USA > New York > Genealogical and family history of central New York : a record of the achievements of her people in the making of a commonwealth and the building of a nation, Volume II > Part 10
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of Francis Diller has been erected in the grave- yard of the Diller church in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, with inscription : "Fran- cis and Anna Diller of Biglen, Switzerland, emigrated in 1754 from La Chaux-de-Fonds, to Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, where Francis died in 1783, and was buried near Bowmansville. Anna died about 1810, lies here with her three sons Francis, Peter and Abraham." Elizabeth, the only daughter, mar- ried David Eshelman, and lived in Berks county, Pennsylvania. Three of her six chil- dren lived in Niagara county, New York. The sons are all the founders of families found all over the United States.
Francis (2), son of Francis (1) and Anna Diller, is the ancestor of the Buffalo branch, and grandfather of John Diller, father of Alice M. Diller, wife of George W. Fargo.
John Diller, of Plainfield, Pennsylvania, was born January 26, 1818, removed to Buffalo about 1847. He was one of the organizers of the Hollister Elevator Company, and later was connected with the City Elevator Company. He was a member of the Presbyterian church, prominent in the Masonic order, and a Demo- crat. He married, April 22, 1847, at Plain- field, Pennsylvania, Emmeline Carothers, born October 2, 1826, died June 14, 1906, in Buf- falo, daughter of William Carothers, born in England, in 1787, died October 27, 1838; he married, October 26, 1809, Elizabeth Showers, born at Plainfield, Pennsylvania, July 15, 1792, died December 5, 1874; they had ten children. John and Emmeline Diller were the parents of two children: 1. Albert John, born Sep- tember 5, 1852, died October 28, 1903, at Buf- falo; he was a railroad contractor, and prom- inent in the Masonic order. 2. Alice M., mar- ried George W. Fargo.
Emmeline Carothers. Diller, mother of Mrs. Fargo, was a member of the Central Presby- terian Church, and a woman of great energy and force of character. After the death of her husband, Mrs. Fargo returned to the old Diller home on Franklin street, where she cared for her aged mother until the death of the latter in 1906.
The Wilkeson family is of WILKESON sturdy Scotch Covenanter stock. The name first ap- pears in history at the time when the laws of King Charles II made it a treasonable act to attend a conventicle, and commanders of
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troops in Western Scotland were ordered to disperse all such meetings at the point of the sword. The people took arms in defense of their religion, and were defeated by the Duke of Monmouth at Bothwell Bridge, January 22, 1679. Some four hundred Covenanters were killed in this battle, among them several Wilkesons. As a result of this defeat the Wilkeson family, with others, was exiled to the North of Ireland. Ten years later these Ulster Protestants defended Londonderry from an attack by the forces of King James II. This event, commonly known as the "Siege of Derry," was among the most memorable in the annals of the British Isles. Six Wilkesons were among those killed during the terrible one hundred and five days before the place was relieved. The soldier survivors received allotments of land in the Pale.
(I) John Wilkeson, with his wife Mary Robinson, emigrated from the North of Ire- land in 1760. He settled in Delaware, where he was living when the revolution began. He immediately enlisted, receiving a commission as lieutenant, and fought until the close of the war. After the army was disbanded he went to Washington county, Pennsylvania, where under a soldier's warrant he cleared a farm, and in this home remained until his death. He had three sons and two daughters.
(II) Samuel, son of John Wilkeson, was born in 1781, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where his father's regiment was encamped. His youth was spent on his father's farm in the Pennsylvania wilderness, among all the hard- ships of the frontier. His schooling began in the nearest log schoolhouse, and ended in just two weeks. The education which later enabled him to perform the duties of an en- gineer, a judge, an editor, a senator and a mayor, besides becoming a successful merchant and manufacturer, was gained in the rough school of experience, supplemented by personal study. Soon after his father's death he mar- ried Jean (Jane) Oram, daughter of Captain Samuel Oram, who had emigrated to America with his father, and was John Wilkeson's comrade throughout the revolution. Follow- ing the pioneer instinct, Samuel removed with his wife to Southeastern Ohio, where he began to clear for himself another farm. His enter- prising spirit, however, soon led him to seek an occupation which promised more rapid re- turns for his toil. He began to build keelboats, and carried on trade between Pittsburgh and
Buffalo, by way of the Allegheny and Cone- wango rivers, Chautauqua Lake, Lake Erie and the Niagara river. He transported iron, glass, etc., from Pittsburgh to Buffalo and Black Rock, where he received return cargoes of salt, brought down from Syracuse. He built his first vessels himself, with no other tools than axe, saw, wedge, auger and ham- mer. No iron spikes or nails were used in their construction. Occasionally he made voy- ages to points up Lake Erie, thus becoming one of the first of the lake forwarders.
He was thus engaged when the war of 1812 began. His most notable service in this war was the building of the transports with which General William Henry Harrison crossed the lake to fight the battle of the Thames. Gen- eral Harrison was encamped on the Maumee in the summer of 1813, and the contractor whoni he had engaged to supply him with boats disappointed him. He promptly sent for Mr. Wilkeson, whose experience as a keel- boatman in the Pittsburgh-Buffalo trade rec- ommended him as the man for the emergency. Wilkeson hurried to the Grand river, in Northern Ohio, with a force of axemen and carpenters, where in a very short time he put together the necessary craft, mostly from green timber. Returning to Portland, Chau- tauqua county, where his family was then liv- ing, he hurried on to Buffalo, probably as a member of the regiment of Chautauqua county militia under Lieutenant Colonel McMahon, which arrived December 29, 1813, the day be- fore the British forces crossed the river and captured and burned the town. The militia was dispersed, and Mr. Wilkeson walked back to Portland. A few days later, however, he returned with one companion, by boat, to learn the situation. An early narrative says they saw between Pratt's ferry and Cold Spring no living thing except a solitary cat wander- ing among the blackened ruins.
The following year Mr. Wilkeson embarked his family and household goods on a lake boat and removed to Buffalo, where the hardy settlers were rapidly rebuilding their homes. He built a store at the corner of Main and Niagara streets, and a house on the west side of Main street, south of Genesee street. In the spring of 1815 his fellow townsmen per- suaded him to accept the office of justice of the peace. The town was filled with reckless characters, discharged soldiers and other drift- wood of the war, who were giving consider-
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able trouble, and a strong hand was needed to enforce law and order. Judge Wilkeson was the man for the time. His discharge of his duties as criminal magistrate is one of the living traditions of Buffalo. His methods may sometimes have been extra-judicial, for he knew little of the law, but he was a terror to evildoers. Punishment for misdeeds was swift and sure, and in a short time he had made Buffalo again a law-abiding community.
But Judge Wilkeson's greatest service for Buffalo was the building of the first harbor. A law of 1819 had authorized the state to loan the village $12,000 for this purpose on the security of a bond of double the amount. The Citizens' Association having charge of the matter failed to meet the conditions, and toward the close of the year it appeared likely that the loan would be forfeited. In this crisis Charles Townsend, Oliver Forward and Sam- uel Wilkeson offered their personal bonds for $25,000 to secure the loan. The work was begun the following spring under a superin- tendent who proved unsatisfactory, and Mr. Wilkeson's associates insisted that he take charge of it. At that time all of the region from the present Mansion House south and east to the lake was a swamp which Main street crossed as a corduroy road. Trees fringed the lake and both banks of the creek, which was so shallow at its mouth that Judge Wilkeson was accustomed to wade it. In fact, it was only waistdeep for this six-foot man. Much of his time as superintendent was spent in the water. He knew nothing of engineer- ing according to books, but he had the fron- tiersman's common sense, a powerful voice, and the faculty of directing men and getting work out of them, and in two hundred and twenty-one days this first harbor was com- pleted. On a panel of his monument, facing the harbor, are these well-merited words:
Urbem condidit. He built the city by building its harbor.
This harbor made Buffalo the terminus of the Erie canal. At that time Black Rock was a separate and rival village, and a sharp contest between the two towns arose. When the canal commissioners came to Buffalo in the summer of 1822 to decide the question, Mr. Wilkeson made the argument for his town; General Porter spoke for Black Rock. Buffalo won. On the completion of the canal in 1825, Mr. Wilkeson was chairman of the
citizens' committee which made the voyage to New York on board the "Seneca Chief" in celebration of the great event.
On November 10, 1820, Mr. Wilkeson was appointed judge of the court of common pleas for Niagara county, and retained the office for Erie county after the division in 1821. This court was the predecessor of the present county court, and, remembering that Mr. Wil- keson was not a lawyer, his successful ad- ministration of the office is a notable distinc- tion. In 1824 he was elected a member of the assembly, and in November, 1825, he was elected to the state senate, where he served until the close of 1829. The senate at that time, with the chancellor and the judges of the supreme court, constituted the court for trial of impeachments and the correction of errors. It heard appeals from the court of chancery, the supreme court, the court of probate and the admiralty court, so that Mr. Wilkeson's duties in this office were again largely judicial. In 1836 he was mayor of the city. His busi- ness activities included those of a merchant, forwarder, canal contractor, warehouse man and vessel owner. He built the first iron foundry in Buffalo, and started here the manu- facture of steam engines, stoves and hollow ware. He had a charcoal blast furnace in Lake county, Ohio, and another in Mahoning county, Pennsylvania, where he was the first furnace man to use raw bituminuous without coking.
In his later years Judge Wilkeson became much interested in the slavery problem. He was opposed to radical abolition, but favored gradual and compensated emancipation and the removal of the free negroes from this country. These ideas naturally led him into the National Colonization Society of America, which founded Liberia, and his energy and business experience soon put him at the head of that organization. He removed to Waslı- ington, where in 1840 he was in full charge of the society's work. He edited its organ, the African Repository, directed the govern- ment of the colony, and built up a consider- able trade with it from Philadelphia and Bal- timore. The nation has had terrible reason to regret that his farseeing plans in this matter were not fully realized.
He died in July, 1848, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, at a tavern in the mountains of Tennessee, where he was traveling to visit his daughter. His memoirs are published in
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Volume V of the Buffalo Historical Society's Proceedings. By his first wife, Jean Oram, he had seven children: Jane, died in infancy ; Elizabeth, John, Eli Reed, William, Louise, Samuel. He married (second) Sarah St. John, of Buffalo, and (third) Mary Peters, of New Haven, Connecticut.
(III) John, eldest son of Samuel Wilkeson, was born at Poland, Ohio, October 28, 1806. He was eight years old when the family re- moved to Buffalo. In some reminiscences pub- lished by the Buffalo Historical Society he has left an interesting picture of the Buffalo of that day. The region round the Terrace and south and west of Court street was a swamp into which the family cow used to stray, and John has amusingly described his youthful terrors in searching for her along the treacherous winding pathways, among snakes and frogs. He was educated in the Buffalo public schools, and at a boarding school in Danbury, Connecticut, He entered a mercantile house in New York and for a time thereafter was in commercial business in Tabasco, Mexico. In 1840 he was secretary to his father, in charge of the National Coloni- zation Society at Washington. £ President Tyler appointed him consul to Turk's Island. The post then covered most of the West Indies and was nearly as important as a ministerial position. On the voyage thither he was ship- wrecked and had a narrow escape. He was picked up at sea and landed at Newport, Rhode Island. He engaged in manufacturing in Buffalo, becoming the first manufacturer of stoves and furnaces, invented and patented several important devices, and also became in- terested in timber and oil lands in Pennsyl- vania. As the lake trade grew in proportions, he became very active in it, and built the Wil- keson elevator, one of the first in this port. He continued to be an active elevator man all his life, serving as chairman of the execu- tive committee of the Western Elevating Com- pany. He lived in the present Wilkeson man- sion, built by his father in 1824, the finest house in that part of the country at that time, and still one of the historic homes of Buffalo. Many distinguished guests have been enter- tained there, particularly in early canal days, when Governor DeWitt Clinton was a fre- quent visitor. Mr. Wilkeson was a warm per- sonal friend of President Millard Fillmore, and in 1856, accompanied Mr. Fillmore on a tour of Europe.
He married, at Portsmouth, England, in 1832, Mary Louise Wilkes. They had three children : John Wilkes, Samuel H., and Maria Louise. The death of the father occurred April 4, 1894. Of the remaining children of Judge Samuel Wilkeson:
I. Elizabeth, married Dr. Henry A. Stagg, a distinguished Buffalo physician, who received a silver vase from the city in recognition of his services in the cholera epidemic. Their son, Henry R. Stagg, served in the Seventy- eighth New York Regiment during the civil war.
2. Eli Reed, became much interested in the old volunteer fire department, equipping one entire company at his own expense. He died in 1850. One son, Allen, died in early man- hood, and a second son, William, served in the Fourteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry in the civil war. After the war he removed to Youngstown, New York.
3. William, lived in Buffalo all his life. He conducted an iron foundry on Court street, and had other large business interests. He died in 1881.
4. Louise, married Mortimer Johnson, nephew to Ebenezer Johnson, Buffalo's first mayor. Their daughter married W. H. Beard, the well known artist. Their son Hugh en- tered the regular army and fought through the civil war. Their second son, Tellice, was a well known business man in Buffalo, long connected with the Bell Telephone Company.
5. Samuel, was born in 1817, educated at Williams and Union Colleges, and entered the newspaper profession, working for twelve years on the New York Tribune under Hor- ace Greeley. He was the Tribune's war cor- respondent with the Army of the Potomac. He became owner and editor of the Buffalo Democracy, afterward consolidated with the Express. In 1865 he bought the Albany Evening Journal from Thurlow Weed, and edited that newspaper for several years. In March, 1869, he became secretary of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. He married Catherine Cady, daughter of Judge E. R. Cady of Johnstown, New York. His son, Bayard, born in 1844, enlisted at the age of seventeen as second lieutenant in the Fourth United States Artillery, and was killed at Gettysburg as captain in command of his bat- tery, aged nineteen years. A second son, Frank, served as a private in the civil war, and wrote a book on his experiences. He worked
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on the New York Times for a while and then engaged in stock farming in Kansas. A third son, Samuel, went west in early manhood and has been prominent in building up Tacoma, Washington.
(IV) John Wilkes, son of John Wilkeson, was born August 28, 1834. He was gradu- ated from Union College and entered the Union army as first lieutenant of Company K, One Hundredth New York Volunteers. He was killed at the battle of Fair Oaks in May, 1862. Bidwell-Wilkeson Post, Grand Army of the Republic, is named in part for him.
(IV) Samuel H., second son of John Wil- keson, was born June 28, 1836. He was edu- cated in private schools in Buffalo, the An- dover-Phillips Academy, Yale College, and Union College. For two years he engaged in ranching in Texas. Returning to New York, he was employed in the government office as assistant assayer. He enlisted as first lieutenant in the Twenty-first New York Volunteers, in April, 1861. These were the first troops raised in Buffalo. He was sta- tioned at Fort Runyon, and later transferred to Wadsworth's brigade. After about eight months he was mustered out by order of the War Department, and on February 22, 1862, was commissioned captain of Company C, Eleventh New York Cavalry, and was pro- moted to major June 24, 1862, and to lieu- tenant colonel December 24, 1862. He did a great deal of outpost duty around Washing- ton. Later he was ordered south and was in active field operations in Mississippi, Louis- iana and West Tennessee for about eighteen months. He acted as inspector general in the Davidson raid in Louisiana and Mississippi. He took part in the Mobile expedition in August, 1864, on the staff of General Gordon Granger, participating in the capture of Fort Gaines. On March 27, 1865. Governor Fenton commissioned him colonel, but the early close of the war made it unnecessary to muster. He was at Memphis, Tennessee, when peace came. Returning to Buffalo, he lived on a farm near the city for fourteen years. Later he took charge of his father's elevator, which he man- aged until 1908, when the property was sold. He has since lived in retirement in the family home on Niagara Square. He is a member of the Buffalo Historical Society and Bidwell- Wilkeson Post, Grand Army of the Republic.
Colonel Wilkeson married, in 1868, Matilda Gertrude Franks, born on Mackinac Island,
in 1848. Her father, Edward A. Franks, kept the Mission House at Mackinac for many years. He had six children: Mary, married Russell Bishop; Matilda Gertrude, married Colonel Wilkeson; Grace, married Edward Kane; Minnie; Edward, who resides at Macki- nac; Salem, died February, 1910. Mrs. Wilkeson was an active worker in the Church of St. Mary's on the Hill, and a member of the managing board of the Church Charities Foundation. She died in Buffalo, February 24, 1903. Children of Colonel and Mrs. Wilke- son: I. John, born September II, 1869; edu- cated at Wheeler's School, Del'oe College and Hobart College; went west and engaged in copper mining in New Mexico ; married Rose Canavan of Toronto; one child, John. 2. Ed- ward S., born 1871; educated in private schools, studied medicine in Philadelphia; is now engaged in forestry. 3. Mary Juana, born in 1873. 4. Elizabeth Wilkes, born 1875; married John Knox Freeman, of Buf- falo. 5. William, born 1885 ; educated in pub- lic and private schools ; now a commercial trav- eler for a special packing box in the western trade. 6. Margaret.
(IV) Maria Louise, daughter of John Wilkeson, was born in 1838, and died in Buf- falo, March 24, 1903. She held a brilliant social position among the cultured people of Buffalo, and was a liberal patron of the fine arts, hav- ing a notable collection of paintings and bric- a-brac. She was an honorary member of Bid- well-Wilkeson Post, Grand Army of the Re- public, which paid her the exceptional honor of attending her funeral in a body. She left generous endowments to the Children's Hospi- tal and the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy.
PARKER The surname of Parker is de- rived from the Latin "par- carus," a park keeper or shep- herd. Danes, Saxons and Normans all seem to have had the name at an early date. Par- cum and De Parco are found in Domesday Book. As early as 900-925, in the reign of Edward I, a Geoffrey Parker is mentioned, even before the common use of surnames in England. The family bore arms; that of the Brownsholme family of Parker, the pedigree of which is traced to William C. Parker, of Witzwestle, Lancastershire, before 1400, is: Vert a chevron between three stags' heads ca- bossed or; Crest: A leopard's head affrontee erased or ducally gorged gules. Motto: Sem-
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pre ande (dare to be just). This coat-of-arms descended through the Park Hall and Stafford- shire lines, and is that used by Sir Thomas Parker, Earl of Macclesfield, England. This branch of the Parkers in America springs from William Parker.
(I) William Parker came from England in the autumn of 1633, in the ship "James." He was an original proprietor of Hartford, Connecticut, 1636. About 1649 he removed to Saybrook,. Connecticut, where he was a large land owner, also holding a large tract in Heb- ron. He probably served in the Pequot war. He filled several town offices, served on num- erous committees, and was deputy to the gen- eral court at the special session of 1652, also served 1678-79-80. About 1636 he married (first) Margery who died Decem- ber 6, 1680. He married (second) Elizabeth Pratt, widow of Lieutenant William Pratt. He died at Saybrook, December 28, 1686. He had ten children, of whom Joseph (1), Jonathan and Deborah died early. They were: Sarah, Joseph (1), John, Ruth, William, Joseph (2), Margaret, Nathan, David, Deborah, Sarah, Ruth and Margaret, married.
(II) John, son of William and Margery Parker, was born at Hartford, Connecticut, February 1, 1641-2, died at Saybrook, same state, 1706. He was regarded as a proprietor of Saybrook, and given one hundred pounds accommodation. He was active and influential in town affairs. He was deputy to the general court, 1686-88-99-1700. He was a large land owner at Saybrook and Hebron. He was ap- pointed gunner and master of artillery at Fort Saybrook, November 30, 1683, and was in charge of the fort under Governor Andros, with rank of lieutenant. He married, Decem- ber 24, 1666, Mary, daughter of Thomas Buck- ingham, a settler of Milford, Connecticut, and sister of Rev. Thomas S. Buckingham, pastor of the Saybrook church in 1670. Children : John, Deborah, Ebenezer, Samuel.
(III) John (2), son of Lieutenant John (1) and Mary (Buckingham) Parker, was born October 6, 1667, died at Norwich, Connecti- cut, December 24, 1709. He served as con- stable in 1694, and was one of the first to act as attorney-at-law under the act of 1708. He married, December 11, 1690, Mary, daughter of Lieutenant Samuel and Mary (Bushnell) Jones. They had seven children.
(IV) John (3), son of John (2) and Mary (Jones) Parker, was born March 1I, 1696.
He was prominent in the Ecclesiastical So- ciety ; sergeant of the train band, 1731 ; ensign in Cape Breton expedition, and died at Louis- burg, May 15, 1746. He married (first) May 8, 1723, Mary Chapman; (second) Elizabeth Dunk ; seven children.
(V) John (4), son of John (3), Parker, and his second wife, Elizabeth Dunk, was born in Connecticut, about 1745. He early settled in Vermont, where he married and had issue.
(VI) David Day, son of John (4) Parker, was born in West Pomfret, Vermont, 1792. He removed to the town of Perrysburg, Cattarau- gus county, New York, in 1822, his brother, John Parker (5), having settled in the same town in 1821. David D. took up land (lot 49) and resided there for many years. He later in life moved to Versailles, New York, where he died, December 9, 1875. He mar- ried Olive Remington, and had several sons.
(VII) Myron Marcus, son of David Day and Olive (Remington) Parker, was born in Perrysburg, Cattaraugus county, New York, May 24, 1824, and at the time of his death, May 12, 1905, was the oldest native born son of that town. He was a farmer, and an active man in public affairs, holding many of the town offices. He was an active Democrat, but joined the Republican party at its organiza- tion. He was a zealous member of the Uni- versalist church, and a man held in the highest esteem.
Mr. Parker married, December 16, 1855. Lydia Maria, daughter of Abiathar Knapp, who died at the age of ninety-seven years, in 1870, and is buried at Pilot Knob, Missouri, where he died while on a visit. He was a member of the Presbyterian church. He married, in Ver- mont, Annie Hall. Children of Myron Mar- cus Parker: I. Allen Clark, born March II, 1858; now living in Versailles, Cattaraugus county, New York ; married Euretta Chapman. 2. Spencer Blodgett, of whom further. 3. Capitola Olive, graduate of New England Con- servatory of Music, Boston; married Bert H. Bowen, and resides at Niagara Falls, New York, where she is engaged in musical work, teaching both vocal and instrumental conven- tions and carnival management. 4. Salem Eu- gene, born October 27, 1864; resides at Ver- sailles ; he is also a musician, and engaged with his sister in musical work; he married (first) Maud Nichols, of Jamestown, who died one year after her marriage leaving a daugh- ter Maud; he married (second) Jessie Hoyt
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