Previous to the division of the town of Bainbridge, the village and post-office at Afton were known as South Bainbridge. The first postmaster was probably Albert Neely or Joseph P. Chamberlin, at least fifty years ago. Josiah Wright succeeded Chamberlin about 1830. Next was Zaccheus Smith, who came here from Delaware county and kept hotel […]
Chauncey Todd7, (Chauncey6, Jonah5, Stephen4, Samuel3, Samuel2, Christopher1) born April 24, 1835, died Jan. 6, 1887, married first, Feb. 16, 1858, Isabel Fletcher Begg, who was born Nov. 2, 1835, died Feb. 26, 1867, married second, Feb. 13, 1868, Jane Dodge, who was born Dec. 16, 1833, died May 10, 1919. He lived all his
Bruce, Frank F.; jobber and mfr.; born, Cleveland, July 4, 1858; son of Eli and Caroline Eldridge Bruce; educated, Western Reserve University (Hudson, O.), 1881; married, Oxford, N. Y., Sept. 9, 1890, Sarah V. W. Perkins; one son and one daughter; pres. and treas. The Bruce & West Mfg. Co.; member of vestry, St. Paul’s
Judge Joel Thompson settled at Sherburne Four Corners, where Edmund Purdy now lives, and resided there till he was well advanced in years. Jonah Poyer settled at a very early day, when there were only two or three log houses in Sherburne, on the forks of the river, up which he came from Oxford. After
Among the Iroquois, and, indeed, all the stationary tribes, there was an incredible number of mystic ceremonies, extravagant, puerile, and often disgusting, designed for the cure of the sick or for the general weal of the community. Most of their observances seem originally to have been dictated by dreams, and transmitted as a sacred heritage
The Sherburne Union School was organized in the spring of 1847, by uniting the two districts in the village and the districts north and south of it. The first school meeting was held in April, 1847. The first trustees were Benjamin Skinner, Andrus Benedict and E. S. Lyman. John P. Dietz was chosen clerk and
SPRAGUE, Susan Ann Todd8, (Jared7, Chauncey6, Jonah5, Stephen4, Samuel3, Samuel2, Christopher1) born May 13, 1850, near Morris, N. Y., died April 11, 1919, married July 7, 1881, Alfred D. Sprague. They spend their summers at their home in New Berlin, N. Y. In the winter season, they go to their cottage in Southern Pines, N.
JACOBS, Juliana Todd7, (Chauncey6, Jonah5, Stephen4, Samuel3, Samuel2, Christopher1) born April 12, 1818, died Oct. 27, 1880, married Nov. 15, 1837, Charles E. Jacobs, who died April 20, 1871. He was a wagon maker. She lived in New Berlin, N. Y., until the death of her husband, and later with her son Hobart, until her
William Knapp, who lives at Bainbridge, is believed to have been the first physician who practiced in this locality. He removed to Elmira. Dr. Nathan Boynton, who was located at Bettsburgh, and Drs. Starkey and Root, who studied with Boynton, and the latter of whom practiced in company with him at Bettsburgh, practiced here at
CHARLES ROSWELL HALL AMONG the young men of Albany, who, by a steady and unfailing devotion to the principles of professional and official duty, deserve a just recognition for representative character, is Charles R. Hall, deputy superintendent of the banking department of the state of New York. He is another example of many of those
John Guthrie settled on the south line of the town, and after the death of his wife Polly, who was a daughter of Abner Purdy, (April 30, 1821,) he removed to Sherburne village. Stephen Kelsey settled on the Thompson Fisher farm, in the south part of the town, and died there Sept. 9, 1807, aged
The Sherburne National Bank was organized May 4, 1865, with a capital of $100,000, (all paid in) in shares of $100 each. The charter continues twenty years from its organization, and permits an increase of capital to any sum not exceeding $200,000. May 4, 1865, Joshua Pratt, Walter Elsbre, William Cook, Alonzo D. Gorham and
At his death March 27, 1875, Nelson C. Rexford, a son of the pioneer, Benjamin Rexford, devised to the town the falls property on Mad brook, about a mile east of Sherburne village, on the road from Sherburne to Columbus, including some three or four acres extending along the banks of the stream. February 15,
The original of this sketch, Devillo White, of Sherburne, Chenango county, N. Y., was born Feb. 11, 1801, and was married to Caroline Pratt, oldest daughter of Joshua Pratt, Esq., (one of the respected pioneers of the town,) in 1824. Devillo White’s early life was passed in a hotel kept by his father, and was
The Indian towns were generally but an irregular and confused aggregation of Indian houses, clustered together with little regard to order, and covering from one to ten acres. They were often fortified, and a situation favorable to defense was always chosen–the bank of a lake, the crown of a difficult hill, or a high point
The first settlement in Afton was made in July, 1786, by Elnathan Bush, who came in from Sheffield, Mass., with his family, then consisting of his wife and four children. They came as far as Cooperstown on horseback, and thence by canoe down the Susquehanna, leaving Cooperstown May 2, 1786. He settled on the west
The Chippewa, however, furnished an exception to this rule. With them the son of a chief had a legal right to succeed his father. The rule, though binding, was very elastic, and capable of stretching to the farthest limits of the tribe–each tribe being allowed to select its chief from among its own members. Almost
This was a part of the broad domain of the Iroquois Confederacy, which extended, in general terms, from the Hudson to the Genesee, and from the north to the south boundary of this State. This confederacy was composed of the following nations, located in the following order from east to west, the Mohawk, (Ganeagaonos,) Its
Abijah Stevens came in from Connecticut, and settled on the east side of the river, about one and one-half miles above Afton, on the farm now occupied by the widow of John Carr, where both he and his second wife, Esther, died, the former May 9, 1844, aged 87, and the latter January 1, 1832,
The Iroquois were not always the same fierce, rapacious and blood-thirsty people which they are now familiarly known to have been, but were once engrossed in the peaceful pursuits of the husbandman. Colden graphically relates the circumstances which led them in a measure to forsake that occupation, and involved them in a war with the
