USA > New York > Chautauqua County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York : with a historical sketch of the county > Part 11
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OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
Samuel Kidder was reared on his father's farm, and received his education in the schools of his neighborhood and Jamestown academy. The ring of the axe in the forest was familiar to his ears and the hooting of the owls at night was not unfamiliar. Farming was conducted without the help of improved machinery, hay being cut with a scythe. Schools were not con- venient, and the boy who got an education worked for it. Life on his father's farm in summer was changed for labor and sehool at- tendance in winter, later the Jamestown acad- emy opened her fount and he drank knowledge from it. Although always a farmer, the time spent in securing an education was not lost, for the intelligent man is needed in agricultural pursuits as well as in the counting-room. Mr. Kidder has added to the farm his father owned, and to-day is the possessor of three hundred acres of as good land as may be found in the county, and has at least twelve acres of lots in the city of Jamestown.
On October 17, 1854, he was married to | Eleanor A. Partridge, a daughter of Joel Part- ridge, of Jamestown, N. Y. To this union have been born ten children : Ida, wife of W. C. Parker, a hardware merchant residing at Little Valley, Cattaraugus county, this State ; Willard, a farmer of Kiantone, and married to Anna Miller ; J. Edward ; died when eighteen years of age; Henry E., married to Grace Sherrod, and resides in Knoxville, Tenn., where he follows carpentering, building and dealing in real estate ; George C., who married Lilian Van Duzee, and is a farmer of Kiantone; Dora, Samuel P., Mary L. and Fannie E. at home ; Jay H. is dead.
Samuel Kidder affiliates with the democrats, but was a whig before the advent of the Repub- lican party. He has served the people of Ki- antone three terms each as supervisor and as- sessor, and belongs to the Congregational church at Jamestown.
H ARVEY SIMMONS, who has been a resi-
dent of Jamestown for over forty years, is a son of Philander and Mary Ann (Waid) Simmons, and was born in the town of Port- land, Chautauqua county, New York, July 11, 1827. The Simmons, for three generations back, are to be traced as residents of Washing- ton county, of which Zuriel Simmons, tlie paternal grandfather of Harvey Simmons, was a native and life-long resident. He owned a large farm, and being of good education and well versed in legal matters, was constantly employed in conducting civil cases before the magistrates. He was a whig in politics and married Sallie Hunt, by whom he had five sons and four daugliters, who grew to manhood and womanhood. One of the sons, Philander Sim- mons (father), was born in 1797, and died in Jamestown in 1862. At an early age he came to the town of Portland, in which he purchased and cleared out a large farm in a section that then was in the woods. In 1855 he removed to Jamestown where he lived a retired life. He was a whig and republican in politics, and a member and deacon of the Free Will Baptist church. Mr. Simmons died December 13, 1882. He married Mary Ann Waid, and they reared a family of ten children : Eliza, wife of Frank Colt, of Jamestown ; Leander, who died at Ashville, N. Y., in 1888, aged sixty-five years ; Franklin, a lumber dealer; Harvey ; Clarissa, widow of Hugli Mosier, of Brocton ; Martha, widow of J. W. Clements, and wife of William Cobb, of Jamestown; Ira, who married Sarah E. Wilson, and served in Co. F, 112th N. Y. Vols., from August 25, 1862, to June 13, 1865 ; William H., a Union soldier in the late war and now a farmer ; Adelbert P., who also served in the Union army, and Adaline, wife of Stephen Whitcher, of Mt. Vernon, Illinois. Mrs. Simmons was a daughter of Pember Waid who was born at Lyme, in Litchfield county, Con- necticut, January 21, 1774, married Anna, daughter of Samuel Lord, and died February
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15, 1852, in Crawford county, Pennsylvania, where he had owned and cultivated a farm for many years.
Harvey Simmons received the meagre educa- tion of his boyhood days in western New York, and commenced life for himself in the business of manufacturing scythe snaths and other tool handles. In five years he sold out and worked for some time with the manufacturing firm of Chase & Son. He then purchased seven acres of land in Jamestown, which he has continued to cultivate and improve until the present time. Mr. Simmons is a republican in politics, but has never aspired for any office within the gift of his fellow-citizens.
On March 15, 1851, he married Mary Ann | Southwick, who was born in 1829, and is a daughter of Herman Southwick, a native of Cayuga county (who married Achesa Wellman), reared a family of ten children, came to Busti in 1856, and afterwards died at Oil Creek, Pa. To Mr. and Mrs. Simmons have been born five children : Mary, wife of Allen R. Manbert, a shoemaker and dealer in boots and shoes on Brooklyn avenue; H. Adelbert ; and Cora, who married G. D. Andruss, a photographer, of Jamestown, and has one child, Pearl I. Two others died in childhood.
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C OL. THOMAS T. CLUNEY, the present efficient chief of the Jamestown fire de- partment, who rose from a private in the ranks of the Federal army to the grade of colonel, and who, when the war closed, was in the line of promotion to a generalship and the command of a brigade, was born in Montreal, Canada, October 30, 1838, and is a son of Sergeant John and Mary (McNickel) Cluney. His grand- fathers, Cluney and MeNickel, were natives and life-long residents of Great Britain, the former of England and the latter of Ireland. His father, Sergeant John Cluney, was born in England, entered the British army, rose to the rank of sergeant, and was stationed with his
company at Montreal, Canada, during the War of 1812. He was afterwards honorably dis- charged from the English service, drew a pen- sion for over a quarter of a century, and died in Toronto, Canada, in 1840, He married Mary McNickel and had six children: Col. Thomas T., Charles, who is superintendent of a coal-wharf at Perth Amboy, N. J .; three who died young, and John, who enlisted in a New York regiment, was wounded in the shoulder at the battle of Chickahominy and taken prisoner by the Confederates, who held him for three months. After being exchanged he died in a hospital in Philadelphia from the effects of his wound, which had never been dressed during the time that he was a prisoner.
Thomas T. Cluney was, about 1849, brought by George Flint to Jamestown, where he received a good practical business education in the schools of that place. In 1859 he went to Pennsylvania, where he was a successful operator in the oil- producing business until the spring of 1861, when the life of the nation was menaced by the most gigantic rebellion of modern history. He immediately raised and equipped, at his own expense, a company of one hundred and five men at Tidioute, Pa., for the Fifth Excelsior regiment of New York volunteers, and for- warded them to Staten Island, N. Y. His colonel then ordered him to Jamestown to recruit more men. He enlisted and forwarded sixty men from that place, and had sixty more secured, when he received notice that liis services were not needed any longer and that the command of his company had been given to another. This base treatment had been brought about by a couple of lieutenants in his company. He then enlisted as a private on July 5, 1861, in Co. A, 49th N. Y. vols., took part in all the battles of the Army of the Potomac from Yorktown to Appomattox Court-house, was wounded slightly in five battles but never disabled from duty, and was honorably discharged on July 10, 1865. He was promoted to second lieutenant on August
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OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
8, 1861, made first lieutenant November 6, 1861, commissioned captain April 14, 1862, and pro- moted to major May 16, 1863, for gallant and meritorions conduct on the battle-field of Fred- ericksburg. In 1864 he received his commission as lieutenant-colonel, and on July 10, 1865, he was mustered out with the rank of colonel. After the war he took charge of the Johnson House at Fredonia, and then went to Mayville, where he had charge successively of the Van Vaulkenburg, Mayville and Chautauqua hotels. From there he came to Jamestown, where he opened and run the Gifford house for six years, then was a hotel elerk for some time. He next opened the Milwaukee bottling works, which he sold in 1888, to become proprietor of the White Elephant hotel and restaurant, which has attained wonderful popularity and immense patronage under his management. In 1867 Col. Cluney connected himself with the fire department of Jamestown. He was foreman of Deluge com- pany, No. 1, for sixteen years, then (1883) was elected assistant chief, and in 1884 he was appointed chief, and has served as such ever since. Under his management the Jamestown fire department, comprising seven companies and two hundred and twenty-five men, is now regarded as one of the best regulated and most efficient volunteer services in the State of New York. Three years' drilling in the New York militia under Captain James M. Brown well fitted Col. Cluney for his active service in the late war. His company furnished twenty-two officers, all of whom, except two or three, were killed, or died from effect of wounds or exposure.
On Angust 28, 1867, he married Hannah P. Benson, daughter of Rev. Henry Benson, a Presbyterian minister of Jamestown, who served as chiaplain of the 49th regiment, New York Vols. He was killed near Wilson's Mills, August 7, 1883.
In politics Col. Cluney has always been a republican, and is a stanch and liberal supporter of his party. He is a member of James M.
Brown Post, No. 285, Grand Army of the Republic, and captain-general of Jamestown Commandery, No. 1, Knights Templar.
D ANIEL B. DORSETT, a capitalist and real estate owner, who is helping to build np this city, (having just completed "De Orsay," a handsome compartment building on west Third street,) is a son of Joseph and Abigail (Hanks) Dorsett, and was born June 12, 1816, in the town of Union, Tolland county, Connec- ticut. The name, originally De Orsay, coming from the French, shows the grandfather's ex- traction, although he was born in Connecticut, where he died. He was a farmer by oceupa- tiou. Joseph Dorsett (father) was born in Connecticut, where he followed farming and died. Politically he was independent. He was twice married; first, to Abigail Hanks, who bore him two sons and six daughters, and after her death he married Mary Hitchcock, who had two sons and one daughter.
Daniel B. Dorsett was educated in the com- mon country schools of Connecticut. He began life humbly-his first work being peddling. In 1838 he was proprietor of a store at East- ford, Conn., and in 1849 came to Chautauqua county, locating in Sinclairville, where he man- ufactured shoes and cultivated a farm of sixteen acres during the ensuing ten years and for nearly twenty years thereafter bought butter and cheese through the country. In October, 1890, Mr. Dorsett came to Jamestown to reside and look after his real estate interests.
On November 16, 1841, Mr. Dorsett married Harriet F. Preston, a daughter of Earl Clapp Preston, a native of Windham county, Conn., where he resided until 1874, since which time and until his death, that occurred at the advanced age of 94, he made his home with Mr. Dorsett at Sinclairville. Mr. Preston, in early life, had been a farmer and later a school teacher in Connecticut and was an active worker in educa- tional matters until nearly eighty years old,
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having served as superintendent of schools in residence in the colonial settlements, aud the his native State. He was a republicau and a sixty years of life passed in Chautauqua county completed to the present generation an unbroken citizenship in the new world of almost two cen- turies, during which the brain and muscle of this family were devoted to the development of the vast and unlimited resources of our particularly strong abolitionist. Religiously he had strong affinities with the Congregational church, taking a leading part for nearly eighty years, and was familiarly known to his friends as Deacon Preston. He married Harriet Fox and had four children. Mr. and Mrs. Dorsett country.
have four children : Calista, now the wife of Edwin Williams, a merchant living in Sinclair- ville ; Daniel H., who wedded Ellen R. Shep- herd, of Iowa, is now living in Chicago. He is the inventor of Dorsett's system of electrical conduits in use in our principal cities, aud is vice-president and manager of the National Subway Co., of Chicago, Ill., manufacturers of conduits-he has two children-Rae aud Leon- ard ; Charles W., married Martha Angle, of Randolph, N. Y., and now resides at Minne- apolis, Minn., where he is a caterer and con- fectioner. They have two children : Gretchen and Hattie, and three adopted: Karl, Ralph aud Lucy ; and Minnie F., wife of G. F. Smith, M.D., lives at Sinclairville and has two children, Charles, and Daniel.
D. B. Dorsett was originally a whig, but with the advent of the Republican party he trans- ferred his allegiauce to it and was a strong anti- slavery member. While in Connecticut he served as deputy-sheriff aud was a notary public for over twenty years. Both he and his estima- ble wife are members of the Congregational church.
SRAEL RECORD. The democracy of I Chautauqua county lost one of its strougest adherents when, on the 16th of July, 1887. Israel Record, of Silver Creek, closed his eyes in their last sleep and passed over into the uu- known world. Israel Record descended from a line of ancestors who were thoroughly Ameri- can in their character and democratic in their habits. A hundred years spent in the valleys of the Hudson were but the sequel of their earlier
Israel Record was a son of Reverend Johu Record, who was a prominent citizeu, proprie- tor of the village grist-mill and pastor of the Baptist church at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. In the old family Bible, the title page of which bears the date of 1766, is the quaint and curious, though laconic and succinct, entry : "Between the hours of ten aud cleven o'clock, Friday, October 12, one thousand seven hundred aud ninety-eight, then was Israel Record born in Poughkeepsie." Israel Record passed twenty- five years of his early life in eastern New York and then married Mary Gardner, in Dutchess county. Eight years afterward (1830), with his wife and two children he followed the course of the setting sun until he reached Chautauqua county, aud soon found a home iu the town of Sherman. A few years later he moved to Han- over town and lived there until he died. His marriage resulted in nine children, four of whom are still living: Mrs. Emily Wood, aud William Record, of Versailles, Cattaraugus county ; John G., a lawyer of Forestville; and Mrs. N. Babcock, of Silver Creek, at whose home he died.
Israel Record was less than two years of age wlieu the present century began, and kind nature seeming to realize that a man of that day must be possessed of great bodily and mental strength, endowed him with a massive physique and a mind and will commensurate. His memory was a wouderful store-house of kuowledge, and it is said that withiu a few days after President Cleveland's inaugural address was published he repeated it verbatim and remembered it per- fectly uutil he died. Dates and places, laws
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OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
and State constitutions, amendments and the men who advocated them were as familiar to his memory when past eighty years of age as to the eye of an ordinary man when looking at the printed page of an open book, and when he once asserted the correctness of a statement it was useless to refer to a book for corroborative proof -he was always found to be correct.
His faith in democracy was as strong as the most devout Christian's in religion. An ex- pression once made, referring to him, said : "Counter arguments, however good or impres- sive, fall as powerless as raindrops on a granite boulder." He endured the twenty-eight years of republican rule with outspoken condemnation and contempt, and probably no man in the country more sincerely welcomed, or was made so supremely happy by the democratic victory of 1884 and the change of administration in 1885. He was tender towards his family and the affection he felt for his wife bordered on adoration. Of her he would say : "She knew something," in a tone that indicated that to him all other women were as common clay. He died as he had lived, unflinching and unterrified, and he went into eternity "like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams," when he had reached the unusual age of eighty-eight years, ten months and four days.
OHN G. RECORD, a strong democrat of Forestville, and a member of the Chau- tauqua county bar, was born at Smith's Mills, in the town of Hanover, Chautauqua county, New York, October 2, 1836, and is a son of Israel and Mary (Gardner) Record. During the last century his ancestors were settled in the rich and fertile valley of the Hudson river, which has been made famous for all time to come by the pen of Washington Irving, the prince of American writers. Rev. John Record, the paternal grandfather of John G. Record, was an active minister of the Baptist 6
church. He ran a grist-mill, and was a man of prominence as well as of usefulness in the com- munity in which he resided. His son, Israel Record (sec his sketch), the father of the sub- ject of this sketch, was born and rearcd at Poughkeepsie, and came to the town of Sher- man about 1830. He afterwards removed to the town of Hanover, of which he was a resi- dent until his death in 1887, at eighty-nine years of age. He was a cattle dealer during the active part of his life. His wife was Mary Gardner, who was born in Dutchess county, in the Hudson river valley, and passed away in 1880, when in the eighty-fourth year of her age
John G. Record spent his boyhood days in his native county, and received an academical education at Middlebury and Wyoming acad- emies. Leaving school he read law in 1858 with Sherman Scott, of Forestville, was ad- mitted to the Chautauqua county bar in Decem- ber, 1859, and has practiced successfully at Forestville ever since, excepting two years when he had an office at Silver Creek.
He was married in 1862, to Mary Farnham, of Forestville, who died in March, 1886, and left four children. On October 2d, 1887, Mr. Record united in marriage with Flora M. Haywood, of Versailles, New York. To this second union have been born two children.
In addition to his law practice Mr. Record gives some little time to the management of his farm of one hundred and fifty acres of land, which is situated one and one-half miles from Forestville. Thirty acres of this land is devot- ed to the culture of grapes, and shows this sec- tion of the county to be well adapted to the cultivation of the vine. In politics Mr. Record is a zealous democrat of Jeffersonian views, has always stood upon the platform of the old-time genuine principles of his party, and advocated honesty and economy in State as well as Na- tional affairs. John G. Record has served his town as supervisor, and has several times ac-
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cepted a nomination from his party in its Mr. O'Neil until 1879, when he entered into plucky, but hopeless fights against the over- partnership with Thomas O'Neil, under the whelming republican majority in Chautauqua county.
J OHN W. O'BRIEN had an unexpectedly hard battle to fight in life, but he fought it nobly and won a victory of which any one might be justly prond. He was born in county Carlow, province of Leinster, Ireland, July 20, 1842, and is a son of William and Ann (Kelley) O'Brien. His father, William O'Brien, was a native of the same place, a farmer by occupation, a member of the Catholic church and died in 1852, at forty years of age. He married Ann Kelley, of county Wicklow, a mining and pas- toral district in the province of Leinster, by whom he had eight children, three sons and five daughters: John W .; James, who died in Ireland; Thos. B., is foreman in a large manu- facturing establishment in Erie, Pa .; Ellen, wife of James Carroll ; Jane, married Bartholo- mew Cavanaugh; Annie, married to P. C. Mulligan ; Bridget and Mary, who resides with John W. All the daughters reside in Dunkirk. Mrs. O'Brien came to America in 1858 and located in Dunkirk, where she is now residing with her son, John W., in the seventy-fifth year of her age. She is also a member of the Catholic church.
John W. O'Brien received a portion of his education by a brief attendance in the common schools, but it came mainly by studying at home in the evenings. His father was in reduced ยท circumstances at the time of his death, and Jolin W., at the age of thirteen, with his sister Ellen, aged eleven, came alone to America in 1855, and from New York City to Dunkirk, where they expected to meet an uncle, Thomas O'Brien, but found he had died. He then went to work on a farm, remained there two years and then secured a position in the flour and feed house of William O'Neil, who was an old friend of the O'Briens in Ireland. He continued to clerk for
firm name of O'Neil & Co., and bought out William O'Neil. This firm continued two years, when his partner died and he bought his inter- est of the heirs, and since then has continued the business alone. He carries a large stock of all kinds of flour, feed and seeds and enjoys a fine paying trade. He has reared and educated his brothers and sisters and has also accumu- lated a moderate competency. In politics he is a democrat and in religion is a member of the Catholic church. He enjoys the respect of all who know him and is satisfied with his experi- ence in his adopted country.
G ILBERT M. RYKERT was born in Atti- ca, Wyoming county, New York, October 6, 1840, and is a son of Rev. Gilbert and Sarah A. (Nichols) Rykert. His father, Rev. Gilbert Rykert, was a native of Washington county, this State, a minister of the Free-Will Baptist church, and in politics a republican. He mar- ried Sarah A. Nichols, a native of the town where her son was born, who is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and now re- sides with her son in Westfield, in the seventy- sixth year of her agc. They were the parents of three children. Rev. Gilbert Rykert died in Evans, Eric county, this State, where he had lived for several years, on June 12, 1864, at the age of fifty-three years.
Gilbert M. Rykert was rearcd principally in Erie and Chautauqua counties, and received a common-school education. In July, 1862, he enlisted in Co. C, 154th regiment, New York Vol. Infantry, and was honorably discharged in February, 1864, on account of a wound re- ceived at the battle of Gettysburg, on July 1, 1863, while he was color-bearer. His comrade, also a color-bearer, had been previously shot, and Mr. Rykert had taken his colors in addition to his own. He was struck in his right arm by a minie-ball, permanently disabling the arm.
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OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
After leaving the army, he entered the employ of the L. S. & M. S. R. R. company, where he has remained ever since. From 1876 to 1887 he was telegraph operator at Westfield, and in the latter year he was appointed station-agent, which position he still retains. He also devot- ed some attention to the cultivation of the grape. Politically he is a prohibitionist, in his religious convictions a Baptist, of which church he is a member and a trustee, and is a member of Sum- mit Lodge, No. 219, F. and A. M .; Chautau- qua Lodge, No. 3, A. O. U. W .; Westfield Council, No. 81, Royal Arcanum, and William Sackett Post, No. 324, G. A. R. He has served three years as a trustee of the town of Westfield.
November 10, 1868, Gilbert M. Rykert unit- ed in marriage with Arietta H., daughter of Leonard Smith, of Brocton, this county, and their union has been blest with three children : Homer S., Charles E. and William C.
G. M. Rykert is a gallant soldier, an hon- est, faithful, conscientious employe, and an up- right, honorable and respected citizen, ever doing all in his power for the prosperity of the town in which he resides.
M YRON W. PARDEE, a son of James and Phobe (Chandler) Pardee, was born April 15, 1856 and died at Jamestown, Nov. 22, 1889. Myron W. Pardee was a grandson of Woodley W. Chandler, a native of the Old Dominion State where he was born February 14, 1800, and was one of the earlier of James- town's settlers, arriving here in 1826. Prior to this date lie lived for a while in Dexterville, Chautauqua county, where he married Phoebe Winsor, danghter of Abraham Winsor, by whom he had five children. Upon his advent here, in partnership with his brother-in law, he bought a piece of land near the outlet formerly owned by Judge Foote, and built upon it a cloth-dressing and carding mill. Its site is now covered by a much larger similar establishment.
At about this season he was also interested in lumbering. He afterwards removed to Levant, Chautauqua county, where he died April 22, 1854. Chandler street, Jamestown, derives its name from this family. Grandfather Pardce was a native of Connecticut.
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