USA > New York > Steuben County > A history of Steuben County, New York, and its people, Vol. II > Part 34
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LAWRENCE B. BENNETT .- For nearly a quarter of a century has Mr. Bennett been identified with railroad service and he is now incumbent of the position of telegraph operator at the station of
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the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, in the village of Wayland. He is well known in Steuben county and his popularity is of unqualified order.
Lawrence Burdon Bennett claims the Wolverine state as the place of his nativity, though he is 'a scion of families that were carly founded in the state of New York. He was born in Van Buren county, Michigan, on the 10th of April, 1870, and is a son of Guy B. and Olive Bennett. Mr. Bennett was eight months old at the time of his mother's death and he was shortly afterward brought by his father to Steuben county, where he was reared to maturity and where his educational advantages were those afforded in the public schools of Wayland. Here he entered the high school when ten years of age and he was graduated therein as a member of the class of 1892. When sixteen years of age Mr. Bennett en- tered upon an apprenticeship to the trade of telegrapher in the Wayland office of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad and after perfecting himself as an operator he continued in the employ of this company as such for two years, when he was also made station agent. He held this position at various points on the line of this. road and finally returned to Wayland, where he be- came station agent and telegraph operator for the same railway system, with which he has been identified for twenty-four years. He is now serving as operator for the company and the business of the office is adequate to demand his full time and attention, so that he is not now station agent. In politics Mr. Bennett is a zealous and effective advocate of the principles of the Democratic party and he has been active in its local councils. He is affiliated with the Wayland Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and both he and his wife hold membership in the Evangelical church.
On the 9th of October, 1902, Mr. Bennett was united in mar- riage to Miss Caroline Waitie Batholomew, who was born and reared in Wayland and who is a daughter of Albert A. Bartholomew, who is here engaged in the buying and shipping of produce upon a large scale. Mr. and Mrs. Bennett have one child, Margaret Alta, who was born on the 30th of August, 1908.
PHILIP R. KINSELLA, who at the end of his present term will have served his fellow-citizens with great ability and credit for more than twelve years as supervisor of Erwin township, was born at Gang Mills, in that municipal division of Steuben county, April 24, 1868, a son of Lawrence and Margaret Kinsella. His father, a native of Ireland, came with his parents, Richard and Elizabeth Kinsella, to the United States and located at Corning when that now flourish- ing city was yet a small village. He found employment with the firm of Fox & Weston, the then great lumber concern which was so influential in the days of the earlier history of this vicinity. For twenty-six years he was engineer at their lumber manufacturing establishment at Gang Mills, and from time to time was called to the performance of other important duties in their interest. He
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married, in Erwin township, Miss Margaret Hogue, a native of Canada, who passed away in 1900, he surviving. They were the parents of four children, all of whom lived to manhood and woman- hood. John A. is employed as an engineer by the New York Cen- tral Railroad Company. Elizabeth is the wife of John Gallagher of Corning. Thomas L. is a member of his father's household.
Philip R. Kinsella, second child and second son in the family just mentioned, passed his boyhood in his native place, attending public school in his home district and at Painted Post. His first work away from home was as fireman under his father in the Fox & Weston mill. Thus he was employed three years, then he turned his attention to farming land, which he rented of W. S. Hodgman & Company. On this farm, located not far from Painted Post, he has lived since that time. This life-long resident of Erwin town- ship is widely known as one of old Steuben's most loyal sons. A stanch Republican, he has always been devoted to the furtherance of the policies of that party so great in the history of our country. In its local work he has long been active and influential. By suc- cessive reelection, without opposition in his own party, he has filled the responsible office of supervisor of Erwin township for more than eleven years. His public spirit is such that he is in the forefront of every movement which in his opinion promises good to any con- siderable number of his fellow-citizens. His prominence in township and county affairs has made him well known in Steuben and ad- jacent counties. He and his family are identified with the Roman Catholic church.
On June 18, 1893, Mr. Kinsella married Miss Mary E. Cowley, a daughter of Levi and Margaret Cowley, of Corning. They have two children-Margaret and Philip.
HIRAM P. BADGER .- This well-known gentleman, now long re- tired from active life, is a son of a pioneer in his vicinity in point of settlement and a pioneer merchant of Steuben county. He was born in Painted Post, in the house in which he now lives, August 18, 1845, and during all the sixty-five years since has been a resident of that town. His parents were Harvey P. and Louisa (Potter) Badger. Harvey P. Badger, a native of Colesville, Broome county, New York, came to Painted Post in 1841 and was married that same year. It was in that year also that he opened a general store at Painted Post, which he conducted successfully until 1867, when he retired from business. But he was too ambitious to abandon all business projects, and in 1869, with his son Herbert as a partner, he again engaged in merchandising, establishing another store, which was in profitable operation till in 1873, when it was burned. Mr. Badger, then advanced in life, retired permanently. He lived to be about seventy-eight years old. His wife, who, as has been stated, was Miss Louisa Potter, a daughter of ex-sheriff Hiram Potter, de- ceased, of Steuben county, was born in the town of Pompey, Onon- daga county, New York, and died when she was about sixty-three
HENRY G. TUTHILL
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years old. She bore her husband a family of three sons and three daughters, five of whom lived to manhood and womanhood. Hiram P. is the immediate subject of this sketch. Herbert L. lives in Erwin township on a farm and is mail carrier on Route 2 from Painted Post postoffice. Samuel W. is a practicing physician at Athens, Pennsylvania. Anna married W. J. Gilbert and is living in Brook- lyn, New York. Sarah married W. H. Calkins and died in January, 1869. Louise died at the age of two years and ten months.
Of this family, Hiram P. Badger was the third child and the second son in order of birth. His entire life thus far has been passed at Painted Post. There he was educated in the best schools in the town. At eighteen he began to learn the machinist's trade under W. H. Calkins, and in that business his energies were expended for the long period of a quarter of a century, and he has been nearly as long in retirement. He was assistant postmaster at Painted Post for six years and was the town assessor for thirteen years, also vil- lage trustee for one term. In politics he is Republican in all that the word has implied, and he has always devoted himself to the general good of the town. His prominence and influence as a citi- zen have been long established on so firm a foundation that his ad- vice is invariably sought in any work for the general benefit and improvement.
COLONEL HENRY G. TUTHILL .- Distinguished not only for his gallant service in the Civil war but as an enterprising and prosper- ous business man of Corning, Colonel Henry G. Tuthill is widely known as one of the leading architects of this part of Steuben county and also as a dealer in real estate and as an insurance man. He was born, September 25, 1833, in East Otto, Cattaraugus county, New York, of thrifty New England ancestry, being the lineal de- scendant of one of three brothers named Tuthill who emigrated from England in Colonial days, settling in the Green Mountain state.
His father, Samuel Tuthill, was born at Bellows Falls, Ver- mont, where his father, a life-long resident of Vermont, was engaged in agricultural pursuits. In 1882 he made his way to New York state, a large part of the way following a path marked by blazed trees, and settled as a pioneer in Cattaraugus county. Taking up a tract of wild land, he cleared a farm from the dense wilderness, in the meantime bravely bearing all the trials and privations incident to pioneer life. A man of much intelligence and energy, he became active in public affairs, serving many years as justice of the peace. He lived on the homestead place until his death, at the ripe old age of seventy-six years. His wife, whose maiden name was Sarah Guernsey, was born in Vermont of English ancestry. She survived him, passing away at the age of eighty-six years. Of their family of four daughters and three sons, all but one child grew to years of maturity. Henry G., the fifth child and eldest son, and his brother, Harvey Tuthill, living on the parental homestead in East Otto, are the only members of the family now living.
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With the exception of two years spent as a youth in Ohio, Henry G. Tuthill remained beneath the parental roof-tree until nine- teen years old. Going then to Livingston county, New York, he served an apprenticeship at the cabinet maker's trade in Nunda with his uncle, Daniel M. Tuthill, who at the end of two years gave him two hundred dollars for his services. He paid his father one hundred dollars for his time, and at the end of his two years had a bank account of fifty dollars. He subsequently worked with his uncle as journeyman for a year, and then, in 1856, came to Corn- ing and the following year was foreman in the Townley & Lower factory. He then formed a partnership with William F. Townley, his brother-in-law, and continued in business with him about two years, when he moved with his family to Nunda, Livingston county.
Few veterans of the war between the states can look back upon a war record as thrilling and gallant as Colonel Tuthill. On Sep- tember 30, 1861, at Nunda, he enlisted in Company A, One Hundred and Fourth New York Volunteer Infantry, of which he was at once commissioned captain. This regiment, known as the Wadsworth Guards, he had been instrumental. in raising, and his company, A, was the second to leave Nunda. The regiment was organized at Al- bany, March 4, 1862, with John Rohrbach, colonel; R. Wells Kenyon, lieutenant colonel; Lewis C. Skinner, major. Serving bravely on the field of battle, he was promoted from captain to lieutenant colonel in October, 1862. At the battle of Bull Run, Virginia, August 30, 1862, he received a piece of shell in his right leg, and at Antietam, Maryland, September 17, 1862, he was severely wound- ed, two fingers on his right hand being shot off, after which dis- ablement he returned to Corning on leave of absence. His wounds healing, Colonel Tuthill reported to the medical director at Wash- ington, D. C., and was sent to Elmira, New York, where he had command of the post from December 15, 1862, to March 4, 1863, when he was ordered to join his regiment, which had been assigned to the First Army Corps, commanded by General John A. Reynolds, of Rochester, New York, and subsequently participated in many important and fiercely contested engagements. He was wounded at Chancellorsville, Virginia, May 3, 1863, receiving a gunshot in his left leg, and again at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1, 1863, a ball, which he still carries, entered his right groin. For four days thereafter he lay on the battlefield in the hands of the enemy, with- out care of any kind. When able to be removed he was sent to the officers hospital at Annapolis, Maryland, where he was examined by a board of army surgeons of which General Graham was president and was discharged from the service November 7, 1863, on account of disability from a wound received in action at Gettysburg, Penn- sylvania, July 1, 1863.
On January 22, 1864, he was commissioned by President Lin- coln as captain in the Veteran Reserve Corps, U. S. A., and assigned to duty at Newark, New Jersey, having charge of all the troops at this important station. From there he was ordered to Washington,
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D. C., in January, 1865, where he remained on detached duty until March 4, 1865, he was ordered to Baltimore, Maryland, with two companies of reserves. He furnished the guard of honor at the catafalque when the martyred president was laid in state at the government building. He remained on duty at Baltimore, fur- nishing guards for the hospitals and forts until October, 1866, when he was ordered to Washington, D. C., and mustered out by general orders November , 1866. He was brevetted colonel of New York Volunteers on December 11, 1868, for meritorious services during the war.
His services included the ensuing campaigns and engagements : Campaign against Jackson in Shenandoah Valley, May-August, 1862; battle of Cedar Mountain, August 9; northern Virginia cam- paign, August 16 to September 2: Rappahannock Station, August 20-23 ; Rappahannock River, August 21-22; White Sulphur Springs, August 5-27; Thoroughfare Gap, August 28; battle of Bull Run, August 30; Little River Turnpike, September 1; Maryland cam- paign, September 3-20; battle of South Mountain, September 14; battle of Antietam, September 17; battle of Fredericksburg, De- cember 11-15; Burnside's second campaign; Mud march, January 20-23, 1863; Chancellorsville campaign, April 27-May 6; operations at Pollock's Mill Crossing, April 29-May 1; battle of Chancellors- ville, May 3-4; battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863. His last field duty was performed at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Returning to Corning, Colonel Tuthill engaged in business as an architect, and in this line has built up a fine business and won an extensive reputation as a skillful and practical architect. He erected a summer house, or cottage, on Keuka Lake in 1882, and has also built many of the finest public buildings in Corning and some of the most desirable residences. He is also extensively en- gaged in the real estate and insurance business and has large real estate interests in Corning.
Colonel Tuthill has long been prominent in the Grand Army of the Republic, in 1868 having organized Logie Post, then No. 80, now Hayt Post No. 276, of which he was the commander. The colonel is one of the oldest members of the Ancient Order of Free and Ac- cepted Masons, having joined Painted Post Lodge No. 117, F. & A. M., in 1857. At this writing, in 1910, there is but one older member of this lodge, in which he served as an officer prior to the Civil war. Colonel Tuthill is one of the directors of the Corning Co-operative Savings and Loan Association. He has been active in public affairs, from 1869 until 1872 serving as superintendent of the poor for Steuben county, and for three years being police com- missioner of Corning.
On May 20, 1857, Colonel Tuthill married Catherine A. Town- ley, and of the children born of their union five sons are living, namely : James S., a graduate of Cornell University, has been superintendent of the Middletown, New York, schools for the past nineteen years ; L. H., also a graduate of Cornell University, is prin-
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cipal of Public School No. 16, Brooklyn, New York; Eugene, who was graduated from Cornell University, is an architect at Corning, New York; Charles G. is proprictor of a cut glass company at Mid- dletown, New York; and Frank W. is an engineer on the New York Central Railroad. Colonel Tuthill celebrated his golden wedding anniversary on May 20, 1907, at which gathering all of his children were present.
EDWIN C. SMITH .- This is the era of the comparatively young man. Time was when the prominence already gained by the pro- gressive son of Yates county whose name is above would have been attainable only to a man on the shady side of the half-century mark. Mr. Smith, who is district attorney of Steuben county, was born at Dundee, Yates county, New York, December 15, 1870. His father, Charles A. Smith, formerly a farmer and operator of vineyards, is living in retirement at Hammondsport. He was born in Steuben county, a son of Ameron Smith, an early settler from central New York and a member of one of the old Mohawk Dutch families so influential in that region. His wife, mother of Edwin C. Smith, was born at Dundee, Yates county, New York, a daughter of Addi- son B. Lewis, of Scotch descent. Two sons-Edwin C. and Frank A. -were born to Charles A. and Emma (Lewis) Smith. The father, who had gone from Steuben county to Yates county, returned to his native county when his eldest son, Edwin, was about eight months old, locating in the town of Urbana, where the future prose- cuting attorney passed the years of his boyhood. Mr. Smith was duly graduated from the schools of Hammondsport and of Bath and then was for five years a school teacher in Steuben county. Three years he held the office of school commissioner for the first commissioners' district of the county, performing its duties with characteristic thoroughness and integrity. He was graduated from the law department of Union College in 1897; was admitted to the bar and entered at once upon the practice of his profession at Addi- son, where he has been in continuous practice thirteen years. In November, 1905, he was elected supervisor of the town of Addison. In May, 1906, he was appointed district attorney and resigned the supervisorship in order the better to handle the responsibilities of the more exacting office. In his political convictions he is stanchly Republican. His father is and his grandfather was in his time of the same political faith, and the three have gone to the polls to- gether and in turn voted the same ticket, showing three genera- tions of Republicans in line. In that time Edwin C. was the nomi- nee of his party for the office of commissioner of schools and had the honor and pleasure of seeing his sire and grandsire cast their ballots for him.
Mr. Smith is a Mason, an Odd Fellow, an Elk and a Modern Woodman. In Masonry he has attained to the thirty-second degree and is a past district deputy of the thirty-fourth district. He is past grand of his lodge of Odd Fellows. He married, in 1900,
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Miss Bertha Ferrow, of Addison. He owns a fine farm near that village. In all his active career he has demonstrated that quality of public spirit which makes for good and useful citizenship. To the duties of his office he brought adequate professional learning. ample business experience and an honest determination to succeed along the straight line of right and justice, respecting the court, respecting the public and, what is better, respecting himself; and his administration of the office has won him the good opinion of his fellow-citizens of all shades of all political beliefs.
CHARLES F. PARK, vice-president of the Park, Winton and True Company, manufacturers of sash, doors and blinds, Addison, and well and favorably thought of in southern New York, was born at Addison, October 15, 1871, the younger son of James H. and Theresa Adelaide (Reynolds) Park, his brother being William R. Park, a citizen of Addison and also an official of the manufacturing con- cern mentioned. Their father, who began manufacturing in Addi- son in 1855, died there in 1901. The mother is living in that vil- lage.
The immediate subject of this notice was reared and educated in Addison and when he was about twenty-one years old was taken into his father's business, with the understanding that he would very likely become prominent in it. But he made the right beginning, working in the yards and at whatever there was to be done, side by side with ordinary employes of the factory. After his father's death he became buying agent, with sole responsibility for the equip- meut and general efficiency of the plant. The Park, Winton & True Company was organized in 1910, with George I. True as presi- dent, Charles F. Park as vice-president and purchasing agent and William R. Park as secretary, and the enterprise ranks as Addison's oldest manufacturing enterprise and as one of the oldest concerns of its class in the country. Mr. Park is a stockholder in the Yadkin Lumber Company, of Yadkin, North Carolina, which owns fifty- five thousand acres of timber lands in the western part of that state; also in the Embreeville Lumber Company, of Embreeville, Tennessee, which holds title to thirty thousand acres of timber in eastern Tennessee.
A life-long resident of Addison, Mr. Park is one of its most public spirited citizens. He has been a member of the local fire department many years and is its assistant chief, is a member of the village fire board and as a member of the board of education is influential in the direction of the affairs of the Addison Union school. He is a Mason and an Elk and a vestry-man in the Episco- pal church of Addison. Mrs. Park was Miss Caroline Stratton, daughter of George W. Stratton, of Addison, formerly prominent in the tanning business. She has borne her husband two sons-James Stratton and Francis A. Park.
BURT C. PATCHIN .- No name has been more prominently and worthily identified with the civic and industrial development and upbuilding of Steuben county than that of Patchin, which has
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numerous representatives within the borders of the county at the present time. The name has stood exponent of the highest integrity and honor, of utmost civic loyalty and progressiveness and of dis- tinctive constructive power, as the members of the family, as one generation, has followed another on the stage of life's activities, have each contributed to the advancement of those interests which make for social and material prosperity. He whose name initiates this review is one of the representative citizens of his native county, and he has directed his course along lines of productive energy, so that he has gained status as one of the leading agriculturists and stock-growers of this favored section of the state, with special repu- tation in the breeding of fine standard-bred horses. His splendid homestead place, known as the Patchin farm, is one of the finest rural demesnes in south-central New York and is eligibly located in Wayland township about three miles distant from the village of the same name. In all respects he is well upholding the prestige of the honored name which he bears and which has been inseparably linked with the history of Steuben county for nearly a century.
Burt Cameron Patchin was born on the farmstead which now constitutes his home, and the date of his nativity was February 12, 1869. He is a son of Cameron and Harriet M. (Glines) Patchin. Concerning the ancestral history, apropos its association with the annals of Steuben county, excellent record was made in a history of Wayland prepared by Charles M. Jervis and published in 1901, and from this record the following statements are taken, with but slight paraphrase:
"The Patchin and Hess families came to Patchinsville in 1814 and the years immediately following. The advent of these two families gave to that section of the town the vast preponderance of vigor and enterprise, and for many succeeding years it was, and seemed destined to remain, the business center. Walter Patchin was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, July 24, 1764. When he was a child his father removed to Balston, Saratoga county, New York, and here, while a mere boy, he joined the Continental army and took part in the defense of the town against the British and Indians. The town was burned, and young Patchin was wounded by an In- dian, but saved his life by swimming the river. He was afterward pensioned by the government for the injury he received. Later he settled in Marcellus, Onondaga county, and in 1814 he removed to Steuben county, where he took up a large tract of land, on which he built a log house. This pioneer domicile stood nearly on the site of the house now occupied by Hon. Gordon M. Patchin. Walter Patchin was twice married, his first wife being the mother of two children-Loraine and Dr. Warren Patchin. Of the second mar- riage eleven children were born. Walter Patchin died in 1854, at the age of ninety years, and is buried in the East Wayland ceme- tery.
"When Walter Patchin moved to town he transported his goods with an ox team, and in coming down the East Patchin hill, over
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which the old road led, one of the oxen fell and broke its neck-a most serious loss for a pioneer farmer. On inquiry of Benjamin Perkins he learned of a settler near Dansville from whom an ox could be obtained, but Mr. Patchin was not prepared to pay for the animal just then and, being a stranger, was in a predicament, from which Mr. Perkins relieved him by picking up a chip on which he scratched his initials, 'B. P.,' and gave it to Mr. Patchin to hand to the settler, which he did, whereupon he returned home with the ox. This is the first recorded bank check in the town.
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