USA > New York > Chautauqua County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York : with a historical sketch of the county > Part 63
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William L. Miniger was reared in West- field, received his education in the common schools and then served an apprenticeship of three years, learning the trade of harness and trunk-making at Westfield. He soon aban- doned this work and learned to be a stone- mason, which has been his employment until the present time.
He united in marriage with Mary Moshier, daughter of Henry Moshier, then a resident of the town of Portland. To their union have been born four children : Edgar, at home ; Francis, is dead; Frederick ; and an infant, who died when very young.
William L. Miniger owns a very produc- tive farm of two hundred and twenty-seven acres of well-improved land. It is located in the town of Westfield while he resides in the
village of Ripley. Politically Mr. Miniger is a democrat, and belongs to the Free and Ac- cepted Masons, Grange, Patrons of Husbandry and the Mutual Aid Union.
F. T. MERRIAM, a prominent manufac- turer of sash, doors and blinds, at Fal- coner, N. Y., is a son of Levi T. and Susan (Benson) Merriam, and was born in Jamestown, Chautauqua county, New York, March 10, 1850. The Merriams are active, energetic and aggressive business men and trace their lineage to New England. The paternal grand- father, Abel Merriam, was a native of Massa- chusetts and came from there to Chautauqua county about 1820. The greater portion of his after life was spent there-a short time only being given to a sojourn in Pennsylvania. He followed farming at which he made money and accumulated some property, and early realizing that free education is the basis of our National freedom, he interested himself largely in its behalf, giving generously of his time and means. Mr. Merriam was a whig and evolution naturally changed him to a republican. He was at one time a member of the Baptist church, and while always a believer in the theory and practice of true Christianity it is believed that he relinquished his church membership before he died. The Masonic fraternity numbered him among its membership and he attained some prominence in the order. Abel Merriam married and became the father of six children, four sons and two daughters. Saxon Benson (maternal grandfather) was a native of New England. He emigrated to the Empire State where he followed his trade and died. Levi T. Merriam (father) developed a remarkable faculty for business. He was born in the Bay State about 1807, was reared on a farm and taught the lessons of youth at the common schools. Upon attaining his fifteenth year he was put to work in a planing-mill and soon showed a remarkable aptitude for the work. Having
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learned the mechanical business connected with manufacturing sash, doors and blinds, he came to Jamestown in 1820 and later entered the employ of a company doing similar work. He was advanced in his positions until he had charge of the works and continued with the firm until 1853 when he moved to Falconer and established a sash, door and blind factory which lie conducted until 1873 when he died and was succceded by his son, F. T. Merriam. He was a republican, radical and aggressive, aud while never auxious for political preferment he was active in all liis party's campaigns. He belonged to the I. O. O. F., and was a prudent, energetic, methodical and pushing business man, accumulating considerable property. His views upon public matters were liberal and pro- gressive. He married Susan Benson about 1848 and reared seven children, four boys and three girls, six of whom are still living : L. E., is working in the mill ; Frank O., is in business at Erie, Pa. ; H. F., is at the mill ; Florence J. is the wife of William Comic, of Jamestown ; Lilla M. and F. T.
F. T. Merriam spent his childhood and youth iu Jamestown and the town of Westfield and having acquired a good common school and business education came to Falconer and engaged in the service of his father, until the father's death when lie succeeded to the business. The mills employ about fifty men and the valne of the output is about $100,000 per year aud their shipments are largely east and south.
In 1875 he married Lorinda Seeley, a daugh- ter of Jeremiah Seeley, of Gerry, and they have had three children, two of whoni are dead : Susan Hazel, born in 1886, is living.
F. T. Merriam is a republican, a member of the Equitable Aid Union, and has been promi- nently identified with securing improved educa- tional methods for his village. Having been at one time a teacher he knows the short-comings of the old system and has made many practical suggestions for improvement.
H ARRY S. MUNSON was born in Portland town, Chautauqua county, New York, February 4, 1824, and is a son of Samuel and Polly (Hulburt) Munson. Samuel Munson, Sr. (grandfather), was a native of Connecticut, where he was born July 9, 1762. He removed to New Hartford, Oneida county, N. Y., and came from there to Portland, and settled near where the sub- ject now lives, in 1819. They were one month in coming from Oneida county and a week from Buf- falo, the conveyance being a wagon aud the motive power oxen. Hefollowed farming until his death, which occurred on February 27, 1841. Mr. Munson traces his ancestry back to Captain Munson, covering two hundred years. He was a soldier in the war of 1812 and served with distinction. Samuel Munson (father) was born in Queida county in 1803, and came with his father from there in the winter of 1818-19. Being pioneers of the county they were inured to the hardships of cleaning up a farm-practi- cally cutting it out of the virgin forest. He settled iu Portland town with his father and af- terwards bought fifty acres from the Holland Land company, which he lived upon to the time of his death in 1883, June 9th, when eighty years of age. He married Polly Hul- burt, a native of Pompey, Onondaga county, this State, and had three children : Harry S .; Miltou J., born May 23, 1828, and Alson N., born April 20, 1834. Mrs. Munson died on the old homestead July 19, 1875, aged seventy- five years.
Harry S. Munson was reared on his father's farm and attended the district schools in the winter. Being the oldest of the family a great deal of hard work fell on his shoulders, but he was a stout, strong young man aud work was not a burden. The season of 1846 was spent in McHenry county, Illinois, and in 1851 he moved to Wayne, Erie county, Pa., where he re- mained twelve years. With the exception of that time Mr. Munson has spent his entire life in this town. He is the owner of a fine farm contain-
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OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
ing one hundred and ten acres, two miles from the village of Portland.
In 1847 he married Cordelia Spencer, a daughter of Gilbert Spencer, who lived at North East, Pa., and by her has had six children : Spencer M., is in California; Mary E., wife of Hiram F. Morgan, now lives in the town of Pomfret ; Byron, also in California ; Harry S., in New Mexico, the head clerk of a large gro- cery store ; Melvin G., at home, and Emma J., wife of Ormal Swetland, living in this town.
H. S. Munson is an honest republican and is one of the best citizens of this town.
H ON. S. FREDERICK NIXON, of West- field, who served for three consecutive terms as a member of the New York Assembly, is one of the active and prosperous marble deal- ers of the State. He is the younger of two sons born to Samuel and Mary E. (Johnston) Nixon, and was born at Westfield, Chantauqua county, New York, December 3, 1860. Samuel Nixon was the youngest son of a wealthy Nixon family of County Down, Ireland, where under the law of primogeniture as it exists in the empire of Great Britain, his eldest brother inherited the landed estate and all the property of his father. He was born in 1826 and at the age of nineteen years came to Jamestown where he resided un- til his death in 1876. He was engaged in the marble business and left at his death quite an cstate which he had accumulated during the thirty years of his business life. He was a Presbyterian in religious faith, and a successful business man who had made himself prominent in the commercial circles of his part of the Em- pire State. Shortly before his death he was en- gaged in perfecting arrangements to go to Scot- land in 1877 with his son, the subject of this sketch, and embarked in the wholesale marble business. He married Mary E. Johnston, a native of County Down. They were the parcuts of two sons.
S. Frederick Nixon grew to mauhood at West-
field where he attended the public schools and Westfield academy from which he was graduated in 1877. He then entered Hamiltou college and was graduated from that well-known insti- tution of learning in 1881. Upon the comple- tion of his college course he read law for one year but his business interests demanded so much of his time that he was compelled to re- linquish his legal studies. He is a republican in politics and in 1885 was elected trustec of his village. In 1886 he was elected as supervisor and the following year represented the Assembly district of Chautauqua county, in the New York Legislature, in which he served on several im- portant committees. He was returned in 1888 and again in 1889 but owing to various causes of disturbance in his party was defeated in his candidacy for a fourth term. Heand Matthew P. Bemus are the only residents of Chautauqua county who have ever been honored with three consecutive terms as members of the New York Assembly. In the legislative sessions of 1889 and 1890, Mr. Nixon was chairman of the com- mittee on internal affairs which included all mat- ters pertaining to the villages and towns of the State. In 1889 he also served on the commit- tee of general laws for two years besides being a member of the committee on ways and means in 1889. He has always been active and success- ful in his county as a leader and speaker in the Republican party. In 1887 and 1888 he was chairman of the republican county committce and in the latter year Chautauqua county rolled up a heavier republican majority than slic ever gave before that year.
He united in marriage with Myrtle Redfield, a resident of Chicago and a native of Michigan. They have two children : S. Frederick, Jr., and Redfield.
In addition to his property in Chautauqua county Mr. Nixon owns two good farms of one- hundred and seventy-five and two hundred acres respectively, some three miles from Des Moines, in Warren county, Iowa. He and his brother
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Emmet are actively engaged in dealing in mar- ble at Westfield, where they do an annual busi- ness of twenty thousand dollars. He is one of the directors of the Crowell & Pulley Manu- faeturing company which was organized in 1889 and employs a force of forty hands. He owns two farms in his town, one of which is one of the earliest settled farms in the county. Mr. Nixon is a mem- ber of the F. and A. M., and of the Royal Arcanum.
H ENRY W. ODELL, one of the proprietors of the Chautauqua Lake stock farms and an oil producer of northwestern Pennsylvania, is a son of John and Theodosia (Hodges) Odell, and was born in the town of Busti, Chautauqua county, New York, July 6, 1852. The Odell family is of English descent. John Odell (father) was born in 1818 and removed to Cat- taraugus county, New York, where he has been engaged for many years in the grocery, oil and lumber business. He was formerly a republican in politics, but a few years ago joined the pro- hibition party. He married Theodosia Hodges, daughter of John Hodges, a farmer and stock raiser near Cambridge, Pa., and who was a member of the Cambridge Presbyterian church. Mr. and Mrs. John Odell had two children : Henry W. and Theodosia, wife of Eugene Pearce, a merchant and coal dealer of Olean. After the death of his first wife John Odell married Euphemia Odell. To this second marriage were born two children: James and one whichi died in infancy.
Henry W. Odell was educated in the common schools of the town of Busti, and in Oberlin college, Ohio. After lie left college he became a contractor for drilling oil wells in Pennsyl- vania. After several years' experience as a contractor he embarked in the oil producing business, which he has followed successfully ever since. In October, 1889, he removed to Jamestown, and became partner with T. J. Vandergrift in the purchase of the Chautauqua
Lake stock farm, containing some two hundred acres of land, on which they propose to raise none but the finest horses. They now have about fifty head of very fine horses.
Mr. Odell married Lena Carr, daughter of Thomas Carr, of Portage, Ohio. To their union has been born one child, a son, Lewis.
H. W. Odell is a man of energy and business tact and has always supported the Republican party.
Lt OUIS OLSOM. The State of New York is famous for the number and quality of car. riages and road wagons which its factories turn out. Louis Olsom, of Jamestown, who for a num- ber of years has been a leading blacksmith there, has added the necessary machinery to his plant, and is now competing for a portion of that trade. He is a son of Olle and Annie (Ander- son) Olsom, and was born in Denmark October 12th, 1856. His family have been natives of that country from time immemorial, and his parents still reside there. Olle Olsom was born in 1816 and through the greater portion of his life tilled the soil to secure maintenance for himself and family, and, having amassed a com- fortable income, he is now retired from active work, aged seventy-five years. As is customary in that country with all of its young men, he served twelve years in the Danish army and has always been a healthy, stout, strong and very active man.
Louis Olsom was rcared on his father's farm in Denmark and received his education at the national schools of that country, and upon com- pleting his education he learned blacksmithing and followed it until the fall of 1875; at the latter date he came to America and located at Warren, Pennsylvania, where he lived and worked at his trade for four years, and then wishing to change, he went to Bradford, in the same State, and employed himself in the same work for five years longer. It was there that he first began business for himself, and in 1884,
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OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
learning that Jamestown offered a good opening for a blacksmith, he came here and established a shop of his own and followed the business un- remittingly and with such sueeess that in 1891 he added carriage manufacturing to his black- smith work and now does a large business in both. His work has the reputation of being equal to the best, and it is upon this foundation of superior workmanship that his growing busi- ness is founded. He started in life with a small capital and by industry and economy has made sueh accumulations that in addition to his busi- ness he is the owner of considerable real estate.
In 1884 he married Annie Riley, of Rich- burg, Allegheny county, Penna., and they have been blessed with three children, all daughters : Alice, Annie and Minnie. Politically Mr. Ol- som is independent of all parties and holds him- self free to support sueh candidates as his judg- ment suggests.
T THOMAS A. PEACOCK, a grand-nephew of Judge William Peacock, and a resident of Westfield, is a son of Thomas and Alice E. (Peacock) Peacock, and was born at Port- land Harbor (now Silver Creek) in the town of Portland, Chautauqua county, New York, September 20, 1849. His paternal great-grand- father, Thomas Peacock, was a native of Ire- land, where he learned the trade of weaver, and from there he came to central New York. Three of his sons were John, Absalom and Judge William Peacock, who was one of the early leading and prominent men of Chautauqua county, and whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume. The first two named sons, John and Absalom Peacock, were the paternal and maternal grandfathers of the subject of this sketch. Thomas Peacock (father) learned the trade of tanner and leather currier at Pen Yan, this State, and followed the tanning business during the greater part of his life. He was an industrious man and a good workman and died in 1851. He married his cousin, Alice E.
Peacock, who was a daughter of Absalom Pea- cock, and passed away in 1873. They had two children : Thomas A., and Frances, who died at fourteen years of age.
Thomas A. Peacock passed most of his boy- hood at Westfield where he attended the West- field academy. He then took the full course of Bryant and Stratton's Business college and since leaving that well-known commercial insti- tution has given his time principally to the management of his own private business and the supervision of his property at Westfield and in the city of Buffalo. Mr. Peacock erected a very fine modern brick residence at Westfield, which is valued at thirty-six hundred dollars.
He also owns a valuable farm of three hun- dred acres on the lake shore besides a large .farm two miles west of Westfield which his aunt willed him at her death. He has valuable property in the eity of Buffalo including some fine buildings in the Kremlin block besides an individual interest in several lots and buildings near and adjoining the Grand Trunk railway depot at the foot of Erie street. He has always supported his party in all of its leading measures, but his business interests have always been such as to demand the greater part of his time and attention.
In 1881, Thomas A. Peacock united in mar- riage with Alice M. Stanfield, and their union has been blessed with two children : William, born May 17, 1882, and Charles E., born July 3, 1884.
A RTHUR PETERS, the leading contractor and builder of Dunkirk, to whom many are indebted for the neat and handsome appear- ance of their residences and places of business, is a son of Samuel and Sarah (Copplestone) Peters, and was born February 1, 1846, in Cornwall county, a famous mining district in the southwestern part of England, both parents being natives of the same country. Samuel Peters (father) was born in 1820, and
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married Sarah Copplestone, by whom he had several children. He was a member of the Church of England, as is also his wife. He died in February, 1888, in his native country where he had always lived, aged sixty-eight years, and his widow still resides in Cornwall county, in her seventy-third year.
Arthur Peters was reared in his native county, and acquired his education in the public and private schools. At sixteen years of age he began to learn the trade of a carpenter, at which, in connection with contracting and building, he has since labored, and in 1869 came to the United States, locating at Sinclair- ville, this county, where he continued to reside until May, 1880, when he came to Dunkirk. He is now conceded to be the leading contractor of Dunkirk, and has built more than thirty buildings, at a cost of from one to ten thousand dollars, among the handsomest being the resi dences of F. B. Jackson, J. H. Lascelles and A. H. Whitney. About a score of men arc constantly employed by him. In religion he is a member of the Episcopal church, as are all his family, and politically he is independent. Hc is a member of Bluc Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, and is a Royal Arch Mason
In 1868, Mr. Peters married Laura Cossen- tine, a daughter of Charles Cossentine, of England. Four children have blessed their union, two sons and two daughters : Evaline A., Samuel A., Charles H. and Laura C., whose ages are twenty, seventeen, fourteen and twelve, respectively.
w ILLIAM SEXTON. The late William Sexton, one of the early and most re- spected citizens of Westfield, was born at Man- chester, Bennington county, Vermont, April 11, 1796. In 1816 he came to Buffalo, and thence on the ice to Westfield, to which place he removed his family during the next year. He soon became prominent in the civil affairs of his town and county. He served as constable and
collector from 1825 to 1834, was sheriff of Chautauqua county from 1834 to 1838, and served as postmaster of Westfield during 1841, and again from 1849 to 1853, being removed botlı times for political reasons by Presidents Tyler and Pierce. In 1853 he was elected jus- tice of the peace, which office he held by re-elec- tion until 1880, when he resigned on account of ill-health. He also was supervisor, besides holding other town offices. He served contin- uously in town and county offices from 1824 to 1880, a period of fifty-six years, and during his shrievalty occurred the first execution in the county for murder. He married, and his wife died in May, 1875. They had six children : George, Charles, William, Edwin, Electa Rob- bins and Mary S., widow of Hon. Henry A. Prendergast.
William Sexton, after a long illness, passed away at the residence of his daughter, Mrs. Prendergast, at Westfield, on October 7, 1881, when in the eighty-sixth year of his age. In the press notices of his death the following tribute was paid to his memory by one who knew him well : " Mr. Sexton always proved himself an honest, faithful and efficient officer. He was a member of the Baptist church, and though he made no parade of his religion, yet by his humble and kindly disposition, and ex- emplary life and acts, the only true test of Christian character, he gave the best evidence that lie was a true Christian."
H ON. HENRY A. PRENDERGAST, for many years a prominent citizen of West- field, and whose ancestors were among the earlier settlers of western New York, was a son of Ste- phen and Almira (Abell) Prendergast, and was born in the town of Ripley, Chautauqua county, New York, October 31, 1821. His great-grand- father, William Prendergast, Sr., was born in Waterford, Ireland, came to Dutchess county, where he married Mehetable Wing, and at seventy-eight years of age was one of the pioneer
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OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
settlers of Chantauqua county, where he died February 14, 1811 (for a fuller aecount of him and his family see historical part of this volume). His second son, Thomas, married Deborah Hunt, and their only sou, Stephen Prendergast, was born at Pawling, New York, Jannary 23, 1793, and dicd January 31, 1852. Stephen Prender- gast came in 1805 to Ripley, where he married Almira Abell, who was born January 23, 1796, and died at an advanced age. They had four children : Thomas N., Hon. Henry A., Steplien and John L.
ployments of farming, fishing and hunting. For several years hc gave his attention to farming, during which time he im ported into the country some of the finest stock that eonld be obtained in England. He refused to enter political life until the American party came into existence, when, in the fall of 1855, he yielded to continued importunings, beeame a candidate for the Assem- bly and was elected by four hundred and fifty majority, although his district was American by one thousand, and he was opposed by two strong candidates. In 1856 he was nominated by acclamation and was clected by over two thousand majority. During his second term he served as chairman of the committee of ways and means. He afterwards completed his law studies, was admitted to the bar, and practiced for a time at Quincy, where he was engaged in the mercantile business for several years. In 1861 he served a third term as a member of Assembly, and shortly afterwards entered the Army of the Cumberland as a paymaster. While with that army in Tennessee he was taken sick, and by advice of the surgeon returned home, where he died a few days after his arrival.
He married Mary S. Sexton, daughter of William Sexton (see his sketcli), and to their union were born two children : Minerva E., mar- ried June 17, 1869, George W. Fargo., Jr., of Buffalo, who died December 30, 1872, and whom she followed to the tomb on October 11, 1873, leaving twin daughters-Anne E. and Mary C., now at school at Buffalo ; and Charles S., who died in 1865, aged fifteen years.
" Henry A. Prendergast was a man of fine intellect, a good speaker and a thorough busi- ness man. In person he was tall (nearly six Henry A. Prendergast was reared on the farm, and in the fall of 1838 entered Union college, front which he was graduated in 1842. He then became a law student in the office of D. Mann, of Westfield, but in a short time was compelled by impaired health to abandon his feet), of good mould, of nervous sangnine tem- perament, and blue eyes, brown hair and pale features. He was frank, genial and respected." Of his paternal ancester, William Prendergast, Sr., it is recorded in Howe's historical collec- tions that during the anti-rent troubles of legal studies and take up the more healthful em- | Dutchess county he was known as the " Big Thunder " of that exciting time. "The Pren- dergasts became the possessors of some of the finest lands in this county and have been con- sidered among the most wealthy, public-spirited farmers in the West." On the paternal side Henry A. Prendergast's ancestors were real Vermonters and bore arms in the Revolution- ary war, in some of whose great battles his great-grandfather, Captain Abell, who has often been mentioned honorably in history took a distinguished part.
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