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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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REV. CHARLES SIMPSON, who has been the popular pastor of the First Presbyterian church in Sherman since 1877, was born in Ithaca, Tomkins county, New York, January 26, 1839, and is a son of Alexander and Elizabeth (Denman) Simpson. His maternal grandfather, Jacob Simpson, was a native of New Jersey, but emigrated to Tomkins county, this State, where he spent the remainder of his life, being by occupation a farmer. In religion he was a member of the Presbyterian church. He married a Miss Townley and had eight children. The paternal grandparents were of Scotch-Irish descent, who lived in Steuben county, this State, for a time and then removed to Washington county, Alexander Simpson (father) was born in Salem, Washington county, this State, and spent most of his life in Ithaca, by occupation a farmer. In politics he was first a democrat, and in his latter years an active republican. He served as a soldier in the war of 1812, being promoted to major. Alexander Simpson married Hannah Smith and had seven children — four sons and three daughters. The mother dying, he married Elizabeth Denman, by whom he had five children — two sons and three daughters. Eugene, brother of Charles, entered the array during the late war at the age of nineteen, and was killed at the battle of Antietam, in Maryland, September 17, 1862. The mother is now living in Ithaca, at the age of eighty-one years.

Charles Simpson was educated at the academy in Ithaca, this State, and then entered Hamilton college, this State, where he graduated in 1866. He taught one year at the military school at Peekskill on the Hudson river, and then entered the Union seminary in New York, and graduated in May, 1870, entering upon his ministry at Addison, Steuben county, from which place he was called to Pike, in Wyoming county, and then supplied a church at Lansing, Michigan, for a year, and then came to Sherman. The church of which he is now pastor was organized as a Congregational church June 23d, 1827, most of the original members being from Farmington, Connecticut. The church united with the presbytery at Buffalo, and its first minister, Justin Marsh, from Connecticut, was installed in October, 1828. The church edifice was built on Presbyterian Hill, near Ruler’s Corners, and dedicated March 7, 1833. This house was taken down and moved to Sherman village in 1845, and eleven years later it was enlarged and repaired. In the spring of 1871 the church adopted the Presbyterian form of government, and was connected with Presbytery. In politics Rev. Charles Simpson is of republican proclivities, but rather inclined to be independent in his vote. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity. During the war he was appointed a member of the Christian Sanitary Commission.

Rev. Charles Simpson was married to Mary E. Sherrill, a daughter of Abram E. Sherrill, and has two children — a son and daughter: Clarence E. and Eleanor A.

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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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