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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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ELLEN M. DAVENPORT, wife of the late Emery M. Davenport, is a daughter of Hiram and Mary (Earnes) Thayer, and was born January 29, 1846, in the town of Carroll, Chautauqua county, New York. Hiram Thayer was a native of Ware, Hampshire county, Massachusetts, where his father, Jeremiah Thayer, was born and reared. Isaac Earnes (maternal grandfather) was a native of Vermont, and came to the Empire State and died.

Hiram Thayer was born on August 24, 1798, and came to New York in 1815, where, on April 10, 1828, he married Mary Earnes, and had ten children: John M., was born July 20, 1829, married Margaret Cowen, and moved to Nebraska; Isaac W., born February 5, 1832; Mary A., born February 28, 1834, is the wife of William Mahan, and lives in Pennsylvania; Lois Eliza, born February 21, 1836, and died when twenty-one years of age; Hiram E., born May 8, 1838, married Mary Lawson; Ezra E., born July 29, 1840; Sibyl B., born September 7, 1843, married W. H. H. Fenton, Jr.; Ellen M. (subject); Orris E., born October 6, 1848, and Edson Frank, born April 26, 1851. Hiram Thayer settled in Portland, this county, October 31, 1816, and began clearing the land; then he took a trip to Virginia, and upon returning he went to Jamestown and followed lumbering until 1820, when he came to Carroll and engaged in bolting and shaving shingles until the following spring; he then bought a farm and tilled its soil until his death, in 1880, aged eighty-two years. His wife died December 6, 1879. He was a man of industrious and frugal habits, and through good management amassed wealth. He was of the strictest integrity, of unremitting energy and untiring zeal, and in business matters seldom misjudged a transaction or incurred a hazardous risk. His character was meek and his conduct conscientious. Although not a strict partisan he inclined towards the Republican party, and when he considered them worthy gave its nominees his suffrage. He took especial interest in educational and military matters. Mary Earnes, his wife, was born at Dover, Vermont, May 7, 1810, the daughter of Isaac and Betsy Earnes. They reared a family of ten children.

Ellen M. Davenport spent her childhood in the town of Carroll and went to the village school, then Randolph academy, and finally attended the Jamestown union schools. After this she taught five or six terms of school, and, on March 22, 1870, she married Emory M. Davenport, a farmer, hay packer, shipper and merchant of Kennedy. He died April 28, 1887, when forty years of age. They had six children, four of whom are living: Charles E., Harry T., Myra E. and H. Joe. They have a pleasant home in Kennedy, and are well-springs of joy to their mother’s heart.

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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

View a map of 1897 Chautauqua County, New York here: Chautauqua County, New York Map

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