Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of the leading citizens of Livingston and Wyoming counties, N.Y, Part 74

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 74
USA > New York > Livingston County > Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of the leading citizens of Livingston and Wyoming counties, N.Y > Part 74

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

On April 22, 1865, Mr. Tolles married Miss Josephine E. Brainard, daughter of Ephraim Brainard, deceased, formerly of Attica. Her

mother, whose maiden name was Sophia Wright, was a daughter of Amzi Wright, of Vermont, an early settler, well known in those days of stage travel as landlord of the best hotel in Wyoming County. Mrs. Sophia Brainard is still living, at eighty-three years of age, well and hearty, and in full possession of her mental faculties. She is of a long-lived race, her father having lived to be over ninety years of age. Mrs. Tolles is a grand-daughter of Seymour Brainard, who came from Oneida County, New York, in 1810. He was a wealthy farmer, mill owner, and a distiller, and a very prominent man. He gave each of his sons and daughters a fine farm. His old home- stead is still possessed by the family.

Mr. and Mrs. Tolles have three children liv- ing, one son having died in infancy. The el- dest son, Brainard Tolles, a lawyer in New York City, is a graduate of Hamilton College and of the Columbia College Law School, and is an attorney for the Manhattan Elevated Railway Company, besides having a private practice. He entered Hamilton College as a Sophomore at the age of fifteen, was graduated at nineteen, in 1886, as valedictorian of his class of forty-two members. Rachel is a grad- uate of Elmira College, and valedictorian of her class, where she was also a teacher for two years. Edward Donald Tolles is at home, preparing for college.

Mr. Edward D. Tolles is a Republican in politics. He is a member of the Presbyterian church, in which he has been an Elder for twenty years, and superintendent of the Sun- day-school for more than that length of time. He has a war record of which he may well be proud. His regiment, after being organized at Staten Island, was in the camp for instruction at Annapolis, Md., during the first winter, after which it was ordered to join General Banks's disastrous campaign up the Shenan- doah valley, and was also under Pope at Bull Run and Meade at Gettysburg. He saw a great deal of service, and had many hair-breadth escapes, and is now one of three survivors of the thirteen who went with his company from Attica, and the only officer of his com- pany now alive.

Mr. Tolles is a genial and intelligent

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gentleman, and a business man of ability, standing high with all who know him.

PC ORMAN W. ROSE, Postmaster of the town of Geneseo, is a native of Ge- neva, Ontario County, N.Y. He was born February 13, 1827. The origin of the Rose family in America was about the year 1650, when three brothers emi- grated from Holland, one of whom settled in Virginia, one in the territory now called Rhode Island, the third in New Amsterdam, now New York City. The last-mentioned had four sons - David settled in Dover, N. Y .; Elijah settled in Canaan, Litchfield County, Conn., was a commissary in the War of the Revolution, and had two sons - Nathan and David, who settled in Bloom- field, N. Y .; Elisha settled in Schoharie Kill; John was in the French War at the taking of Quebec and also through the Revo- lutionary War, after which he settled in Ver- mont, where he lived until 1812, when he removed to Chenango County, New York, and died soon after, leaving five sons - Hinsdale, Shirland, John, Rilvus, and Montague.

Alban, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in Canaan, Litchfield County, Conn. He furnished military equip- ments to Napoleon during his campaign. He moved to Geneva, Ontario County, N. Y., in 1822. He had two sons - Sherman and Nor- man. Norman was killed when about four- teen years of age. Alban Rose died June 10, 1860, at Geneva, N. Y., at half past-twelve A.M., aged ninety-two years and five months. Leonard Rose settled in Perry, Wyoming County, N. Y. He died at Castile, March 7, 1857, aged eighty-five. It is noteworthy that in this family there were seven brothers, who all lived to be over ninety years old.

Sherman Rose, son of Alban, was brought up in Canaan, and resided there until he was nearly thirty years old, carrying on the car- riage business. He .afterward moved to Ge- neva, and continued the same occupation with prosperity until his death, when he was seventy-three years old. His wife, the mother of Norman W. Rose, was before her

marriage Miss Mary Lewis. She was born on April 16, 1798. Her father, Miles Lewis, who was of English descent, carried on mer- cantile business at Canaan, Conn., her native place. A portrait of him in the old Conti- nental costume, with powdered hair, has been kept in the family over one hundred years. It is on ivory set in gold, and was painted in England. Through his mother Mr. Norman W. Rose is descended from General Heman Swift, of Cornwall, Conn., whose daughter Rhoda married Miles, son of Jeremiah and Esther Lewis, of Goshen, in that State. The line of Swift genealogy runs in the following order: William Swift, born 1600; William 2d, 1635 ; Jabez, 1665; Jabez 2d, March 16, 1700; General Heman, October 14, 1734.

Heman Swift was born in Sandwich, Mass., in 1734. He moved to Kent, Conn., and from thence to Cornwall in the same State, where in the summer of 1787 he built a resi- dence, which is still standing, and which is known as the Swift Mansion. Soon after coming to Connecticut he was chosen a repre- sentative to the legislature. He rose to the rank of Brigadier-general during the war of the American Revolution, and at its close was elected a member of the council, from which board he resigned his seat in 1802. He was for many years a Judge of the Court of Com- mon Pleas for the county of Litchfield, and was distinguished for native strength of mind, gentle and unassuming manners, independence of character, and conscientious fulfilment of duty. Purity of motive and justness of act combined in him to form a character rever- enced by all good and feared by all bad men.

From the historical register of the Conti- nental army his military career may be fol- lowed. He was made Ensign of Durkee's Wyoming Valley Company, August 26, 1776, during the Indian War, retired July 1, 1778. Colonel of a Connecticut regiment from July to December, 1776, Colonel Seventh Con- necticut January 1, 1777, transferred to Second Connecticut January 1, 1781, and returned as Colonel of the consolidated Con- necticut regiment June, 1783. He was com- missioned Brigadier-general September 30, 1783, and served until December, 1783. In

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military life he won the respect of the officers and the love of the soldiers. In judicial ca- reer no man ever held a more even balance with steadier hand. In private life he was humble, sincere, charitable, and pious, a man whose supreme object was to discover and to perform duty. The children of General Heman and Mary (Skiff) Swift were: Rufus, born 1760; Philo, 1762; Elisha, 1764; Jabez, 1766; Heman, 1768; Denis, 1770; Mary, 1772; Rhoda (Mrs. Lewis), September 27, 1774; Ira, 1777; Erastus, 1780. General Swift was one of a family of eight children, the others being Jabez, Sirch, Job, Seth, Elisha, Hannah, and Patience. He died in Cornwall, Conn., in 1814.

To Sherman and Mary (Lewis) Rose six children were born - Miles; Norman W .; William; Edward; Cornelia; and Heman, who died in youth. Norman W. Rose, whose career is here outlined, spent his early life in Geneva, N. Y., where he attended the gram- mar school and afterward a preparatory school of higher grade. When he had finished his studies, he engaged as clerk with Edward R. Dean, of the town of York, three years, when he went to Geneseo to work for Turner & Bishop. After a year he went into the employ of Henry A. Wilmering, of Moscow, Livingston County, who carried on a large general store. Here he had chief charge of

the business, in which he continued for two years. Mr. Wilmering selling out at that time, Mr. Rose closed up the business affairs of the concern, and started in the general clothing business for himself. This was in 1851, and his was the first clothing store in that section. Mr. Norman W. Rose was mar- ried in 1852 to Miss Sarah E. Bissell, daughter of Benjamin Bissell, of Connecticut. Their only child, Charles, died at the age of eleven years ; and Mrs. Rose died after about thirty- nine years of wedded life. She was a mem- ber of the Presbyterian church. Mr. Rose has been a very earnest and prominent mem- ber of the Odd Fellows society in Genesco, No. 252, and also the encampment of Lima and the Grand Lodge of the State of New York. He is also a member of the Presbyte- rian church.

It is interesting to observe how much may be accomplished by energy and persevering attention to business. The world owes its larger enterprises of commerce and manufact- ure not so much to great outlay, reaching to large points of exchange, as to strong, steady impulses of local trade, which keep up the ex- change of currency and a demand for the staple things of life; and, wherever may be chronicled the history of a man who in a long career of this kind has kept aloof from the snares of hasty profits at the expense of hon- esty and rectitude, it should be remembered in his honor, as may justly be done in the case of Mr. Rose, the Postmaster of Geneseo.

1 RA ADAMS, a watchmaker and jeweler in North Java, Wyoming County, N. Y., was born in the town of Alden, Erie County, N. Y., October 10, 1838. His paternal grandfather, Gurdon Adams, who was a farmer and mechanic, built one of the first canal boats ever put on the Erie Canal. This boat was run by him and his sons, Jefferson and Harry, while his daughter, Maria, was cook and housekeeper on board. Gurdon Adams married a Miss Safford, to whom a large family of children were born, only one of whom is now living, Mrs. Caroline Whit- ney, of Oswego County, New York. This lady's husband was a brother of Judge Whit- ney, of Oswego County. The grandparents died in Clay, Onondaga County, leaving a comfortable property to be divided among their beirs.

Their son, Thomas Jefferson Adams, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Fabius, N. Y., in the year 1805. In 1830 he married Miss Sally Hackett, of the Black River country, town of Fairfield, N. Y., near the St. Lawrence River. Two years after their marriage they came to Alden, Erie County, by way of the Erie Canal, settling on a farm about three miles south of the old Buffalo Road. The land purchased was cov- ered with forest growth; and, while the log cabin which was to shelter them was being built, they stayed with an uncle who lived near. The five children of this couple were

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all born in the primitive Erie County home, with the exception of Asa, who was born in Onondaga County. Harry, who died in in- fancy, Ira, Henry, and John were all reared in the little woodland cabin, where life was simple and the modes of housekeeping of the most primitive fashion. All the cooking was done before the open fire on the hearth at the foot of the great chimney, where the crane swung and the teakettle sang merrily as the steam issued in spiral wreaths from its splut- tering black throat. The bread was baked in vessels set on the glowing coals. The bed- chambers were in the attic loft, to which nightly the children ascended by means of a ladder; but parents and children were happy in their humble lot, and perhaps the angels of contentment and peace kept nightly vigil here, like those of old who watched the strug- glings of Jacob. In 1851 the father died, at forty-five years of age.

The children had as good an education as the district schools afforded, and Asa and John became teachers. Ira farmed at home until his twenty-ninth year. In 1859 he was married to Miss Lucinda Blackman. One daughter, Clara, now Mrs. McDowell, of Buffalo, and the mother of two children, was the result of this union. Mr. Adams was married a second time in 1869 to Miss Eliza Case. They have one son, Henry J. Adams, who is a resident of North Java. He was united in marriage to Miss Gertrude Crom- well, who has borne him one son, Dean Jef- ferson Adams. In 1867 Mr. Ira Adams moved to Muncy Valley, Pennsylvania, where he worked as a mechanic for thirteen years, first establishing a carriage factory and after- ward entering into the manufacture of all sorts of tool handles and hand rakes. In these enterprises he was quite successful pecuniarily, but his health became so im- paired that he was obliged to abandon work there. In 1881 he turned his attention and energy toward acquiring an accurate knowl- edge of the jeweller's trade, which he mastered at Picture Rocks, Pa. In the mean time he had purchased a farm in Barton County, Mis- souri, near the new and at that time thriving village of Liberal. In 1883, having disposed

of his property at Picture Rocks, he started with his wife and son to go to this place, where he intended to prosecute his trade. Tarry- ing by the way to make a short and last visit with his mother, who was then in her eighty- second year and living in Marilla, Eric County, N. Y., with her son Henry, Mr. Adams was induced by her earnest solicita- tion to forego his Missouri expedition and make his home near her the remainder of her days. Desirous of pleasing his mother, he accordingly settled in the village of North Java, and opened a shop, whose sign bears the legend "Watchmaker and Jeweller." He owns a small farm just beyond the village, which is under the management of his son.

Mr. Adams is a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen and also of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is Noble Grand of Lodge No. 618 in his village at the present time. He was a Republican until 1876, having cast his first Presidential vote for Lincoln in 1860. He voted for Horace Greeley in 1872, next for Peter Cooper, and four years later for James B. Weaver. Since that time he has voted with the Prohibitionists, and it is in evidence of his popularity that in spite of his politics he has several times been elected to the office of Justice of the Peace, which office he now holds. Mr. Adams belongs to the class of philosophical thinkers called agnostics.

m RS. MARIA BEARDSLEE, a resi- dent of Silver Springs, town of Gainesville, Wyoming County, N. Y., widow of the late Andrew J. Beardslee, was born in the town of Lee, Oneida County. She is the daughter of Hiram Smith, a native of New Haven County, Connecticut, whose father, Caleb Smith, also of the same place and of German and Scotch ancestry, was a carpenter by trade, and be- came a pioneer in Oneida County, where he settled upon a farm in the town of Lee. The law in those early days permitted slavery ; and he owned several slaves, who did all of the farm work. He resided at Lee for the remain- der of his life, and died at an advanced age.

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Hiram Smith, Mrs. Beardslee's father, was reared to agricultural pursuits upon his father's farm, and at his majority purchased a farm in Onondaga County, which he carried on for some years; but later he removed to Hume, then in Genesee County, where he continued farming. He afterward removed to Gainesville, and resided there until his death, which occurred at the age of eighty- nine years. His wife, Mrs. Beardslee's mother, whose maiden name like her own was Maria Smith, was a daughter of John Smith, a farmer, and was one of nine children. John Smith passed his declining years at the home of his son in Onondaga County, surviv- ing his wife, who died there at the age of eighty-two years. Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Smith were members of the Methodist Epis- copal church, having joined that denomina- tion in 1845. They left four children - Caleb, Delia, Sarah Ette, and Maria (Mrs. Beardslee).

The subject of this sketch resided at home with her parents until her marriage to Andrew J. Beardslee, which occurred in 1859. Her husband was born in Cancadea, Allegany County, son of Augustus Beardslee, a farmer, who removed later to Hume in the same county, where he and his wife still reside (1895), the former at the age of eighty-eight and the latter at eighty-five years. Andrew J. was educated at the district schools of Hume and the Rushford Academy. He was reared to agricultural pursuits, and on reach- ing his majority purchased a farm in Gaines- ville and later another in Warsaw, both of which he carried on for several years. He sold his farm property in 1885, and became a resident of Gainesville, where he engaged in real estate business, laying out village lots to a large extent. He purchased one hundred acres of land upon the site of the present vil- lage of Silver Springs, which he divided and sold as building lots, also erecting several houses. His enterprise in building up the village made him a very prominent man and a valuable citizen.

Mr. Beardslee was a devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and actively en- gaged in all matters connected with that soci-

ety, being a Trustee and its Treasurer, as well as holding other offices at different times. He died at his residence in Gainesville, Jan- uary 2, 1893, from a complication of diseases, superinduced by heart trouble. His sudden demise caused a general shock to the entire community, and many who had been benefited by his acts of generosity deeply mourned the loss of their benefactor. Mr. Beardslee was a Republican in politics, and although taking an active interest in political affairs always firmly refused to accept office.

Of Mrs. Beardslee's two children Cora died at the age of seven years, and Ella R. was married on April 15, 1893, to George Piper, who was born in Washington, D.C., August 17, 1866. His father, John Piper, is a farmer residing in Castile. Mr. and Mrs. George Piper attend the Methodist Episcopal church, and are socially very popular, Mr. Piper being a member of the Select Knights. He is a young man of much business ability, who is sure to succeed in life.

O. BUNNELL, of Dansville, N. Y., was born in Lima, Livingston County, N. Y., March 10, 1836, the third of five children of Dennis Bunnell, four of whom are living - Miss D. B. Bunnell and Mrs. Mary Bunnell Willard, of Brooklyn, N. Y., and A. O. Bunnell and Major Mark J. Bunnell, of Dansville. Dennis Bunnell was the youngest of seven sons of Jehiel Bunnell, of Cheshire, Conn., a Revolutionary soldier, and one of an old and leading family. Jehiel Bunnell's wife was a Hotchkiss, a family also prominent in the early history of Connecticut. The mother of A. O. Bunnell was Mary Baker, the daughter of James Baker, a sturdy pioneer woodsman and hunter. James Baker's wife was Mary Parker, the elder sister of three celebrated pioneer Methodist circuit preachers of Western New York, the Rev. Messrs. Robert, Samuel, and John Parker. All these ancestors are dead. Dennis Bun- nell died in 1885, Mary Baker Bunnell in 1881. A. O. Bunnell and Anna M. Carpenter were married in Lyons, N. Y., April 9, 1863. Of their children, one daughter and two sons,

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only the daughter survives, Anna May Bun- nell, of Dansville.

A. O. Bunnell came to Dansville at the age of fourteen years with his father's family; and with the exception of one year in Rock- ford, Ill., where he set the first type for the Rockford Register, he has lived in Dansville since. From the age of seventeen to the present time he has been engaged in printing, as an apprentice and journeyman, and as edi- tor and publisher of the Dansville Advertiser, founded by him in 1860. Preferring the printing-office to any political office, he has never sought favors through the ballot or appointment. But his professional brothers have held him for the past twenty-seven years as Secretary and Treasurer of the New York State Press Association, much of the success of which is due to his ability, energy, and genial qualities. In grateful recognition of this fact he was presented a five-hundred-dollar sterling silver tea-set on the twenty-fifth anni- versary of his services to the Association. Mr. Bunnell is also Secretary and Treasurer of the Republican Editorial Association of the State of New York, President of the Living- ston County Press Association, and President of the National Editorial Association of the United States. Mr. Bunnell is a well-known Odd Fellow, and his long membership and valuable services were rewarded in 1884 by election to the proud position of Grand Master of the New York State organization. He is a graceful newspaper writer and successful par- liamentarian. Few in Western New York have so warm and so widely extended an ac- quaintance in the State and nation. Self- education, rare gifts of heart and mind, a life of probity, industry, and public spirit, have earned for him what he richly deserves - the esteem, confidence, and love accorded by Liv- ingston County to one of her best citizens.

The Dansville Advertiser was established at Dansville in 1860 by A. O. Bunnell. The first number was issued Thursday, August 2, a folio fourteen by twenty-two inches, four columns to a page. The name indicates the intention of the founder to publish a paper mainly for advertising purposes. In a modest way, but with conscientious care, Mr. Bunnell

prepared the first number, miscellany for the first and fourth pages, editorial and general news for the second page, and local matter for the third page, just enough, he thought, to nicely introduce and make welcome to readers and profitable to advertisers its adver- tising columns. For a starter, and in his mind all the paper was worth, he offered the Advertiser for the remainder of the year (five months) for twenty-five cents. Much to his surprise and somewhat to his confusion, he was widely complimented upon his bright little newspaper; and, when the ist of Jan- uary came, he had more subscribers than the oldest paper of the village and more advertis- ing than he knew what to do with, although after the first two months the Advertiser had been enlarged to twenty-one by thirty-one inches, each page six columns. From time to time since then the Advertiser has been enlarged, as the exigencies of patronage de- manded, until to-day it is a folio twenty- seven and one-half by forty-three and one-half inches, nine columns to the page. Still its columns are crowded with the best advertising in the country, and another enlargement seems imperative. The Advertiser has ever main- tained the lead which it won at a single bound in the first year, and has steadily grown in circulation and influence. Mr. Bunnell has been connected with the Advertiser from the first, and scarcely a number has been is- sued excepting under his personal supervision. From 1866 to 1868 he had as a partner, under the firm name of Bunnell & Jones, the late Joseph Jones, an educator and a forceful writer, a man of rare sweet character, whose death in the prime of life and usefulness was a loss to the world. Since 1884 Mr. W. S. Oberdorf, a sketch of whose life appears in this work, has been associated with Mr. Bun- nell, the firm name being Bunnell & Oberdorf. The impetus given to the business of the office by this notable accession has been felt during all these later years.

Established as an independent business newspaper, the Republican and patriotic im- pulses of its founder impelled him to a vigor- ous support of the party of the great war President, the lamented Lincoln; and ever

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since then the Advertiser has been the active, faithful advocate of Republican principles, the supporter of the nominees of the Republi- can party. It may be worthy of note that the same conscientiousness observed in the prepa- ration of the first number, especially of its literary and local features, has characterized the Advertiser throughout its entire history. Every column of its contents, including ad- vertising, has been the subject of minute painstaking. The Advertiser has literally become a synonym for wholesomeness, enter- prise, and talent, and for handsome typog- raphy, and has fairly won the appellation some years ago given it by a leading journal- ist, "the best country weekly in the State." Special and primary attention to local affairs, historical and current, has so enriched its col- umns that the editor of the last History of Livingston County volunteered the testimony that the file of the Dansville Advertiser was the richest mine of local history that his re- searches in every county of the State had re- vealed to him. Its wise and energetic efforts in matters of current local enterprise may be noted especially in the movements that gave to Dansville a system of water-works for fire purposes, a railroad, a library, and a union- school system and building second to none in the State. The fealty of the Advertiser to the interests of the citizens of Dansville is emphasized by its championship of the rights of the defrauded creditors of the Dansville banks with such fearless persistency that it was made the defendant in a libel suit for ten thousand dollars damages, in which the Ad- vertiser won a signal victory, the chief con- spirators were punished, and the people secured all that was left of two sad wrecks.

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Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of the leading citizens of Livingston and Wyoming counties, N.Y, Part 74

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

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