USA > New York > Chautauqua County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York : with a historical sketch of the county > Part 26
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BIOGRAPHIY AND HISTORY
born at Potsdam, St. Lawrence county, New York, December 24, 1834, and is a son of E. A. and Susan (Pierce) Hough. E. A. Hough was a native of Connecticut, a builder and contractor by occupation, and served as a volunteer in the war of 1812. He was married in 1829 to Susan Pierce, who was a native of Vermont and a cousin to Franklin Pierce, the fourteenth president of the United States. They had seven children, of whom E. K. was the oldest but one, who died in infancy.
Eugene K. Hough was reared in St. Lawrence county, and was educated in the academy of Potsdam and the High school of Lockport, this State. He left school at the age of seventeen to learn the then newly-discovered art of daguer- reotyping, which he practiced for some years successfully in the villages of Canton and Malone, county-seats of St. Lawrence and Franklin counties. When twenty-three years of age, partly to oblige his cousin, S. E. Buttolph, and partly to see more of the world, he exchanged his Malone gallery for a travelling daguerreo- type car, in which his cousin had traveled from St. Lawrence county to Brocton, in Chautauqua county. Mr. Hough operated but a short time in this county before he sold the car to accept a situation offered him in a house for the supply of dagnerreotype and ambrotype materials, established in New York city. In 1859 he was sent by the house to Petersburg, Va., and thence to South Carolina, where he was during the exciting time of John Brown's raid and Lincoln's canvass. Realizing the gravity of the coming trouble, he returned north, reaching New York the day after Lincoln's election. He remained in New York city during the war, accepting a situation as photographic operator with Meade Bros. on Broadway, and afterward with R. A. Lewis, who had galleries at Chatham square, and at 19th Street and Broadway. In 1865, still desiring to see more of the world, he went to Barbadocs, in the West Indies, for a winter, and found his business so profitable in the |
tropics and life so pleasant that he visited, with his photographic art, some of the largest cities in South America, remaining a year in Per- nambuco, afterward visiting Bahia and Rio Janeiro, the capital of Brazil. In 1869 he returned to the United States, and opened a gallery in New York city.
In 1870 he was married to Frances Mason, of Ripley, this county. Then, for more than ten years, he maintained a successful business of his own amid the intense competition of New York city, meanwhile continuing his art studies in the Academy of Design, and being a regular paid correspondent of the photographic maga- zines. The winter of 1879 he left his gallery in New York in charge of his brother and went to Trinidad, in the English West Indies, with his wife, mainly for her health, she having been ill several winters with severe neuralgia, com- plicated with heart trouble, and her physician advised a milder climate. They went to Trini- dad because they had friends there. Shortly after their arrival the two sons of the Prince of Wales stopped there on their voyage around the world. The governor of the island honored Mr. Hough with an invitation to photograph the princes amid the tropical foliage surround- ing the governor's palace. This proved an excellent advertisement ; hundreds of their pic- tures were sold among the loyal population, and a profitable business immediately flowed in upon him. The business continued so good, and his wife's health so improved, that in 1881 his brother sold the gallery in New York and joined him, with the intention of remaining until they made a fortune, as they had every prospect of doing; when suddenly in the height of their prosperity, a severe epidemic of yellow fever struck the island ; there had not been one before for nearly twenty years, and the Hough brothers and their families barely escaped with their lives, while hundreds were dying around them. At one time they were given up to die, but finally recovered to find their business
MBateelc.
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OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
ruined for the time, and their health so impaired that they were compelled to return to the States. In 1883, shortly after his return, Mr. Hongh purchased forty aeres of grape land in Ripley, and placed it in care of his wife's brother, George Mason, to plant a vineyard, the Chau- tauqua grape interest having then just begun.
When he bonght the grape farm it was Mr. Hough's intention to continue his business south in winter and only visit the farm in summer. On that plan he spent a winter in New Orleans in charge of an exhibit at the world's fair, and two winters in North Carolina, where his business was profitable and his wife's health seemed to improve. But she decided that she would rather live a few years less among friends and kindred than to be always among strangers; and his main endeavor being to place her in a condition most conducive to her health and happiness, he bought a house in Fredonia next to her sister's, and was just fitting it up as a quiet home, when his wife was taken worse and died of heart failure in May, 1887. Shortly after her brother, George Mason, died with bilious inflammation, thus leaving two broken homes, with the incomplete vineyard, in Mr. Hough's eare.
In November, 1889, to continue their strong ties of family affection and unite their broken homes, Mrs. Fannie Mason, the widow, and Mr. Hough were married, and now reside in the Fredonia home.
The vineyard now has twenty acres of bear- ing vines under good management, and promises to be a profitable investment. He also has a photograph gallery in Fredonia, which keeps him pleasantly occupied in line with his life work. Mr. Hough is a quiet, unassuming gen- tleman, with no tendency to ostentation or display, and while he sometimes entertains his friends with descriptions of the countries he has visited, his residence so many years in the active centres of life and business, has satisfied his desire for bustle and excitement, and he now 12
has settled down, like Goldsmith's traveler returning home, his remaining years "in ease and rest to spend." He has chosen this Chan- tauqua grape region as having more that is pleasant and less that is disagreeable for a permanent residence than any part of the world he has visited.
Nº ORMAN BABCOCK .- Thoughts for his fellow-man, feelings for the needy, aspira- tions to be useful, and a determination to win deserving and enduring success ; these were the materials out of which Norman Babcoek built his active and honorable life. He was the youngest son of Samuel and Polly (Cleveland) Babcock, and was born at Forestville, in the town of Hanover, Chautauqua county, New York, April 19, 1838. Samnel Babcock was a descendant of one of five Babcock brothers, who, according to tradition, came over in the " Mayflower." He was born at Mansfield, Connectieut, October 31, 1793. In 1795 his parents removed to Bridgewater, near Wood- stock, Vermont, where he was reared and re- ceived a good education. In early life he came to central New York and afterwards was en- gaged in teaching in Montgomery, Monroe, Al- legany and in this county, of which he was one of the pioneer teachers. After a residence of some years at Ellington and Forestville he re- moved, in 1841, to Silver Creek, where he re- sided until his sudden death in 1882. In his thirty-fourth year he learned cabinet-making in which he soon became a skilled workman. He followed making cabinet furniture for several years at Silver Creek, after which he resided with his children. In 1825 he married Polly Cleveland, who was a native of Windsor county, Vermont, and died in 1867. Their children were: Pamelia, Alphens (see his sketch), Martha, Laura and Norman. Mr. Babcock and his wife were both members of the Presbyterian church. On Sunday afternoon June 11, 1882, while taking his accustomed walk around the
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BIOGRAPHIY AND HISTORY
depot, he stepped from the right-hand railroad track to let a train pass and in attempting to cross the other track was struck and instantly killed by a west-bound train. He was a constant reader and was well iuformed iu political aud religious affairs and in philosophy and literature. He was popular with the employees of the Eureka works who attended his funeral in a body and the Silver Creek Local, in an extended account of, his life said, " He has tanght us by his sunny temper ' How far the gulf stream of our youth may flow into the Arctic regions of our lives.'"
Norman Babcock was reared from four years of age at Silver Creek, where he attended the public schools and received a good business edu- cation. Leaving school he went into his father's shop where he first learned to handle tools. He afterwards entered the iron fonndry of Hawkins & Greenleaf, learned the trade of pattern-maker and followed that business for several years, during which time he was foreman of a large shop in Erie, Pa. In January, 1864, he formed a partnership with his brother, Alpheus Babcock, who had been engaged for some time in the manufacture of a smut and separating machine, and whose successive improvements developed into the present justly celebrated aud widely known Eureka smnt and separating machine, whose history is given in the sketch of the late Alpheus Babcock. In July, 1883, Norman Babcock withdrew from the firm of Howes, Babcock & Ewell, then owning and operating the Eureka Smut Machine works. From that time on until his death he was not engaged in any line of business.
On March 2, 1865, he married Ursula Record, a native of Cattaraugns county, and a daughter of Israel and Mary (Gardner) Record, natives of Dutchess county, N. Y. To Normau and Ursula Babcock were boru two children-Cleve- land, born in 1873 and now atteuding Exeter college in New Hampshire; and Grace, who was born in 1876. Mrs. Babcock still resides in
her beautiful and well-appointed home at Silver Creek, to which is attached sixty-five acres of productive land.
Norman Babcock had served once as president of his village but resigned as his time was chiefly needed for his work, although he was never too busy to assist a friend or relieve the distress of the needy. As a member of his firm he had special charge of the mechanical depart- ment, and like his other partners always favored in dull times enongh machines to keep all the hands fully employed. About 1881 he had an attack of hemorrhage of the stomach and cou- tinued in ill-health until Christmas, 1883, when a series of hemorrhages commenced which proved fatal on the next day at ten o'clock. On the succeeding Sabbath his funeral occurred which was attended by the employees of the Eureka works in a body and after simple but very im- pressive funeral rites his remains were entombed iu Glenwood cemetery. Fitting tributes to his memory appeared in the newspapers of western New York, one of which said, " Few men have ever died whose departure has called forth such universal expressions of deep regret, or cansed so much sorrow in so many breasts." One who knew him iutimately for forty years bore testi- mony of him in the wish that " we had more like him with as many virtues even if they had to have more faults."
The swift-flyiug years as they grow full- orbed and wane and die in the future, may sweep from humau sight the sculptured marble that stands in memory of Norman Babcock, but the mighty and slow-rolling ages of time will preserve his name and perpetuate his virtnes as long as knowledge or memory of Silver Creek shall exist in history, or be repeated in traditiou.
J. L. THAYER, stands well np in the front rank of the prominent business men of Chautauqua county, and, although compara- tively a young man, has rushed ahead until he has reached an eminence of which many an older
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man might feel proud. J. L. Thayer was born in the town of Mina, Chautauqua county, New York, February 9th, 1851, and is a son of Ichabod and Fidelia (La Due) Thayer. The former was a native of Milford, Massachusetts, while his wife came from this State. Ichabod Thayer came to the Empire State before the first score had been counted in the years of this century, and in 1824 he settled in Mina, Chau- tauqua county and followed farming until 1864, when he retired and moved to Westfield, where he lived until he died in 1888, when he had' passed his eightieth year. Although not a poli- tician, as the word is usually understood, Mr. Thayer held many of the town offices and dis- charged their duties well. Grandfather La Dne carried French blood in his veins and came to the town of Mina early in its history. He was a popular man and was one of its first supervi- sors.
J. L. Thayer spent his early life on a farm in the town of Mina and completed his cducation at the Westfield academy. His first business experience was clerking during the year 1866 at Brooklyn, but he staid there less than a year and then went to school for about the same length of time, afterwards coming to Dunkirk and clerk- ing in a store in 1869. The two succeeding years were passed in the employ of B. Fenner, at Sherman, and then Mr. Thayer bought an interest in his employer's business. Two years later he purchased the entire establishment and embarked in business for himself. Mr. Thayer has added to and enlarged his place until now he conducts a double store and carries a line of drugs, jewelry, wall-papers and other stock equal to the best in the county. One store is sixty- five feet deep, the other forty-three. Mr. Thayer was active with Mr. Sperry, Mr. Cor- bitt and others in establishing the new State Bank and he was one of the first village trus- tees.
In 1873 he married Julia E. Horton, who came from Erie county, and their union has -
been blessed with two children-one son and one daughter : Amos H. and Susie C.
Politically, J. L. Thayer is a demoerat and has been secretary of the Union school and academy since 1881, which rank well with any school in the county. He is an astute business man, a good financier and an agreeable compan- ion. No store bears a better reputation than his and it but reflects his own private character.
OHN GRASHO is a man who presents in himself an example of what can be accom- plished by hard work, energetic and well di- rected efforts and a steady accumulation of sav- ings. He was born in that part of the German empire known as Prussia, May 28, 1837, being a son of Frederick and Louisa (Lempky) Grasho. Frederick Grasho (father) was a native of Germany, born in 1809, and emigrated to America in 1858, locating in Chautauqua county, this State, where he obtained employ- ment as a day laborer. He died in April, 1889, in the eightieth year of his age. Frederick Grasho married Louisa Lempky and by her had children. She was born in Germany, in 1817, and now resides in Hanover, this county.
John Grasho spent the first two decades of his life in his native land, and received an edu- cation in the common schools of Baden. In 1857, during the second great financial panic which agitated America, he came to these shores and located temporarily in Erie county. this State, where he remained six months. Hc admits an intimate acquaintance with impecn- niosity, for he walked from Buffalo to Hanover, this county, because he lacked the necessary funds wherewith to pay his fare. Immediately on his arrival here in Hanover, he began work by the day, then secured employment by the month on a farm where he remained about five years, and then leased a farm and cultivated it on shares. In 1867 he had acenmulated enough money to purchase a part of the farm he now occupies, and two more payments for additional
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
portions, made him the owner of one hundred and forty-eight acres. Beside this farm he owns another comprising ninety-two acres, located in Hanover Centre. The farm on which he resides, is well improved, and a por- tion of it is within the corporation boundary of Silver creek, which materially enhances its value. In addition to his farming operations he buys immense amounts of hay, which, with several tons he cuts on his own land, he sells to the stock-yards in Buffalo. He is now in the enjoyment of a comfortable bank account, and is a successful man. In political matters he is a democrat, and in religion is a member of the German Lutheran church.
John Grasho was married in 1862 to Minnie Loss, of this county, by whom he has three children, one son and two daughters : Charles ; Ellen, who married C. J. Neuendorf, of Silver Creek ; and Lizzie.
A LPHEUS BABCOCK, the pioneer of the smut machine in modern milling machin- ery and the inventor of the celebrated Eureka Combined Smutter and Separator, of which Simeon Howes is now proprietor, was born in Pike, Allegany county, New York, October 27, 1827, and the oldest son of Samuel and Polly (Cleveland) Babcock. According to fam- ily tradition five Babcock brothers came from England in the " Mayflower " and Samuel Bab- cock was descended from one of these brothers. Samuel Babcock was born at Mansfield, Con- necticut, October 31, 1793, was reared and edu- cated at Bridgewater, Vermont, and became one of the pioneer teachers of this county. Hc re- sided at Ellington and Forestville and in 1841 came to Silver Creek where he followed cabinet making for some years and where he was acci- dentally struck and killed by a railway train on Sunday, June 11, 1882. He was a great reader and an exemplary member of the Presbyterian church and married Polly Cleveland, a native of Vermont, who died in 1867. They reared
a family of five children : Pamelia, Alpheus, Martha, Laura and Norman, in whose sketch a more extended history of the family is given.
Alpheus Babcock received a common school education and learned the trade of mill-wright which he followed for some years. Being of an ingenious turn of mind and possessing good in- ventive ability, he gave some thought to the subject of improving mill machinery while he was busily engaged in erecting flouring mills in different parts of western New York. In 1854 he bought of G. E. Throop the right of the Rutter & Rouzer smut cleaning and separating machine for nine counties in Pennsylvania. It was very imperfect and after some time spent in studying its defects he was enabled to get up a far superior machine for which he obtained a patent in 1861 and after several years of suc- cessful manufacturing he sold his interest, and the machine was afterwards made by Huntley, Holcomb & Howes. In January, 1864, he as -. sociated his brother Norman with him in the manufacture of his machine, and in the follow- ing year Simeon Howes became a partner with them and the firm name was changed to Howes, Babcock & Co. During 1865 they manufac- tured and sold two hundred machines. On January 1, 1866, they took possession of the Montgomery machine works which they had purchased the preceding fall for twenty thous- and dollars. They refitted this wooden estab- lishment and used it until 1873, when, to fill their increase of orders, larger buildings were demanded and a three-story brick building, 80 x 110 feet in dimensions, was erected at a cost of twenty thousand dollars, besides a large and carefully planned foundry. The entire plant was now christened "The Eureka Works " by which name it has become known wherever improved milling machinery is used in the civilized world. In the fall of 1865 Albert Horton became a partner, but in 1868 sold his interest to Carlos Ewell who died in 1887, when Mr. Howes purchased the interest of his
Altheus. Babcock
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heirs and already having the interests of Alplieus and Norman Babcock, became, in 1888, the sole proprietor of the Eureka works. In 1870 a suit for infringement of patent was brought against Howes, Babcock & Co., which they suc- cessfully contested and won at a cost of eight thousand dollars. The result of this suit was in the interest of millers and purchasers as the Babcocks could have saved all this cost by paying a royalty to the prosecuting sharpers and then adding it to the price of their machines. Another fact deserving of notice in the business carecr of Alpheus Babcock is that the founda- tion of Silver Creek's present prosperity was laid by the establishment of the Eureka works, which is the pioneer of the numerous plants that send out thousands of smut and separating machines to all parts of the world. During Mr. Babcock's connection with these works, the force of hands was increased from fourteen to sixty-six, the pay-roll went up from eighteen to nearly fifty thousand dollars per year, and the annual output of machines ran up from hun- dreds to thousands.
In 1867 Alpheus Babcock married Sarah Pierce who died some years afterwards and left no children.
The labors of his active and useful life came to a close on December 11, 1878. His death was caused by softening of the brain from over- work. His remains were entombed in Glenwood cemetery amid a vast and silent throng who gathered to witness the last sad rites of one who had been descrvedly popular in the community in which he had resided. Alpheus Babcock has aided largely in developing Silver Creek from a quiet village into a great manufacturing center, where many years of his active life were spent in perfecting the machine which will preserve his name from oblivion throughout the world as long as improved milling machinery is used by the human race.
W ILSON S. ANDRUS is of English an- cestry and he and his father have been well-known and highly respected citizens of this immediate section for three-quarters of a century. He is the son of Sylvester and Rachel (Harris) Andrus, and was born in the town of Portland, Chautauqua county, New York, Sep- tember 20, 1819. His father was a native of Connecticut and married Rachel Harris of Rens- sclaer county, New York, by whom he had eight children. While a young man he came to this county and located near Brocton, 1814, where he engaged in farming until 1828, with the exception of one year (1815) which he spent in Connecticut on account of a severe attack of nostalgia. In 1828, he came to the town of Hanover, where he followed farming the re- mainder of his life and was a very prosperous farmer. He was an old-line whig until the agitation of the slavery question, when he became a stanch democrat. He was poor- master for several years. In religion he was a Baptist, being a member and deacon of the first church of that denomination organized in Port- land. He died in 1865, aged seventy-four years. His wife (mother of W. S.) was also a consistent member of the Baptist church and died in 1883, aged eighty-eight years.
Wilson S. Andrus was brought up on the farm and received a common school education. He has been engaged in agricultural pursuits all his life and, in connection therewith, has also handled thousands of feet of lumber, hav- ing for five years been in that business in Buffalo. He now owns a farm of one hundred and twelve acres near the village of Silver Creek, and has for sixty-three years lived in what is now the village corporation. He has been very successful and has accumulated a snug fortune. He owns the first mill-stone made in this town. It was made from a boul- der taken from the hillside about one hundred rods from where the first grist-mill was erected in 1804, by Abel Cleveland and David Dickin
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son. It was afterwards used in a mill built by Thomas Kidder and Neliemialı Heaton in 1806, on Walnut creek, near where the famous great black walnut tree stood, and also on the spot where his saw-mill now stands in the south part of the village. The stone is still in an excellent state of preservation. Mr. Andrus also owns a cane, which was made from this black walnut tree, from which the creek takes its name, and which stood on his farm. The tree was blown down April 22, 1824. It was twenty-seven feet in circumference, nine feet in diameter and the lowest limb was seventy feet from the ground. Being hollow at thic butt, about twelve feet was cut off from the lower end and the inside worked down and smoothed out, leaving a shell four inches thick. A man on horse- back rode through it. It was raised on end and used for a grocery and on one occasion, for a ladies' tea-party. It was sold for two hundred dollars to two men named Roberts and Stearns, who lost money by exhibiting it along the Erie canal. It was bought by New York city parties in 1826, fitted and splendidly fournislied as a drawing-room and proved fairly successful as an exhibit. Some idca can be formed of its inside measurement when it is stated that thirty- mine persons standing and fourteen sitting have been in its interior at one time. It was sold to London parties for three thousand dollars in 1828, and placed in a museum, where it was afterward destroyed by fire. The London Literary Gazette said that three thousand vol- umcs could be placed in its interior on shelves projecting not more than six inches. Mr. Andrus is a straight democrat and has been urged several times to accept office, but has de- clined. He is the oldest member of the Masonic Lodge in Silver Creek. Firm in his convictions, withal he is a kindly man and gen- erally esteemed.
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