USA > New York > Chautauqua County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York : with a historical sketch of the county > Part 24
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petent commander, the result might have been different. On the fourth of July 1812, a cele- bration was held at Judge Cushing's farm, he himself being the orator. Ere long the report of a cannon and the rattle of musketry showed the presence of an enemy at the mouth of the creek. Jumping from his rough rostrum, the speaker was the first at the scene of action ready for defense. In August, 1816, a great sorrow fell upon his household, the mother of his children, who had been the light of his home and shared his trials, his joys, his sorrows and his hopes, was called away. Never before in the history of the village had so large and sorrowing a funeral been known. In 1817, he married Eunice Elderkin, a native of the town of Burlington, Otsego county. In 1826, just after the Erie canal was opened for navigation, in company with Joseph Sprage, Mr. Cushing built a canal-boat. It was built on the flats at the foot of Fort hill and was named the " Fredonia Enterprise." To draw the boat to the water required one hundred yoke of oxen, and after it was launched, they loaded it with wheat, and the steamer " Lake Superior " towed it to Buffalo. In 1823, he was foremost in establishing the Fredonia academy and until his death, was one of its most liberal support- ers. January 13, 1839, after a long experience of physical suffering which he patiently en- dured, Judge Zattu Cushing passed peacefully away. When the battle of life was over, his peaceful triumph commenced. At the next term of court, upon the motion of Judge Wal- lace, the bar of this county procured his portrait to be suspended in the court-house above the bench where judges sit. Guarded with tender care, it still remains there and will for ages to come, as a proper memorial of as pure a man and upright a judge as ever dispensed justice in any tribunal. By his second marriage Judge Cushing had four more children. The only daughter, Sarah M. L., died. The oldest boys were living in the west and his daughters by
his first wife were happily married and lived near him. The youngest sons, Judson E., Addison C. and Frank were at home, the pleas- ure of his declining years. All of them are now passed away excepting Judson and Addison C. Zattu Cushing was the grandfather of Alonzo H. Cushing, who was killed at the battle of Gettysburg, who, although twice wounded, was standing by his gun until the fatal leaden missile struck him down, and of Lieutenant Commander William B. Cushing (see his sketch), who by repeated and successful deeds of valor and patriotic devotion stands breast to breast with Paul Jones and Commo- dore Perry, and whose name will stand bright and fresh in the hearts of the American people as long as marble and metal hold their shape and this great Republic remains intact.
Addison Cushing was educated at the district schools of Fredonia until sixteen years of age and then entered the academy and took a three- years course. He then employed himself on his father's farm until his marriage to Elizabeth King, which occurred April 9th, 1846, when his father's estate was divided and he moved on a farm of his own. Agriculture has been his life-long pursuit, and in 1860 he began the cul- tivation of small fruits. Forming a mutual company, he erected a canning factory, which prepared the product of their orchards for the market. After running one year, this factory was destroyed by fire. Addison Cushing was one of the pioneers of grape culture and was the second man to conduct the business. He is a democrat and although the town is strongly republican, he has been re-elected president of the village oftener than any one man. Mr. Cushing has served twelve years as justice of the peace and when the Normal school was or- ganized, he was elected one of its trustees. He is a member of the Episcopal church and since 1884 has been a warden; for nearly forty years he was a member of the vestry. Addison Cushing is exemplary in his habits and is an
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excelleut example for young men to follow. His first wife was a daughter of General Na- thaniel (and a Miss Grey) King. Mr. King was a lawyer and literateur of Hamilton, Madison county, this State. To this union were born two daughters: Margaret married J. J. Servoss, a lumberman living at Portsmouth, Va., and they had one daughter ; and Elizabeth K., now the wife of P. H. Cumming, a fruit raiser of Fredonia; they had two sons and two daughters. Mr. Cushing's wife died August 25th, 1848, and on October 9th, 1849, he was united to Ellen Cumming, a daughter of Robert and Lydia Cumming. Mr. Cumming was a Scotch gentleman who went to Australia, en- gaged in farming and died there. To Mr. and Mrs. Cushing were born Mary, who married S. D. L. Jackson, a lawyer practicing at Youngs- town, Ohio; she died in 1885; and Frank C., a merchant tailor of Fredonia. Frank C. Cush- ing married Jennie Glisan, May 7th, 1884, and he died September 22d, of the same year. Mrs. Addison C. Cushing died March 8th, 1884, and on June 3d, 1886, Mr. Cushing took for his third wife Esther C. Pritchard, a daughter of Daniel C. and Abigail (Godfrey) Pritchard, living in Fredonia.
Addison C. Cushing has passed the allotted three-score and ten of man, but, owing to his temperate life and good constitution, he still en- joys fine health, and it is hoped will live for many years to continue the good which has been characteristic of his life.
JUDGE WILLIAM PEACOCK. The roll of the prominent, influential and public- spirited citizens of western New York, as well as Chautauqua county, would be incomplete without especial mention of the long and useful career of Judge William Peacock, whose name will be honorably preserved from oblivion in the history of the Erie canal, the surveys of the Holland land company, and the material devel- opment of Dunkirk, Mayville and the county.
He was born in Ulster county, New York, February 22, 1780, and was a son of Thomas and Margaret (Anderson) Peacock. His father served under Washington in the Revolutionary war, and shortly after the treaty of peace removed with his wife and family to a farm which he owned near Geneva, this State. He had three children, two sons and one daughter. The sons were: Judge William, John and Absalom; and the daughter, Geneva, who married Samuel Hughinson, who lived in Wash- ington, D. C.
William Peacock was reared on his father's farm, received a good education, and studied surveying. In 1803 he went to Batavia with the intention of going to New Orleans, but was dissuaded from his contemplated trip by Joseph Ellicott, agent of the Holland Land company, and eutered the employ of that company as a surveyor. He surveyed large bodies of their lands on the Genesee river and the western part of the State. He surveyed a large part of the site of Buffalo, where he purchased several lots, as well as buying from the company some valuable tracts of land in Chautauqua county. In 1810 he came to Mayville, when there were but two or three cabins there, and where he acted as agent for the Holland Land company until it disposed of the last of its unsold lands in 1836, when his office was destroyed by a mob of debtors of the company, who sought by this unlawful measure to obliterate all record of their indebtedness to the company, but in which they were signally foiled, as he had sent copies of all his papers to the general office of the company. A full account of this trouble will be found in the history of the Holland Land company which is given in another place in this volume. Judge Peacock was a very accurate surveyor and busi- ness man, and had often exposed himself to great dangers while|in the service of the Holland Land company. After 1836 he devoted his time mostly to the management of the valuable real and personal estate which he possessed at May-
William Peacock
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ville and elsewhere in south-western New York. He was appointed as one of the commissioners for building the first court-house at Mayville, and was one of the most liberal patrons of the academy at that place.
He was one of the early associate judges of the county court, and in 1821 served as treasurer of Chautauqua county. Prior to his removal from Batavia Judge Peacock took great interest in the conception and subsequent construction of the Erie canal. He gave Jesse Hawley, the engineer in charge of the work, valuable informa- tion, and the route he marked out for the canal through western New York was adopted with but little variation. In 1816 he surveyed and located the western part of this canal, and two years later was appointed to survey and report on the construction of a harbor at Buffalo. Judge Peacock was a strong democrat, and a great admirer of General Jackson and all demo- cratic leaders of the Jacksonian school. He was a Free and Accepted Mason from 1803 until his death.
On October 3, 1807, he married Alice Evans, a niece of Joseph Elliott, and who passed away after a short illness on April 19, 1859, when in the seventy-ninth year of her age. They had no children, and the Mayville Sentinel stated that Mrs. Peacock was no ordinary woman, and that her mental and physical powers were alike vigorous and active. Her numerous deeds of charity, the lives she saved, and the aid which she rendered to the sick and sorrowful have been handed down from parent to child. Her hand, her heart and her purse were ever open to aid any Christian enterprise. Her remains were interred in the family lot in the Mayville ceme- tery, where over them was erected a plain but costly monument. Being without other heirs, the Judge's nearest relatives were the children of his brother Absalom, who married Jane Nichols, of Newburg, this State, and in 1814 came to Westfield, where he followed farming until his death in 1836. Absalom Peacock had eight
children, one of whom, Mrs. Sarah J. Birdsall, of Mayville, is the widow of Judge John Birdsall, a native of eastern New York, who was a well-known lawyer and served on the bench.
Eighteen years after the death of his wife, Judge Peacock entered upon his final rest on the 21st of February, 1877, when he had attained nearly to his ninety-seventh year. His body was laid to rest with the impressive ceremonies of the Masonic ritual. He left no will, and his large estate was inherited by his nephews and nieces. He sleeps by the side of his wife, and although the monumental marble above his resting-place only records his age and the day of his death, yet his memory and virtues are written in the hearts of the people among wliom he lived and labored.
č OY LOVE, was born in Gerry, Chautauqua county, on the 28th day of June, 1829. His grandfather, John Love, was born in Con- necticut, in 1769. He came to Chenango county when a young man, and afterwards, became an early settler of the town of Ellery, in Chautauqua county, where he came to reside in February, 1811. He died in Illinois, in his ninety-first year. His son John, the father of Joy Love, was born January 29, 1789. He married Mary S. Ward. He was one of the earliest settlers of the town of Gerry, and during his life, a well-known citizen of that part of the county. In 1812, he purchased the farm first owned by Amos Atkins, situated about one mile south of Sinclairville, on the Old Chau- tauqua road. He afterwards erected buildings thereon, which were long known as the Love Stand. He kept this inn for over thirty years, and afterwards, for about four years, the hotel in Sinclairville. He died upon his old farm, March 18, 1857.
Joy Love followed the business of farming during the carly part of his life, upon the old homestead, in Gerry, owned by his father in his
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life-time, and afterwards to some extent in Port- land, Chautauqua county. In 1882, lie formed a co-partnership in the business of banking and milling, at Sinclairville with E. B. Crissy, now of the Farmers and Mechanics Bank of James- town, under the name of E. B. Crissy & Co., which continued six years. He then formed a co-partnership in the same business with his son, John A. Love, under the style Joy Love & Son, in which business he has continned at Sinclairville, until this time. May 24, 1854, he married Rosina Flagg, daughter of Alonzo and Caroline Flagg. John A. Love, who was born February 24, 1861, is their only child. He re- ceived his education at the Fredonia Normal school, and the Poughkeepsie Commercial col- lege. His business has always been banking. He now has principal charge of the business of the firm of Joy Love & Son, and is the present supervisor of the town of Charlotte. October 29, 1884, he married Fanny A., the daughter of Obed and Emily A. Edson. Their children are : Allen J., born in Sinclairville, August 23, 1885; and Nellie E., born in Sinclairville, Jan- uary 2, 1887.
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J AMES MULGREW is a man who has, by his own untiring energy and industry, accumulated a competency, and commands the respect of all who honor a successful man. He was born in Duncannon, Connty Tyrone, Ireland, ! June 6, 1843, and is a son of James and Catherine (Gough) Mulgrew. His father was a native of the same town, and was born in 1806. He pursued the calling of a farmer on a rented farm, and also transacted an agent's business for the queen's warehouse, being a good business man, highly respected by all classes. In religion he was a member of the Roman Catholic church. He died on Christmas day, 1870, and his wife (mother) is now living on the old homestead, in her seventy-fifth year.
James Mulgrew was reared on a farm, and received his education in the common schools of
his native town. He learned the carpenter's trade, and in 1866 he came to America, putting his feet on American soil May 1st of that year, and shortly afterward located in Silver Creek, where he was employed on the construction train on the L. S. & M. S. R. R. He worked fifteen years on this train, being steadily pro- moted until, in 1881, he was given full control. It is his pride that he never had a pair of trucks leave the track in the twenty-two years he spent on that train. - While in Indiana, in 1888, he resigned his position, and left the employ of the road December 10th of that year. Since then he has lived on his farm in Hanover, one mile from Silver Creek, where he has opened a rock quarry, and finds a quick and ready market for all the paving-stones and material for macad- amizing which he can quarry. He also has a good-sized tract of land devoted to grape culture. In National elections he votes the Democratic ticket, but in local elections he is independent, voting always for the man he considers the best qualified for the office in question. Religiously, he is a member of the Roman Catholic church. He has two brothers, Barney and John F., engaged in gold mining in Montana.
James Mulgrew was married, in 1866, to Margaret L. Mulgrew, daughter of Peter Mul- grew, of Duncannon, Ireland, and they have three children, one son and two daughters : John F., Mary E., and Margaret S., all attend- ing school at Silver Creek.
L EVI J. PIERCE, the well-known dealer in agricultural machinery, residing at Forestville, is a son of Levi H. and . Electa (Ingells) Pierce, and was born in the village of Cooperstown, Otsego county, New York, Octo- ber 3, 1830, and is now in his sixty-first year. The parents of Mr. Pierce were both New Eng- land emigrants, the father having come from the Granite State, and the mother from Con- necticut. Levi H. Pierce came to Otsego county and was engaged in the business of dis-
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OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
tilling. The name was originally Pers, which is from the English. Grandfather, Stephen Ingells, served with bravery and valor in the Revolutionary war, and was honorably dis- charged at its close.
The condition of his parents being humble, Levi J. Pierce was early taught habits of in- dustry, and passed his boyhood and youth in his native county. He was sent to the public schools and acquired such edueation as the fountain afforded. When a young man he secured a clerkship in a store at Cooperstown, and remained there until 1852, when he came to Forestville and engaged in business with J. G. Hopkins and N. B. Brown, and the firm re- mained intact for twelve years. About the date of the close of the war, Mr. Hopkins dropped out, and Messrs. Pierce & Brown continued the business for seven years longer, when they dis- solved partnership. Mr. Pierce then opened a hardware store, which he conducted until 1889, and since that time he has been handling all kinds of farming machinery and implements.
On Jan. 17, 1860, he married Frances Hop- kins, a daughter of Joseph G. Hopkins, the latter being one of the early settlers and business men of Villanova, this county, over fifty years ago. He was a native of Hartford, Connecticut, and died in 1876, aged sixty-eight years. Mr. and Mrs. Pierce have been blessed with a family of four children : Charles H., resides in Oregon ; Albert L., is in the lumber business at Irvona, Clearfield county, Pa .; Joseph G., lives in Madford, Oregon, also engaged in the lumber business ; and Ophelia.
Levi J. Pierce is the owner of considerable valuable property in Forestville, and Mrs. Pierce owns two farms within a couple of miles of the village. They have a pleasant and hap- py home, and by their business ability and good management have risen to the position of re- spect and comfort they now occupy.
S ETH ALDRICH, one of the most prosperous
farmers in this section, came from sterling Quaker ancestry on both sides of the house. Hc was born in Hamburg, Erie County, N. Y., Oc- tober 7, 1827, and is a son of Scott and Eliza (White) Aldrich. Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island is a family connection. The paternal grandfather of Seth Aldrich, Nathan, married Phobe Applebee, each a member of the Society of Friends, and to them seven chil- dren were born, six sons and one daughter : James, Sayles; Simeon, Nathan, Thomas, Scott (father), and Esther. Scott Aldrich, was born in Smithfield, Providenee county, Rhode Island, June 6, 1801. When eighteen years of age he went to learn the trade of shoemaking, and so apt was he that it might be said he made a pair of shoes the first day. After serving his full time as apprentice, he worked for some time as a journeyman. In 1820, having married, he and his wife drove from their Rhode Island home to Evans, Erie county, this State, carry- ing all their earthly possessions with them in a one-horse covered wagon. His brothers, James and Sayles had preceded him, and he spent the winter of 1823-24 with them. In the spring he purchased a farm of one hundred acres, located east of Hamburg, Erie county, paying ten dollars an acre for it, and cleared and im- proved it with the aid of an ox-team and a wooden plow, adding to it until he owned three hundred and seventy-five aeres. In 1849 he bought a farm on the flats of Buffalo creek, containing one hundred and eighty-five acres, for which he paid one hundred dollars per acre, and in 1853, only four years later, he sold it for two hundred dollars per acre, netting him eighteen thousand five hundred dollars, which was a big business transaction in those days, involving an output on the part of the pur- chaser of thirty-seven thousand dollars, a hand- some fortune then. This was the best invest- ment he ever made, and profits of one hundred per cent. were extremely rare in any business.
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He was one of the original promoters and man- agers of the plank-road from Hamburg to Buf- falo, acting as the chief executive in its con- struction. Some of the directors becoming dis- satisfied, Thompson Culbertson offered him a farm near Forestville, this county, in exchange for his plank-road stock, and he accepted. He had then (1857) resided in Hamburg thirty- three years. After a year's residence on his Forestville farm, he moved to Fredonia (1858) and bought the place where Chas. Z. Webster now resides. This lot of land he soon sold to T. Z. Higgins, and bought the place known as " Sunset Hill," and most of the territory enl- closed by Central avenue, Division, Free and Day streets, where he built the house in which T. S. Hubbard now resides, but after a while exchanged his "Sunset Hill" place for a farm on the main road, just west of the corporation line, but after a short time returned to the vil- lage and built a house on the corner of Free and Day streets. At the time of his death he owned thirteen hundred acres of land, but had previously at one time possessed twenty-eight hundred acres. Some time before he was sum- moned to a higher sphere, he disposed of a por- tion of his land to his sons, giving to each one three thousand dollars to be applied on these purchases, and an equivalent in cash to the other children, who did not take land. He was a member of the Free Will Baptist church in Hamburg, but in his later years practiced the simple usages of his Quaker ancestors. The poor had in him a most excellent friend and benefactor, and in all his business transactions he was honest and upright. He will be re- membered kindly by many who, in their early struggles for the possession of a home, experi- enced his generous and forbearing treatment. Just in all his dealings, his word was as good as a bond, and when once he had made a bargain, even verbally, he never in any way retreated. When the board of commissioners was appointed to appraise the lands for the Lake Shore rail-
road between Buffalo and Eighteen Mile Creek, he was a member. He died October 16, 1885, in his eighty-fifth year. Scott Aldrich was married April 13, 1823, to Eliza White, by whom he had seven children, four sons and three daughters : Amos, a farmer, who married Cordelia Culbertson ; Mason, a farmer, who married Licena Clark ; Seth ; Ira, a farmer, who married Louisa Taylor; Mary, who mar- ried Benjamin Miller, a farmer and gardener at Hamburg ; Ann, who married Isaac Long; and an infant, Amy, who died September 28, 1838. The mother of these children died in April, 1855. July 26, 1855, he was married to Anna Meal, of Boston, Erie county, this State. Of their children, the eldest, David, died in Sheri- dan, May 6, 1872. The others are still living, namely : George, a farmer, who married Mar- tha Dye, of Sheridan; Nathan, a farmer, who married for his first wife, Mary Prescott, and for his second Ellen Dye; Sayles, a farmer, who married Virginia Sweet ; Simon, a farmer, who married Carrie Spink ; Eliza, who married Carmie Daily of Fredonia ; Martha, who mar- ried J. J. Kelly ; and Maria, who married Jasper K. Aldrich. The second wife of Scott Aldrich died May 14, 1857, in her forty-fourth year, and he married, July 29, 1858, Lydia A. Snell, of Waterford, Pennsylvania, who bore him one child who died in infancy.
Seth Aldrich was educated in the conimon schools of Erie county, this State, and also at the select schools of Hamburg, in the same county, attending at these founts of learning until he was twenty-two years of age. In 1851, in company with his brother, Mason, he bought the stage line running from White's Corners, now in Hamburg, to Buffalo, carried it a year, and in the fall of 1852 sold out. In the fall of 1853 he moved to Wyoming county, where he and his brother, Mason, bought a farm of one hundred and ten acres, located near Weth- ersfield Springs. Here he remained until the spring of 1855, when he removed to Sheridan,
4
Maar Schon
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OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
this county, on a farm owned by his father, where he stayed two years, and then went to Hamburg and bought a farm of forty-four acres, on which he lived a year and then went to Wethersfield Springs, and traded his Ham- burg farm for the one he formerly owned, his brother having sold it. On this farm lie resided four years, after which time he sold it and moved to Pomfret, this county, where he culti- vated a leased farm for five years. Then his father disposed of his property and he bought the so-called "Old Tarbox farm," four miles sonth of Fredonia, containing two hundred and fifty acres. Here he remained until March, 1887, when he bought a farm of eighteen acres one mile east of Fredonia, situated on the main road, on which was a fine residence, which he now occupies and raises grapes and small fruits.
He is a member of the Methodist church of Fredonia, of which he is a class leader, and has been trustee, steward and Sunday school superintendent. All his life he has retained the many excellent qualities tanght him by his good Quaker father and mother. Seth Aldrich was married May 10, 1853, to Mar- tha M. Clark, a daughter of Levi and Sallie (Fisk) Clark, the father being a farmer and blacksmith of Hamburg, Erie county, this State, and this union has been blessed with two children, a danghter and a son ; the former died July 26, 1860, in her third year.
BED EDSON, was born in Sinclairville, Chautanqua county, February 18, 1832. He is a descendant of the seventh generation, from Samuel Edson, who was born in England, in 1612, came over to Salem, Mass., in the ycar 1638 or 1639, and afterwards became an original proprietor, and first settler of Bridg- water, Plymouth county, Mass. His father Judge John M. Edson, was born in the town of Eaton, Madison county, New York, July 30, 1801. He came to Sinclairville in 1810, with
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