidding, both in- doors and out. With his fair complexion and sharp blue •eyes, George Scott was a fine looking young man. Febru- ary 22, 1 82 1, he and Mariah Converse were married. In two years he set out for the Holland Purchase, leaving behind him his wife and two young children, George and Calvin. With the assistance of Lowell Wright, they soon followed Mr. Scott to Rushford and settled on the "Old Injun Road" long since discarded. ( It extended from the Cuba road to the West Branch road.) On the farm of the Ackerly Company there is a clearing of about twelve acres which, until recently, was surrounded by woods and known as the Lowell Wright clearing. It was on the "Old Injun Road." From this place George Scott moved to the Amos Rose farm, now owned by Walter Howard. Later he moved to Taylor Hill, south of the Six Corners. Eight children were born to George and Mariah Scott in Rushford : Laura (Mrs. Elisha Straight), 1824; Dwight, 1826; Martha Malona (Mrs. Wm. Drake), 1828; EmeHne (Mrs. Thomas Dunlap), 1830; Lyman L., 1832; John, 1836; Jason, 1840; and Henry, 1842. Mr. Scott's brother William always lived with him.
George Scott had a running horse that could not be beat. The race course was Lower Street and the rider Henry Kirke White. Some men came from a distance to purchase the horse. They thought Mr. Scott asked too much so they invited him down town, thinking that if they treated him the horse would be cheaper, but instead he
George Scott
came up ten dollars. They treated him again and he came up ten dollars more. When someone was laughing at him be- cause he did not have any wood split he replied, "It's a mighty lazy man that can't get up in the morning and split enough wood for his wife to get breakfast." After a gen- eral training he was on a horse with another man to ride home; when the horse commenced to kick up, "Go on," he said, "my end's going."
No one in all the country round could draw forth from a violin such strains of music as George Scott. The instrument would almost speak under his touch. He fre- quently played for dances. He played upon the violin at the weddings of Alvin Frost and Sally Bosworth, Thursa Frost and George Scott, Jr., and Margaret Scott and Mar- cus Eaton, enlivening with his music the weddings of three generations. The jaw-breaking names of the Holland Land Company were set to music and sung by him.
Four of his children are now living, Henry in New Hudson, Jason in Troy, Michigan, Lyman in Canandaigua, and Dwight in Rushford. George Scott lived to be eighty- one years old and his wife nearly ninety-one. They are buried in the Bellville Cemetery. The grandchildren of George and Mariah Scott living in Rushford are : Mrs. Marga- ret Eaton and Milton Scott, children of George ; Mrs. Min- nie Cooper, Mrs. Bertha Hogg and Jason Scott, children of Dwight; and Mrs. Belle (Dunlap) Lafferty.
Note — George Scott, Sr.. sold his farm on the Cuba road to Daniel Baird who in turn sold it to Robert Morrow.
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Rush ford Families
CHARLES WHITE
H. J. W. G.
HARLES WHITE, son of Thomas and Betsy (Lin- coln)* White, and grandson of Capt. Samuel and Thankful (Gilbert) White, was born on his father's farm in Cavendish, \^ermont. in September, 1800. He and his brother Samuel were the only children of his father's family who settled in Rushford. In 1825 he married Harriet Sophia Swift, daughter of Heman and Ann Swift. In October, 183 1, Charles White was baptized by Elder Absalom Miner and received into the First Baptist Church of Rushford. His wife, Harriet, joined this church at the same time, hav- ing previously been a member of the Freewill Baptist Church. At the seventy-fifth anniversary of the organiza- tion of the First Baptist Church, "Aunt Harriet" was pres- ent and made some remarks, since she had been a member of the church fifty-nine years. She was a helpful, sweet- faced woman whom everybody loved.
The children of Charles and Harriet White were Sophia (Mrs. Ebenezer Perry), George, Luther, Otis, Martin and Percy (Mrs. Jacob S. Van Dusen).
In the forties Charles White and family were living in the EngHsh district on the Mt. Monroe road. On the run about a quarter of a mile south of the schoolhouse, was his cooper shop. His house was on the high land twenty rods north of the shop.
Charles White died at East Rushford, February 16, 1857. Harriet White died in Podonque at the home of her daughter, Mrs. J. S. Van Dusen, September i, 1892.
Sophia White Perry died in Wisconsin in i860, when
*The descendants of Betsey (Lincoln) White are distantly re- lated to Abraham Lincoln.
Mrs. Harriet Swift White
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thirty-four years of age. George White married Ann Eng- lish in 1850. In 1850 he was running a blacksmith shop on Upper Street in Rushford. The next year he went to Wisconsin where he remained until 1906, when he and his wife returned to Rushford where he died in October, 1909. at the home of Victoria Gordon. Luther married Achsah Chamberlain. After her death, he married Kate Van Dusen. Of her the Rev. Mark Kelley once said, "Very often there rises before me the picture of Sister Kate White speaking in prayer or class meeting. More than once did she overcome by the word of her testimony, and in my soul, at least, 'she being dead, yet speaketh.' " Luther White was a blacksmith and lived in Rushford on LTpper Street, in the house now owned by Irving Glaus. Otis mar- ried Julia Van Dusen. For a number of years they lived on his farm in East Rushford. The latter part of his life he was a Wesleyan Methodist minister. Martin died in the Civil War.
lone, William, Charles and George Van Dusen are the only grandchildren of Charles and Harriet White now liv- ing in Rushford.
JOSEPH BELL Mary Bell Dickey
JOSEPH BELL, the youngest of the twelve children of Jonathan and Deborah Bell, was born in Goffstown, New Hampshire, August 10, 1805. His father fought in the battle of Bunker Hill and did other service in the War of the Revolution. Joseph Bell, when a lad, was appren- ticed to learn the shoemaker's trade in Manchester, New Hampshire. At the age of nineteen he started for New
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Joseph Bell
York State where his brothers, Russell and Rodney, had already settled in New Hudson. At Rochester he was of- fered a hundred acres of land for his horse, but he refused the offer and continued his journey to Rushford where he soon found employment.
In 1830 he married Lydia Elvira Dunham to whom were born the following children : Minerva M., Martin A., William R., Lois A., James J. and Lauraette, whose death at the age of three years, March 15, 1843, ^^^ the first in the family. The m.other died March 22. 1849, just after moving into the new house. September 14, 185 1, Mr. Bell was married to Matilda Coburn at the home of her brother, Miner Coburn, in Covert, New York, by the Rev. Chaun- cey Wardner, who had formerly been pastor at Rushford. To them were born two children, Mary C. and Nellie E.
When Mr. Bell first came to Rushford he was em- ployed in a shoemaker's shop, later he became a partner and finally sole owner of the business. Many pairs of boots with red morocco tops, at five dollars a pair, were made in his shop in the chambers of the old town hall. By severe toil and close economy he built up a prosperous business. Beside his shoeshop, he managed his farm, which he bought of Samson Hardy, and his tannery. At first the bark used in the tannery was ground by hand, afterwards horse power was used and finally, in 1849, steam was put in. Some years later, the townspeople, by subscription put in a steam whistle which was blown three times a day and in case of fire. November 29, 1867, his youngest son, James J., was killed by an explosion of the boiler in the tannery. A. J. Colburn then bought an interest in the tannery and it was repaired and enlarged.
Mr. Bell bought a great many hides, and frequently made trips to the West for them. At the beginning of the
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cheese industry, he often went to Canada, bought cows and drove them home. In 1872 Mr. Bell with his wife and younger children moved to Michigan. He first located in Jonia. Afterwards he went into the mercantile business in. Maple Rapids. While he lived in Ionia, Mr. O. T. Higgins of Rushford and Mr. D. B. Sill of Cuba visited him, after taking a trip into the pine woods of Northern Michigan buying land. On this trip Mr. Higgins and his guide were lost in the woods for several days. He said that the bounti- ful dinner of which he was then partaking did not taste as good as his meal in the woods during those days of short rations, when he held hard-tack under a piece of pork to catch the drippings.
But nothing could wean Mr. Bell from the associations of former days, so after a residence of five years in Michi- gan, he returned to his home in Rushford where he passed his declining years among his friends and relatives, whom he was so fond of entertaining at his home. The old-time hospitality was often mentioned by him as one of the pleas- ant features of his early days, and emphasized by the statement that at one time he was acquainted with every man in the township.
He was early associated with the Baptist Church of Rushford. He was baptized in the spring of 1838, in a hole cut in the ice in the creek back of the tannery. For forty- five years he was a faithful member of the church and gave very substantially to its support. In politics Mr. Bell was an Abolitionist and also a great admirer of Mr. Cole of Wellsville, "the father of the Republican party." During the war a group of men, including Mr. John Holmes, Mr. Latham Higgins, Deacon Hapgood and Mr. Bell, used to gather at the store of Mr. O. T. Higgins where Deacon Hapgood read aloud the war news in the N'cw York Daily
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Rufus Adams
Tribune. This meeting was laughingly called the "Con- gress."
For two years prior to his death Mr. Bell's health grad- ually failed, and he died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Lois Ferguson, in Geneseo, October 3, 1883, while on his way to Avon for treatment. His life was full of vicissi- tudes, such as are common to humanity, but at his death he was an honored and substantial citizen of Rushford.
Note — The house now owned by "Sirs. ArHe Ives was Mr. Bell's home. The tannerj- was back of his house. He also owned the house now belonging to Robert Murray. A. Fraser was the last owner of the tannery. — G.
RUFUS ADAMS Viola Adams Farwell
RUFUS ADAMS belonged to the great family of Adamses of Massachusetts, among whose members have been men distinguished in letters and in affairs of state. Rufus Adams was born in Chelmsford, Massachu- setts, in 179T. About •1817 he came to Arcade, Wyoming County, where he bought land and commenced building a carding mill, but he was taken ill so he returned home. In 1819 he married Saphronia, daughter of David Searl of Rowley, Massachusetts. With his wife and son, Alfred, he came to Rushford from Cavendish, Vermont, in 1824, and bought the farm one and one-half miles north of the village, now occupied by his great-grandson, Dorrance Farwell. He lived in a log house about three rods south of the pres- ent framed one. which was built in 1828 from pine grown on the farm. Some of the trees used were four feet in diameter. In the house were four fire-places and a large
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brick bake-oven. He occasionally made a trip to Caven- dish. Vermont, to visit his sister, Mrs. Joseph White, whose husband was a relative of Samuel White of Rushford.
The children of Rufus and Saphronia Adams were: Alfred Rufus. who in 1846 married Lucinda Acker; Saphro- nia Gilbert, who in 1848 married John Fletcher Gordon; and Salome Searl, who in 1848 married Jacob Weslar of Cuba. After living in Cuba a number of years. Jacob Weslar and his family moved to Pine Grove, Michigan.
Rufus Adams was frugal, yet on the Sabbath day he appeared in broadcloth. In matters of religion he was strict, yet emotional ; he was one of the original members of the Free Methodist Church. He died at Pine Grove, Michigan, October 2C. 1871.
Among his grandchildren are Frank W. and Lucy R. Gordon, Viola Adams Farwell and Arvilla Adams Farwell.
MICAH HALL H. J. W. G.
MICAH HALL was born in 1807 in Plattsburg, Clinton County, New York. When about twelve years of age he came with his father, Thomas Hall, to Wayne County, traversing the whole distance with an ox team. When six- teen years of age he came to Rushford where his brother, Solomon Hall, was living. Angeline Furlong from Galen, Wayne County, came to visit her sister, Mrs. Solomon Hall. Young Micah Hall saw her, loved her, and married her at the home of her