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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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JAMES H. SWEET, who has been a resident of Jamestown for the last quarter of a century, is a son of James and Sallie (Clark) Sweet, and was born on the site of Jamestown, Chautauqua county, New York, March 13, 1813. His paternal grandparents were life-long residents of Rensselaer county, while his maternal grandparents were among the early settlers of Chautauqua county. James Sweet was born in Rensselaer county, and came to the town of Busti, where he settled at what is now Lakewood. He was drafted in the war of 1812, but could not leave his family exposed to the wolves and bears then so abundant in his wilderness home. He was one of the organizers of the first Methodist church in his town, in 1814, while his house and barn were used for preaching places for several years. He was a whig in politics, a peaceable citizen and a pious, honest and hard-working man. He brought his wife and five children in an ox-team to Buffalo, and thence through the wilderness to where he had purchased his farm of two hundred acres, of which he cleared out a part during his life-time. He and his wife spent seventy-five years of wedded life together, died upon the same day and their remains were buried in the same grave. They reared a family of six sons and five daughters: James (dead); Sallie, wife of Judge Abner Lewis; Clark, who died at Panama in 1889; William and Angeline, now in Wisconsin; James H.; Maxon of Poland; Ann, Amy, Finley and Mary.

James H. Sweet possessed but few advantages to obtain an education during his boyhood days, and spent a few months in winter subscription schools, which he often attended through severe snow storms. After working on his father’s farm until he was of age, and then for a short time, as a farm hand in his immediate neighborhood, he went down the Mississippi river to Louisiana, which he soon left for the western states and territories, in which he remained for a few years. At the end of that time he returned to Chautauqua county, where he erected a saw and grist-mill on French creek, which three years later he exchanged for a farm of one hundred and seventy-four acres of land in the town of Busti, where he followed farming for twenty years. In 1866 he sold his farm and came to Jamestown, where he purchased some valuable lots and erected his present convenient and comfortable residence.

He married Lois Moore, who died and left two children: Franklin M., of Jamestown, who married Eliza Gray; and Adaline, wife of N. W. Hall, a tobacco dealer of Corry, Pa. He married Lois Hart, and his children by this second union are: Albert L., of Jamestown, who married Augusta Davis; Reuben E. married Angie Stirdevant, has one child, Edith, and resides in Buffalo; and Emma M., wife of D. S. Horton.

James H. Sweet is a republican in politics, having been formerly a whig, and has been a member for over sixty years of the Methodist church, of which his wife has been a member for many years.

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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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