My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE L. SKINNER is one of the most substantial and prosperous farmers in the town of Portland, and has reached this condition of affluence by his own exertions, industry and good management. He is a son of David and Mary (Williams) Skinner, and was born in the town of Portland, Chautauqua county, New York, September 30, 1840. Being now in his fifty-first year and having lived temperately, he is in the prime of life. David Skinner came to Chautauqua county from Chenango, where he was born in 1802, and settled in the town of Portland. During the past seventy years he has been a farmer, and still lives upon the beautiful place which he cut out from the virgin forest, and although past eighty-seven years of age, he is enjoying health that is remarkable. At one time he was the largest property owner in the town, but a great deal of it has been sold to different parties, although he is still the possessor of a large acreage. David Skinner is a democrat, and was highly pleased when his party succeeded in electing a president in the campaign struggle of 1884. Mr. Skinner traces his origin to the Emerald Isle, but the family was transplanted to American soil nearly a century ago. He married Mary Williams, who was of Scotch parentage, and who bore him several children, Elial W. Skinner, whose sketch appears elsewhere, is a brother of G. L., and is just two years his elder.

George L. Skinner was reared on a farm to which he has ever since been attached, and his education was acquired at the public schools, which by 1855 and 1860 had reached a good degree of excellence in western New York. He now owns a farm of forty-eight acres, two and one-half miles west of Brocton, and other land in various localities of the town, twenty-five acres being a vineyard.

On July 7, 1866, he married Susan J. Taylor, a daughter of Gurdon Taylor, of this town. Their union has been blessed with one child: Gurdon D., now a promising young man, aged nineteen. Mr. and Mrs. Skinner have a happy home, and with their pleasant surroundings are handsomely located to entertain their friends of whom there are many.

G. L. Skinner is a democrat of a stanch and tried character, and is a member, trustee, secretary and treasurer of the church, to which he and his wife have belonged for a number of years. The fraternal and beneficial societies, too, number him on their books, he being active in both the Equitable Aid Union and the Grange. There is no man in the county whose reputation for integrity, honesty and uprightness is brighter, and he has the confidence of all.