Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of the leading citizens of Livingston and Wyoming counties, N.Y, Part 22

Author:
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Boston : Biographical Review
Number of Pages: 1256

USA > New York > Wyoming County > Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of the leading citizens of Livingston and Wyoming counties, N.Y > Part 22
USA > New York > Livingston County > Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of the leading citizens of Livingston and Wyoming counties, N.Y > Part 22

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Mr. Canning is a member of the Gainesville Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, in which he has held the office of Commander two years, besides other minor offices con- nected with the organization. He is con- nected with Castile Post, No. 488, and is likewise a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, where he has been Master Workman, and has taken from the start a very prominent position. In politics Mr. Canning is a Republican, and has made clear, by loyalty to his adopted country in the

past, that he is not afraid to show his colors when called on to maintain the principles of his party. Mr. Canning and his wife attend the Congregational church in Gainesville.

1 SAAC BURRELL KNAPP, an enter- prising farmer in Ossian, Livingston County, N. Y., was born on a farm ad- joining the one where he now resides on January 6, 1861, a few weeks before the out- break of the Civil War. His grandfather, Joel I. Knapp, and his father, Harvey W. Knapp, were born in New England, but came to Ossian among the first settlers in 1814, while the last war with England was in prog- ress. At that time Ossian was only a forest. They purchased a tract of land, and built a log house, which is still standing, though later its owner erected larger frame buildings. He had a family of nine or ten children, and continued to live in Ossian until his death.

Harvey W. Knapp was reared a farmer, and followed agricultural pursuits until he was twenty-one, when he began working by the month for his wife's father, Mr. Burrell. After a time he bought a farm, clearing a large part of it, and was also in the lumber trade. He died March 8, 1895, nearly two years after he had passed his eightieth birth- day, March 13, 1893. His wife, mother of our subject, was Elizabeth Burrell, one of the eight children of Isaac Burrell, an early set- tler, a farmer and lumberman, who also ran a saw-mill. Mr. and Mrs. Harvey W. Knapp reared three children -- Mary Elizabeth Knapp, Margaret J. Knapp, and Isaac B. Knapp, the subject of the present sketch. Their mother is living, having passed the sixty-ninth anni- versary of her birth, August 13, 1894. Both of her parents attended the Presbyterian church.

Isaac B. Knapp spent his early years in at- tending the district school; and, remaining on the old homestead as he approached man- hood, he worked with his father in carrying on both that and an adjoining farm. He was married February 1, 1881, to Inez M. Hess, daughter of Alfred Hess, a worthy represent- ative of an old family. Inez was born in

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Wayland, and was one of five children; but her parents were born in Steuben County. Her grandfather was a merchant and promi- nent man in Perkinsville and later a resident of Dansville, where he died. Isaac B. and Inez Knapp have also a family of five - Har- vey, Eva, Nora, Margaret, and Dwight.

Mr. Knapp has served four years as Justice of the Peace. He has also held the office of inspector of elections, and in the spring of 1894 was elected on the Republican ticket as Supervisor for two years. Like his father, he is a stanch supporter of the Republican party. He is characterized as an active, enterprising business man, as well as a man of marked social adaptation. The family attend the Presbyterian church.

B ENJAMIN F. FARGO, a retired business man of Warsaw, N. Y., now engaged as a collector, was born one mile and a half north of the village, on June 10, 1817. His paternal grandfather, Nehemiah Fargo, was born in Connecticut, January 10, 1764, and came to Wyoming County in 1804, having lived in Sandisfield and Great Barrington, Mass., and at Green River and in Genesee, N. Y. His wife, Mary Chapman, was the mother of five sons and three daughters, of whom a little boy of four was drowned and a little girl died at three years of age. The others all grew to matur- ity, and became heads of families, Silas, the eldest, living to be ninety-four. Mrs. Fargo, who was born on Christmas Day, 1764, died December 12, 1839. Mr. Fargo died on Oc- tober 13, 1828.

HIis son David, the father of Benjamin F., was a native of Montville, Conn., in which town he was born October 31, 1786. He was married twice. His first wife, Miss Bethia Day, to whom he was married on September 9, ISTO, lived only four years thereafter. She was a daughter of Elkanah Day, who came to Warsaw from Attleboro, Vt., in 1806, and bore her husband two children, a son who died at three years of age and a daughter, Polly, who became the wife of Mr. Chauncey Kimball, and died at Baraboo,

Wis., in 1890. The second wife, Mrs. David Fargo, was Phoebe Mason. Mr. Fargo was a farmer at what was then known as the Four Corners, in the town of Warsaw. Here most of his life was spent, and here were born his ten children, of whom six sons and two daughters reached maturity. They were: David Mason Fargo, who died in Kansas in 1890, leaving a family; Benjamin F., whose name heads this memoir; Darius C., a resi- dent of Santa Cruz, Cal., who is noted for his natural mechanical talent; Myron L., a farmer of Attica; Francis F., who died in Buffalo in 1890, aged sixty-eight; Adeline, the widow of Alonzo Choate, of Connecticut ; Harrison, who served three years in the late Civil War, and died in Olean, N. Y., at fifty- six years of age; and Harriet, the widow of Charles L. Seaver, residing in Connecticut. Harrison Fargo had two children by his sec- ond wife, Miss Laura Whalan. One daugh- ter, Florence, is a book-keeper in Glover's dry-goods store; the other, Florine, in Wells- ville, N. Y., has remarkable musical talent. Mrs. Phoebe Fargo died January 21, 1850, aged fifty-eight. Her husband survived her five years, dying May 16, 1855, at sixty-nine years of age. Mr. Fargo was noted for his strong religious faith, his pious and conscien- tious life, and his remarkable knowledge of the Scriptures. He was many years an offi- cial in the Baptist church of his town. He was not lacking in practical capacity, and left an estate of fifteen thousand dollars to be divided among his heirs.

Benjamin F. Fargo left the district school at eighteen, and studied for two terms at the Wyoming Academy, after which he learned the trade of wool-carding and cloth-dressing under his brother-in-law, Mr. Chauncey Kim- ball. In 1839 he went to Springville, Eric County, where he was employed in the cloth factory owned by E. W. Cook, in which firm he became a partner two years later. He came to Warsaw from Springville in 1849, and engaged in mercantile business with his brother, Francis F. Fargo, under the firm name of F. F. Fargo & Co., which in 1851 was changed to B. F. Fargo & Co., Francis F. Fargo leaving the business, and his father.

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David, and his uncle, Allen Fargo, entering the firm. When the father died, in 1855, Benjamin F. Fargo became sole owner of the business, and added thereto trade in country produce, which he bought in the neighborhood and shipped to New York City. In 1870 he built the brick block at No. 21 Main Street, which has been occupied by the printing- offices of the Democratic Organ of Warsaw. After using part of this building for a year, Mr. Fargo leased it for a term of five years to James E. Bishop at five hundred dollars per year, retaining the upper floor for offices. In 1876 he again used this building as a grocery store, which he conducted for ten years, finally giving it up to the management of his son, Charles H., who had been his salesman and book-keeper. Mr. Fargo now devotes him- self to collecting, and besides holding the office of School Collector is very successful in urging claims for the merchants of the vicinity.

He was married in Springville, September 11, 1841, to Miss Maria I .. Bloomfield, the only daughter of her parents, Jervis and Salena ( Hatch) Bloomfield. Her father was a magistrate of Springville, and belongs to an old and long-established family there. One of her brothers, Hiram, a farmer, died at sixty-eight years of age. The other two are David C., of Westfield, and Homer, who lives in California. Mr. Fargo has lost one daugh- ter, May S., who died at fifteen years of age, in May, 1877. His other children are: Charles H., who is married, and has a little daughter of six years, called Mabel, and lives in Warsaw, and Helen M. Fargo, also a resi- dent of Warsaw. Mrs. Maria L. Fargo died in 1875, at the age of fifty years; and Mr. Fargo was again married on November 11, 1879, to Mrs. Calista Blowers, daughter of John and Betsy ( Webster) Truesdell. Mrs. Fargo has lost two children of her former mar- riage -a son, Galusha W. Blowers, a volun- teer in the Commissary Department of the Nineteenth New York Cavalry, under Captain Stimson, who served but a few months, and came home to die of consumption, August 2, 1862, at the early age of twenty-two years; and Pauline Blowers, who died November 27, 1865, aged twenty-four.

Mr. and Mrs. Fargo were formerly members of the Baptist church, but have since joined the Congregationalist, in which church the former is now a Deacon. Mr. Fargo is a stanch Republican, and has filled many offices in Warsaw, among which inspector of elec- tions, town Collector, and Constable may be noted. For twelve years he was Secretary and Treasurer of the Water and Gas Works, in which he owned stock. Mr. Benjamin F. Fargo has been one of the successful citizens of a town remarkable for having been the birthplace of some of New York's best types of Northern character.

R. GEORGE W. SMITH, some of whose wonderful cures as a magnetic healer have been published in the columns of the Boston Congregation - alist and authenticated by Dr. Foster of that city, was born on May 16, 1815. Dr. Smith's father, Colonel George W. Smith, was born in Dorset, Vt., March 3, 1779, while his parents were en route from Scituate, R. I., to Clarendon, Rutland County, Vt. Joseph Smith, the progenitor of this family, came from Northumberland, England, to North Carolina. His descendants moved to Rhode Island; and of these John Smith, of Scituate, was the great-grandfather of George W. Smith, whose ancestral lineage and personal history is recorded in the present sketch.

John Smith married a Miss Hopkins, a near relative of Stephen Hopkins, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and connected with some of the most prominent families of Rhode Island.

Their six sons - - Richard, Joseph, Jona- than, Oziel, Thomas, and Hope Smith --- all served in the Revolutionary army, either as commissioned officers or common soldiers. The fourth son, Oziel, was the grandfather of the original of this memoir. He married Margaret Walton, who died at the age of thirty-six years in Clarendon, Vt., on June 10, 1793. Some of Margaret's relatives held office under the royal government at the time of the breaking out of the Revolution, and adhered to its cause. Most of them were,

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Colonel George W. Smith's early opportu- nities for education were limited, owing to the scant resources of a sparsely settled coun- try. While working at the carpenter's and joiner's trade, he used to study in the even- ing by the light of a fire, which he replen- ished with one hand from a pile of shavings while he held the book in the other. In this way he fitted himself to teach in the common schools. He afterward studied surveying, which in connection with farming he made the principal business of his life in later years. In the winter of 1798 he came from Vermont to Lima, then Charlestown, N. Y., in the employment of John Roberts, driving a team of two yoke of oxen and a horse laden with agricultural implements. The journey was completed in twenty-two days, and he arrived at his destination in February. He remained in Lima until spring, then moved to Livonia, and from thence to Pittstown, where he worked with John Wolcott at the carpen- ter's trade. In 1813 he worked on the court- house at Batavia, and in the autumn erected a saw-mill for the Holland Land Company at Oak Orchards Falls, now Medina, N. Y.

He married Miss Sally Woodruff in Janu- ary, 1807. She was a daughter of Nathan Woodruff, who came from Litchfield, Conn .; and it is handed down in the family history that she made the journey on horseback, carrying a weaver's reed in her lap to use in the new country. Mrs. Smith was a woman of beauty of mind as well as of person. She was of an unusually strong and robust consti- tution until she was bitten by a rattlesnake, when she was a girl of nineteen. The poison rankled in her system ever after, filling her remaining years with suffering, which only ended with her death. She died on the Colo- nel Smith homestead in Livonia, February 17, 1835, aged fifty-one years.

After holding the office of Ensign and Cap- tain of a regiment commanded by Lieutenant Colonel William Wadsworth, George W. Smith, the elder, was commissioned First Major of the regiment under Lieutenant Colo- nel Joseph W. Lawrence in 1811. In 1816

he was promoted and commissioned Lieuten- ant Colonel of the Ninety-fourth Regiment of Infantry by Governor Tompkins, and in 1817 was commissioned a Colonel of the same regi- ment by Governor Clinton. At the attack of Queenstown he unfurled the American colors, which he held while the forces passed safely over under the constant fire of the British ar- tillery. Colonel Smith held the office of Justice of the Peace for eight years, was the first representative of Livonia, which name he selected for that town, and sat in the legislat - ure of 1822, where he wore a suit of clothes made from wool grown from his own sheeps' backs and spun by his wife. In 18oo he cast his first vote for Thomas Jefferson, and voted at every succeeding Presidential election until that of 1873, about five weeks before his death. He died in Rochester, whither he had moved from Livonia, on December 9, 1873, aged ninety-four years nine months and six days. His seven sons were: Lewis Edwin, born November 25, 1812; George Wolcott, born May 16, 1815; Daniels Oziel, born Feb- ruary 20, 1819, and four others who died young.

Lewis E. attended the Cambridge Univer- sity Law School under Judge Story and Simon Greenleaf, and practised his profession in Livonia, where he held some offices, includ- ing that of Supervisor, representative of the County of Livingston in the legislature in 1868 and 1869, and moved with his family to Rochester in 1871, where he now lives.

Daniels Oziel became totally blind at thir- teen years of age, and was sent to the School for the Blind in New York, where he devoted his time to the study of music. He died in 1854, at thirty-five years of age.

George Wolcott Smith, after studying in the district schools of Livonia and the Canan- daigua and Geneseo Academies, was graduated from Hamilton College. He then took a course of medicine in a medical college in New York City, in which place he began to practise his profession. His singular power as a magnetic healer has caused much interest among all classes, rendering his name famous far and near. People afflicted by blindness, deafness, and lameness flocked to him for

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treatment ; and some of his cures indeed seem miraculous. Surely of all gifts the gift of alleviating the sufferings of humanity must bring more real happiness to its possessor than any other. For fourteen years he con- tinued the exercise of his magnetic gift, and his patients were among the most prominent in the metropolis. In 1882 he came to Li- vonia, where he has remained.

Dr. George W. Smith married Miss Buck, a daughter of Seymour Buck. Mrs. Smith's father was a grand-nephew of Roger Sherman of historic fame. They have no children. Dr. Smith was one of the founders of the Re- publican party in 1854, and he has always been faithful to its tenets.

OHIN D. WHEELER, a well-known assessor in the town of Leicester, Liv- ingston County, N. Y., was born in Shaftsbury, Vt., March 19, 1827, when John Quincy Adams was President. Shadrach Wheeler, his father, was a farmer, and continued to live in Vermont until 1833, the year of Clay's Compromise Act, when, with wife and seven children, he came to Liv- ingston County, making the entire journey with teams. He bought a hundred and twenty acres of land in the town of Leicester, a hun- dred acres of it being already cleared, and containing a set of log buildings, such as were in vogue at that time. Mr. Wheeler devoted his time to farming interests, and died at the age of seventy-six. His wife, a native of Bennington, Vt., was a daughter of Samuel Millington, a pioneer of that place. She reared a family of eight children, and died at the advanced age of eighty-two. Mr. Mil- lington was born in Rhode Island. He mar- ried Sarah Reynolds, who became the mother of twelve children. The paternal grandpar- ents of our subject were fine-grained New England people, who always resided there. The grandfather was a soldier of the Revo- lution.

To return now to John D. Wheeler, who was but six years of age when he came to Leicester with his parents, but remembers many incidents of the journey and of his early

life. He was reared to agricultural pursuits, and was engaged in farming in this town until the Civil War was in progress, when in 1861 he started for California via Panama. Hle followed mining for two years, and then re- turned to the same farm which he still owns and occupies. It is a fine, well-improved farm of two hundred acres, located near the village of Moscow.

Mr. Wheeler was married at the age of thirty in 1857 to Martha, daughter of James Budrow. She was a native of Leicester; but her father was born in Schenectady, N. Y., the home of her paternal grandparents. His father was of French descent on the paternal side, the original spelling of the name being Budreau, while his mother was a German. James Budrow was a fine wood carver, but did not follow this pursuit. He came to Leices- ter a young man, married here, bought a tract of land, and erected the log house in which Mrs. Wheeler was born. He and his wife, Louisa Dryer, reared thirteen children. He devoted his time to clearing land and tilling the soil, continuing to reside on the same farm until his death, at sixty-one years of age, his widow surviving him to the age of eighty-three.

Mrs. Wheeler's mother was born in the town of Randolph, Vt., being a daughter of Jesse Dryer, a native of the same place. His earliest known ancestor was William Dryer, who went from Germany to England. John Dryer, son of William, at the age of twenty was pressed on board a British war-

ship, and brought to America. He deserted on arriving here, and settled in Boston, Mass., where he continued to follow his trade as a weaver. He became prosperous, and lived to the age of one hundred years, death resulting then from an injury received by being thrown from a horse. His son, also named John, married Mary Reed; and they were the parents of Jesse Dryer, who removed from Vermont to New York State in 1814, accompanied by his wife and eight children, making the journey with teams. He settled in Victor, Ontario County, where he remained two years, when he removed to Leicester. Thence he went to Genesce County, and from

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there to Springfield, Ill., where he died at the age of ninety-six years. His wife, whose name was Pamelia Neff, was a descendant of the Connecticut family of Wolcotts. She spent the last of her life in Leicester. Mr. Wheeler is a Republican. He has three chil- dren -- Grace, Martha, and John. Grace mar- ried John Millan, and has three children - Stanley, Bessie, and Eleanor. Martha mar- ried Otto Redans.

"Indolence is stagnation. Employment is life." So wrote the Latin author, Seneca; and the aphorism is well exemplified in the busy careers set forth in this volume.

B ENJAMIN COY was born in Ver- mont on August 31, 1806. His father, Reuben Coy, was a man of more than usual strength of charac- ter and determination of purpose. He was a carpenter and joiner by trade, and came to Livonia in 1811 on foot. On his return for his family he stopped at Cazenovia, where he worked at his trade for his brother-in-law, while the latter went to Vermont and brought the family there. They then came with him in a lumber wagon to Livonia. Here in the northern part of the town he lived for a time in the house of Robert Adams, and secured whatever work he could. In 1822 he went to Ogden, where he bought a farm, which he cultivated for five years. His final change of residence was to the town of Ann Arbor, Mich., where he together with his sons set- tled upon a farm, and where he died.

His wife was Miss Sarah Chambers; and to them five sons and four daughters were born in the following order: Ladocia, Delilah, Almira, Benjamin, Royal B., Horace, Loren, Chandler, and Emily.

Mr. Benjamin Coy, the sole surviving mem- ber of the family, and the original of this biographical sketch, was educated in Livonia, in which place he remained when his father went West. For seven years and a half he applied himself diligently to acquiring the trades of tanner, currier, and shoemaker under Mr. George Pratt, with whom he afterward engaged in business for three years, and

whose daughter Charlotte became his wife in 1829. He sold out to his father-in-law, and bought a farm, which he has continued to manage ever since. Mrs. Charlotte Pratt Coy died October 1, 1832, leaving a daughter, Charlotte M., who still lives with her father; and in the course of time Mr. Coy was mar- ried again to Miss Caroline Reed, a daughter of Wheeler and Olive (Risden) Reed. Four sons and one daughter were born of this union - Samuel B., who died during the January -of 1894; Edwin R .; Justus F .; Reuben W. ; and Caroline, who died when eighteen days old.

Samuel left six children in Michigan, as follows: Edwin L., Mary E., Louis B., Flora D., Myron J., and Theodore S. His wife, the mother of these children, was formerly Miss Mary J. Gibbs, of Livonia. Edwin married Miss Frances E. Fowler, and lives on the homestead, of which he has entire control. Their children are: Adella F., Caroline E., Benjamin L., Charlotte H., Blanche M., Reuben W., Emily R. Justus F. married Miss Delia Clark, of Massachusetts, and is now living in Independence, Ia .; he has no child. Reuben, whose wife's maiden name was Helen Thayer, has four children - Charles H., Grace, Ernest O., and Helen; he lives in Alden, Mich.

Mr. Coy has held several offices in his town and county, among others that of inspector of elections and School Trustee. Both he and his wife are members of the First Presbyte- rian church, of which he has been a Deacon for a period of thirty years. His first Presi- dential vote was cast for J. Q. Adams, and he has been a firm supporter of the principles of Republicanism since the party known as Re- publican first promulgated its principles.

- ENRY L. SHARP, farmer, a highly respected citizen of Mount Morris, Livingston County, N.Y., where he has been a resident for many years, was born in Springport, Cayuga County, August 6, 1825. His grandfather. Andrew Sharp, who was a native of Holland, came to America with a brother, Henry, when

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a young man, and took up his abode in Kin- derhook, Columbia County, N.Y. He mar- ried a Miss Bojardus, and for some time they made their home in that county; but at length they removed to Cayuga County. After many years of useful toil they were gathered to their rest, Grandfather Sharp being ninety-two years of age at the time of his death.

His son Ephraim, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Kinderhook, and there growing to manhood learned the tailor's trade. He resided in Springport, Cayuga County, for a number of years, and thence in 1826 removed to Livingston County, arriving on the Ridge about the ist of May, the jour- ney being made in teams. He purchased ninety-nine acres of land, sixty of which were cleared, the rest being covered with timber, and here lived in a log cabin for a few years, after which he built a frame house. In those days no roads or railroads shortened the dis- tances between towns; and Mount Morris was then a small village, surrounded by woods, where deer and other game roamed at will. The wheat was carried to Rochester to be ground; and all the cooking was done at the great fireplace, a necessary feature of the old log cabin. Ephraim Sharp served bravely in the War of 1812. He worked at his trade during the fall and winter, but devoted his time to farming the rest of the year, and died at the advanced age of ninety-three years. His wife, Anna Johnson, of Columbia, daugh- ter of Abram Johnson, died at the age of seventy-eight years. They reared the follow- ing children : Andrew J., Mary J., Helen, Almira, Elvira, Henry L., Ephraim, and D. Sharp.

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Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of the leading citizens of Livingston and Wyoming counties, N.Y, Part 22

Author: Publication date: 1895 Publisher: Boston : Biographical Review Number of Pages: 1256

Author:
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Boston : Biographical Review
Number of Pages: 1256