USA > New York > Delaware County > Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of the leading citizens of Delaware County, New York > Part 49
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William Hymers developed into manhood on the parental homestead, drinking from the fount of knowledge at the old district school, and, when a youth of twenty years, taught his first and last term of school. He remained at home with his father, assisting in carrying on the farm until his marriage, which happy
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event took place March 13, 1851, the bride of his choice being Miss Margaret Ann Wight, of Delhi, the daughter of George and Jane (Little) Wight. (For further parental his- tory see sketch of George Wight, a brother of Mrs. Hymers.) After their marriage they lived for about ten years on a farm in the town of Meredith. Then, selling that prop- erty, Captain Hymers bought land in Frank- lin, where from 1862 until 1886 he carried on general farming, with good results, on his three hundred and twenty-five acres, keeping among his other stock a fine dairy of thirty- five cows, and selling his butter in the East- ern markets. Disposing of his Franklin estate, he came to DeLancey, where he pur- chased his present sixty-five-acre farm, and has continued his agricultural labors, now paying special attention to the production of winter milk, which he sells in New York City. For ten years or more he was exten- sively engaged in buying and selling stock, building up an extensive trade with Eastern dealers. Seven children have been born into the household of Captain and Mrs. Hymers, the following being their record: Emily, the wife of Royal Culver, resides on a farm in Franklin. J. K. Hymers, a carpenter, lives at home. Isabella J., the wife of Charles Haight, a resident of Sidney, has three chil- dren. George W., a farmer in the town of Delhi, is married, and has one son. William D., a farmer in Deposit, has a wife and two children. Chauncey Stewart, a farmer in De- Lancey, has a wife and two daughters. Arthur T., a farmer, lives in Franklin, with his wife and son.
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The subject of this sketch received his mil- itary title as a member of the New York National Guards, which he joined when twenty-three years old. During the first eight years of his service he was promoted through the various grades from the rank of Third Corporal to that of Captain of his company. Captain Hymers has been assisted and encour- aged by his wife in all of his labors, and they are together enjoying the fruits of their many years of successful toil Both are members in good standing of the First Presbyterian Church, of which the Rev. James H. Robin- son has been the pastor for thirty years. Po-
litically, Captain Hymers votes the straight Republican ticket; but, with the exception of having been Justice of the Peace for nine years when he was a young man, he has not been the incumbent of any public office. So- cially, he is a charter member of the Grange, wherein he is Master, and also a lecturer of the subordinate lodges and Pomona.
G EORGE A. SIGNOR, a retired farmer living just outside the village of Walton, is well and favorably known throughout this section of Delaware County as a worthy representative of its agri- cultural interests, and a most successful busi- ness man. He is a native of this county, and was born in the town of Hamden on the third day of April, 1830, a son of John Sig- nor, who was born in Connecticut in 1790, and passed from earth in 1871, in the town of . Hamden. He was one of nine children born into the home of his father, Jacob Signor, a life-long resident of Connecticut.
The father of the subject of this sketch was three times married, his first wife having been Loretta Terry, a native of Hamden, who died while in the prime of life, leaving him with four of the eight children who had been born to them, one of whom is now living, David Signor, a prosperous farmer of Hamden, now seventy-five years old. His second wife was Lucy Hotchkiss, who was born in Connecti- cut, and to whom he was united in the year 1826, in the town of Beaver Kill, Sullivan County. She bore him eight children, four sons and an equal number of daughters, of whom the following are living: Loretta, the wife of Allston Hulbert, a retired farmer, and a furniture dealer in Hamden; George A .; Hannah, the widow of Horace W. Smith, re- siding in Walton; Jonah, a farmer residing in Oregon; and Albert, at present a music dealer in Owego. One son, John, Jr., gave his life in defence of his country. He en- listed in Colchester, in Company B, One Hundred and Forty-fourth New York Volun- teer Infantry, as a private, and during the two years of his service took part in several en- gagements, but owing to exposure and other causes incidental to army life became af-
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flicted with chronic diarrhea, from which he never recovered, dying while on a transport going from Folly Island to Beaufort, N.C., being then but twenty-seven years old. The mother of these children died in 1842, when thirty-nine years of age, and the father subse- quently married again; and he and his wife resided in Colchester the remainder of their lives.
George A. Signor was the second child and the first son born to his parents, and during the days of his childhood and youth attended the pioneer school of his neighborhood, and assisted his father in the duties about the homestead. When fifteen years of age, he left school, and hired out at nine dollars per month, his wages afterward being increased to eleven dollars per month; and in the summer of 1848 he brought to his father the round sum of fifty dollars. Having purchased from his father a land warrant which the latter had received for services during the War of 1812, with his wife and one child, Lucy, then two and one-half years old, he started for Wiscon- sin on the Ist of March, 1855. When they left Walton, there was fine sleighing, but on arriving in Wisconsin, after a journey of two weeks, they found the prairies on fire. The last forty miles were made in a stage, which had the spring broken; and, the roads being in a terrible condition, the men often had to assist in prying it out of the mire. The end of the journey was reached when they arrived at the home of Mrs. Signor's brother, four miles west of Plainfield.
The land which Mr. Signor pre-empted lay on Ten Mile Creek; and there we find the Signor family one year later, it having been increased by the birth of a bright boy, whom they named Charley Fremont. The Indians were very numerous, but there was never any trouble with them. They would take flour to Mrs. Signor for her to make into bread for them, and would pick berries for her in ex- change for bread. Sometimes they would give her venison; and she often gave them bread and butter and also milk. At one time some fifteen or twenty Indians, with their squaws and pappooses, camped about twenty rods from the house, but were peaceable, never committing any depredations. In the
summer Mr. Signor worked clearing his land and tilling the soil; while each fall he went to the pineries to chop, while during the spring of each year he was employed in raft- ing lumber down the Wisconsin and Missis- sippi Rivers.
During one winter of their residence there Mrs. Signor, not liking to stay alone, accom- panied her husband thirty miles into the woods, making the journey for ten miles over corduroy roads and in a lumber wagon drawn by oxen. At the end of this wearisome trip she found nothing more inviting than a log cabin of one room, and not in the cleanest condition. She, however, bravely set to work, and made it habitable, and for sixteen weeks did the cooking for a crew of thirteen men, her younger child being then but eighteen months old. Mrs. Signor, however, consid- ered this life preferable to living alone sur- rounded by Indians. When her son Charley was six years old, another boy was born into the household, but only lived for the short space of one month, when he left this world for a fairer one on high, his mortal remains being interred in Western soil.
In 1863, after nearly eight long years of hardship, Mr. and Mrs. Signor with their family returned to Delaware County; and in the fall of the following year Mr. Signor en- listed, serving his country for one year, and being honorably discharged in 1865, when he returned home. He engaged in tilling the soil, and by thrift and frugality accumulated some money, with which he bought a tract of wild land, and by hard labor and the exercise of good management found himself the pos- sessor of a fine farm of two hundred acres, on which he and his family lived most happily for eighteen years. In 1889 he gave up his farm to his son-in-law, Levi C. Russell; and he and his wife have since occupied their present comfortable home, and are now enjoy- ing the leisure to which their earlier years of toil have richly entitled them.
Mr. Signor was united in marriage in 1852 to Sarah J. Dann, who was born in Colchester in 1832, a daughter of Ebenezer and Serepta (Goodrich) Dann, who for upward of forty years were extensive farmers of Colchester, owning and occupying a farm of two hundred
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acres adjoining the town of Walton, where they subsequently moved. Mr. and Mrs. Dann reared ten children, eight of whom are living, Mrs. Signor being the sixth. When she was two years old, her mother died, and her father was again married, Miss Lydia K. Hoyt, of Walton, who was bridesmaid at his first marriage, becoming his wife. She proved a very kind step-mother, and herself bore him three children. Mr. Dann was of New England descent, his grandfather, Abra- ham Dann, having married Rebecca Reskey, who was born and reared in New England. Mr. Dann himself was one of ten children, his mother being left a widow when they were quite young ; and they were all apprenticed to some trade, Ebenezer, the father of Mrs. Sig- nor, learning the trades of both hatter and tanner. He afterward entered the employ of Mr. Downs, of Downsville, for whom he clerked in the early days of the settlement of the town, their store, which was in a rough and unfinished building, being the very first in the place. Dry goods and groceries were then high in price, calico being sold at seventy-five cents a yard. His mother subse- quently became the wife of Isaac Wilson, one of the pioneer settlers of this section of the county. Mrs. Signor was brought up to habits of industry and early initiated into the science of domestic economy, her youthful training well preparing her for the position she afterward assumed as the head of a house- hold, and which she has so nobly filled. She went to school until eight years old, then dur- ing the winters only until eighteen years of age, when she began teaching, a vocation which she resigned after two terms at the ear- nest solicitation of Mr. Signor, to whom she was affianced.
Of the union of Mr. and Mrs. Signor six children have been born, one of whom, as above mentioned, died in infancy; and of the five living the following is. recorded: Lucy S., the wife of Hanford Bull, a prosperous farmer of Colchester, where he has a fine resi- dence, is the mother of one child, a daughter. Charles F., who resides in the town of Frank- lin, has a very pleasant home. Ruby E. is the wife of Levi C. Russell, and lives on the old homestead. Darius D., who lives in New
York City, is butler in the home of J. B. Lang, a railway magnate. Julia A., a cult- ured and accomplished young lady of twenty- three years, is one of the most efficient teachers in this part of the State, having been engaged in this noble occupation for sixteen terms. The daughters are fine musicians, and doubtless inherit their musical talent from their father, who was a fine tenor singer in the days of his youth. Religiously, Mr. Sig- nor and his excellent wife are devout Chris- tians and, with most of their children, are members of the Methodist church. In poli- tics he is a Republican, firm and true.
AMES WILLIAM COULTER is a prominent resident of Bovina, having competent charge of the Robert J. Livingston estate on Lake Delaware. This property has been in the possession of the Livingston family since 1707, nearly two cen- turies, the patent coming from Queen Anne. The original grant was for land a mile wide on the Hudson River, and extending back to the West Branch of the Delaware River. From time to time various sections of it have been sold; but even now the estate includes nearly eight hundred acres, and is the largest owned by any private person in the county. Mr. Coulter has from three to ten men work- ing under him, and keeps a hundred and fifty acres under cultivation. The place is chiefly used as a summer resort by the Living- ston family, and on it are twenty buildings, including the main dwelling-house, tenement houses. boat-houses, gate-house, and laundry. There are kept twenty-five or thirty full- blooded Jerseys, averaging two hundred and seventy-five pounds of butter each for market every year. On the farm is a lovely sheet of water, named Lake Delaware, two hundred and nineteen rods seventeen links long by sixty-four rods wide in the broadest part, and covering about sixty acres, well stocked with California salmon, trout, and other fish. At the outlet of this lake for eighty-one years stood a grist-mill. The first mill, built by Stephen Palmer for Governor Morgan Lewis in 1796, was burned, and a new one was built in 1823. Mr. Coulter superintended taking
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down the latter mill in 1881. Mr. Robert J. Livingston died in New York City on Febru- ary 22, 1891 ; and the property now belongs to his daughter. He was born December II, 18II, his mother being the only daughter of General Morgan Lewis, of Revolutionary fame. Mr. Livingston's daughter, Louise Morgan Livingston, is now the wife of Com- modore Elbridge T. Gerry, a lawyer residing in New York City.
Mr. Coulter was born in Bovina, Janu- ary 19, 1837. His parents were James and Nancy D. (Thompson) Coulter, both natives of Bovina. The grandfather was Francis Coulter, born in Scotland, and an early settler in Bovina, a town full of Scotch blood. James W. Coulter grew up in his native place, went to the district school, and attended the Andes Academy a couple of terms. Till the age of twenty-two he stayed at home, meanwhile learning the trade of car- penter. Then he became a bridge-builder for some time. Among the specimens of his work are the large bridges at Otego, Cook's Falls, and Beaver Kill, besides various smaller structures. From 1859 to 1868 he engaged in general carpentry, taking building contracts. Next he bought ninety-seven acres near Bovina Centre, and devoted himself chiefly to agriculture till 1872, when he was engaged as superintendent of the Livingston farm. He was married on a patriotic holiday, February 22, 1866, to Elizabeth Murdock Doig, a native of Bovina, the daughter of William and Jane Doig, both deceased, she at the age of fifty-three, and he at sixty-two. They belonged to the Bovina Centre Presby- terian Church, and had ten children, of whom two survive. Of these two Mrs. Coulter is the elder. Her sister, Euphemia Doig, is now Mrs. W. G. McNee, of Bovina. Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Coulter both belong to the local Presbyterian church, wherein he is a Trustee. They have no children, and he is a Republican in politics.
A fuller account of the Coulter ancestry may be found in the sketch of James Coulter, and further facts concerning Miss Doig's family are recorded in sketches devoted to its members. The grandfather of Mrs. Coulter was Walter Doig, who was born in Scotland,
came to this country, and took up his resi- dence in Washington County, New York. After a few years he changed his home to Delaware County, locating himself at Bovina in the beginning of the War of 1812, on a farm still in the family. Land was hired in those days, not bought outright; and it was therefore many years before Mr. Doig was able to get a deed of his estate. Clearing the forest away gradually, he put up a log house, finding game in the forest and fish in the streams, and now and then shooting a prowl- ing wolf. Grandfather Doig was very in- dustrious, owned in all two hundred acres, and was an organizer of the United Presby- terian church in Bovina. Everybody in the town, not to say the county, knew Walter Doig. The nearest mill was eight miles off, and he carried the grain thither in a bag on his back. The main market for produce was at Catskill, eighty miles away. On this farm Mr. Doig lived until death overtook him; but this was not till he reached the age of four- score, his wife Elizabeth dying at about the same age. They had six children, all of whom grew up, but are no longer in earth's shadows - Andrew, Elizabeth, William, Mar- garet, James, and Jennie Doig.
On November 6, 1851, Walter A. Doig, son of Andrew Doig, was married to Margaret G. Armstrong. She was born in Bovina on November 8, 1829, the daughter of John and Isabelle Coulter Armstrong. Mr. Armstrong was born in Washington County, New York ; but his wife was born in Scotland. He be- came a Bovina farmer, and died there at the age of sixty-six; and his wife lived to be eighty-one. He was an Elder in the United Presbyterian church; and they had a dozen children, of whom ten grew to mature age, and six are still living. Alice Armstrong is now Mrs. David Olner, of Bovina. Mary Armstrong married Stephen Russell, and lives in the same town. Margaret Armstrong became Mrs. W. A. Doig. John G. Arm- strong is in California. Francis Coulter Armstrong is in Bovina. Ellen Armstrong married John S. Foster, and their home is in Washington County.
Whichever way we glance over the ances- try of Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Coulter, we find
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worthy representatives of the different fami- lies, which at one point unite in a single stream with many branches. Says that epi- grammatic writer, George Eliot, "Breed is stronger than pasture."
ON. DEWITT GRIFFIN is a very prominent resident of Griffin's Cor- ners, in Middletown, Delaware County, and belongs to the family which gave the settlement its name. By pro- fession he is a lawyer, tried and true, and was named for a family which has been very con- spicuous in the annals of the Empire State, Governor De Witt Clinton having died, greatly respected, only a few years before young Griffin's birth, on March 27, 1836. His father was Matthew Griffin, of whom and the Griffin ancestry a separate sketch may be found elsewhere in these biographies ; and the mother was Clarissa Dodge. After attending the district school, the lad went to the Albany Normal School, and then studied law, being admitted to the bar in 1857, when only twenty-one. He at once began practice in his native village, where he has ever since remained.
Mr. Griffin was married at the age of twenty-five, in 1861, to a distant kinswoman, Mary Stone, daughter of Robert and Caroline (Griffin) Stone. Mr. Stone was a leading farmer in the town, and one of its first set- tlers. He died at fifty, leaving nine children -- Augustus, John Francis, William Henry, George, Rutson, Margaret, Hannah, Susan, Josephine. Their mother outlived her hus- band, not dying till she was seventy-six. Mrs. Griffin was born November 20, 1838, and was therefore twenty-three at the time of her marriage; but she was taken away from the home in 1870, at the early age of thirty- two, after only nine years of wedlock; and her only babe, Aurelia, soon after followed the mother's heavenly footsteps. Mr. Griffin subsequently married a second wife, Viola Sharp, the daughter of Revilo Sharp, a farmer and trader in Ulster County, the town of Shandaken. Mr. Sharp's wife was Ann Eliza Milks; and they had several children - Horatio, Jehial, John, Stanley, Jane, Julia,
Viola, and Lydia Sharp. By this marriage Mr. Griffin has three children. Clinton, the eldest, bearing a grand historic and political name, was born September 22, 1882. Mat- thew Griffin, named for his grandfather, was born on Washington's Birthday, 1886. War- ner Griffin was born November 19, 1889.
Mr. Griffin is a Republican, has been a representative in the State Assembly, is a Justice of Peace, and belongs to the Metho- dist church. Needless to say that the Griffin family hold the first position in their vicinity. Two excellent sentences have been uttered about the law. One was by Sir John Powell, a noted jurist of two centuries ago, who said, "Let us consider the reason of the case, for nothing is law that is not reason." The other was a toast at the bar dinner at Charleston, S.C., in 1847: "The law - it has honored us: may we honor it."
Both these sentiments would be indorsed by so sensible a lawyer as the Hon. Dewitt Griffin.
ATTHEW GRIFFIN is a substan- tial real-estate owner and saga- cious business man in Griffin's Corners, a part of the town of Middletown, which owes its name, if not its absolute being, to his enterprise. His gene- alogy is worth considering.
His great-grandfather, William Griffin, came from England with a large fortune, and settled on Long Island. When the Revolu- tion broke out, he refused to take up arms against the mother country. He was there- fore numbered with the Tories, and his estates confiscated to the patriot cause. William Griffin owned some very fine horses; and so his son John took the most valuable of the stallions, and rode away to Delaware County, whence he removed to Dutchess County, where he settled among the Fishkill Moun- tains. After the surrender of Cornwallis and the declaration of peace, William Griffin went to West Chester, where he died, leaving four children, all born on Long Island -- William, Ezekiel, Solomon, John. The jun- ior William Griffin had already settled in Middletown in 1765, a decade before the
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Revolution began, on a farm now belonging to Henry Boughton ; and he became a very pros- perous man, raising a large family. Solomon Griffin took up his residence among the Fish- kill Mountains, and so did his brother Ezekiel.
Buying a large farm, Ezekiel Griffin became very prosperous, and married Charlotte White (a daughter of a farmer named John White). In 1833 he sold out his Fishkill property, and came to Delaware County, where he bought a hundred and fifty acres now belonging to the Benjamin Crosby estate. He greatly im- proved the place, and there his children grew up. His son Eli married Phebe Simmons; and both are dead, leaving four children. Mary Gertrude Griffin married Joshua Bur- cham, and they left two children. Joseph Griffin married, but none of his family sur- vive. John Griffin married Hannah Miles,
and they left a large family. Of Matthew Griffin a longer account will be presently in order. David Griffin married Martha Doo- little, and lives at West Hurley, Ulster County, the mother of seven children. Eliza Griffin married Ebenezer Griffeth, of the Cor- ners, and they left four children. Pamelia Griffin married Henry Lee, had six children, outlived her husband, and is in Ulster County. Alice Griffin was the wife of Henry Walker; and they left one child, though an- other died in early life. Ezekiel Griffin, their father, was a Methodist and a Whig, and lived to be about seventy-two; but his wife died at fifty-eight. Ezekiel Griffin bore an Old Testament name; but this sketch spe- cially interests itself in the son who bore a New Testament name.
Matthew Griffin was born in Dutchess County, in the town of Fishkill, on October 22, 1811. He was educated in the district school, and at eighteen was employed as clerk by Noah Ellis, the chief trader in Griffin's Corners. After working there a couple of years, he accepted a place as general manager of a tannery belonging to Elijah Isham. In 1836, when twenty-five years old, Matthew Griffin opened a store on the site now oc- cupied by Fleischman's hotel. Five years later, in 1841, he built there a new store. In 1848 he procured the establishment of a new
post-office, to be called, after him, Griffin's Corners. He built a hotel, also, which he carried on four years in conjunction with his store; for he owned the entire property since known as the Corners. When the anti-rent troubles began, he decided to let both tavern and store. He had begun reading law while a young man. Perhaps the questions aroused by the rent agitation stimulated him to finish studying for the bar. In 1851, at the age of forty, he was admitted at Albany, but did not change his residence; for he immediately found practice enough at the Corners, where he was specially successful in criminal cases. Not quite satisfied with this, after two years he went to Rondout, in Ulster County, and started a store. Two years later he engaged in the steamboat business there. Thence he went to New York City, where for eight years he had full charge of an express busi- ness. Then he came back to Delaware County, and kept store, attending also to much law business, though, since reaching the age of threescore, he has lived in com- parative retirement from outside activity, sometimes, however, taking up one of the cases urged upon him.
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