USA > New York > Chautauqua County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York : with a historical sketch of the county > Part 12
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Myron W. Pardee was educated in the James- town schools, graduating from the normal de- partment in 1876, and from the high school in 1879. Previous to his graduation, however, he had left school several times for the purpose of teaching. The first time when only seven- teen years of age he was principal of the school at Kennedy, N. Y., for a year and at later periods had charge of schools at Falconer, N. Y., and at Farmington, Fayette county, Pa. Immediately after graduation, in 1879, he reg- istered with Hon. Orsell Cook and began the study of law. He also, at the same time kept books for two Jamestown firms in order to pro- cure means with which to go through with his studies. He afterwards entered the Albany law school, from which he graduated in 1881, and settled in Jamestown for the practice of his profession. Being bright, active and energetic he soon gained a lucrative practice, and at the time of his death was one of the leading young attorneys of Jamestown.
On September 19, 1883, he was united in marriage to Eudora E. Klock, the accomplished daughter of Hiram and Margaret (Quinn) Klock. Mrs. Pardee is a musician of recog- nized merit. An expert instrumentalist, she has also rare natural endowments of voice which she has cultivated by thorough courses at Mead- ville, Pa., and in New York city under instruc- tions from the best artists in the profession. She has sung in nearly all the city church choirs.
Politically Mr. Pardee was a republican and with his wife was a member of the Methodist chnreli.
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H ON. FRANCIS BEATTIE BREWER, M.D., a resident of Westfield for over thirty years, and an ex-member of Congress, who conceived, planned and developed the present methods of producing and utilizing pe- troleum, one of the great sources of national wealth and revenue, was born at Keene, New Hampshire, October 8, 1820, and is a son of Capt. Ebenezer and Julia (Emerson) Brewer. Francis Beattie Brewer is a descendant of Rev- olutionary stock, his grandfather, Ebenezer Brewer, having held the rank of colonel and participated in the struggle of the old Thir- teen Colonies, or " sea-shore republics," for in- dependence. His father, Ebenezer Brewer, was familiar with the trying scenes of Revolu- tionary days and afterwards held a captain's commission during the War of 1812, in which he served with credit and distinction. He and his father were both natives and lifelong resi- dents of New Hampshire.
Francis B. Brewer spent his earlier years at Barnet, Vermont, where his father was engaged in lumbering and the mercantile business. His preparation for college was made at Newbury seminary, Vt., and Meriden academy, N. H. After graduating from Dartmouth college he was engaged in teaching for several months at Barnet and in Peacham academy, Vt., and then (1843) commenced the study of medicine with Dr. W. G. Nelson. In 1844 he attended lectures at Dartmouth Medical college where he also studied nine months with the faculty, and then completed his medical course with Dr. W. W. Gerhart, of Philadelphia, Pa. He received his degree of M.D. from Dartmouth Medical college in 1846, practiced at Barnet until December, 1849, and then removed to Plym- outh, Mass., where he remained for two years. In 1851 he went to Titusville, Pa., where he was actively and extensively engaged for ten years in lumbering and the general mercantile business. He was a member of the firm of Brewer, Watson & Co., who owned several
thousand acres of timbered land along Oil creek and its tributaries. On their land, and near one of their lumber mills was an old Indian well, remarkable for producing oil. This oil was extensively used as a medieine, and was collected by absorbing the oil from the surface of the water with woolen blankets. In 1852 the idea occurred to Dr. Brewer, of using this oil in the lumber mills, both as an illumi- nator and a lubricator. The well was then en- larged and deepened ; a pump was worked in it by wires attached to the machinery of the mill, and in this way a large quantity of oil was ob- tained. Thus commenced the oil business. From this date Dr. Brewer gave his time, means and efforts to discover the best manner of producing and utilizing this valuable pro- duct. Although discouraged, but never dis- heartened, success finally crowned the enter- prise which he justly claims to have conceived, planned and developed, and which has proved to be one of the great discoveries of the age. The oil business which he inaugurated as a branch of commerce, has attained gigantic pro- portions and has added immensely to the wealth of the world. The first oil lease on record was made July 4, 1853, between Brew- er, Watson & Co., and J. D. Angier, and the first oil company, " The Penna. Rock Oil Co.," was organized in New York City, in 1854, of which Dr. Brewer was one of the incorporators and directors, and this territory formed the basis of the company's operations.
On July 20, 1848, he married Susan H. Rood, daughter of Rev. Prof. Heman Rood, of Haverhill, N. H., but formerly of Gilmanton Theological seminary. Dr. and Mrs. Brewer have four children: Eben, born May 14, 1849; Francis Beattie and Frances Moody (wife of W. C. Fitch of Buffalo,) born October 16, 1852; and. George Emerson, born July 28, 1861.
In 1861 Dr. Brewer came to Westfield to re- side. He owns a beautiful farm on the shore
Your sincere friend : Pr. Brower
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of Lake Erie. He is interested in several large business enterprises, outside of petroleum, in which he has large investments and does a large commission business in Pittsburg, Pa., as a member of the firm of Brewer, Burke & Co. In 1864 Dr. Brewer organized the First Nat- ional Bank of Westfield, and was made presi- dent of the same, which position he held for ten years. He was also president of the Town- send Manufacturing Co. His varions business interests have caused him to travel widely in the United States and Europe. During the late war he was appointed by the Governor of New York as a special State agent, with the rank of Major, to visit the hospitals connected with the Army of the Potomac, and in that capacity rendered valuable aid to the sick and wounded sons of the Empire State. In 1873 he was elected a member of the New York Assembly and after serving creditably throughout two terms was appointed as a government director of the Union Pacific railroad, which position he held for four years under Presidents Grant and Hayes. He served for some time by appoint- ment of Gov. Cornell as a manager of the State asylum at Buffalo, and was afterwards elected in 1873, as a republican member of the Forty-eighth Congress from the thirty-third congressional district of New York, receiving 12,123 votes, against 9,591 received by Low- ery, the democratic candidate, 1,020 for Sellers, prohibitionist ; and 856 for Randall, Green- backer. At the expiration of his term of ser- vice in Congress, Dr. Brewer returned to West- field, where he has been ever since prominently identified with various leading and successful business enterprises. From the small begin- ning of Dr. Brewer in the oil business, in the back woods of Venango county, Pa., has grown the great petroleum industry which now gives employment to thousands of men in its differ- ent departments of production, piping, refining and shipping, in the oil-fields of Pennsylvania and New York, which have produced already
nearly four hundred million barrels of oil and yield an annual revenue of many million dol- lars.
HAUNCEY ABBEY, president of the Fre- donia National bank, is one of that honor- able and distinctive class called " self-made " men, who have fought the battle of life to financial success by their own energy and skill. He was born in the town of Virgil, Cortland county, New York, April 1, 1815, and is a son of David and Hannah (Woods) Abbey. He is of New England ancestry, and his grandfathers, John Abbey and Nathan Woods, were both of English descent and served in the Continental armies during the Revolutionary struggle of the Thirteen Colonies for independence. His father, David Abbey, was a native of Bellows Falls, on the Connecticut river, in the State of Con- necticut and married Hannah Woods, of Ben- nington, Vermont, after which he came to New York, where he finally settled in the town of Villanova (now Arkwright) in 1823. He was a farmer in moderate circumstances at the time of his death in 1876, when he was in the eighty- seventh year of his age.
Chauncey Abbey grew to manhood on the home farm and attended the ordinary schools of his neighborhood, in which he received a limited education in the common-school branches except- ing mathematics; in this science he became quite proficient. Leaving school he engaged in farming, which he followed successfully for sixty years on his Arkwright farm of one hun- dred and ninety-six acres. This farm he has, by persistent and intelligent effort, brought into a high state of cultivation and productiveness. Hle is one of the representative farmers in a county noted for its fertile farms and large crops. Besides general farming and grain rais- ing he has engaged extensively for many years in stock-dealing. In the latter business his efforts have been rewarded with the same ample measure of success which has been his in all of
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his other business enterprises. In 1856 he and Stephen M. Clements, with others, were mainly instrumental in organizing the Fredonia bank which, in 1865, became the Fredonia National bank, of which Mr. Abbey has been president since 1882. He was a heavy stockholder and a prominent director in the old as well as the new bank, and in their management his good judgment and safe business methods added much to their uniform success and general prosperity. The Fre- donia National bank has a capital of one hun- dred thousand dollars, with average deposits of five hundred thousand dollars and a surplus of forty thousand dollars. This bank is recog- nized as one of the best managed and most reli- able banks in the State, and has the reputation of having never extended or skipped the time of any payment of its dividends. The bank has been constantly increasing its volume of business under the conservative, safe and reli- able management of Mr. Abbey, whose business relations have brought him in contact with and secured for him the good will of the leading business men of western New York. The directors of this bank stand high as business men and financiers, and most of them, like Mr. Abbey, are identified with other important in- terests of the county.
He married Elizabeth Chase, who died, and then he united in marriage with Mrs. Esther A., the daughter of Judge Allen, of Tiowanda, this State. To his first union were born three child- ren, one of whom, Ella E., is the wife of Hon. W. B. Hooker, member of Congress from the Thirty-fourth Congressional district of New York, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume.
was slow and careful in the beginning of his business career, but daily widened out the sphere of his operations and eventually became a potent factor in the many business enterprises with which he is identified to-day.
R OWLAND W. GARDNER is a most worthy disciple of Ceres, Pomona and Flora, and was warmly welcomed as a member of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, where he found the representatives of these three mythological goddesses occupying chairs at the head of the hall. Rowland W. Gardner is a son of William J. and Sarah (Durfee) Gardner, and was born in South Kingston, Rhode Island, October 12, 1819. His paternal grandfather, Rowland Gardner, was also born in South Kingston, Rhode Island, where he owned a farm of one hundred acres on which he spent his entire life. He was married in 1770 to Deboralı James, by whom he had five children : James, a farmer; John, who moved to New York State, settled in Wyoming county, and married Wealthy Bentley ; Nicholas, a foreman in a factory in Norwich, Coun., who married Betsey Hazard : William J., father of Rowland W .; and Rowland, who died at twenty-one years of age. Their father died in 1805, while the mother passed away fifteen years before. Both are interred in South Kingston, R. I. The maternal grandfather, Joseph Durfce, was born in Connecticut in 1775, but after reaching his majority lie removed to Rhode Island, where he bought a farm and remained there until 1821, when he removed to Wyoming county, N. Y., and purchased a farm, having sold his large property in Rhode Island. The farm in Wyo- his death in 1845. He married twice. His first wife was Esther Wood, by whom he had six children, four sons and two daughters : William was a laborer; Newell was a farmer in Rhode Island, and married Sarah Moore;
In addition to his farm in the town of Ark- ming county he occupied and cultivated until wright he owns several valuable tracts of land in other parts of the county, and has a well- improved farm in Ohio, for which he paid ten thousand dollars. At an early age Mr. Abbey developed those business habits which became the foundation of his after success in life. He ; Thomas was a cripple; Sarah was the mother
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of Rowland W .; Eunice married Francis Hamil- years. In 1852 they divided the business and ton, of Ireland, who was a Methodist minister; each continued to raise on his own farm. He raised and papered the seeds until 1864, when he discontinued papering them and has since raised them for the wholesale trade. He is widely known as a most reliable sccdsman, nurseryman and florist. He imports large quan- tities of trees and bulbs for his local trade, and in the last thirty years has sold over one million trees, plants and bulbs of his own importation. He has been very successful and accumulated a handsome competency. He is a charter mem- ber of Fredonia Grange, No. 1; a member of Chautauqua Lodge, No. 283, I. O. O. F .; of Forest Lodge, No. 166, F. and A. M .; of Fre- donia Chapter, No. 76, R. A. M .; and of Dun- kirk Council and Dunkirk Commandery, No. 40, K. T. He was a member of the board of trustees and board of assessors of Fredonia sev- eral times and is highly respected as a useful, honorable and upright citizen. Joseph was a farmer in Wyoming county, N. Y., and married Martha Pollard. The mother of these children died in 1805, and Joseph Durfec married for his second wife Elsie Wilcox, and by this union had seven children, four sons and three daughters : Benjamin, a farmer in Wyo- ming county, N. Y., married Eliza Sparr ; Esther, unmarried ; Eliza, married Noble Fair- child, a farmer in Michigan ; Whipple, bachelor and farmer; Anthony, also a bachelor and farmer ; Mariamne, married Abram Pickard ; and Charles, who died when a young man. William J. Gardner, (father) was born in South Kingston, R. I., in 1794. He worked on the farm with his father until he was twenty-one years old, when he leased a farm and cultivated it until 1821 ; then he moved to Genesec county (now Wyoming), N. Y., and bought a farm of fifty acres, partially impreved. He remained here until 1829, when he removed to Monroe Rowland W. Gardner was married July 19, 1863, to Jane Carpenter, daughter of Ezra and Minerva (Nichols) Carpenter, her father being a farmer in Sheridan, this county, and has one daughter, Sarah M., who resides with her parents. county, N. Y., and leased a farm on which he lived two years, and then bought a farm of twenty-five acres in the corporation of Fredonia, on which he lived until his death in 1863. He married Sarah Durfec, a daughter of Joseph Durfee, of South Kingston, R. I., by whom he had five children, two sons and three daughters : Rowland W., Joseph, a hardware merchant and seedsman at Fredonia, who married Abigail Hewitt, by whom he has had three children ; Deborah, unmarried ; Mary and Martha, both dead. The mother, Sarah (Durfee) Gardner, died in 1870.
Rowland W. Gardner acquired his education in the common schools of Chautauqua county and in the Fredonia academy. After leaving school he began his life's vocation of raising and selling garden seeds, to which he afterward added fruit trees. For two years he raised the seeds on leased land, and then with his brother Joseph bought a farm of fifty acres in the village of Fredonia and continued the business for eight
J OSEPH T. BOUGHTON is a son of Noah E. and Polly (Todd) Boughton, and was born in Delaware county, New York, July 4, . 1837. His grandfather, Avery Boughton, was a native of New York and resided in Greene county, where his son, Noah E. Boughton (father), was born in 1799. Noah E. Bonghton was a farmer by occupation, residing in Greene and Delaware counties, N. Y., until 1870, when he removed to Kansas and purchased a large farm, on which he lived until his death, which occurred January 17, 1890. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and voted the republican ticket. His wife, Polly Todd Boughton, a daughter of Dudley and Irene Todd, was born in Greene county, N. Y., in
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1821 and died August 1, 1851, at the age of thirty years. She was a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
Joseph T. Boughton was reared on his father's farm in Delaware county and attended the subscription schools of that period. He began life as a fireman in the employ of a rail- road, and was afterward promoted to the posi- tion of engineer running on the New York & Lake Erie and the Alton & St. Louis railroads, until 1863, when he enlisted in Co. F., 39th reg- iment, New York Vols. He served until the close of the war. After he was mustered out of service, he engaged in farming in Chautauqua county, but in 1867, he removed to Butler, Missouri, and run a saw-mill for two years, at the end of which time he returned to New York, locating in Dunkirk township, where he has since made his home. In 1869, he entered the employ of the Brooks' Locomotive company, one of the important industrial companies in Dunkirk, and remained with them for fourteen years. On account of failing health he was compelled to retire from their service in 1883, and has since that time lived a retired life. He has a pleasant home in the suburbs of Dunkirk, just outside the borough limits. Mr. Bough- ton is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and an active democrat. He is a mem- ber of the Royal Templars of Temperance and is regarded as one of the straightforward, relia- ble citizens of the town of Dunkirk.
A LBERT S. COBB, a wholesale and retail liquor dealer of Dunkirk, was born in the town of Gorham, Cumberland county, Maine, June 21, 1815, and is a son of David and Sallie (Watson) Cobb. In the latter part of the last century three brothers, David, Ebenezer and Jonathan Cobb came from Scot- land to this country, where David located in Ohio, Ebenezer in New York, and Jonathan in Massachusetts. Jonathan Cobb, who was the grandfather of Albert S. Cobb, resided in Mas-
sachusetts until his death. His son, David Cobb, was born in Barnstable, that State, and removed to Gorham, Maine, when that State was a part of Massachusetts. He was a tanner and currier which trade he left to engage in the mercantile business in Gorham and died in 1837, at the age of sixty-three years. He was an old-line whig, served as town collector for seven years besides filling other offices, and while energetic yet was a modest and unassuming man whose generosity and kindness to the poor were distinguishing traits of his character. He married Sallie Watson, who was a native of Gorham, where she died in 1843, when in the sixty-fifth ycar of her age.
Albert S. Cobb was reared in Gorham where he received a common school and academic education and where he was engaged in the general mercantile business for two years. In 1840 he went to Great Falls, New Hampshire, and was employed for nine years and six months in doing all of the painting of the Great Falls Cotton Manufacturing company. At the end of this time, in 1850, he came to Hornellsville, this State, and run for one year as a brakesman on the Erie railroad from Hornellsville to Cuba. In 1851 he was a brakesman on the first train that ran into Dunkirk and was afterwards em- ployed by the New York & Erie railroad, as a brakesman and freight and passenger conductor for twenty-one years and ten months. As a passenger conductor he run for seven years from Hornellsville to Dunkirk and for five years from Dunkirk to Oswego. From 1864 to 1868 he was a member of the wholesale and retail liquor firm of Cobb & Smith, of Dun- kirk, then for two years was in that business by himself and in 1870 became a member of the liquor firm of Cobb & Gifford which lasted two years, when Mr. Cobb established his present wholesale and retail liquor house. He removed to Dunkirk in 1861 and resigned as passenger conductor in 1871. He is a democrat, cast his first vote for Martin Van Buren and has been a
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trustee of his city for six years. He served as was a Free Mason and his father, William a store-keeper in the State Arsenal at Dunkirk when John T. Hoffman was governor and in
In the year 1840, he married Abby G. Libby, of the town of Gorham, Maine, and they have had with them for thirty-five years as a domestic Barbara Hiller, a native of Germany.
A. S. Cobb has in his possession three silver dollars which he prizes very highly. The first one is a Spanish milled dollar of 1797, received for driving a widow's cow and was the first dollar which he ever earned. The next one is a Mexican dollar of 1829 and was the first money he ever earned after becoming of age, while the third one is of the United States issuc of 1844, and was the first dollar which he received as a railroad employe.
SAMUEL OSBORNE CODINGTON, a
manufacturer and contractor of Fredonia, was born at Geneva, Ontario county, New York, December 20, 1847, and is the eldest son of John S. and Bertha (Monroe) Codington. He was educated at Edinboro State Normal school, and is now a member of the firm of Sly & Codington. He is a master mason of Forest lodge, No. 166, F. and A. M., and on September 17, 1878, united in marriage with Mary Stanley, of Fredonia.
His father, John S. Codington, was born at Geneva, N. Y., September 12, 1824, is an archi- tect and contractor, and has been superintendent of two divisions of the A. & G. W. R. R., married Bertha Monroe April 16, 1846,. by whom he had six children : Clara (Irvin), Samuel O., Acie B., Ada, Theodore and John : and removed to Ohio in 1874. John S. Coding- ton is a son of Samuel O. Codington (grand- father), who was born at Newburg, March 17, 1791, married Martha White, January 11, 1818, and died May 23, 1844. He was the contractor who built the first frame building at Geneva ;
Codington (great-grandfather), was a sea-captain who died many years ago. Captain Willian 1860 was interested in the oil production of Codington was a descendant of Sir William New York and Pennsylvania.
Codington, the first governor of Rhode Island, who was born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1601, came in 1630 to Rhode Island, where he became the founder of the Codington family of this country, and where he died November 1, 1678. The name of Codington is found on the records of England as far back as the thirteenth century.
Samuel O. Codington's mother, Bertha (Mon- roe) Codington, was born in Auburn, N. Y., April 3, 1827, and her father, Ansel Monroe (maternal grandfather), was an officer in the State prison at that place, and was last at Green Bay in the "Patriot War" of 1837. Her grandfather, Major John G. Perry, was killed at Queenstown in 1812, and one of her great- grandfathers, a General Busch, of the German army, was killed in a battle during the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, and his widow and children came to America.
Samuel O. Codington's wife, Mary (Stanley) Codington, only child of Caleb and Cordelia (Crane) Stanley, was born at Fredonia, where she received her education at the academy of that place. Her father, Caleb Stanley, was born at Herkimer, N. Y., December 25, 1813, came in 1835 to Fredonia, where he married Cordelia E. Crane on September 19, 1844, and where he died, June 22, 1884. He was a son of Isaac Stanley, a merchant, who was born in Coventry, Conn., May, 1775, married Tiney, daughter of Jeremiah Smith, a merchant of Albany, on October 3, 1802, and died in Ohio, October 22, 1849. Isaac Stanley was a son of Hon. Caleb Stanley, born July 31, 1741, married Martha Robinson, July 9, 1772, and represented Coven- try in 1784. His father, Caleb Stanley, was born at Hartford, Conn., May 25, 1707, came as a clothier to Coventry, where he married Hannah, daughter of Deacon Joseph Olmstead,
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and died June 28, 1789. He was a son of Caleb Stanley, who was born September 6, 1674, married Hannah Spencer, May 16, 1696, was secretary of Connecticut in 1709, and died January 4, 1712. His father, Captain Caleb Stanley, was born in March, 1642, and married Hannah, daughter of John Cowles. His father, Timothy Stanley, was born in England in 1602, settled at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1636, was a selectman in 1644, and died in 1648. The Stanley family, whose armorial bearings are three stags' heads, gold on field argent, bend azure, with motto "Sans Changer," had its origin as follows : Two Norman knights who came with William the Conqueror in 1066 were Adam and William De Alditheley, who married Arabella and Joanne, daughters of the Saxons, Sir Henry and Thomas de Stoneley. William received as his wife dower the manor of Thalk, which he exchanged with Adam for the manor of Stoneley, in Staffordshire, and in honor of his lady and the great antiquity of her family, assumed the surname of Stanley, and became the recognized founder of the Stanley family.
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