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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York published by John M. Gresham & Co. in 1891.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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CARL W. SCOFIELD, one of the most sucessful business men that the “Empire State” has ever produced and the second largest oil producer in the world, is a prominent and respected citizen of Jamestown and Chautauqua county. He was born at the village of Peterboro, Madison county, New York, November 21, 1838, and is a son of Rev. Abisha and Elizabeth (Marvin) Scofield. The Scofield family of New York is a branch of the Connecticut Scofield family. David Scofield (paternal grandfather) was born and reared in the vicinity of Stamford in the “Land of Steady habits.” He was a soldier of the war of 1812 and afterwards settled in Greene ¦county, New York, where he died. He was a farmer and married and reared a large family of children. His son, Rev. Abisha Scofield (father), was born about 1805 in Greene county. He completed a full academic course and then entered one of the foremost eastern colleges from which he was graduated with honors. He then entered the theological school of Auburn and was graduated from that institution with high standing in his class. He was ordained to the ministry of the Congregational church and given a charge. During the early years of his ministerial life he met and became acquainted with Gerritt Smith, who was then entering upon his life-work of proclaiming chattel slavery as a sin against God and man and demanding immediate and unconditional emancipation of the negroes of the south. Rev. Scofield warmly supported Smith’s advanced position on the slavery question. He accompanied Smith through the different counties of the State where they spoke in denunciation of human servitude and formed anti-slavery societies. As an abolitionist speaker and lecturer Abisha Scofield aided largely in educating the public mind in New York and preparing the Empire State for the important part which it was to take in the disruption of the Whig party on account of its anti-abolition tendencies and the establishment of the Republican party pledged to immediate limitation and ultimate extinction of slavery. For his radical course in agitating the slavery question Rev. Scofield was called before the Onondaga conference of his church and silenced as a minister of the Congregational church. He then began the work of organizing independent churches in which he was very successful. His learning, earnestness and eloquence made him very powerful in any cause which he advocated. He now resides at Spencerport, west of Rochester, in Monroe county, on the New York Central Railroad, and although eighty-five years of age, retains much of his old time vigor and energy. He married Elizabeth Marvin, daughter of a Mr. Marvin, who was a native of Colchester, Connecticut, and served in the war of 1812. He was a ship owner and had one of his vessels destroyed by the English while he was in the service of the United States. Mrs. Scofield died in 1842 and left three children: Henry, Carl W., and William. Rev. Scofield for his second wife married Jeannette Marvin, sister to his former wife. By his second marriage he has six children.

Carl W. Scofield obtained a common school education and at fifteen years of age became a clerk in a bookstore at a very low salary. At eighteen years of age, by careful economy, he had saved fifty dollars and with that small sum embarked in the book business for himself. His venture was successful and in a few years by his business ability, honesty and judicious management he had laid the foundations of his future financial prosperity. In 1872 he accepted a position on the New York Independent but soon sought a wider sphere of operations than was afforded by his position and organized an advertising agency which he rapidly developed until it furnished business for over 8000 newspapers. After six years of unceasing and toilsome labor in the advertising business his health became impaired and he paid a visit to father-in-law, Elijah Bishop, of Jamestown. He then saw the great future possibilities of business and wealth that existed in the oil fields of western New York and northwestern Pennsylvania. Having successfully demonstrated his capability to organize, control and direct a great enterprise of intricate combinations, he resolved upon embarking in the production of oil upon a large scale. With him to think was to act, and he immediately removed to Jamestown and engaged in oil production and dealing in oil wells. As he became better acquainted with the great industry which he was developing, he enlarged the field of his operations and perfected the organization of his vast business until today in size and importance his oil interests are second only to those of the Standard Oil Company. All his operations in oil have been of a strictly legitimate character and will bear the most rigid scrutiny. His career has been so far an illustration of the wonderful achievements of American ability and energy. From the lowest rung of the ladder he has passed, by his own exertions, to an honorable and lofty position.

In 1870 he married Anna Bishop, a daughter of Elijah Bishop, of Jamestown. They have one child, Carl Wilbour Scofield, who was born June 11th, 1873.

Although not a church member, Mr. Scofield aids all the churches and is president of the Congregational society in Jamestown. Being a self-made man his sympathies are always enlisted in favor of the laboring classes with whose true wants he is well acquainted from personal experience.

Mr. Scofield’s name has been mentioned as a candidate for Congress, and if he could be induced to throw aside business cares for a time and turn his attention to public life, this district might secure a representative in Congress of sagacity and enterprise. Mr. Scofield, at his handsome and elegant country residence, “the Bungalow,” greets his friends cordially and entertains them royally. Decision of character, honesty of purpose, tact and sagacity are indicated in every line of his strong, earnest and intelligent face, and he seems to have been a man born to achieve success and to command the respect and confidence of his fellow-men.

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This family biography is one of 658 biographies included in Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York published in 1891. 

View additional Chautauqua County, New York family biographies here: Chautauqua County, New York Biographies

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