USA > New York > Chautauqua County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York : with a historical sketch of the county > Part 31
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On November 2, 1859, Mr. Weaver married Augusta Twing, a daughter of Luther Twing, an old resident of this town, by whom he had one son, Ernest E., now married to Lydia A. Boorn, and engaged in farming near the village of Westfield, growing grapes and other fruits.
Politically Mr. Weaver affiliates with the de-
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mocrats, but is a strong advocate of the tem- peranee cause, and belongs to the Equitable Aid Union, and has been a member of Westfield Grange since 1874. He is a constant attendant of the Baptist church upon whose roll of mem- bership his name is inscribed. He is a man of integrity and honor.
G EORGE I. ROSSITER is a prominent young druggist, a social companion and an enterprising business man of Broeton. He is a son of Charles and Ellen (Risley) Rossiter, and was born in Pomfret, Chautauqua county, New York, September 30, 1865. The paternal great-grandfather, Elisha Rossiter, was a native of Rochester, and was a pioneer of Chautauqua county. He came from Rochester with an ox team, and settling at Pomfret, followed farming until his death, which occurred in 1883. Charles Rossiter was born in Pomfret town iu 1845, and until 1887 pursued farming as a means of gaining a livelihood. He still owns his farm in Pomfret, but moved to Brocton four years ago, where he now lives, being interested in a vine- yard in the town of Portland. He married Ellen Risley, of Pomfret town in 1864, by whom he had one child. She is a member of the Methodist church, and is now 46 years old.
George I. Rossiter was reared on a farm and edueated in the common schools, afterwards at- tending the State Normal School at Fredonia. In 1886 he engaged in the general mercantile business at Portland, following it for one year, and then came to Brocton and opened a, drug store in which he has been very successful. He carries a large and assorted stock in the fine brick building erected iu 1887 by his father, and has a large trade which he is careful to satisfy with superior articles and drugs.
Politically he affiliates with the Republican party, and is a member of Brocton Lodge, No. 284, Knights of Pythias. He is a good young business man, and has many friends around the loeality in which he lives. 14
J AMES H. WARD is a veteran school-
teacher, who, in his later years, has turned his energies in an entirely different channel and looks after the personal belongings of thousand of travelers each year. He was born in Rupert, Bennington county, Vermont, August 4th, 1821, and is a son of Reuben and Azubah (Taylor) Ward. His grandfather, Humphrey Ward, was a native of Connecticut and a farmer by occupation. He married a Miss Grise and had four children, two sons and two daughters. He died in Washington county, this State. The maternal grandfather of J. H. Ward was Jona- than Taylor, who died in Rutland county, Ver- mont. Reuben Ward, (father) was born in Washington county, this State, in 1792.
He served as a substitute in the war of 1812 and participated in the battle of Plattsburg, September 11, 1814. In 1826 he came to Cattaraugus county this State, and took up a farm in the wilderness in the town of Perrys- burgh, being one of the earliest settlers there, cleared it and lived on it the remainder of his life. One of his sons now lives upon that farm. In politics he was a democrat and held the office of justice of the peace for twelve consecu- tive years in Perrysburgh. He married Azubalı Taylor in 1818 and had ten children -- seven sons and three daughters, one son and two daughters dying young, the others reaching maturity.
James H. Ward was educated in the academy at Springville, Erie county, New York, and at Fredonia, this county, and then taught school about twenty years in Cattarangus and Chau- tauqua counties, being a very successful and enthusiastic teacher. Locating in Versailles, Cattaraugus county, after his experience as an educator, he devoted about six years to the manufacture of shoes and then came to this county and engaged in the railroad and express business, first at Brocton, where he had charge of freight and baggage at the B. P. & W. depot, and theu at Mayville, where he was appointed
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express agent. When the Chautauqua Associa- tion was organized in 1875 he was appointed general baggage-master, which positiou he held seven years. In polities he was a demoerat up to the administration of Martin Van Buren in 1837, when he became a free-soiler and in 1856 a republican. He has held the office of justice of the peace continuously sinee 1877. In relig- ion he, as well as his wife, is a member of the Methodist church. He is Worthy Master of Peacock Lodge, 696 F. & A. M., named in honor of Judge William Peacock, and secretary of Westfield Chapter, No. 239, R. A. M., in which he has occupied many of the chairs.
James H. Ward was married September 29, 1847, to Harriet Blaisdell, a daughter of Rev. William Blaisdell, a minister in the Christian ehureh, who went to Iowa, enlisted in what was known as the "Gray Beard Regiment " and entered the civil war, where he died. By this union there have been born three sons: William T., who married Ellen Fuller and is a farmer in Kansas, has two sons-Samuel and Jonathan ; Reuben F., who married Mary Wing, had four children-Lillian M., James H., Hattie M., and Nellie who died young and was killed by lightning in Kansas at the age of twenty-six years ; George F., married to Hattie Healey, a traveling salesman for a factory supply company and lives in Jamestown.
H ON. FRANK E. SESSIONS, ex-special county judge of Chantauqua county, and the present secretary of the New York State League of Loan and Building associations, is one of the ablest and best known lawyers of western New York. He is a son of Columbus and Cordelia (French) Sessions, and was born at Chautauqua, on the celebrated lake of the same name, in Chautauqua county, New York, May 22, 1847. The Sessions family is of hon- orable New England lineage aud for several generations has been noted for the enterprise, intelligence and energy of its members. John
Sessions, the great-grandfather of Frank E. Sessions, was a native, in all probability, of Massachusetts. He was of English extraction and for a time resided at the foot of the Green mountains in Vermont. He afterwards re- moved from that State to New York, where he continued to follow his occupation of droving until his death. His son, Schuyler Sessions (grandfather), was born in the " Green Moun- tain " State and eame with his father to New York, where he cleared out a farm in Chau- tauqua eounty. He then joiued in the west- ward tide of emigration to the prairie lands west of the " Father of Waters " and settled iu Iowa where he remained until his death, which oeeurred in 1857. He was a farmer and a demoerat, and married Sallie Green by whom he had five sons aud two daughters. All of these sons are living, and one of them, Colum- bus Sessions (father), was born in Vermont, March 31, 1818. He came to Chautauqua county in 1832, removed to Wisconsin in 1852, returned to this State in 1868, and in 1880 went to Iowa where he now resides, at Algona, with one of his sons. He is a farmer and tau- ner by occupation and a republican in polities. He has been twice married ; his first wife was Cordelia French, who died in December, 1863, aged thirty-six years ; and after her death he married Mrs. Cordelia Herriek, widow of Cap- tain Herriek, who served and was killed in the late war. By his first marriage he had three sons : H. Alanson, a marble dealer aud insur- anee agent of Algona, Iowa; Frank E. and Schuyler S., a prominent lawyer and one of the nine directors of the State Agricultural Associa- tion, of Iowa, being the youngest man by twen- ty years, who has ever been elected to that position. Mrs. Cordelia (French) Sessions was a daughter of Samuel French (maternal grand- father), who was born in Massachusetts and settled, about 1820, at French Creek, this eouuty, where he afterwards died. He was a farmer by occupation, a Baptist in religious be-
Eng.by James R. Rice & Sons, Phila
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lief and an old-line whig in political opinion. He was married in Massachusetts, and was the father of four sons and two daughters.
Frank E. Sessions left the common schools of Fon du Lac county, Wisconsin, at the early age of fifteen years to engage in teaching, which he followed continuously for seven years. During that time he taught thirteen terms and spent all his leisure hours in reading and self- study. He then sought for a wider field for the exercise of his powers than that bounded by the walls of the school-room, and entered up- on the study of law, with his uncle, Walter L. Sessions, of Panama. After reading steadily for one year he gave his attention, partly, dur- ing 1869, to the tanning business, but with the beginning of the next year he applied himself with renewed assiduity to his legal studies and was admitted to the New York bar in April, 1873. From the time that he began the study of law until his admission at the bar, he kept up his studies and made his own way without pecuniary assistance from any one. In 1876 he opened an office in Jamestown where he has practiced his profession successfully ever since.
He was appointed by Gov. Cornell, as special county judge for Chautauqua county and his services as such were so well and ably rendered that at the end of his term he was cleeted to the same office, for a term of three years. At the end of his second term Judge Sessions re- sumed the practice of his profession at James- town and in the courts of the adjoining coun- ties. Although busily engaged in an extensive law practice, yet he always gives encourage- ment and aid to any enterprise that is calculated to be of real benefit in any way to his fellow- citizens. He has been a leading spirit in the organization and management of the Jamestown Permanent Loan and Building Association, and at the present time is one of its board of direct- ors and its attorney. This association was or- ganized November 22, 1881, has built hun-
dreds of houses already, and is a potent factor of the city's present prosperity.
On June 1, 1876, he united in marriage with Julia R. Bush, of Jamestown. To their union have been born two children : Clara H., born December 28, 1880, died April 11, 1890; and Edgar W., born February 11, 1887.
In politics Judge Sessions, while always a pronounced republican yet has never been a strenuous or bitter partisan. He is a member of Mt. Moriah Lodge, No. 145, Free and Accepted Masons, and the Methodist Episcopal church of Jamestown, of which he has long served as treasurer. He has also served as superintendent of its Sunday-school and is now superintendent of the senior department of the school. Able as a jurist and eminent as a law- yer, he ranks high in his profession in western New York, where to be successful and attain standing at the bar, a lawyer must have decided ability and possess success-winning qualities of the highest order.
C HARLES D. MURRAY, a Cleveland demoerat and one of the prominent law- yers of Dunkirk, was born at Guilford, Che- nango county, New York, May 4, 1831, and is a son of Dauphin and Sallie (Seymour) Murray. His paternal grandfather, Captain Elihu Mur- ray, commanded a company of Continental troops during the revolutionary war and after- wards removed from his native State of Con- necticut to Guilford, where he died in 1837, at the advanced age of cighty-eight years. His son, Dauphin Murray (father), was born in Con- nectient and spent the early part of his life as a farmer of Guilford. He then engaged in con- tracting on public works which he followed until 1855, when he was killed in a railroad accident at Hinsdale, Cattaraugus county. He was fifty- seven years of age at the time of his death, and his wife had preceded him to the tomb in 1852, when she passed away at Hinsdale, aged fifty- four years.
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Charles D. Murray was brought by his parents, in 1839, from Guilford to Hinsdale, where he remained until 1845 and attended the "Old Red School-house." At fourteen years of age he became a clerk in a dry goods house of Nor- wich, New York, in which he remained until 1850, when he joined in the westward tide of emigration to the Golden State of the Pacific slope. Arriving in San Francisco and finding no business opening he hired as a drayman, but soon saved enough money to bny himself a dray. He followed draying for one year, during which time he was on the alert for a business opening and found it in the jobbing prodnce and com- mission trade. He became a member of the firm of Murray & Foster, and handled large amounts of produce until 1855, when Mr. Mur- ray was called home by the death of his father. During his business career in California he made three trips to Oregon and two trips with cargocs of lumber to Sidney, Australia. On his return home he engaged in the mercantile and lumber- ing business at Hinsdale, which he followed until 1858, when he went down with thousands of other business men in the panic of that year. In the last-named year he was appointed route agent in the mail service from Hornellsville to Dunkirk, on the Erie railroad, and had six hours of spare time every day at Hornellsville which he spent in reading law in the office of Reynolds & Brundage. In 1860 by a change in the administration he was removed from his position in the mail service and was admitted as an attorney and counselor of the Supreme Court of New York at its general session in Buffalo and opened an office at Hinsdale where he prac- ticed until 1864. He was then drafted and in order to procure a substitute came to Dunkirk, with which he was so favorably impressed that he secured his present law-office in the Gerrans block. He enjoys an extensive and remunera- tive practice and has attained a prominent stand- ing in his profession. Mr. Murray has been identified for several years with the financial,
educational and religious interests of the city. He is vice-president of the Merchants National Bank which was organized March 6, 1882; was president of the board of education for six years and is a senior warden of St. John's Protestant Episcopal church.
On the 20th of May, 1860, Mr. Murray united in marriage with Orpha A. Banfield, daughter of George D. Banfield, of Hinsdale, New York, They have three children-Henry T., who is in the law-office with his father ; Lewis N., a clerk in the Merchants National Bank, and Maud M., wife of Henry M. Ger- rans, one of the proprietors of the Iroquois hotel of Buffalo, N. Y.
Charles D. Murray is a democrat of the Jack- sonian and Cleveland type and attended the Baltimore convention of 1858, and has been a delegate to several State conventions, and the Democratic National convention of 1884, which nominated Grover Cleveland for president. He served as president of the board of water commissioners, and was mayor of Dunkirk for one term. In 1870 Mr. Murray was the demo- cratie nominee for Congress in his district (the 33d) which was then republican by six thousand majority, and lacked but three hundred votes of being elected.
R OBERT E. CROSGROVE, one of Ripley town's leading farmers and best citizens was born at Ripley, Chautauqua county, New York, November 15, 1851, and is a son of John and Mary (Cochrane) Crosgrove. His grand- father, William Crosgrove, was a native of Ireland, but deciding that America was the land of promise, he said good-by to the green fields of his childhood, and took passage for New York, where he landed November 17, 1801. A few years were spent in various places, and in 1804 he married Rachel Cochrane, who bore him eight children. William Crosgrove lived for two years in western Pennsylvania, but in 1808 he came to Ripley and settled on the farm
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now owned by W. A. and R. E. Crosgrove. The maternal grandfather was Robert Cochrane, who was born in County Down, Ireland, Oct. 22, 1786, and came to America in 1812. One year later he settled in the northwest part of Westfield, on lot No. 4, where he lived until his deatlı, May 6, 1870. Politically he was a republican, and a member of the Presbyterian church. His wife was Jane Law, whom he married in Ireland, and they had eleven chil- dren, the eldest, Mary, being the mother of our subject. Jolın Crosgrove (father) was born at Cold Spring station, Pa., June 20, 1806. When two years of age his father brought him to the town of Ripley where he spent his life, and died at the age of seventy-eight years. William Crosgrove, father of John Crosgrove, bought of the Holland Land company one hundred and thirty-five acres of land, cleared it, and lived on the place until his death. John Crosgrove bought his father's place, and lived there until his death. Early in life he experienced the need of spiritual consolation, and joined himself to the Presbyterian church, in which he was a deacon. In 1842 he married Mary Cochrane, and their union was blessed with five children : Harriet, born June 1, 1844, and is now the wife of E. T. Kingsley, a reserve operator for the L. S. & M. S. R. R. at Ripley ; William, born August 10, 1846, is a farmer and lives with his father ; Alfred, born March 10, 1847, married to Mrs. Hayden, and lives at Pilot Point, Texas, where he is engaged in merchandizing ; Nettie, born August 30, 1849, and died in 1890; and Robert E.
Robert E. Crosgrove received his education at the public schools, after which he began farming, and has continued it ever since on the old homestcad, to which they have added one hundred acres more, making a total of two hundred and thirty-five broad acres of as fine land as one could wish to sce. A vineyard of ten acres in extent furnishes fruit for the table and the market-tons having been sold in one
year. He is a member of the Presbyterian church, and votes with the Republican party.
A RCHIBALD CALHOUN is a canny Scotchman, who has had an experince in life which would form the foundation for a very interesting book. He was born in Ellensboro on the Clyde, October 25, 1828, and is a son of Peter and Ellen (McCauslan) Calhoun, a branch of the family of which John C. Calhoun, the fanious southern statesman, was a member. James Calhoun (grandfather) was a native and life-long resident of Scotland and by occupation was a farmer. Humphrey McCauslan (maternal grandfather) was also a native of the same country, where he was a stock-raiser. Peter Calhoun (father) was born in Scotland in 1793, and early emigrated to the land of freedom, set- tling in Delaware county, New York, where he died in 1875, at the age of eighty-six years. By occupation he was a farmer, in religion he was a member of the Presbyterian church, and in politics was an active worker in the whig party. Peter Calhoun was married to Ellen McCauslan, by whom he had ten children, six sons and four daughters, all but two sons and one daughter being born in Scotland. Mrs. Calhoun died in 1883, aged eighty-three years.
Archibald Calhoun was educated in the com- mon schools of Delaware county, this State, and in the spring of 1851, when he was twenty-one years of age, went to California, the El Dorado of the Occident, and engaged in gold mining, farming and stock-raising for twelve years, and then went to Nevada, where he devoted two years to prospecting for silver and ten years of stock-raising. He then drove a flock of thirty- six-hundred shecp from Nevada to Montana, himself riding horseback, and sold them at a good profit. On several occasions during his residence in California and Nevada he was sur- rounded by hostile Indians with arrows drawn to the head, but always succeeded in arguing them out of a desire to kill or harm him, and
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not infrequently he came in too close quarters with grizzly bears, but managed by desperate fighting to get off practically unharmed. He crossed the Isthmus of Panama four times and has been over the Rocky mountains thirteen times, twice in a stage-coach. In 1877 he came east and located in Sherman, wliere in 1878 he purchased a farm, which he still occupies. After- ward he bought the so-called " Old Israel Shel- don place " of two hundred and fifty-five acres and the " Henry Sheldon place " of two hun- dred and thirty-seven acres and has made a specialty of dairy farming. In October, 1883, in connection with W. P. Smallwood, Hiram Parker and James Vincent, he organized the Bank of Sherman, and was elected president, which office he has since held. It is the first organized of the two banks now in Sherman, but onc bank, the Sheldon, preceded this, and, with the exception of Mr. Smallwood, who has retired from the board of directors, the same men who organized it still manage its business. Outside of his banking operations connected with the bank, Mr. Calhoun derives a good revenue by making independent loans on un- questionable securities. In religion he is a member as well as a trustee of the Presbyterian church ; and in politics lie is a stanch republi- can, taking an active interest in the success of his party, but always declining the many re- quests to use his name as a candidate for any office. His varied experience while on the Pacific Slope and his vast fund of reminiscences make him a very interesting companion, being, naturally, a genial gentleman.
Archibald Calhoun was married May 7, 1871, to Aleda Rose, a daughter of Ithamer Rose, a native of Scholarie county, this State, by whom he has four children, three sons and one daughter : Rose, Le Roy, John and Max- well. Mrs. Calhoun is a member of the Pres- byterian church.
A NDREW J. MERICLE, at one time a captain on a lake vessel running between Buffalo and Chicago; then the owner of a line of vessels in the same trade ; later, and now, the proprictor of a large general store in Brocton, at present preparing one of the largest vine- yards in the town, is a son of Philip and Se- linda (Briggs) Mericle, and was born in the town of Sardinia, Erie county, New York, May 1, 1829. Philip Mericle was a native of Schoharie county, where he was born in the town of Sharon, in 1799. From thence lie re- moved to Erie county, when a young man, and came to Chautauqua county in 1834. He lo- cated in the town of Portland, began to farm, and followed that vocation until his death. Being of Dutch extraction he inherited the industry and economy of that race. . He mar- ried Selinda Briggs in 1828, and had four children, two sons and two daughters: Mr. Mericle was a democrat of the Jeffersonian type, of unquestioned integrity and patriotism. He died in 1858, aged sixty years. His wife was a native of Rhode Island, and living to the advanced age of eighty-four years, died February 22, 1889.
Andrew Jackson Mericle was rcared in the town of Portland, and received the education afforded by its common schools. When but fifteen years of age, he entered a sailing vessel plying the great lakes, and learned to be a sailor. It is unnecessary to recount the hard- ships the young man had to undergo, but, in- stead we will record the triumph he achieved. When manhood cast her mantle about his shoulders, he found himself possessed with enough to buy a small vessel. This he as- sumed command of, carrying freights, and the profits were sufficient to buy other vessels, until he has become the owner of a little fleet, all of which he, excepting one, successively command- ed. Mr. Mericle engaged in this traffic until 1879, when he disposed of his shipping, and gave his whole attention to a general mercantile
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business, which he had established in Brocton, in 1869. The store is a large one, and carries a stock of grocerics, boots and shoes, dry goods, clothing and drugs. His trade is immense, and is drawn for miles from the surrounding country. He owns a farm of ninety acres in Portland town, which he is now converting into an immense vineyard.
In December, 1849, Mr. Mericle marricd Sarah M. Martin, a daughter of Jason Martin, of Portland, who has been his companion for nearly forty years. They are the parents of two children ; Jay P. and Frank J. -
A. J. Mericle is a democrat, a man of wealth, a shrewd business man and a leading citizen.
J AMES H. FLAGLER is a son of John H. and Adeline B. (Rhodes) Flagler, and was born in Royalton, Niagara county, New York, March 8, 1835. His grandfather, James Flagler, was a descendant of one of two broth- ers, who came to America from Germany, and was born in Dutchess county, this State, from whence he removed to Washington county, where he followed the occupation of a farmer until his death in 1825, at the age of forty-five years. He married Vincey Hall, and by her had five children, four sous and one daughter, who reached maturity. The maternal grand- father of J. H. Flagler was named William Rhodes, born in Connecticut and removed to Washington county, this State, where he fol- lowed farming and also served as a soldier in the war of 1812. He died in Washington county in 1869, at the age of eighty-two years. John H. Flagler (father) was born in Wash- ington county, this State, September 15, 1806. He came to this county and located at Summer Dale, a place west of Mayville, where he en- gaged in farming. In politics he was an old- line whig and took an active interest in them- In religion he was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and also a local preacher therein. He married Adeline B. Rhodes, Jan-
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