History of Chautauqua County, New York, Part 71

Author: Edson, Obed, 1832-; Merrill, Georgia Drew, editor
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Boston, Mass. : W.A. Fergusson
Number of Pages: 1068

USA > New York > Chautauqua County > History of Chautauqua County, New York > Part 71

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HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N. Y.

Governor Patterson commenced holding public office soon after his resi- dence began at Leicester in 1824, and from that time until his death it was the exception that he was not in public service. At no time did he ever ask for an appointment or nomination, these positions coming unsolicited. When justices of the peace became elective he was chosen to that office, which he retained by successive' elections till he removed to Westfield, the majorities in his town being generally on the side opposed to him in politics. He was commissioner of highways, school commissioner, justice of the peace, brigade paymaster, and supervisor of Leicester ; was a member of the State Assembly eight years, the last two of which (1839 and 1840) he was Speaker of the House : he removed to Westfield in 1841 to take charge of the Chau- tanqua land-office ; was appointed basin commissioner at Albany by Gov- ernor Seward ; harbor commissioner at New York by Governor Clark, and quarantine commissioner for the port of New York by Governor Mor- gan ; was a delegate to the National Republican Convention that nominated John C. Fremont for president, and to the National Republican Convention that re-nominated Abraham Lincoln for a second presidential term ; has been supervisor of Westfield three years ; president of Westfield Academy and president of the Board of Education of Westfield many years ; represented the county of Chautauqua in the state constitutional convention in 1846 ; was elected lieutenant-governor of the state of New York in 1848; and in 1876 was elected to the Forty-fifth Congress as a Republican, receiving 16,- 910 votes against 10,601 votes for James. Freeland, Democrat. He was a director in the Buffalo and State Line railroad from its organization, June, 1849, till its consolidation, May 1867, and from that date till June 1868, a director in the Buffalo and Erie railroad, now a part of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern.

GEORGE W. PATTERSON.

George W. Patterson was born in Leicester, Livingston county, February 25, 1826. He has been a resident of Westfield the greater part of the time since 1841. He is the only son of Hon. George W. Patterson, son of Thomas of Londonderry, N. H., son of Peter of Bush Mills, Ireland, and of Londonderry, son of John of Bush Mills, County Antrim, Ireland, son of Robert, son of John, both of the same place. The latter came from Argyleshire, Scotland, prior to the siege of Derry. The mother of Mr. Patterson was Hannah W. (Dickey) Patterson, daughter of John Dickey of Greigsville, N. Y., and Londonderry, N. H., son of Matthew, son of John, both of Londonderry. The latter from County Antrim, Ireland. Mr. Patterson was graduated from Dartmouth college in 18448, studied law from 1848 to 1850 (not, however, with a view to practice), assisted for several years as a eleik to his father, who was agent at Westfield of the Chantanqua Land Company. From 1850 to 1853 he was partner in the firm of Waters

Pro. Dr. Pattinson

Born Feb. 25.1826

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& Patterson, manufacturers at Westfield of edge tools, shovels, forks, and hoes, and from 1854 to 1858 cashier, and from 1858 to 1875 president, of the "Geo. Washington Bank " of Corning, N. Y. Since 1875 he has been a resident of Westfield, in charge of the remaining land office business, and executor of several estates. He is the owner of the remaining unsold Land Office lands, being in most part unimproved timber land. At Corning he held the offices of member and acting president of the village board of trustees, and for nine years was a member and the president of its board of education. He is (1894) serving his third term as a member of the Westfield board of water commisioners, has been its president, acting superintendent, and engineer from its organization .;

On September 17, 1861, he married Francis D. Todd, daughter of Zerah and Martha (Carr) Todd, natives of Toddsville, N. Y., a village founded by Mrs. Patterson's grandfather, Lemuel Todd, son of Jehiel, son of Stephen. The four children of Mr. and Mrs. Patterson are (Ist) Catherine, a graduate of Vassar college (1884), wife of Frank W. Crandall, cashier of the First National bank of Westfield. (2d) George W., born February 1, 1864, a graduate of Vale (1884) and of the Institute of Technology (1887), electrical engineer, instructor of mathematics at the Institute of Technology, student at Harvard Law School, instructor of electrical engineering and professor of physics at the University of Michigan, author and publisher of text books on electrical subjects, contributor to electrical publications and to the Journal of the American Society of Arts and Sciences. He married Merib Rowley, a graduate of the University of Michigan. Their only son is George W.,- the only son, grandson and great-grandson of Hon. George W. Patterson bearing the same name. (3rd) Hannah W., wife of Harry F. Forbes of Rock- ford, Ill. She was graduated from the school of painting at Vassar (1885). (4th) Frances Todd, a graduate of Vassar (1888), treasurer and youngest mem- ber of the Board of Women Managers for the state of New York at the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago.

Miss Hannah W. Patterson, Mr. Patterson's only sister, was born August 15, 1835, at Leicester, N. Y., died unmarried at Westfield, May 12, 1894. She owned and resided at the old land office homestead at Westfield. She was a graduate of the Ingham University. She left a large estate. Among her bequests was one of $100,000 to found the " Patterson Library " at West- field. By her death George W. Patterson, her brother, becomes sole heir and legatee to all Chautauqua residuary land interests of the Holland and Chau- tanqua Land companies. He owns all their books, maps, records and papers for the Chautauqua office, and is often called upon for proof of the payments of the undischarged bonds and mortgages and for quit-claim deeds to perfect the title in present owners in cases where original purchasers have failed to record their deeds.

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HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N. Y.

AUSTIN SMITH.

Hon. Austin Smith, seventh son and tenth child of the fourteen children of Samuel and Hannah (Smith) Smith was born in what is now Lansing, Tompkins county, March 16, 1804. His parents were natives of Stamford, Connecticut ; his father, an enterprising farmer of the New England type, purchased a farm a little north of Peekskill, N. Y., whither he moved his family, and later removed to Peekskill and engaged in the real estate busi- ness. In 1803 Mr. Smith, learning of an opportunity to buy land in the section now Lansing on the east shore of Cayuga lake, visited the place and contracted with a Mr. Geer for the purchase of 213 acres of land, the money to be paid in specie upon a certain day. He returned to Peekskill, and soon after started with his family and worldly goods for his new home. Travel however being impeded by bad roads, Mr. Smith, fearing he should not be in time to fulfil his contract, left his family, and with his " specie" tied in his pocket-handkerchief, walked through the dense forests of beech woods across the country for fifty miles or more and was on the spot at the specified time. In the meanwhile the price of land had increased, and Mr. Geer thinking that Mr. Smith could not arrive in time was arranging with another cus- tomer, but Mr. Smith showed his contract, produced the money, and claimed his land. The deed was made out in 1803. Subsequently Mr. Smith bought 30 or 40 acres across the way, and with his large farm of 250 acres without mortgage, he became a successful agriculturist. At the time of his death, 1853, thirteen of his children, (one died in infancy) had arrived to maturity. All were married with the exception of the youngest son, Reuben. Mrs. Smith survived her husband many years, and died at the age of 85.

Austin Smith had early aspirations for college and the study of the law, but his father did not encourage him by aiding him financially, and this stim- ulated him to persevere and he entered Hamilton College and was graduated therefrom in July, 1826, and ranked second in his class. Prior to this time the president of the college had recommended him as principal to the trus- tees of the Fredonia Academy, the first in Chautauqua county. Here Mr. Smith soon established for himself and the school a high reputation, and he conducted the academy until January 1830, when he resigned for the pur- pose of devoting himself to law. Many of his pupils became prominent men in the county, state and United States. While teaching Mr. Smith had been a student of law in the office of Crane & Mullett, and in February, 1830, he was admitted to practice in the county courts, and in July in the supreme court and court of chancery. He immediately located in Westfield, became a partner of Hon. Abram Dixon and continued with him until 1840, when he was appointed surrogate of Chautauqua county, which position he held four years. In 1850 he was elected a member of assembly, and re-elected in

Chestii Smitty

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1851. In 1863, on recommendation of Secretary Chase, he was appointed examining agent of the U. S. treasury department for South Carolina and Florida, and afterwards tax-commissioner of Florida. His home has always been in the town of his adoption, and, during his long residence here, his sympathies have ever been for her progress, educationally and morally. September 28, 1828, Mr. Smith married Sarah A., daughter of Col. James McMahan. Mrs. Smith died in May, 1888. Mr. Smith's surviving children are Robert, and Helen, wife of Moses D. Tennant. His grandchildren are Austin S. Donaldson, Chester Donaldson, George Donaldson, Eva Donaldson (Mrs. W. S. Root), and Mary Donaldson, children of his daughter, Mrs. Mary (Smith) Donaldson (dec.) and Arthur S. Tennant, son of his daughter Helen.

Mr. Smith married the daughter of the earliest pioneer of the county, is now its oldest living lawyer, and has been one of the ablest and most suc- cessful of those who have practiced at the bar of Chautauqua county. His professional life spans the greater part of the period since the organization of the county, when Jacob Houghton, Abram Dixon and other carly and now almost forgotten lawyers were in practice. He was a contemporary of James Mullett, Abner Hazeltine, Samuel A. Brown, and, later, and in his prime, of Madison Burnell. He and Mr. Burnell were then the foremost practitioners of the Chautauqua county bar, and were often opposing counsel in the most important causes, and now after more than sixty years of professional life, in the possession of physical health and mental powers, urbane and courteous manners and a keen wit, is to a limited extent engaged in the practice of law with a generation of lawyers around him that have reached or passed their prime, not one of whom even knew in their childhood the contemporaries of his early years except by their reputation. Mr. Smith possesses a sound judgment, a discriminating mind, and other solid qualities of an able lawyer. He has been an astute counselor and an able advocate. Forcible and logi- cal, he sought rather to convince than to persuade. Strong and plain of speech, of a shrewd and discerning mind, he was always effective with the jury and the court, and in view of his long and honorable service he may well be considered the " Nestor " of the Chantanqua county bar. He has devoted the most of his life to his profession and has not sought political preferment. The esteem in which his abilities were held while member of assembly, is attested by the fact that the first year of his service in the legislature he was made a member of the judiciary committee, the second in importance in the assembly. In his last term he was chairman of the committee of ways and means, the highest position next to speaker. During his long professional and public career no one has ever ventured to insinuate a doubt respecting his honesty or integrity.

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HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N. Y.

SEXTUS HEMAN HUNGERFORD.

Hon. Sextus Heman Hungerford, son of Lot and Celinda (Smith) Hunger- ford, the oldest of a family of nine children, was born in Smithfield, N. Y., January 14, 1806. His early years were passed in Vernon, Oneida county, and were calculated to impress upon him those habits of rigid economy, pru- dent saving and untiring industry that are so necessary to success, for the care of the little farm of his father and the support of the large family from its small productions devolved upon him from his fifteenth year, on account of his father's failing health. Right loyally did the boy engage in this labor, and with loving affection he toiled early and late for the comfort of the fan- ily. Sextus attained his majority but a few days after his father's death, and during the next few years gave his time to settling the estate, which not only occupied his time, but most of his share of the property was absorbed in providing for his brothers and sisters, the youngest of whom was but one year old when their father died. In this difficult work he was much aided by the counsels of Levi Skinner, a neighbor of his parents, a prominent citi- zen and long time a justice of the peace. February 24, 1830, Mr. Hunger- ford married Maria P., daughter of Levi and Polly M. (Chapin) Skinner. Mrs. Hungerford inherited the strong mental characteristics of her father to an unusual degree, and her industry, sagacity, and practical common sense were valuable aids to her husband in his successful career. The young couple passed the first three years of their married life on the little farm, when, selling it, they leased a larger farm, and by their combined energy a profitable result was obtained. Mrs. Hungerford, with her natural foresight, had been planning for the future, and was convinced that the true policy for them to pursue was to cast their lot in with some new progressive connu- nity, and Mr. Hungerford agreed with her. At their marriage Mrs. Hunger- ford received from her father $500, a cow, and a comfortable housekeeping outfit, which formed the most of their capital. Their labors continually added to this, and Mr. Hungerford made some small investments which brought speedy profits, and, when, in 1837, they came to Westfield, Mr. Hungerford was able to engage in merchandising which he conducted suc- cessfully for six years, clearing, in one of the most depressing periods of our country's history, $1,000 per annum. From this time for some years he was in diversified occupations. Many of his business operations required the use of a bank, and as the nearest one was at Silver Creek, he concluded that the establishment of one at Westfield would be not only a great publie benefit, but a profitable undertaking. It was no easy task to overcome the financial and other difficulties in his way, but he never " put his hand to the plow and looked back," and in June, 1848, " The Bank of Westfield " was established with $50,000 capital. Mr. Hungerford was president, and his brother John

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N. Hungerford, cashier. In 1864 Mr. Hungerford sold the bank to a com- pany who formed " The First National Bank of Westfield," of which he was made a director.

Mr. Hungerford was one of the foremost business men of this part of the county, and no important matter was concluded without his advice being considered. He was a good reader of men and their motives, and had an intuitive perception of values in property. He was not only a business man, he was more. He was in touch with those principles of morality and religion which form the crown of civilization, and he strenuously labored for the betterment of humanity. He was pronounced in advo- cacy of temperance from early years, and in 1826 united with the Presby- terian church in Oneida county and was soon made an elder. He held the same office in the church at Westfield and was one of its principal sup- porters. He was active in all matters of moment affecting the weal of the community, state or country, was supervisor of Westfield six years from 1861, represented his district in the assembly of the state in 1865, and "was un- tiring in his efforts to sustain the government in the civil war, devoting much time gratuitously to the furnishing of men and means, and by following the policy suggested by him the town avoided the pressure of a heavy war debt." He was a student not only of newspapers and books, but, from the society of the clergymen and other intellectual men whom he met as guests at his hos- pitable board and elsewhere, he quickly gathered and absorbed much knowl- edge, and became a man of comprehensive information. In marked con- trast to so many successful financial men, as Mr. Hungerford accumulated wealth he was more generous, his christian character became more full and rounded, his personal attention and nioney was liberally given to charitable objects, religious and benevolent institutions, and with kindly forethought he provided for many by will. Among his bequests was $15,000 to the Presby- terian Board of Home Missions and the Theological Seminary. Honesty, fidelity and ability characterized his performance of every duty, public and private, and when May 15, 1867, he passed to the higher life the community mourned the loss of one whose place could not be filled.

Mrs. Hungerford (who survives him), a christian woman of sterling worth, dignity and great strength of character, was an estimable and capable help- meet for her husband, making his home a happy one, and advising, sustain- ing and encouraging him in all his undertakings. Although time has impaired her physical powers, her mental vigor is yet strong and active. She conducts the management of her property and dispenses her bounty with christian charity.

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HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N. Y.

LEVI ALBURN SKINNER.

Levi Alburn Skinner was a resident of Westfield from 1854 to the time of his death, April 12, 1876, and during all that period was prominently identified with its business, social and religious life. He was born April 1, 1811, in the town of Vernon, Oneida county, to which place his father, Levi Skinner, had removed from Massachusetts in 1797. Naturally a student, he improved all the opportunities then at his command for obtaining an educa- tion. He attended Hamilton Academy and Oneida Institute at Whitesboro, and after graduating from the latter studied theology with a Presbyterian clergyman in Buffalo. In April, 1838, he was married to Laura A. Patterson, of the town of Aurora, Erie county, and about the same time was licensed to preach by the Buffalo Presbytery, of which body he remained a member during his lifetime. He was a successful and useful pastor of the Presby- terian churches at Darien, Gowanda, and Lancaster in western New York, but ill health and a serious throat difficulty compelled him in 1850 to relin- quish his chosen profession. In 1854 he removed with his family to West- field, and accepted the position of cashier of the Bank of Westfield, of which the late Sextus H. Hungerford was president and owner. His wise and pru- dent management of this bank contributed very largely to its prosperity and success.

Ten years later the First National Bank of Westfield was organized, and succeeded to the business of the Bank of Westfield. Mr. Skinner was the managing officer in the new organization, and its president at the time of his death. During the dark days of our civil war he gave freely, both time and money, in support of the government, and as chairman of the local war committee, his duties, which were arduous and constant, were performed faithfully and with ability. In business matters Mr. Skinner was wise, sagacious, and conservative, and possessed the elements of financial success. His excellent judgement, and his calm dispassionate view of every subject, made his advice valuable, and his time was cheerfully given to the many who sought his. counsel. He was the sympathetic friend of all who needed help, and his every duty was performed faithfully, and in a quiet unobtrusive manner. For many years he was superintendent of the Presbyterian Sun- day-school in Westfield, and ever ready to aid in all matters connected with church and christian work. One, who was once his pastor, in writing of him after his death, says: "I have never known a man in whom the ele- ments of a strong and sweet nature were blended as in him, and all per- meated with the grace of Christ. His mind was so calmn in its poise, his judgement so just, wise and impartial, his sympathies were so broad, his affections so warm, that more and more he appeared to me a type of manhood, rare and choice." His widow, Laura Patterson Skinner, survives him, and

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resides at Westfield ; two sons, Edward A., and John Arthur, and three daugh- ters, Alethea M., Laura A., and Clara H., also reside at Westfield, and one son, Charles P., lives at Ottawa, Kansas.

FRANCIS BEATTIE BREWER.

Francis Beattie Brewer was descended from an English family long set- tled in Devonshire, at and in the vicinity of Exeter, but originally seated at Skipsea Castle, Holderness, Yorkshire, immediately after the Norman con- quest. Dr. Brewer was born in Keene, N. H., October 8, 1820. He was a son of the late Ebenezer Brewer, of Pittsburgh, who removed from Vermont about fifty years ago to Titusville, Pa., and was there and in Pittsburgh · largely interested in lumber manufacture and in the development of the petroleum interests. Dr. Brewer's grandfather, Col. Ebenezer Brewer, was a native of Boston, whence he removed to New Hampshire about 1760 to care for extensive timber interests which he inherited from his father, Thomas Brewer, a ship builder of Boston, in the early part of the last century. Finding the English settlement harassed by the French and Indians, Mr. Brewer joined the celebrated "New Hampshire Rangers," commanded by Col. Robert Rogers, and in that organization was the friend and companion in arms of John Stark, and with him passed through some of the most desperate encounters of the French and Indian war. Both young men were ensigns in the British service and both resigned to take up the cause of the patriots in the Revolutionary struggle. During the war Colonel Brewer served as aide to Gen. Jonathan Chase of New Hampshire, and subsequently married his daughter, Mary, a noted beauty, whose portrait by Gilbert Stuart is one of the family treasures. After independence was established Col. Brewer was engaged by Governor Wentworth of Nova Scotia, who had been the last royal governor of New Hampshire, to organize a colony of settlers in the "New Hampshire grants," which were harassed and impoverished by the hostilities between New York and New Hampshire, with the idea of occupy- ing a grant of 100,000 acres which had been obtained in Nova Scotia in the region of Minas Bay, from which the English, a quarter of a century before, had so cruelly expelled the Acadian French settlers.

Colonel Brewer, after visiting the region, continued his journey to the island of Cape Breton, where he purchased a coal mine and intended to develop it, but the fact that he had been in the British service before he took up arms for his native country was made an excuse for persecution by Amer- ican loyalist refugees who had fled to Cape Breton during the Revolution, and the British officials arbitrarily imprisoned him for nearly a year and he was glad on being released to abandon his property and return to Boston with his wife and infant son, born during his residence at Sydney. This son, Ebenezer Brewer, at the age of twenty-three, was a soldier in the war of 1812,

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HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N. Y.

serving with the then and still famous Boston Light Infantry, and subse- quently organizing and commanding a battalion of cavalry, but too late to be in active service before peace was declared. He married Julia Emerson, a descendant of Rev. William Emerson, and lived at Barnet, Vermont, where he was extensively engaged in lumbering on the Connecticut river until 1845, when he removed to Western Pennsylvania and purchased large timber tracts on Oil creek, built sawmills at Titusville, and made his residence and busi- ness headquarters in Pittsburgh.

As a young man Dr. Brewer received the most liberal educational advant- ages, intending to follow a professional career. He prepared for college at Kimball Union Academy, Meriden, N. H., was graduated at Dartmouth with honors in 1843, and at Dartmouth Medical College, 1845, taking also a degree from Jefferson College in Philadelphia. He practiced medicine but a few years, however, when the extension of his father's business in Titusville and Pittsburgh called him from Plymouth, Mass., where he then resided, and prompted the abandonment of his professional career and the taking up of commercial and industrial interests. He settled in Titusville in 1851, and his attention was shortly attracted by the rich petroleum spring on the lands of Brewer, Watson & Co., at their " Upper Mill " on Oil Creek. Dr. Brewer sent a quantity of this petroleum to his former preceptor, Professor Benjamin Stillman, senior, then at Yale, with the request that it be analyzed, and an opinion given as to its commercial value. After considerable delay the pro- fessor made a report in which he stated that the oil had valuable properties but that it was "not likely to be found in quantities sufficient to make it commercially important," but Dr. Brewer determined to make a trial and organized the " Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company " in 1854, and interested a number of New York capitalists and was himself a director and its secre- tary. A pump was put into the oil spring and the crude oil secured in quan- tities sufficient to light the sawmill, where it was also used as a lubricant, but it was more than two years before the company could determine the most promising method of increasing the supply. Col. E. L. Drake, of New Haven, was sent out as a representative of the eastern stockholders, and undertook to bore a well at the old spring, but a number of the larger stockholders had lost their enthusiasm and declined to stand assessments for its cost. Another corporation was formed which took a lease of the property, and, after pro- longed delay and embarrassments arising from ignorance of the methods of artesian well-boring, all of which were finally overcome by the patience and ingenuity of Colonel Drake and his mechanical assistant, William Smith, the first oil well was struck August 29, 1859, at a depth of 69 feet, 6 inches.

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History of Chautauqua County, New York, Part 71

Author: Edson, Obed, 1832-; Merrill, Georgia Drew, editor Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Boston, Mass. : W.A. Fergusson Number of Pages: 1068

Author: Edson, Obed, 1832-; Merrill, Georgia Drew, editor
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Boston, Mass. : W.A. Fergusson
Number of Pages: 1068