My Genealogy Hound

DANIEL M. FARINGTON was a gentleman of quiet unassuming manners but possessed of a strength of character much greater than the average man. He was endowed with Christian humility, honest to the last degree and with a word he considered as binding as his bond. He was born in Fishkill, Dutchess county, New York, in 1795, and came to Chautauqua in 1832, when he settled on the farm where his widow, whose maiden name was Jane E. Hulburt, resides. Daniel M. Farington was a son of Matthew and Alice (White) Farington, well-to-do and highly respected people of Dutchess county. He was a stirring, energetic, industrious and economical man and amassed a competence in addition to one hundred and thirty-seven acres of fine farming land. Mr. Farington died in 1881, aged eighty-six years. In 1823, he married Maria Emeigh, of Dutchess county, N. Y. She died in 1858, and in 1859, he married Jane E. Hulburt, a daughter of Jabez Hulburt, a farmer living in Westfield town. They had no children.

D. M. Farington was a model farmer and of a domestic turn of mind and was fond of his home. He favored the Republican party in voting, but was too modest and retiring in his disposition to engage in politics. He was buried in the Union cemetery. Mrs. Farington resides upon the farm that her husband left, living alone. She is a member of the Baptist church at Portland, and although seventy-one years of age is active, strong and in excellent health. In 1883, she passed through an experience which would, ordinarily, have caused the death, or at least dethroned the reason of an ordinary old lady sixty-five years of age. Living alone as she does, the house being somewhat isolated, the house was entered by robbers who knew that considerable valuables were kept in a safe. They made their way to her room and arousing her compelled her to open the safe from which they took six or seven hundred dollars in money and a number of bonds. Fortunately the latter were registered, and thereby were non-negotiable, but no trace of the robbers was ever secured. Having secured their booty they bound her hand and foot and tied her to the bed, leaving her in this uncomfortable position. By great effort she managed to release herself and going to a neighbor’s house acquainted them with the outrage but the thieves had escaped. Some silver pieces given her by Mr. Farington, and which were valued highly on that account, were left at her earnest solicitation. It is remarkable that one of her age could pass through such an ordeal without serious results to mind or body. Mrs. Farington is an entertaining lady and is much liked by many friends.