My Genealogy Hound

LUCIUS LOMBARD, Among those who have experienced the excitement of speculating in oil, enjoyed the steady income of a judiciously managed general mercantile business, and then, preferring the quiet and peaceful life of an independent farmer, returned to the scenes of his early manhood, is the gentleman whose name heads this sketch. Lucius Lombard was born in the town of Ripley, Chautauqua county, New York, July 21, 1831. His parents, Daniel and Nancy (Ransom) Lombard, were what is known as New England Yankees. Thomas Lombard was his paternal grandfather and lived at Brimfield, Hampden county, Massachusetts. Leaving the place of his nativity about the beginning of the present century he moved to Madison county, this State, where he died in 1815. The subsistence of himself and family was gained by farming. Thomas Lombard served his country in the struggle for Independence, and rejoiced with his countrymen in their success. He married first Eunice Bacon, who died, leaving five children, and after her death he married Anna Shaw, of Brimfield, Massachusetts, by whom he had four children, Daniel Lombard (father) being the eldest. The maternal grandfather, Thomas Ransom, was a native of Otsego county, where he spent his life farming. He married Sarah Temple and reared eight children. Daniel Lombard was horn in Massachusetts in 1794. When his father removed to Madison county he accompanied him. In 1828 he and his brother Lucius continued the westward journey until they reached the town of Ripley, where they settled on lots Nos. 34 and 35. Some years later the latter moved into Westfield, where he died, in 1874. Daniel Lombard continued his residence on his original location until his death, in 1884. He owned at the time about three hundred and seventy-five acres of land. He married Nancy Ransom, and had four children: Lucius, Mary, who married Rev. G. W. Moore, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, at Minneapolis, Minn.; Dwight married Catherine Osterman, and is farming in this town, and Sarah, widow of Henry W. Dickson, now lives in Tioga county, Pa.

Lucius Lombard was reared at Ripley, and received such an education at the common schools as fitted him for a good business man. He stuck to the farm until thirty years of age, and then went down into the oil country and passed through the vicissitudes of an oil man’s life for one year. The succeeding four years were spent in the general store business at Ripley, which furnished less excitement but was more stable. Then two years more were passed in the oil country, followed by a return to Ripley and a repetition of mercantile life, but the year succeeding the Nation’s Centennial celebration he came to the farm on which he still resides, and owns one hundred and twenty-two acres, twenty of it being a well-kept vineyard.

On December 27, 1865, he united in marriage with Helen Hall, a daughter of David Hall. They have three children: Catherine, wife of Winfield A. Holcomb, the school commissioner of Chautauqua county; Grace; and Alice. Mrs. Lombard was called away in 1890. Her kindly disposition and domestic virtues made her loss felt and deeply mourned by many friends.

Lucius Lombard stands high in his community, and, while not an ambitious politician, is, nevertheless, a good democrat upon whom many of his party rely.