USA > New York > Madison County > Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of the leading citizens of Madison County, New York > Part 13
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Edwin Knickerbocker, the second child and
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the subject of this sketch, received his early education in the district schools, and later attended the academies of Morrisville and Hamilton. He began teaching school at the age of twenty, which avocation he followed a portion of each year for nine successive years. In 1852 he purchased a farm two miles north of Morrisville, upon which he resided until 1867, and then removed to the village of Mor- risville, where he has since lived. He was married in 1852 to Mrs. Mary T. Stafford, née Curtis, a native of Nelson, Madison County, her birth occurring March 20, 1829. She was reared under the parental roof-tree, and with kinsmen until her marriage. Her father, Ransom Curtis, died in Chittenango while yet in the prime of life, being about forty years of age, and when his daughter, Mary T., was but fourteen. Mr. Curtis was born in Nelson, Madison County, in 1803, and was a son of Jonathan Curtis, a native of Connecticut, and of New England stock, who, after his marriage to a Connecticut lady, Miss Johanna Wilkinson, emigrated after the most primitive style to Madison County, New York, and settled on a farm in the town of Nelson. This was in the latter years of the last century .or about the beginning of the present. Some years later, while yet in the prime of life, Johanna Thankful Curtis died, leaving a family. Some time after the death of his first wife Jonathan Curtis was again married, to a Mrs. Newell, who survived him several years, and died in Waterville, N. Y., at the home of a son, Ebenezer Newell, after having attained to a good old age. Mr. Curtis died
in the town of Nelson, when quite old. He was the father of five children, of whom Ran- som was the third in order of birth. The latter grew to manhood in Nelson, and became a farmer, in middle life removing to the vil- lage of Chittenango, where he died in 1843, being only forty years of age. He was a Whig in politics, and in religion a member of the old-school Baptist church, his father be- fore him being a deacon in that church. Ransom Curtis was married in the town of Nelson to Miss Aurelia Billings. She was born, reared, and spent her married life in Nelson and Chittenango, and after the death of her husband spent some years with her daughter, Mrs. Knickerbocker, of this notice, dying in 1862. She was born in 1803, and was the daughter of Lemuel and Pris- cilla (Locke) Billings, pioneers of Madison County. Like her husband, she was a mem- ber of the Baptist church, and a devoted Christian woman. Of her five children, Mrs. Knickerbocker, the wife of our subject, is the only survivor.
Mr. and Mrs. Knickerbocker have one son living, Curtis E., who graduated from Caze- novia Academy in 1887, and from Princeton College in the class of 1891. He is at pres- ent engaged as assistant chief civil engineer on the Northern Division of the New York, Oswego & Western Railroad, with headquar- ters at Norwich, N.Y. On November 16, 1893, in New York City, he was united in marriage with Miss Jennie E. Wilkinson, a young lady of intelligence and varied accom- plishments, who grew to maidenhood and was
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educated in the place of her birth, Middle- town, N.Y.
In politics Mr. Edwin Knickerbocker was in early life a Democrat, then became a Free- soil Democrat, and upon the organization of the Republican party became a Republican, to which party's principles he has ever since been loyal. The publishers take pleasure in presenting to their readers a fine steel portrait of Mr. Knickerbocker, as a true representative of a fine type of self-made men, whose noble example of industry, self-reliance, and perse- vering application to duty is worthy of imita- tion by coming generations.
OBIAS DEITZ, a prosperous and sub- stantial farmer of the town of Sullivan, was born in Albany County, New York, De- cember 21, 1806. His father was John B. Deitz, born in Albany County, a son of a German settler. John B. Deitz married Bar- bary Warner, of Albany County; and they became the parents of a family of nine sons and four daughters. Of these they reared all but two sons, our subject being the seventh child and fifth son. He has one brother and one sister now living, namely: Paul, a farmer of Albany County, now about eighty years of age; and Barbary A., wife of Robert Ball, of the same place. The mother of these children died when sixty-five years of age; and her husband twenty years later, at the age of eighty-four. They were fairly well-to-do, and left a good property at their death.
The boyhood of Tobias Deitz was spent on
his father's farm. He received a limited edu- cation, learning to read, write, and cipher, and at the age of twenty left home, and went to Cayuga County, where he worked out on a farm for very low wages, receiving at first but three dollars per month, and afterward ten. The first hundred dollars he saved he put out at interest. He voted for General Jackson for President, and in the winter succeeding the election went to Washington, D.C., being one of a large party that drove there with teams to work on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, the long train of teams exciting much curiosity on the part of the people along the route, who called them "Yanks." They re- fused to take in exchange for commodities some paper money issued by New York banks, of which Mr. Deitz had a supply. In 1837 he was married at Adams, Jefferson County, to Mariette Hitchcock, the ceremony being per- formed by a Justice of the Peace.
After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Deitz farmed for A. P. Downer on a piece of land comprising four hundred acres, working for him several years, and moving to the town of Sullivan in 1843, where he purchased eighty acres near his present home for twenty-seven dollars per acre. Most of this land was cleared, but the buildings were of poor qual- ity. It proved a good farm, and yielded well ; but at that time the prices of farm produce were low. Hay brought but four dollars per ton at Chittenango, and Mr. Deitz drew cheese to Canastota for four cents a pound. Oats were seventy-five cents per bushel before the panic of 1837, and after that fell to fifteen
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cents; and wages that had been from seventy- five cents to one dollar per day dropped to thirty-seven cents. Mr. Deitz sold his first farm of eighty acres about the year 1848, and bought a tract of land of one hundred and seven acres for ten dollars per acre. From this the timber had been removed, but the land was not cleared. His present farm, worth two hundred dollars per acre, formed part of a tract that was submerged much of the time up to 1853. About 1855 or 1856 the "Big Ditch " was started by Governors Seymour and Hutchison, and cut from Oneida Lake, a distance of one and one-half miles, a great part of the way through solid rock. Mr. Deitz was one of the prime movers in this enterprise. He paid eight hundred and sixty dollars on the original work, and it cost him two thousand dollars more to get connec- tion with it. The outlay was more than repaid, however, by the great increase in the value of his land, owing to the thorough sys- tem of drainage thus effected.
During his active life as an agriculturist Mr. Deitz has cleared over one thousand acres of timber land, thus nobly contributing his share toward the development of his native State and country. In 1860 he, with two partners, Messrs. Bates and French, bought two hundred acres of woodland for the sake of the timber, paying therefor thirty-five dollars per acre. After the land was cleared our sub- ject purchased the sole rights for ten dollars an acre. He has done general farming most of his life, and, although starting with noth- ing, has by means of indomitable energy and
untiring application acquired an easy compe- tence, the value of his property at the present time being estimated at about twenty-five thousand dollars. His honesty and business ability having always been recognized by those among whom his lot has been cast, he has been able to obtain almost unlimited credit, at one time owing over eight thousand dollars. In addition to his general farming he now owns a flock of fifty Cotswold sheep, from a single member of which he has taken at one time as many as fifteen pounds of wool.
In 1883 Mr. Deitz had the misfortune to lose his faithful wife, who died on August 10 of that year, at the age of sixty-five. She had borne him four children, two of whom died in infancy. The others were: Charlotte, wife of Frank Doolittle, of Canastota; and Allen T., who owns the one-hundred-and-seven-acre farm, which his father deeded to him in 1889. He married Hattie A. Warner, daughter of the late Theron Warner. They have six chil- dren, five sons and one daughter, namely : Harry H., a young man of twenty-one, at home on the farm; Allen W., eighteen years old; Frank T., sixteen: Mariette, a bright, intelligent young lady of fourteen; Milford Warner, a lively, growing boy of three; and Leon, a babe in arms. The Deitz family is one of great longevity, as the following facts taken from the old family Bible of John B. Deitz will sufficiently attest: Adam Deitz, eighty-seven years; Jacob, died at ninety years of age; Tobias of this notice, now well into his eighty-seventh year; Paul, eighty- two; Zachariah, died in 1889, aged seventy-
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six; Eva, died at eighty-five; and Anna B., now seventy-six. The family sustained a great loss in the death, on April 27, 1884, of a grandson of our subject, Charles A. Deitz, a most promising youth of fifteen years.
Allen T. Deitz, only son of Tobias, served as a soldier in the War of the Rebellion. In the fall of 1861, at nineteen years of age, his birth having occurred March 6, 1842, he en- listed in the One Hundred and First New York Infantry as a private in Company C, and was afterward transferred to Company H, One Hundred and First New York Volunteers, and later was in the One Hundred and Sixteenth Company Veteran Reserve Corps. He served three years and eleven months in all, and, being wounded in the arm and side, was con- fined for some time to the hospital, barely escaping with his life. During his stay in the hospital he was visited by his father, who did not recognize him, so greatly had he changed. His wife before her marriage was a teacher. Her father, Theron Warner, died at Homer, Cortland County, in October, 1890, at the age of sixty. He was a farmer and hop-grower, and left a family of five daughters and one son, the latter Frank Warner, of Moravia. The Warner family were from Connecticut.
No better illustration of the pluck and sterling qualities of the old pioneers -- those hardy men who, turning their backs upon the comforts and luxuries of civilized life, went boldly forth, axe in hand, into the desert wastes, rescued Nature from her primitive savagery, and made the wilderness to blossom
like the rose - can be found than is presented in the life of Mr. Deitz, the subject of this brief biography. He can now look back with satisfaction, knowing that the comfort and ease which he enjoys in his declining years are largely and principally the result of his own industry and foresight, and that his ex- ample is one worthy of emulation by his chil- dren and children's children. Mr. Deitz has long been a sincere and earnest member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and for thirty years a Republican in political faith. He has the good will of all in his community, and is justly regarded as one of the most worthy and substantial citizens of Madison County.
F. GARRETT. This highly respected representative citizen of the town of Brookfield, N.Y., was born in that town, April 5, 1820. His ancestry, like many others in the county, goes back to the Colonial days of the seventeenth and eigh- teenth centuries, when enterprising members of New England families, fascinated by the immensity of this broad country, so frequently moved westward for the founding of new homes. Thus the grandfather of our subject started out with his family from Connecticut, and, braving the dangers and terrors of an unknown land, penetrated into the heart of the wilderness, and erected a log cabin, cleared the land, and settled down to life- work on the farm.
Elisha B. Garrett, son of the pioneer, and his wife were natives of Connecticut. J. F.
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Garrett, their only son, was born after their arrival in the town of Brookfield. His educa- tional advantages werc limited to a few winter terms of the district school, the rest of the year being given to the hard work required in cultivating the soil. He was scarcely six- teen when he started to earn his own living. After working out by the month for four years, he accepted an offer from a merchant in Cooperstown, N. Y., to go on the road with a line of educational books, and four years was a commercial traveller. It was at this time that his filial love prompted him to buy a farm and settle his father and mother in a home for themselves, - an act receiving, as it well de- served, the highest commendation from the community. The mother died at this home, at the age of eighty-eight.
When Mr. Garrett was twenty-three years old, he married Miss Caroline Mason, of Stockbridge, Madison County, N. Y., daugh- ter of Martin and Marie Mason. Only for onc brief year had he the enjoyment of domes- tic bliss with his lovely young wife, and then she was snatched away to a better and fairer world. In 1846 he married Miss Stateria Mason, a sister of his first wife. They have no children, but an adopted daughter, who is now the wife of James E. Sloan. The father of Mrs. Garrett, who was an early settler in the town of Stockbridge, reared a large family there, and afterward removed to the State of Michigan, where he died. Mr. Garrett and family have resided on his present farm for many years, and with the assistance of his son-in-law, who lives with them, have brought
the place, to which from time to time he has added land, into a perfection of cultivation. He was one of the first to devote large tracts of land to the culture of hops, in which he has risen from four to twenty acres devoted to this product.
The husband of Mr. Garrett's adopted daughter, James E. Sloan, was born in Eng- land, September 28, 1863. His father and mother were born in Ireland, the father com- ing to this country first, and getting work on a farm in Waterville. The mother and James came to America and joined him in the following spring, the family remaining in Waterville for some time. Three children were born to them, - James, Mary Ann, and Barney. Later they removed to North Brook- field; and at the age of thirteen James began to work out by the month, attending school in the winters. At the age of twenty-four he was employed by Mr. Garrett, for whom he worked for four years, at the end of that time marrying Miss Hattie A. Green, the adopted daughter of his employer, and taking up his home with him as a member of the family. The mother of Mr. Sloan is still living, at the age of fifty-four.
Mr. Garrett, in a long life of usefulness, has endeared himself to the people. No more reverenced or beloved person is known in the county than this gentleman. He is a self- made man, in the best sense of the word; and, knowing in his own experience the privations and trials of a youth having to carve out his own fortune, he is cspecially liberal to those on whom adversity has laid its heavy hand.
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His judicious advice in many cases has been of infinite value to those who have followed it. Of irreproachable life, a man of sterling integity, Mr. Garrett is to-day, at seventy- three years, a hale and hearty man, looking a decade, at least, younger than his age. Re- ligiously sound in the faith, he is an efficient member of the Baptist church; while in the Masonic fraternity he holds an honored posi- tion in Sanger Lodge, No. 129. He is a stanch Republican, and zealously supports the candidates and principles of that party.
DWIN M. LAMB, a native of Lebanon, a well-known and highly respected citi- zen resident in the village, having first seen the light of day in the earliest quarter of the century, and in the course of his industrious life having had much experience in the con- duct of local public affairs, besides serving several years as Town Clerk, discharging the duties of that position with exemplary accu- racy and promptitude, and doubtless acquiring a familiarity with the early records, may well be regarded as especially conversant with the history of the town and its inhabitants. He was born November 20, 1821, second child and only son of Ira and Betsey (Williams) Lamb, immigrants in New York from the old Bay State.
Ira Lamb was born in Charlton, Worcester County, Mass., February 19, 1791. He first came to Lebanon in 1816 or about that time, and, buying forest land, partially cleared it of trees by felling and burning, also building
a log house. Returning to Massachusetts the next year, he brought back his wife, whom he had previously married. She also was a na- tive of Charlton, born September 7, 1789, and passed her girlhood in that town. The jour- ney was made with a horse-team, and was sufficiently tedious, - a fittting prelude to the laborious pioneer life that was to follow. The flax raised on the farm, and in later years the wool needed for the clothing of the fam- ily, was spun, and doubtless woven, by the busy hands of Mrs. Lamb. The produce of the farm was sold in Hamilton and Eaton, corn finding a ready sale at a distillery in the last-named place. The death of Mrs. Lamb took place at the house of her son in Lebanon Village, where she and her husband spent their declining years, December 2, 1871. Her husband died April 15, 1877, at the ripe old age of eighty-six years. They were the parents of two children, -the son whose name heads this sketch, and a daughter, Mary W., wife of Rev. Orville L. Cruttenden, of Chenango County, whose only child, Mary C. Cruttenden, is the wife of James McDonald, of Denver, Col.
Pursuing his studies in the district school and for two terms at the Hamilton Academy, helping on his father's farm, and teaching school one winter in Easton and three winters in Lebanon, - thus passed the boyhood and youth of Edwin M. Lamb. After the age of twenty-one years he made himself master of two trades, - cabinet-making, which he learned of William Robinson, and carpenter- ing and joining, at which he worked with
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Stephen S. Sabin. After following these trades about twelve years, he carried on the mercantile business in Lebanon for a similar period, at first with Curtis Hoppin, and later with J. D. Avery, to whom in the end he sold out his share. Resuming then his trade as carpenter, he also took charge for several years of the home farm. Having disposed of the farm, he has since worked at both carpen- tering and cabinet-making. He married May 28, 1845, Mary C. Benedict, daughter of Stephen Benedict, Jr., of Lebanon, by whom he has had five children, three sons and two daughters, none of whom are now living.
Mrs. Lamb's grandfather, Stephen Bene- dict, Sr., who was born in 1773, came from Westchester County in 1806, and settled on a farm about three miles north-east of the vil- lage of Sherburne. Laboring on this farm during his active years, he subsequently moved into the village, where he lived for a time. At length returning to the old home- stead, he spent his last days in the family of his son Charles, dying there in Decem- ber, 1851. At the age of nineteen he mar- ried Johanna Mills, of Westchester County, where he lived for some years before going to Sherburne, employed in school-teaching. They had twelve children, eleven of whom lived to maturity: all of these, excepting one daughter, were married and had families. Stephen Benedict, Jr., accompanied his father to Sherburne when twelve years old, and con- tinued to live with him during his youth. He married Polly Avery, born January 23, 1796, daughter of James Avery, who came to
Sherburne from Durham, Greene County, in 1808. After the birth of his first child he moved to Lebanon, and settled on a farm. His sudden death from lightning stroke, while in a field on this farm, occurred August 16, 1833. He left a widow, three daughters, and one son. The eldest daughter died July 15, 1892. The other children are now living.
Mr. Lamb's fellow-townsmen have shown their estimate of his abilities and their confi- dence in his trustworthiness by electing him at divers times to various public offices. He was a War Supervisor of his town from 1862 to 1865, inclusive, and has since been thrice re-elected to that office. He was County Superintendent of the Poor for one term of three years, and has also been for a number of years both Clerk and Postmaster of the town. In politics he is a stanch Republican.
OHN WILSON, one of the oldest set- tlers of the town of Fenner, was born in the city of Utica, July 7, 1816. The family is of English origin. The grand- father, Thomas Wilson, a native of Northum- berland, England, emigrated to this country in 1798. He was a wheelwright by trade, and went to the town of Fenner from Utica, making the journey on foot and carrying his kit of tools. This part of Madison County was what might well be termed a howling wilderness; for wolves, bears, panthers, and the dismal owl made night hideous for the lonesome settler who made his home here. Thomas Wilson bought one hundred and
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twenty-two acres of land at an auction sale of one Peter Smith. He paid seven dollars and ten cents per acre for a forest that had never heard the sound of an axe. But he set man- fully to work, and clcared the land and built his log cabin. The nearest place to get his flour and meal was at Whitesboro; and it was literally
" Five miles to meeting, forty miles to mill,
Horsebacked the grist and travelled with a will."
These pioneers who bivouacked in the for- cst were indeed a "royal breed of tramps "; but they were working ones, and stout-hearted men, who never quailed before the growl of the bear or the tomahawk of the Indian. The grandfather lived on this farm, dying at the age of eighty-three years. His wife Eliza- beth survived him a few years, and died at the age of eighty-eight. They had seven children, who were: Thomas, Edward, Rob- ert, William; Mary, who grew to maturity; and Elizabeth and Laura, who died young. Mr. Wilson was a prominent man in the com- munity. He and family were members of the Episcopal church.
The parents of our subject were Thomas and Mary Ann (Evans) Wilson. Thomas Wilson, Jr., was but fifteen years of age when he came to America with his father, above mentioned. He learned the carpenter and joiner's trade, following it through life. He was an artist in his line, and many buildings still remain in the vicinity and town of Fen- ner that show his skill as an expert finisher in his style of work. Mr. Wilson was twice. married. He died in the town of Fenner, at
the age of sixty-nine. He was a Democrat in politics, and an Episcopalian in his religious belief. He had a family of five children, of whom two are living: George W., who resides in Onondaga County; and John, the subject of this sketch. Those who died were: Thomas, aged thirty-six; Robert, forty-five; and Mary, Mrs. C. F. Crossman, who died in Rochester.
John Wilson was brought up in Madison County, going to the town of Fenner when but ten years of age. He lived with his uncle, Edward. Wilson, until the age of twenty-nine. He married Miss Jane Ann Hyatt in 1845. (For history of her family see sketch of Smith K. Hyatt.) After mar- riage he bought a part of his grandfather Wilson's farm of forty-eight acres, and still owns the tract. On this farm he raises grain of all kinds, and has a fine variety of stock. He has a beautiful home and first-class farm buildings. His wife died in 1881, at the age of fifty-nine years, leaving him indeed alone; for no children were born to their marriage. He still resides on the old farm.
Various offices in the gift of the Democrats, of which party he is a stanch supporter, have been held by Mr. Wilson, among others that of Justice of the Peace for several terms. He is a member of the Baptist church, and is a prominent and thoroughly respected gentle- man of the town of Fenner. Age has touched him but slightly, and he is as agile and viva- cious to-day as in his youth. He is a great reader, and keeps abreast with the times in literature and civil affairs; and his wonderful
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memory makes him a delightful conversation- alist, especially when he tells of the early struggles and adventures of his boyhood days. He remembers distinctly having met General Lafayette when he himself was but eight years of age, and carries the shuddering recollection of having seen the celebrated criminal, Abram Antone, on the day he was captured, in 1823. By the labor and thrift of his hands he has accumulated a nice fortune, and is able to spend the evening of his days in comfort and prosperity.
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