USA > New York > Steuben County > A history of Steuben County, New York, and its people, Vol. II > Part 46
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One of Judge Burrell's most prominent characteristics is his love of reading and good books, a quality evinced in his earliest boyhood and one which has suffered no diminution with the passage of the years and the encroachment of many duties.
An ideally happy life companionship was inaugurated when on November 28, 1894, Judge Burrell was married at Richmond Mills, Ontario county, New York, to Miss Lalla Olive Townsend, of that place, a daughter of Alonzo W. Townsend, a lumber manufacturer. Mrs. Burrell at the time of her marriage was a teacher in the Canis- teo Academy, at Canisteo, having held that position with great efficiency for ten years. The birth of two daughters has blessed this union. Dorothy Helen, born March 9, 1900, died April 17, 1901; and Katherine T. was born August 26, 1904. Mrs. Burrell's ances- tors were prominent in the war of the American Revolution and also in the War of 1812, and she possesses a badge worn by Captain Daniel Townsend, a member of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, in the Revolutionary war. She is in a direct line of descent from Ethan Allen, of Revolutionary fame, as is her husband, Judge Bur- rell, it being a surprising fact that the great-great-grandmother of each were sisters of Captain Ethan Allen.
The home of Judge and Mrs. Burrell is one of the most cul- tured and attractive of the abodes of Steuben county, and is widely known as the centre of a gracious hospitality.
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HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY
HON. EDWIN STEWART UNDERHILL, of Corning, publisher of the Evening Leader and the Steuben Farmers' Advocate and mem- ber of congress from the Thirty-third New York district, was born in Bath, that state, October 7, 1861. His parents were Anthony L. Underhill and Charlotte McBeth. His father was for over forty years editor and publisher of the Steuben Farmers' Advocate in Bath; was postmaster of Bath and Democratic presidential elector on the Cleveland ticket in 1884. He is a direct descendant in the eighth generation of Captain John Underhill, at one time governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and who obtained fame as an Indian fighter in the war which the early settlers of Massachu- setts had with the Pequot Indians.
Mr. Underhill, of this sketch, graduated from Haverling High School in Bath and entered Yale, where he graduated from the academic department in 1881. Soon after graduation he entered the office of the Steuben Farmers' Advocate and was associated with his father in its publication during the latter's life time. In the presidential year of 1884 he was chosen chairman of the Demo- cratic County Committee and served in that capacity several years. In 1888 he was the nominee of the Democratic party for presidential elector for his district. For a time he was editor of the Canandaigua (N. Y.) Messenger, which was published by his father. In Septem- ber, 1899, with his father, he purchased the Corning Daily Demo- crat, since changed to the Corning Evening Leader. Since his father's death, in 1902, he has been the publisher of the Advocate and the Leader.
Mr. Underhill is a vestryman in St. Thomas Episcopal church, at Bath; vice-president of the Davenport library, and a member of the Board of Education. He was district deputy grand master of the Thirty-fourth Masonic district for two years. He is also a mem- ber of Corning Consistory, of Kalurah Temple, Mystic Shrine and of the Elks. In 1902 he was elected president of the New York State Press Association, and in 1907 was honored with the presi- dency of the New York State Associated Dailies. In 1910 he was elected representative in congress for the Thirty-third district of New York, to succeed J. S. Fassett, Republican, whom he defeated by about two thousand plurality.
Mr. Underhill was married October 9, 1884, to Minerva Eliza- beth, only daughter of William W. Allen and Helen M. Ganse- voort. Two sons, William Allen Underhill, born January 28, 1888, and Edwin Stewart Underhill, Jr., born April 18, 1890, are their only children. The former graduated from Yale, in 1910 (acad- emic) and the latter in the class of 1911 (scientific), and both are now associated with their father in the newspaper business.
ABNER T. NIVER is a representative of one of the sterling pio- neer families of Steuben county and in his native county he is following the sturdy trade which constituted the vocation of his .honored father. He is a skilled artisan as a blacksmith and has
at. Hiver
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HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY
1
built up a large and successful business, the while his impregnable integrity in all the relations of life has gained him the unequivocal confidence and esteem of the community which has been his home throughout his life.
Abner T. Niver was born in Caton township, Steuben county, on the 2nd of October, 1854, and is a son of Evert D. and Char- lotte A. (Clark) Niver, the former of whom was born in Orange county, this state, and the latter in Reading, Schuyler county. The parents continued to reside in this county until the time of their death, the father having here established his home about the year 1850 and being engaged in the work of his trade, to which he here devoted his attention until 1876, when his son Abner, the subject of this review, assumed charge of the shop. Not only was Evert D. Niver a skilled blacksmith but he was also successful as a wagon maker, in which connection he controlled for many years a pros- perous business. Upon withdrawing from the work of his trade he removed to Hammondsport township, where he secured a tract of land and turned his attention to grape culture, which he con- tinued during the residue of his active career and in which he met with a due measure of success. He passed to his reward in 1887 and his cherished and devoted wife was summoned to the life eternal in 1890. Both were members of the Baptist church and in poli- tics he gave his allegiance to the Democratic party. Evert D. and Charlotte A. (Clark) Niver became the parents of eight children, all of whom are living and concerning them the following brief record is consistently entered : Ruth is the wife of L. H. Curtis, of Rochester, Monroe county; Marian is the wife of Carmon Carr, of Grove Spring, Steuben county; Abner T. is the immediate subject of this sketch; Frederick and D. O. reside at Hornell, Steuben county; Belle is the wife of M. V. Margeson, of Hammondsport, this county ; Andrew F. of Savona; and Lillie is the wife of Will- iam Covel, of Elmira.
Abner T. Niver was afforded the advantages of the public schools of his native township and under the direction of his father he served a thorough and practical apprenticeship to the trade of blacksmith. This ancient and important line of industry has been given his attention during the long intervening years and he has been signally prospered through his well-directed efforts. His shop is well equipped for the handling of all kinds of blacksmith work and a specialty is made of repairing vehicles and agricultural implements. Mr. Niver has achieved success through his own efforts and is the owner of valuable real estate in his home village of Caton, besides which he is a stockholder of the Bell & Century telephone companies. He and his wife hold membership in the Baptist church and are zealous in the various departments of its work. He is affili- ated with the local tent of the Knights of the Maccabees and is also identified with the Sons of Veterans. In politics Mr. Niver has ever been aligned as a stanch supporter of the cause of the Demo- cratie party and he has been a zealous worker in its local ranks,
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being at the present time a member of the Steuben county commit- tee of the party. He has served as tax collector of Caton town- ship and has been given other evidences of popular confidence and esteem.
Mr. Niver's eligibility for membership in the Sons of Vet- erans is based upon the valiant service of his father as a soldier of the Union in the Civil war. The father enlisted in Company D, One Hundred and Forty-first New York Volunteer Infantry, and he continued in active service for one year, at the expiration of which he received his honorable discharge.
In the year 1879 was solemnized the marriage of Abner T. Niver to Miss Mary E. Johnson, who was born in Yonkers, West- chester county, New York, on the 15th of October, 1856, and who is a daughter of Jacob G. Johnson. Mr. and Mrs. Niver became the parents of four children, all of whom are living and their names and respective dates of birth are here entered: W. Clay, February 21, 1882; Cloy D., May 16, 1884; Pansy E., August 1, 1887; and Drexel U., July 7, 1888. Pansy E., the only daughter, is now the wife of William E. Beeman, of Corning, Steuben county. Jacob G. Johnson, father of Mrs. Niver, was likewise a gallant soldier in the Civil war. He enlisted at the inception of the war as a member of Company F, Third Connecticut Regiment, with which he was in service from May 14, 1861, until the 12th of the following August, when he received his honorable discharge, at the expira- tion of his term of enlistment. On the 2nd of September, 1864, he again enlisted and he continued in service until the close of the war, having received his final discharge on the 2nd of May, 1865.
DAVID BURTON WINTON was born at Camillus, New York, March 3, 1837, and as he lost his parents at an early age his home was with an aunt in Lancaster, Massachusetts, and an uncle in Havana, the Empire state. This covered the earlier years of his life until he joined his older brother in California.
At the age of eighteen he sailed from California for Australia and China, on business for his brother, and after his return he located in Chicago. In 1859 he married Miss Frances J. Gillet, of Addison, New York (where he had spent two years at an earlier date), and their home was in Chicago for five years, when they returned to Steuben county. There Mr. Winton entered into part- nership with Mr. Lattimer in conducting the Addison Bank. At eleven years of age the former had joined the Presbyterian church, and for some years before his death was ruling elder of the church in Addison. He died in 1898, leaving a wife and six children.
MICHAEL JOSEPH REAGAN is a valued member of the New York State Board of Mediation and Arbitration and has charge of its office in New York city at 381 Fourth avenue, and he is one of the sterling citizens given to the national metropolis by Steuben county. He was born in Hornellsville, that county, on the 12th of December,
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1865, and is a son of William and Julia (McCarthy ) Reagan, who took up their abode in Hornellsville about the year 1850. There the mother died on November 4, 1906, and there the father still maintains his residence, the city being now known as Hornell. Of . the family of four sons and four daughters, three sons and three daughters are now living, and he whose name initiates this article is the youngest of the number.
Mr. Reagan was reared to maturity in his native town and he secured his early educational training in the parochial school conducted by the Sisters of Mercy and in the public schools. He later completed a course in the Albany Business College, in the capital city of the state, being graduated in this institution as a member of the class 1889. In his early childhood he traveled about quite considerable for one of his years. He attended all the noted events at the time, such as the Courtney and Hanlon boat race on the Potomac River May 19, 1880, at Washington, D. C .; the funeral of President of the United States James A. Garfield in Cleveland, Ohio, September 26, 1881; the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge May 24, 1883. His first employment was as a brick haker at fifty cents a day for the Thatcher Brick Company and as helper at the Raw- son Foundry Company. The next employment was as trainman on the Western Division of the Erie Railroad. On June 1, 1883, he left the service of the Erie Railroad and went as far west as Ocono- mowoc, Wisconsin, where he secured a position as clerk in the Townsend House, a summer resort, where he remained until the house closed, about September 10, 1883. His next employment was in a like capacity with the Southern Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri, where he remained from October 1, 1883, until July 1, 1884. On account of the serious illness of his mother at this time he was summoned to his old home at Hornellsville. He remained at home and re-entered the service of the Erie Railroad as trainman and baggageman, and was employed with Conductor Hiram Hurty on trains 3 and 12 between Elmira and Dunkirk, and afterwards served with such old timers as Jerome Farnham, Clarence Stannard, H. L. May, W. S. Kimble, George Wright, LeGrand Tillman, Edward Carroll, Del Wescott and Doctor R. N. Thomas, nearly all of whom have gone to the great beyond from whence no traveler returns.
In January, 1886, with other friends (Arthur Maloney and Jobn Weldon ) he organized a railroadmen's union known as Local Assembly 7460, Knights of Labor, and was its first master work- man. On September 20, 1887, he was appointed to a clerkship in the Bureau of Labor Statistics at Albany, New York, by Commissioner Charles F. Peck, having been endorsed for the position by Mayor James B. Day and the late Hon. John McDougall. Soon after ac- cepting this position he passed a state civil service examination and was promoted to the position of special agent of the Bureau, where he remained through the consolidation of the Bureau of Labor Statistics with the Factory Inspection Bureau and Board of Media- tion and Arbitration by Governor B. B. Odell during the legis-
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HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY
lative session of 1901, and now presided over by Commissioner John Williams and known as Department of Labor. On Decem- ber 1, 1906, Mr. Reagan was further promoted by being named as Industrial Mediator and member of the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration (this being a subdivision of the Department of Labor) by Commissioner P. Tecumseh Sherman and placed in charge of the branch office of the Bureau in New York City. Mr. Reagan has served under Commissioners Peck, Dowling, Mc- Donough, MeMackin, Sherman and Williams since the beginning of his employment in the state service.
In the meantime he had identified himself with the Tenth Battalion National Guard, New York, having enlisted in Company B April 22, 1890, with the following military record both in the National Guard of the State and the United States Volunteers during the Spanish American war.
In National Guard, New York.
Private Co. B, Tenth Battalion, April 22, 1890; full and honor- able discharge March 10, 1897. Re-enlisted same day. Corporal April 29, 1898. Sergeant September 25, 1899. Full and honorable discharge October 17, 1899. Commissioned First Lieutenant as In- spector of Small Arms Practice Tenth Battalion N. G. N. Y. July 26, 1904. Rendered supernumerary May 1, 1905. First Lieutenant and Battalion Quartermaster Tenth Regiment Infantry May 5, 1905, with original rank. Supernumerary and re-assigned January 21, 1908, with rank from July 26, 1904.
In United States Volunteer Army.
Corporal Company B, First Regiment Infantry May 20, 1898, Mustered out at Camp Presidio, San Francisco, California. July 19, 1898, on account of promotion, having been commissioned as Second Lieutenant 202d Regiment Infantry N. Y. Volunteers July 6, 1898, and assigned to Company M. First Lieutenant October 1, 1898, and mustered out of United States service at Savannah, Georgia, April 15, 1899. Served with the latter regiment, which was the first United States troops to go through Havana, Cuba (December 9, 1898), after its capitulation, and was stationed with the regiment at Pinar del Rio and Guanajay as the army of occupa- tion until relieved by the First Infantry United States Army in command of Major Dougherty. The regiment left the Island of Cuba about March 25, 1899, and was stationed at Camp Onward, Savannah, Georgia.
Mr. Reagan is particularly proud of the Commissions he has held in the United States volunteer service and the New York National Guard signed by Governors Black, Roosevelt, Odell, Hig- gins and Hughes.
Lieutenant Reagan with his other duties was acting quarter- master and had charge of all railroad transportation while serv- ing with the regiment both in the United States and Cuba. While at Camp Meade with his regiment a vacancy occurred as first lieutenant of Company M, of which he was the second lieutenant.
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HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY
Several applications were made by members of the regiment of the same grade in rank as Mr. Reagan, all of whom were his senior. When filing his application for the first lieutenancy, Colonel Sey- burn informed him that he had not only endorsed him for first lieutenant in writing but had telegraphed same to Adjutant Gen- eral Tillinghast at Albany, as follows: "I nominate Second Lieu- tenant Michael J. Reagan for First Lieutenant in this regiment. Reagan has done the work. Signed S. Y. Seyburn. Colonel 202d Regt. Inf. N. Y. Vols."
While with the First Regiment Infantry, New York Volun- teers, at Fort Wadsworth, New York Harbor, orders were received from the War Department by Colonel Barber to proceed to the Philippine Islands, via San Francisco, and the regiment left Jer- sey City, New Jersey, over the Erie Railroad on the morning of July 7, 1898, but the orders were changed and the regiment went to Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, instead. When the section of the train in which he was en route arrived at his old home early in the morning of July 8th a great reception had been arranged by his friends and neighbors in good old Hornell. The committee in charge were Judge James H. Clancy, Colonel James Schwarzenbach, Hon- orable Milo M. Acker, William H. Murray, Charles H. Armsted and W. H. Prangen. With the band out in full regalia and a crowd of at least five thousand people gathered at the Erie Depot the send off and good cheer Mr. Reagan and the soldier boys received by the assembled multitude before the train departed on its west- ern journey was certainly immense and will always be cherished most highly by him as one of the proudest moments of his life.
Mr. Reagan is an ex-commander of Frank Rockwell Palmer Camp, No. 28, United Spanish War Veterans; a charter member of Albany Council No. 110, Knights of Columbus; a member of the Catholic Union; Branch 83, the Catholic Mutual Benefit Asso- ciation ; Aucient Order of Hibernians, Division 4; the Robert Emmet Association ; and Old Guard, Company B, Washington Con- tinentals of Albany, New York. He is a member of the Army and Navy Club, the Naval and Military Order of the Spanish Amer- ican War, Society of American Wars, Commandery of the State of New York, president of the Bronx Borough Taxpayers' Pro- tective Alliance, member of the Bronx Lodge, No. 871, B. P. O. E., and the Steuben Society of New York City.
Mr. Reagan has a very extensive acquaintance throughout the state among the leading business and professional men and with officers and members of labor organizations, he having traveled for about fifteen years throughout the state for the department with which he has been connected as special agent, which required such travel and investigation. He has always been a great admirer of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt and the late governor of New York, Frank W. Higgins, with each of whom he has had a very friendly acquaintance.
On April 10, 1901, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Reagan Vol II-25
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HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY
and Miss Mary E. Burke, of Albany, New York, at the Sacred Heart church, by the Rev. Father Peyton, and they have four children :. Mary B., William Harold, Frank Higgins and Ralph.
DR. CHARLES A. CARR .- The Carr family, which is represented in Steuben county by Charles Audubon Carr, the well known prac- titioner and citizen of Corning, has given of its industry, integrity and ability in the pioneer activities and progress of three states- Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and New York. Wherever its members have planted their homes, there have been found worthy examples of those staying qualities which have always marked the best types of the Anglo-Saxon or the Englishman and his American sons of the eastern United States.
To reach the source of the Carr family in America it is neces- sary to revert to Benjamin Carr, a native of the world's metropolis, born August 18, 1592, ten years before the first English navigator explored the shores of Massachusetts and New England, and twen- ty-eight years before the Pilgrims established their colony at Ply- mouth, on the shores of Massachusetts bay. When Benjamin Carr was a few weeks past his majority-or, to be more precise, or September 2, 1613,-he took to wife Martha Hardington. They were married in London and died there, having become the parents of five children, the eldest of whom, Robert Carr, founded the American branch, of which Dr. Carr is an offshoot.
This American forefather, who was born in London, England, on the 4th of October, 1614, boarded the ship "Elizabeth Ann," May 5, 1635, and, with his brother Caleb, sailed for Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. They came as pioneers to that region and, as is the custom of the far-sighted Englishman, at once commenced to buy land. It appears from the records that Robert was ad- mitted as an inhabitant of Portsmouth February 21, 1639, and as a freeman in Newport, Rhode Island, March 16, 1641. He was one of the original purchasers of the island of Conanicut in Nar- ragansett Bay, buying of the Indians a considerable share of its six thousand acres. He also acquired a considerable property in Newport, and died in 1681, a substantial citizen of most honorable standing. Of his six children, Caleb Carr was born in Newport and married Phillis Green, daughter of deputy governor Green of Warwick, Rhode Island, where she was born in October, 1658. At his death in 1690 his widow was made executrix of a considerable estate. Caleb Carr and his wife were the parents of seven children, of whom their son, Caleb Carr, Jr., was a direct forefather of Dr. Carr of this sketch.
Caleb Carr, Jr., was a native of Jamestown, Rhode Island, born on the 26th of March, 1670, and was married. at that place to Joanna Slocum, by her father Ebenezer Slocum, warden-the ceremony occurring April .30, 1701. . The husband afterward set- tled, with his family, at West Greenwich, that state, became a
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HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY
freeholder in 1731, and died in 1750, leaving a large property to his five sons.
Caleb Carr (the third American by that name) was, like his father, a native of Jamestown, Rhode Island, where he was born November 6, 1702, and died at West Greenwich in 1769. His wife Sarah was born November 8, 1711, and died in November, 1798, mother of thirteen children.
The great-great-grandfather of the doctor was Eleazer Carr, who was born in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, April 22, 1746, and married Eleanor Stafford; settling in Rensselaer county, New York, where he died July 19, 1816. They had six children.
Rev. Stutely Carr, son of the above, was a vigorous, patriotic and Christian man, born in Rensselaer county, New York, on the 5th of July, 1773; he married Sybil Dyer (daughter of George and Ann Dyer) in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, on the 16th of Feb- ruary, 1791. His wife was born in that town on the 1st of August, 1772, and died December 4, 1839. Mr. Carr settled in Salisbury, New York, where he lived many years. He was much interested in military matters, as well as in religious work, and served as captain in the New York State Militia, his commission from Gov- ernor George Clinton bearing date of March 5, 1802. He died in the town of Spring, Crawford county, Pennsylvania, on the 3rd of June, 1840, and was the honored sire of sixteen children.
Captain George Carr, the grandfather of Dr. Carr, was born in Salisbury, New York, June 28, 1794, marrying Nancy Gris- wold, at Dryden, that state, on the 22nd of August, 1813, being then little more than nineteen years of age. His wife was his senior by nearly four years, having been born in Dryden Sep- tember 16, 1790, and dying at the extreme age of ninety-one. For some years they resided at that place, then settled at Almond, New York, where they lived until about 1855, when they located in Hector, where the husband and father died April 13, 1870, at the home of his son, Stutely H. Carr. He received his military title for the fine service which he rendered in the war of 1812, receiving an honorable discharge at its close, as well as a land warrant and a pension in special recognition of his standing as a soldier and a patriot.
Stutely Hurd Carr, the father, was one of seven children and was born at Dryden, New York, January 11, 1822, his wife (whom he married at Almond, New York, February 24, 1848), being a native of Westfield, Pennsylvania, born May 13, 1829, and a daughter of Christopher Schoonover, one of the first settlers and pioneers of Cowanesque valley. In 1854 Mr. Carr moved upon a wilderness farm in Potter county, Pennsylvania, and at the out- break of the war had made a comfortable homestead of it. But in the fall of 1861 he left wife and family to join the ranks of Com- pany D, Fifty-third Pennsylvania Volunteers, and later served in Company G, Two Hundred and Seventh Pennsylvania Volun- teers. He followed the varying fortunes of these commands with
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