My Genealogy Hound

ELISHA TOWER JR., came from a line of ancestors who, with the exception of his paternal grandfather, had followed man’s first occupation — that of tilling the soil, leaving it only to serve their country when she summoned her loyal sons to her aid. Elisha Tower was born in Ellery, Chautauqua county, New York, January 13, 1818, and is a son of Elisha and Philena (Morgan) Tower. Isaiah Tower (grandfather) was a native of Massachusetts, being born in 1760, and was a captain of a whaling vessel sailing from New Bedford, which occupation he left to serve as a soldier under General Washington, during the entire war of the Revolution. About 1800 he removed to Duanesburg, Schenectady county, this State, and located on a farm which he occupied until his death. In religion he was a Baptist, of which church he was an influential member. Isaiah Tower was married in 1786 to Sylvia Toby, by whom he had eleven children, eight sons and three daughters: Rheuamy, born in 1790, and married Mr. Bowles; Benjamin, born in 1792, was a farmer by occupation, and died while a young man; Isaiah, born in 1795, was a millwright by occupation, and married Mary Sherburn; Sylvanus, born in 1797, was a farmer; John, born in 1799, was a farmer, and married Mary Shauber; Jeremiah, born in 1801, and Joseph, born in 1803, were farmers; Sylvia, born in 1806, and married Thomas Beal; Stephen, born in 1808, became a minister of the Baptist denomination, and married Martha Ruddock; and Zaccheus, born in 1811. Isaiah Tower died in January, 1846, aged eighty-six years, and Mrs. Tower died December 3, 1848, aged eighty -two years. Simeon Morgan (maternal grandfather) was born in 1765, and spent most of his life in Berne, Albany county, this State, where he owned and cultivated a farm, and conducted a general store. He married Rhobe Allyn, by whom he had five children, one son and four daughters: Clarissa, who married Ezra Gallup; Nancy, wife of Nathan Gallup, and died young, leaving two children; Philena (mother), born in Preston, Connecticut, June 1, 1792; Rhoda, wife of John Wheeler, and Simeon, Jr., a lawyer in Gallupville, Schoharie county, this State, who married Jane Lee. Simeon Morgan died in 1814, aged forty-nine years, and Mrs. Morgan died in 1826. Elisha Tower (father) was born in New Bedford, Bristol county, Massachusetts, May 10, 1788, and went to Duanesburg, Schenectady county, New York, with his father, where he remained until 1810, when he came to this county with his knapsack, provisions, a change of clothing and an axe, coming by way of Cross Roads to Mayville, where he worked a short time to replenish his nearly exhausted exchequer. In the fall he took a job of chopping at the Inlet, now in the town of Hartfield, which he completed about the first of April, 1811, having boarded himself in a shanty, which he built by a fallen tree, having little else than a blanket and a frying-pan, his board being chiefly Johnnie cake and fried pork. In December, 1811, he took an article for the east half of lot four, township three, range twelve, comprising one hundred and seventy-six acres, lying between what are now the towns of Ellery and Gerry, and eight miles northwest of Jamestown, for which he paid less than three dollars an acre, it being all forest land, which he cleared and improved, and occupied most of the time until his death, excepting from 1839 until 1842, during which time he resided in Jamestown. In 1812 he built a log house in which he lived alone for a while, and in 1813 was drafted into the army, and participated in the battle of Black Rock, and was also present at the burning of Buffalo, in December, 1813. Cornelius De Long, who built a house in Gerry, near the Ellery line where James McAlister now lives, was severely wounded in the head by a grape-shot at the battle of Buffalo, and was taken to the cabin of a settler and cared for by his fellow-soldier and neighbor, Elisha Tower. De Long afterward went West and participated in the Black Hawk war in 1832, in which he received a captain’s commission. After the war of 1812, Elisha Tower received a pension and a land grant. In the autumn of 1814 he returned to Duanesburg, Schenectady county. In 1817, with his wife and one child he returned to Ellery, but the child being taken ill, they were forced to stop at the house of William Barrows, where it died. He removed to his log cabin, where he lived until he could build a commodious frame house, to which he moved, and resided there until 1837, when he again moved to a large two-story house which he had built. He held several town offices in Ellery, including that of justice of the peace. In religion he was a Baptist, being a member of the church of that denomination in Sinclairville, a village near the depot in Gerry, named in honor of Major Sinclair. Elisha Tower was married June 1, 1815, to Philena Morgan, a daughter of Simeon and Rhobe (Allyn) Morgan, of Berne, Albany county, this State, by whom he had seven children, three sons and four daughters: Emily, born March 11, 1816, in Berne, Albany county, and died in childhood in Ellery; all the rest were born in this county, Elisha; Rhobe Allyn, born May 4, 1820, wife of Ebenezer Moon, a farmer in Stockton, at Moon station; Simeon M., born September 11, 1822, married Sarah Denison, owns and occupies the south part of his father’s homestead, and resides on the east side of the town line of Gerry; Clarissa, born June 14, 1826; Emily M., born June 19, 1829, and married Franklin Denison, a farmer and dealer in livestock; and Corydon L., born Oct. 26, 1834, married Harriet Felt, and resides on the old homestead, by occupation a farmer. Elisha Tower sickened while on a visit to his daughter in Stockton, and died January 9, 1866, in his seventy-eighth year. Mrs. Tower died December 17, 1860.

Elisha Tower, Jr., acquired a common school education by attending the winter terms of the school of his neighborhood, being obliged to work on the farm the rest of the year until he attained his majority. He remained on his father’s farm until he was twenty-seven years old, when he bought a farm of fifty acres in Gerry, on which he resided seven years, when he sold it and removed to Portland, where he bought a farm of sixty-five acres located three miles east of Westfield, on which he resided twenty-seven years, and then disposed of it and came to Fredonia in 1884, where he purchased twenty-five acres on the avenue, ten acres of which he devotes to the cultivation of grapes. He is enjoying the fruit of his labors in a serene old age, having the respect of the community and the love of a host of friends, Elisha Tower, Jr., was married January 3, 1854, to Electa Moon, her father being a farmer and mill-owner in Gerry. They have had one son and one daughter. The son, Harlan, resides with his father, and the daughter, Emma C., married Daniel Farrington, a farmer who lives on the farm in Portland, formerly owned by her father. She died November 28, 1890. Mrs. Tower died in December, 1874, aged forty-five years, and was buried in Portland.