USA > New York > Chautauqua County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York : with a historical sketch of the county > Part 25
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his step-father, Samuel Sinclair, from whom that village derives its namc.
Obed Edson obtained his education at the com- mon schools and Fredonia academy. He in 1851 commenced the study of law in the office of Hon.E. H. Sears, in Sinclairville; in 1853 heattended the Albany Law university ; was admitted to the bar, April 8, 1853, and since that time has fol- lowed the practice of his profession at Sinclair- ville, Chautauqua county. He commenced practice as a partner of Judge E. F. Warren ; at a later period for a few years, was a co-partner of C. F. Chapman. He has at intervals, fol- lowed the business of civil engineering. When eighteen years of age, he served as chainman on the New York & Erie railroad, the year before its completion to Dunkirk. He has since been engaged in the survey of several railroads in New York and Pennsylvania. He ran the lo- cating line of the Dunkirk, Allegheny Valley & Pittsburgh railroad, in the State of New York, in 1867.
He was for several years supervisor of his na- tive town, and has held at different times, various other official positions in the town and county. In 1874, he was elected to the Assembly from Chautauqua county, and is the only democrat that has ever been chosen to fill that position, in its second assembly district.
Mr. Edson, has been a contributor to The Continent, The Chautauquan, and other leading magazines ; generally upon historical subjects. He first gathered and collated the facts respect- ing the expedition of Colonel Daniel Broad- head, which was sent against the Indians of the Upper Allegheny river by General Washington, during the war of the Revolution, to operate in conjunction with General Sullivan. Mr. Edson prepared a full history of this expedition, which was published as the leading article, in the November number of the magazine of American History, for the year 1879. He is one of the founders of the Chautauqua County Historical Society, and has made to it, many original con-
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tributions, usually of a historical, geological, or archeological nature. He is the author of sev- eral local histories, among which is a portion of Young's History of Chautauqua county, and all of that part of it which relates to its Indian, French, and early history.
He was married May 11, 1859, to Emily A. Allen, the daughter of Hon. Caleb I. and Emily E. (Haley) Allen. She was born in New London, Connecticut, November 27, 1835. The children of Obed and Emily A. Edson, were born in Sinclairville, and are : Fanny A., born April 28, 1860 ; married John A. Love, who is a banker in Sinclairville ; John M., born September 29, 1861, married Alma B. Green-he lives at New Whatcom in the State of Washington, and is a printer and publisher; Samuel A., born September 15, 1863, died November 16, 1872 ; Mary U., born September 11, 1865, died November 27, 1872; Hannah, born February 15, 1869, died December 10, 1881; Walter H., born January 8, 1874; Ellen E., born April 21, 1875, died March 31, 1887 ; and Allen O., born September 3, 1880, died January 16, 1882.
R UFUS FITCH. Much study, a great deal of wealth and many lives have been ex- pended upon the theory, and in a practical search for the north pole. The gentleman whose name heads this sketch devoted a great amount of thought and wrote many articles upon this sub- ject. He was a son of Edwin and Lucy (Billings) Fitch, and was born in Norwich, Connecticut, in 1830. The Fitch family were indigenous to New England for more than a century, a re- nowned ancestor being Rev. John Fitch, a preacher, contemporancous with Revolutionary times. Rufus Fitch's early life was spent on a farm in Connecticut, where he secured an edu- cation in the district schools, which was supple- mented by a course in the city of New Haven. Prior to 1850 lie went to St. Louis, where a few years later he was engaged in the wholesale sta-
tionery, paper and book business, his partner being an intimate friend, Robert Patterson. This business was continued for fifteen years, when declining health demanded a change of climate and atmosphere. Some years were passed in secking a location congenial, and in 1874 Jamestown was selected, where four years later he died. The house where Mrs. Fitch now resides was erected by him. On October 7th, 1863, he married Mary Churchill, daugh- ter of Crispen and Hannah Churchill. Mrs. Fitch's grandfather on maternal side, William Churchill, was from England, bringing a large fortune with him, and settled in Newbern, North Carolina. She is a lady of an unusual degree of intelligence and exceedingly entertain- ing, being an accomplished conversationalist. Mr. and Mrs. Fitch had five children : Dabney C., born September 30th, 1864, prepared for college and is now in New York city engaged as a manufacturer's representative ; Mary C., was born in August, 1866, and graduated from the Jamestown High school, and Houghton Seminary; Edwin R., born June 19th, 1869; Lucy B., born September, 1870, is attending the Boston Conservatory of Music, being an accomplished musician of marked ability ; and Churchill, born in September, 1873. Mr. Fitch was a republican, but paid little attention to politics. He was a writer of prominence, his artieles attracting most attention being upon the subject mentioned at the opening of this sketch and the science of fishing and hunting. His death, which occurred in 1878, was deeply re- gretted and mourned by many friends.
D AVID A. WILSON, the proprietor of the well-known " Wilson House," of West- field, and a veteran Union soldier of the late civil war, is a son of Willard W. and Nancy (Knight) Wilson, and was born in Oswego county, New York, March 13, 1838. The Wilson family is of Scotch descent and settled in the United States at an early day in its colo-
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OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
nial history. Willard W. Wilson was born in Vermont, where he learned the trade of shoe- maker. In 1830 he removed to Oswego county, from which he went in 1851 to Livingston county, Michigan, where he died in 1853, aged forty-four years. He was a farmer by occupa- tion, an old-line whig in politics and a Uni- versalist in religious belief and church member- ship. His wife, Nancy (Knight) Wilson, who was of English extraction and a native of Ver- mont, was a member of the Universalist church and passed away in Livingston county, Michi- gan, in February, 1888, at seventy-seven years of age.
David A. Wilson received his education in the common schools of New York and Michi- gan. At seventeen years of age he left the farm to become a clerk in a hotel. Six years later, in 1861, he enlisted as a soldier in Co. D, 4th Michigan Infantry, but at the end of five months service had a severe hemorrhage of the lungs and was honorably discharged. He returned home, where he soon regained his health and enlisted as a sergeant in Co. G, Third Michigan Cavalry, in which he served three years. . After being honorably discharged in Detroit, Michi- gan, in 1864, he returned home and for the next ten years was employed as a clerk in dif- ferent hotels in the county and at Titusville, Pa. In 1875 he engaged in the hotel business at Westfield, where hc conducted the Lake Shore hotel for four years. He then went to Erie, Pa., where he purchased the Mansion house but soon disposed of it on account of sickness and bought the Brocton house and restaurant at Brocton, this county, which he conducted thirteen months. At the end of this time he sold his Brocton property, re-purchased the Mansion house, of Eric, Pa., which he conducted successfully for four years, when he sold it and returned to Westfield, where he erected during the summer of 1887 his present hotel, the "Wil- son House." Probably no feature of a place is more conducive to a favorable impression on
visitors than that represented by hotel accom- modations. In this respect the " Wilson House" has attained a reputation equal to any hotel in the State outside of the leading cities. Its com- fortable and neatly furnished rooms, excellent table and courteons attendants are highly appre- ciated by the traveling public. The house is furnished throughout in good taste and style, while its proprietor brings to its successful man- agement over a quarter of a century's experi- ence as a clerk and manager of some of the fore- most hotels of southwestern New York and northern Pennsylvania. Mr. Wilson is pleasant, courteous and accommodating. He is a repub- lican in politics, a Universalist in religion and a member of Council No. 8, Ancient Order of United Workmen.
On May 12, 1867, Mr. Wilson married Delia Connelly, of Westfield, and their union has been blest with one child, a daughter named Ella M.
E ELISHA TOWER, JR., came from a line of ancestors who, with the exception of his paternal grandfather, had followed man's first occupation-that of tilling the soil, leaving it only to serve their country when she sum- moned her loyal sons to her aid. Elisha Tower was born in Ellery, Chautauqua county, New York, January 13, 1818, and is a son of Elisha and Philena (Morgan) Tower. Isaiah Tower (grandfather) was a native of Massachusetts, being born in 1760, and was a captain of a whaling vessel sailing from New Bedford, which occupation he left to serve as a soldier under General Washington, during the entire war of the Revolution. About 1800 he re- moved to Duanesburg, Schenectady county, this State, and located on a farm which he occupied until his death. In religion he was a Baptist, of which church he was an influential member. Isaiah Tower was married in 1786 to Sylvia Toby, by whom he had cleven children, eight sons and thirce danghters : Rhenamy, born in
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1790, and married Mr. Bowles; Benjamin, born in 1792, was a farmer by occupation, and died while a young man ; Isaiah, born in 1795, was a millwright by occupation, and married Mary Sherburn ; Sylvanus, born in 1797, was a farmer ; John, born in 1799, was a farmer, and married Mary Shauber ; Jeremiah, born in 1801, and Joseph, born in 1803, were farmers ; Sylvia, born in 1806, and married Thomas Bcal; Stephen, born in 1808, became a min- ister of the Baptist denomination, and married Martha Ruddock ; and Zaccheus, born in 1811. Isaiah Tower died in January, 1846, aged eighty-six years, and Mrs. Tower died Decem- ber 3, 1848, aged eighty-two years. Simeon Morgan (maternal grandfather) was born in 1765, and spent most of his life in Berne, Albany county, this State, where he owned and cultivated a farm, and conducted a general store. He married Rhobe Allyn, by whom he had five children, one son and four daughters : Clarissa, who married Ezra Gallup ; Nancy, wife of Nathan Gallup, and died young, leav- ing two children; Philena (mother), born in Preston, Connecticut, June 1, 1792; Rhoda, wife of John Wheeler, and Simeon, Jr., a law- yer in Gallupville, Schoharie county, this State, who married Jane Lee. Simeon Morgan died in 1814, aged forty-nine years, and Mrs. Morgan died in 1826. Elisha Tower (father) was born in New Bedford, Bristol county, Mas- saehusetts, May 10, 1788, and went to Duanes- burg, Schenectady county, New York, with his father, where he remained until 1810, when he came to this county with his knapsack, pro- visions, a change of clothing and an axe, coming by way of Cross Roads to Mayville, where he worked a short time to replenish his nearly exhausted exchequer. In the fall he took a job of chopping at the Inlet, now in the town of Hartfield, which he completed about the first of April, 1811, having boarded himself in a shanty, which he built by a fallen tree, having little else than a blanket and a frying-
pan, his board being chiefly johnnie cake and fried pork. In December, 1811, he took an article for the east half of lot four, township three, range twelve, comprising one hundred and seventy-six acres, lying between what are now the towns of Ellery and Gerry, and eight miles northwest of Jamestown, for which he paid less than three dollars an acre, it being all forest land, which he cleared and improved, and occupied most of the time until his death, ex- cepting from 1839 until 1842, during which time he resided in Jamestown. In 1812 he built a log house in which he lived alone for awhile, and in 1813 was drafted into the army, and participated in the battle of Black Rock, and was also present at the burning of Buffalo, in December, 1813. Cornelius De Long, who built a house in Gerry, near the Ellery line where James McAlister now lives, was severely wounded in the head by a grape-shot at the battle of Buffalo, and was taken to the cabin of a settler and cared for by his fellow-soldier and neighbor, Elisha Tower. De Long afterward went West and participated in the Black Hawk war in 1832, in which he received a captain's commission. After the war of 1812, Elisha Tower received a pension and a land grant. In the autumn of 1814 he returned to Duanes- burg, Schenectady county. In 1817, with his wife and one child he returned to Ellery, but the child being taken ill, they were forced to stop at the house of William Barrows, where it died. He removed to his log cabin, where he lived until he could build a commodious frame house, to which he moved, and resided there until 1837, when he again moved to a large two-story house which he had built. He held several town offices in Ellery, including that of justice of the peace. In religion he was a Baptist, being a member of the church of that denomination in Sinclairville, a village near the depot in Gerry, named in honor of Major Sinclair. Elisha Tower was married June 1, 1815, to Philena Morgan, a daughter
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of Simeon and Rhobe (Allyn) Morgan, of lan, resides with his father, and the daughter, Berne, Albany county, this State, by whom he Emma C., married Daniel Farrington, a farmer had seven children, three sons and four daugh- who lives on the farm in Portland, formerly owned by her father. She died November 28, 1890. Mrs. Tower died in December, 1874, ters : Emily, born March 11, 1816, in Berne, Albany county, and died in childhood in Ellery ; all the rest were born in this county, aged forty-five years, and was buried in Port- land.
Elisha ; Rhobe Allyn, born May 4, 1820, wife of Ebenezer Moon, a farmer in Stockton, at Moon station ; Simeon M., born September 11, 1822, married Sarah Denison, owns and occu- M ARVIN H. WOLEBEN comes from Ger- man ancestors, is the son of Abraham and Minerva A. (Fuller) Woleben, and was pies the south part of his father's homestead, and resides on the east side of the town line of born in Portland town, Chautauqua county, Gerry ; Clarissa, born June 14, 1826 ; Emily M., born June 19, 1829, and married Franklin Denison, a farmer and dealer in live stock ; and Corydon L., born Oct. 26, 1834, married Harriet Felt, and resides on the old homestead, by occupation a farmer. Elisha Tower sick- ened while on a visit to his daughter in Stock- ton, and died January 9, 1866, in his seventy- eighth year. Mrs. Tower dicd December 17, 1860.
Elisha Tower, Jr., acquired a common school education by attending the winter terms of the school of his neighborhood, being obliged to work on the farm the rest of the year until he attained his majority. He remained on his father's farm until he was twenty-seven years old, when he bought a farm of fifty acres in Gerry, on which he resided seven years, when he sold it and removed to Portland, where he bought a farm of sixty-five acres located three miles east of Westfield, on which he resided twenty-seven years, and then disposed of it and came to Fredonia in 1884, where he purchased twenty-five acres on the avenue, ten acres of which he devotes to the cultivation of grapes. He is enjoying the fruit of his labors in a se- rene old age, having the respect of the com- munity and the love of a host of friends. Elisha Tower, Jr., was married January 3, 1854, to Electa Moon, her father being a farmer and mill-owner in Gerry. They have had one son and one daughter. The son, Har- [
New York, August 15, 1846. His grand- father, John Woleben, was a native of Herki- mer county, and came from the latter place to Portland, this county, in 1833. He lived in this town and followed farming until 1852, and then went to Illinois, where he died in 1852, having reached the age of fifty-nine years. He served as a soldier through the War of 1812, mar- ried Catherine Iseman, and had five children. Abraham Woleben was a native of Herkimer county, this State, and came to the town of Portland in 1833, where he began to farm con- tinuing until his death in the fall of 1878, when in his fifty-fifth year. He married Minerva A. Fuller who was born in Dutchess county, this State, in 1820. She is still living, now the wife of David Granger, whom she married in 1885. Mr. and Mrs. Woleben had two chil- dren, of whom both are still living.
Marvin H. Woleben attended the schools of his district and there received his education. His early life was spent on his father's farm and when he attained his manhood assumed control of its management. His place is loca- ted four miles east of the village of Westfield, where he gives considerable attention to raising grapes.
On December 29, 1869, Mr. Woleben united in marriage with Mary J. Munson, a daughter of Chester Munson, who resides in Portland town. They have only one child, Jay, whom they adopted.
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M. H. Woleben is a democrat, a generous citizen, and came from one of the most respect- ed families in the county.
IEUT. PHILANDER W. BEMIS, one 7
of Phil. Sheridan's cavalry-men in the late war, was born in the town of French Creek, Chautauqua county, New York, Feb- ruary 5, 1842, and is a son of David and Beth- iah (Vanostrand) Bemis. David Bemis left his native State of Vermont when a boy, and settled in French Creek, where he followed farming until his death in 1867, at sixty-five years of age. He was accompanied by his father, Stephen Bemis, who was also a native of Vermont. David Bemis married Bethiah Vanostrand, who was a native of New York and died in 1850, aged forty-six years.
Philander W. Bemis grew to manhood on the farm, attended the public schools, and in 1861, enlisted in Co. I, 8th Illinois Cavalry. He was promoted to sergt .- major of his regi- ment, by reason of his efficiency and soldierly conduct, and was mustered out of that regiment during the latter part of 1862, by order of the war department as a supernumerary officer. He re-enlisted in 1863, in the fifteenth New York Cavalry and served until June 17, 1865, when he was discharged on account of a wound received at the battle of Five Forks, where he was struck in the left arm and shoulder by a minie-ball, which he carried in his body fif- teen months. Lieutenant Bemis made an en- viable war record of which he may be justifi- ably proud, as he served under Sheridan in all of that great commander's famous campaigns in Virginia, and participated in thirty-five en- gagements and battles. After the close of the war he came to Westfield where he has resided ever since, and where he has served five years as a lieutenant in the New York State troops. He has been, since boyhood, a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and is now class leader and chairman of the board of trustees of
the Westfield church of that denomination, in which he served in an official capacity for twenty-five years. He is a republican in poli- tics, has been active in the temperance cause for many years, served several terms as town clerk and as a member of the board of education and is now deputy sheriff of the county. He is a Past Master of Summit Lodge, No. 219, Free and Accepted Masons. He has been con- nected with the Chautauqua Assembly ever since it was organized and has had entire charge of the ticket department, in which he handles from thirty to fifty thousand dollars every year and in connection with which he has served for five years as chief of police of the grounds. After coming to Westfield he engaged in the mercantile business, from which he retired three years ago.
August 14, 1866, he married Jennie A., a noble Christian woman, daughter of Alexander and Malinda McCollom, of Westfield. Lieut. and Mrs. Bemis have two children : Ernest W., a printer, who is also a fine musician ; and Pearl A., aged respectively twenty-two and thirteen. Pearl A. could read in the Bible at two and one-half years of age, and when eight years of age, wrote the prize poem for which fifty competitors under seventeen years of age were contesting. She is a good musician and has already written poems which have been published.
S. M. SKIDMORE, a well-known grower of small fruits, was born in Charlotte, two miles from Sinclairville, Chautauqua coun- ty, July 22, 1831, and is a son of Ira and Lydia S. (Mann) Skidmore.
Luther M. Skidmore (grandfather) moved to Otsego county, this State, settling in Morris, where he owned a store, and a half interest in a cotton fastory. He was married and had three sons : Wolcot, who was a clothier, and came to Forestville, this county, and kept a hotel, after- ward dying in Toledo, Ohio; Ira (father), and
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Russell, who died while young. The maternal grandfather of S. M. Skidmore, Samuel Mann, moved to Otsego county, where he was a car- penter and joiner. About 1838 he came to this county and settled at Laona, where he contin- ued working at his trade. He was married and had four children, one son and three daughters : Olive, married William. Johnson; Lydia S. (mother), married Ira Skidmore. Samuel Mann died in 1860, aged about eighty years. Ira Skidmore (father) was born in Morris, Otsego county, this State, in 1796. While a young man he came to Chautauqua county, settling in Charlotte, where he bought a farm of one hun- dred acres. Ten years later he sold that farm and moved to Sheridan, where he bought an- other farm, remained on it a year, then sold it and bought still another of one hundred acres, which is now within the corporation of Dun- kirk, this county. He was a Mason until the William Morgan trouble, in 1826, when he left in 1823, and by this union had eight children, six sons and two daughters, seven of whom reached maturity : Martha F., married to Sam- uel Tolles, a lumber dealer and oil operator, who lives in Dunkirk ; Thomas J., a contractor and coal dealer, who married Marion Johnson, and lives at Lily Dale; S. S .; Frances D., married to Stephen Veasey, a locomotive engin- eer, who lives at Hornellsville, Steuben county ; Henry H., was assistant freight agent of the W. N. Y. & E. R. R., and now lives at Corry, Pennsylvania, married Martha Eatou, now dead ; George E., died in infancy ; Oscar W., a locomotive engineer, who married Sarah Keyes and lives in Thornton, Illinois; and Charles W., a locomotive engineer, who died on the Erie railroad at Dayton, this State; mar- ried Mary Le Roy. The father of these children died when sixty-eight years old, and the mother died in 1850, aged forty-seven years. Both are buried in Laona.
S. M. Skidmore was educated in the common
schools at Fredonia and the academic depart- ment at Dunkirk. After leaving school he learned the trade of a tinsmith with Hart & Lester, serving three years, after which he worked at this vocation until 1857, when he entered into partnership with M. J. Bellous in the hardware business, in Dunkirk, the firm name being Bellous & Skidmore. He contin- ued in this firm one year and then sold out to R. L. Carey, accepting the position of foreman in their large shop, which he held five years. In 1863 he went in partnership with J. B. Gardner, dealing in field, garden and flower seeds, at Fredonia. Here he remained twenty years, and then, in 1883 they closed up the business. In addition to the seed business he had also engaged in growing small fruits, grapes, berries, etc., and now devotes his entire attention to the raising of small fruits, having eleven acres devoted to their cultivation.
S. M. Skidmore was married in January, them. Ira Skidmore married Lydia S. Mann, ' 1853 to Annette Hewitt, daughter of Cyrus and Lucia Hewitt, of Fredonia, the father be- ing a carpenter and joiner. By this union ; there were two children, a son and a daughter : Nellie H. and Henry H., the latter being a locomotive engineer, married to Emma Beaver, of Huntington, Indiana, where he lives. The mother of these children died in 1868, and in 1870 Mr. Skidmore married Alice Roberts, a daughter of Deacon Eli and Julia (Sheldon) Roberts, of Fredonia, by whom he has one daughter, Maude A., who resides with her pa- rents. His second wife dying in 1882, in 1884 he married Hattie J. Safford, a daughter of Justus and Charlotte (Chapman) Safford, of Fredonia.
EUGENE K. HOUGH has passed through many shifting scenes on the stage of life, and has imprinted on the plates invented by Daguerre, and by those later who have improved on his process, the counterfeit presentments of the representatives of many nations. He was
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