USA > New York > Delaware County > Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of the leading citizens of Delaware County, New York > Part 29
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Stephen Bartow, the father of Andrew Peck, was born in New Canaan, Conn., April I, 1794, and was a life-long resident of that State, dying there in 1878. He married Sally Clinton, who was born in New Canaan,
September 1, 1793, and during her long life of nearly eighty-three years never left the State of her nativity. She was the only child of her parents, Allen and Sarah (Keeler) Clinton. Her father and an uncle, General Clinton, served in the Revolutionary War, wherein they won renown for their bravery and efficient service, her father afterward draw- ing a pension from the government. He was of most commanding appearance, standing six feet two inches in height, very straight and erect, and weighing over two hundred pounds. His teeth, both upper and under, were all double, and he could bite a goose quill in two. He was a farmer by occupation. Both he and his wife were sincere Christian people, and belonged to the Congregational church. Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Bartow reared nine children, five sons and four daughters, of whom the following are living: Lucy Ann, the widow of George Whitney, lives in New Canaan; Anson is a farmer in Walton; Philo recently moved from Walton to Connecticut ; Andrew P. lives in Walton; Charles L. is a farmer and stone-mason in New Canaan; A daughter, Roxie, died at the age of six years. Catherine died in infancy. Sophronia, the wife of Henry M. Webb, died in 1862, at the age of thirty-eight years, leaving one daughter.
Andrew P. Bartow was reared on a farm, and received a good common-school education, among other studies mastering Dabol's arith- metic, then the leading text-book in that sci- ence. When seventeen years old he learned the shoemaker's trade, working at it in New Canaan, both before and after the beginning of the Civil War. Inspired by patriotic mo- tives, he was anxious to enlist in defence of his country's flag during the late Rebellion, and in August, 1863, was examined, but re- jected. On the 12th of September, 1863, however, he was drafted, and mustered into Company A, Sixth Connecticut Volunteer In- fantry, and served in the ranks until January, 1865, when he was discharged, being disabled by paralysis caused by overmarching and ex- posure. He was brought very low, and but little hope was entertained of his recovery, his sufferings being so intense that death seemed to him the most desirable thing that
HIRAM MONTGOMERY.
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could happen. He returned home, expecting to die or to be a life-long crpiple, with no use of his left arm or side. In 1866 Mr. Bar- tow removed to Walton, where he opened a store for the sale of boots and shoes, and es- tablished a pretty good trade. Failing health induced him to exchange the house and lot he had purchased for a farm of sixty acres up the river, to which he moved in 1879. Two years later Mr. Bartow traded his farm for a house in Walton; and recently he and his son George have bought a small farm of fifty acres in this locality, where the latter is carrying on general husbandry with good results. Mr. Bartow built his present residence in 1884, and it is a model of comfort and good taste.
Mr. Andrew P. Bartow and Miss Sarah A. Crabb were united in marriage on August 3, 1858. Mrs. Bartow was born in Stamford, Conn., April 28, 1833, a daughter of Jere- miah and Ruth (Northrup) Crabb. George Bartow, a farmer, the eldest of the four chil- dren of Mr. and Mrs. Bartow, has a wife and four children. Charles, the second, a manu- facturer and dealer in furniture at No. 86 Delaware Street, has a wife and one daughter. Harry Edson, a reed worker in the Novelty Works, has a wife and one son. Jennie Belle, the only daughter, a young lady of eighteen, lives with her parents. Mr. Bartow is held in much esteem by his friends and fellow- townsmen, being a man of strong opinions and sound judginent, and one whose character is above reproach. He is an ardent advocate of the principles of the Republican party, and he has served his town as Constable and Collec- tor. Socially, he is a Master Mason, and an influential member of the Ben Marvin Post, No. 209, Grand Army of the Republic. His religious beliefs coincide with the doctrines of the Congregational church; while his wife, who is a noble type of the worthy Christian people of this vicinity, is a inember of the Methodist church.
Charles A. Bartow was born in New Ca- naan, Conn., April 26, 1863. He completed his education in the Walton Academy, which he left at the age of sixteen years to engage in manual labor. On the Ist of November, 1882, he began working at the cabinet-maker's trade; and, having become proficient in every
branch thereof, he established himself in busi- ness on his own account as a manufacturer and dealer in furniture. He is a young man of enterprise and integrity, and a valued citi- zen. On the 6th of October, 1889, he mar- ried Mary E. Wilson, who was born in Downsville, a daughter of George S. and Sarah (Combes) Wilson. Mr. Wilson is a carpenter by trade, now living in Walton in order to give his youngest daughter, Jeanette, the benefit of the excellent educational advan- tages afforded by the village schools. Ada, the remaining daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wil- son, is the wife of E. R. Johnson, a railroad man. Mrs. Mary E. Bartow is a cultivated woman, and before her marriage was a very successful teacher, her mother also having becn early engaged in this calling. Two children have been born to Charles A. and Mary E. Bartow, one of whom, a beautiful boy, died in infancy. Flossie Combes, the remaining child, is now three years of age. Politically, Mr. Bartow is a firm and uncom- promising Republican. He has been Com- mander of the order of the Sons of Veterans of George Crawley Camp, No. 143, Depart- ment of New York, also is a worthy member of Walton Lodge, No. 559, of Master Masons, the same lodge of which his father is a member.
EORGE AND DAVID MONTGOM- ERY, sons of Hiram Montgomery, an energetic and successful pioneer farmer of Delaware County, seem to have in- herited much of the sagacity of their fore- fathers, who were active in promoting every enterprise that tended toward the advancement of the section in which they had cast their lots. The great-grandfather of the brothers was a native of the northern part of Ireland, and came to America and settled in Vermont. His name was Robert Montgomery, and he finally moved with his family to Salem, Washington County, N. Y., where he died at the age of sixty-five, leaving a family of seven children - Robert, William, Martin, Alexander, Hugh, Polly, and Jane.
William, the second son of Robert and Polly Montgomery, was born in Vermont,
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where he married Sally Conkee, and whence he came to Delaware in 1806, settling on the estate now owned by Robert Hastings. Here he built a log house, and lived with his family in the lonely forest depths. Thir- teen children were born to the husband and wife, who toiled happily and ate the bread of their labor in peace and contentment. Thir- teen small, hungry mouths to feed, thirteen little bodies to clothe and nourish and pro- tect, thirteen souls and active brains to be guided and trained and moulded into useful, honorable, patriotic American citizens! The work was a great one; but William and Sally Montgomery were honest and capable and strong. The "baker's dozen" of offspring came in the following order: William, Hiram, De Bois, Richard, Dewitt, Betsey, Lucy, Mary, Angeline, Sally, Eleanor, Harriet, and Louisa. The tract of land upon which he first settled was afterward sold, and one hundred acres were leased, just above the place now owned by the two descendants whose names form the headline of this family chronicle. This he cleared and put into cul- tivation, building another habitation for his household. Living in those early days was no easy matter to those who had only their own labor to depend upon for support, and so William had to work other men's lands in order to keep his own and support the family of children intrusted to his keeping. When the War of 1812 broke over the land, he was drafted, but drew a blank, and was thus en- abled to continue working the virgin soil, while his neighbors went to fight the British- ers once more. He was Democratic in his political views. He and his faithful wife each lived to be about seventy-nine years old, he dying in 1858, and she ten years later.
Hiram, who was born in Roxbury, No- vember 1, 1811, received a rudimentary edu- cation in the district school, but read and improved himself at home as far as he could. At twenty-two he began to farm, and seven years later, in 1840, bought one hundred acres of land which was heavily timbered with hemlock. The trees he cut down and peeled, selling the bark at such advantageous terms that he was able to pay for the land with the proceeds. He married, at the age
of thirty-eight, Miss Rheuana Peck, born June 20, 1822, a daughter of Lucy (Barnham) and Oliver Peck, the latter a cooper and farmer of Connecticut, who lived to be eighty-three and left these children - Warden, Smith, Eli, Charles, Rheuana, Sarah, and Polly. To Hiram and Rheuana (Peck) Montgomery were born nine children - George, Rheuana, Hiram, Jr., David, Otis, Liberty, Jenette, Emma, and Agnes. Rheuana married Mr. Andrew McCarrick, and lives at Caton in Steuben County. She has one child, An- drew B. Otis married Miss Minerva Van- Aiken. They live at North Sanford, Broome
County. Liberty lives at home; and Hiram has bought the farm just across the brook from his father's old homestead, which is now conjointly owned by David and George. Hiram, Jr., married Miss Ella Scudder; and they have two daughters - Nellie and Grace. Emma married Henry Reed; and they have two children - Charles and Harry. Jenette married Otis Tiffany, and has two children - Cora and. Hiram. Agnes is single, and re- sides on the home place. George is a Past Master of Cœur de Lion (Masonic) Lodge, also a member of Delta Chapter, No. 185, and of Rondout Commandery, No. 52, Knights Templar.
Hiram Montgomery, the father of the family, died at his home October 19, 1894, aged eighty-three years. He was laid to rest with Masonic honors, he having been a Mason for many years. The wife, Rheuana (Peck) Montgomery, preceded her husband two years, having died September 23, 1892.
On the site where now stands the Montgom- ery mansion five gigantic hemlocks raised aloft their sombre heads toward the northern skies; and so deeply rooted were they that Hiram had great difficulty in digging the stumps from the soil, that a cellar might be dug and foundation laid for the house. Many are the family associations gathered about this ancestral home of the Montgomerys. The mountains and woods that covered the old place were literally infested with deer in the early days of the settlement. They came in such herds, indeed, that the hounds were in danger often of being killed by the valiant stags, whose sharp antlers sometimes severed
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the dogs' heads from their bodies. Where the deer stalked proudly and unmolested, and the howl of the wolf and the panther sounded dismally through the long watches of the night three-quarters of a century ago, a mag- nificent orchard of fine fruit-trees now stands to mark the energy, industry, and foresight of Hiram Montgomery, who set them with his own hand, and watched them sprout and grow and develop into maturity and bearing. In all the neighborhood there is not an estate in a more highly developed state of cultiva- tion than the Montgomery farm; and its owners, George and David, are justly proud of the homestead of their fathers.
The accompanying portrait of Hiram Mont- gomery is an interesting addition to the family record, and an ornament to this volume.
ILLIAM BROWN HANFORD, the author of the following reminis- cences of the Levi Hanford branch of the Hanford family- which he has written expressly for this "Review," only a small part of his manuscript having previously been in print -- early in the present year, 1894, passed his ninetieth birthday, in Franklin Village, N.Y., where he has resided since 1860 in retired life. He was born in New Canaan, Conn., May 19, 1804, and removed with his parents and family in 1808 to Wal- ton, N. Y., where he passed more than half of a century on the ancestral farm.
This branch of the Hanford family he can trace back seven generations to an ancestral Hanford, a man of large property and respec- tability, whosc given name is unknown, but who died in England in 1596 or 1597. He married Eglin Selis, a widow. Her maiden name was Eglin Hatherly. She had by her second marriage one son, the Rev. Thomas Hanford, to whom all the Hanfords of this country can be traced back. He was born in England in 1621, and was early sent to school and college. He was a decided Puritan in principle, and opposed to the tyranny and per- secution of the Established Church toward all others. For that reason he could not receive the honors due to his college attainments.
Feeling deeply the cruelty and injustice that was inflicted on him, it was not strange that in 1642 he should be found an immigrant to the New England colonies. In 1643 we find him completing his education with the Rev. Charles Chauncy, one of the most learned and popular Puritan divines of that day, and after- ward preaching for a time in New Haven, Conn. From there he went into Massachu- setts. On May 22, 1650, he was made a free- man of the colony. In 1652 he was called to the pastorate of the church of Norwalk, Conn. He preached there for forty consecu- tive years. He married Hannah Newbury, daughter of Thomas Newbury. She died shortly, leaving no children; and on July 22, 1661, he married Mary Ince, widow of Jona- than Ince, and daughter of Richard Miles. They had a family of ten children, as follows: Theophilus, born July 29, 1662, who died un- married ; Mary, November 30, 1663; Han- nah, June 28, 1665; Elizabeth, July 9, 1666; Thomas, July 18, 1668 (he was the branch from which the Levi Hanford branch of the Hanford family sprung); Eleazor, September 15, 1670; Elnathan, October 11, 1672; Sam- uel, April 5, 1674; Eunice, March, 1675; Sarah, May, 1677. The Rev. Thomas Han- ford died in Norwalk, in 1693, at the age of seventy-two years, respected and highly es- teemed. His wife, Mary Miles Hanford, died September 12, 1730, at the advanced age of one hundred and five years.
In 1692 Thomas Hanford, second son of the Rev. Thomas Hanford, married Hannah Burwell, widow of John Burwell, and daugh- ter of Gershon Lockwood. They had a family of five children: Theophilus, born in 1693; Elnathan; Elizabeth; Catharine; and Mary. The gravestones of Thomas Hanford and his wife werc standing at their graves in 1893, in good preservation. Theophilus Hanford, the writer's great-grandfather, bought land, and built on it about the year 1718 or 1719, the first house built in the part of Norwalk that became New Canaan. Theophilus and his wifc Sarah had a family of four sons and two daughters, namely: Dinah, born October II, 1720; Theophilus, April 26, 1724: Levi, March 4, 1731, died May 21, 1796, aged sixty-five years; Ebenezer, born October 14,
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1733; Abigail, January 20, 1738; Simeon, July 7, 1741. Theophilus Hanford, Sr., built a house for his son Theophilus, in the hope that he would marry and settle in domes- tic life. But he, being of a roving, restless disposition, did not accept his father's offer. The house was afterward given to his second son, Levi, who soon after married Sarah Eliza- beth Carter, daughter of Ebenezer Carter, a well-to-do farmer noted for generous hospital- ity, patriotism, and good living. She was born in 1731, and died in 1776, aged forty- five years. He was a man of good mind, honest and upright in all the vocations of life, standing high in the esteem of all that knew him, but of a quiet, unassuming, domes- tic turn. They were devout and respected members of the Baptist church. He was a good farmer and the owner of mills.
Levi Hanford, Sr., and his wife passed their lives in domestic happiness and comfort. They had a family of three sons and two daughters, whose names, dates of birth and marriage were as follows: Ebenezer, their first child, was born February 27, 1755, and married Hannah, daughter of Thaddeus Han- ford. He had poor health, was a well-edu- cated man, a farmer, and a writer for papers and books. They left no children. He died October 19, 1833, aged seventy-eight years. Elizabeth, the eldest daughter, born June 20, 1757, died April 23, 1828, being burned to death, her clothes taking fire from smoulder- ing coals on the hearth, while engaged in secret prayer early in the morning. She was a woman of strong mind, well stored with useful knowledge. She married Captain Isaac Keeler, who was an officer in the Con- tinental army under General Washington, and was in many of the hardest-fought battles of the Revolution. He with his company passed that terrible winter at Valley Forge, in tents all winter. After the war was closed, he went into mercantile business for some years, during which time he married the before-men- tioned Elizabeth Hanford. He eventually re- ceived the appointment of Police Justice in New York City; and after several years' ser- vice in that office he was appointed to a place in the New York Custom-house, which office he retained till his death. His death
was caused by consumption, the result of a severe cold taken during the War of 1812. In that war, when New York City was threat- ened with an attack by the British, and troops were called in protection, many of the vet- erans of the Revolution volunteered and formed companies to assist in guarding the city. Keeler was one of them, and was ap- pointed an officer. He endeavored to show the spirit and energy of his former years of military life, and took without hesitation his part in the hardships and exposures of the camp with the best. But the years that had been added to his life had unfitted him for such hardships; and when on one cold, rainy night he was out on guard duty, and was very much chilled, he took a severe cold that never left him, but continued until it culminated in consumption and death. They left no children.
Levi, the second son of Levi Hanford, Sr., was born September 19, 1759. His child- hood and early youth were passed with his parents and family on the farm till 1775, when the Revolutionary War broke out, and he was sixteen, the age at which the law then held them liable to military duty. He then enlisted in a company of minute-men, liable to be called into service at a moment's warn- ing for short periods of a few days, weeks, or months at a time, as local circumstances made it necessary. The manner of calling out those minute-men, in case of an alarm, was as follows: The news of the approach of an enemy was usually heralded by an express rider in haste to the town officer authorized to receive the news. He would hasten to the meeting-house hill, and there, in a voice as loud as he could make it, would cry: "Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye!" three times, then proclaim the cause of the alarm, and then beat the long roll on the drum. The minute-men first hearing the alarm would mount their horses, and ride in every direction, to spread the information. When the men were assem- bled, the officers would explain the cause of the alarm, and then march wherever they were needed. If the alarm was an important one, a cannon was fired, that denoted danger and re- quired haste. On one of those occasions Levi Hanford, Jr., was called to New York for
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some length of time. While there he was sent with a detachment of men, one very dark and stormy night, to Governor's Island, and broke the first ground ever broken for a forti- fication on that island. The British flect was lying at anchor in the lower bay. They had placed sentries around the island. The Brit- ish, mistrusting that something was being done, sent up boats to reconnoitre. They would row up as near as they dared; the sen- try would hail them, and, receiving no answer, would fire. They would haul off, to come up again at some other point. This continued through the night. In the morning the men were withdrawn, to be replaced at evening. Levi Hanford, Jr., was a soldier in active service during the war. Again he was called out, and, while on guard duty, was surrounded by British and Tories, who came across the Sound in whale-boats and took the guard, Hanford among the rest.
The following sketch of Levi Hanford, Jr., and the old Sugar House Prison is abbre- viated from an account taken down in his words about forty-six years ago, and pub- lished in 1852, in which year he was pre- sented with a cane made by David Barker from one of the oak beams of the old prison. The veteran was then in his ninety-third year, feeble in body, but still able to walk, and still retaining his faculties in a remarkable degree, and the memory of Revolutionary events and the transactions of by-gonc days in great perfectness, the result, no doubt, of habits of steady industry, temperance, and morality, joined to a good constitution :
"In March, 1777, I was called as one of a guard of thirteen men on the coast of Long Island Sound. On March 13, 1777, a very dark and stormy night, we were stationed as a guard at what was then an out-station called 'Oldwell, now South Norwalk. Our officers were negligent; and, for that cause, in the night the guard was surrounded by Brit- ish and Tories from Long Island, and the guard made prisoners, myself among the rest, an ignorant boy of seventeen. We were taken in whale-boats across the sound to Hunting- ton, L.I., from there to Flushing, and then taken from there to New York, and incarcer- ated in the old Sugar House Prison in Lib-
erty Street, near the new Dutch Church, at that time converted into a riding-school for British light horse, and afterward into the city post-office. The old prison, now torn down, was a stone building six stories high ; but the stories were very low, which made it dark and confined. It was built for a sugar refinery, and its appearance was dark and gloomy; while its small and deep windows gave it the appearance of a prison, which it really was, with a high board fence enclosing a small yard. We found at that time about forty or fifty prisoners, in an emaciated, starv- ing, and wretched condition. Their numbers were continually being diminished by death, and as constantly increased by the accessions of new prisoners to the number of four hun- dred and fifty or five hundred. Our allow- ance of provision was pork and sea biscuit; it would not keep a well man in strength. The biscuit was such as had been wet with sea water and damaged, and was full of worms and mouldy. It was our common practice to put water into our camp kettle, then break the bread into it, skim off the worms, put in the pork and boil it, if we had fuel. But that was allowed us only a part of the time; and, when we could get no fuel, we had to eat our meat raw, and our biscuit dry. Starved as we were, there was nothing in the shape of food that was rejected or was unpalatable. Crowded together in bad air, and with such diet, it was not strange that disease and pesti- lence should prevail. I had not been long there before I was taken with the small-pox, and taken to the small-pox hospital. I had it light, and soon returned to the prison, but not till I had seen it in its most malignant forms. Some of my companions died in that hospital. I remained in prison for a time, when, from bad air, confinement, and bad diet, I was taken sick and conveyed to the Quaker Meet- ing Hospital, so called from its being a Quaker church. I soon became insensible; and the time passed unconsciously till I began slowly to recover health and strength, and I again quittcd those scenes of disease and death for the prison. On my return 1 found the number of our companions still further reduced by sickness and death. Dur- ing all this time an influence was being ex-
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erted to induce the prisoners to enlist into the Tory regiments. Although our sufferings were intolerable, and the men were urged by Tories who had been their neighbors, and had enlisted into the Tory regiment, yet the in- stances were rare that they could be influenced to enlist. So wedded were they to their prin- ciples that they chose honorable death rather than sacrifice them.
"I remained in prison till October 28, when the names of a company of prisoners were taken down, and mine among the rest. It was told us that we were going home. We drew a week's provisions, which by solic- itation we cheerfully divided among our starv- ing associates, whom we were to leave in prison. But whether it was to torment and aggravate our feelings I know not; but this I do know, that, instead of going home, we were taken from the prison and put on board of one of the prison ships (the 'Good Intent ') lying in the North River, and reported there with one week's provisions. The scene of starvation and suffering that followed cannot be described. Everything was eaten that could appease appetite. From this and other causes, and crowded as we were with over two hundred in the hold of one ship, enfeebled as we had become, and now reduced by famine, it was not strange that pestilence began to sweep us down, till in less than two months we were reduced to scarcely one hundred. In December, when the river began to freeze, our ship was taken around into the Wallabout Bay, where lay the 'Old Jersey' and other prison ships of horrific memory, whose rotted hulk long remained to mark the spot where thousands yielded up their lives, a sacrifice to British cruelty. The dead from those ships were thrown into the trenches of our fortifica- tions; and their bones, after the war, were collected and decently buried. It was here that Ethan Allen exhausted his fund of curses and bitter invectives against the British, as he passed among the prisoners and viewed their loathsome dens of suffering, after his return from his shameful imprisonment in England.
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