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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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MASON CUSHMAN, a gentleman identified with the agricultural and live stock interests of Silver Creek and vicinity, is a son of Joshua and Keziah (Daily) Cushman, and was born in the town of Sherbourne, Chenango county, New York, March 12th, 1807. The Cushman family in America, it is said, are descended from an Englishman born in that country between 1580 and 1585 and was one of the much persecuted Puritans who forsook the land of their nativity that they might enjoy religious freedom. It is not stated when he came to America, but, presumably, shortly after 1632. Benjamin Cushman was the paternal grandfather and his son Joshua Cushman was born at Charlestown, New Hampshire, in 1766, married Keziah Daily and came to Villanova, this county, where he located in 1842. He bought a farm but, having reached advanced age, never actively employed himself there. Politically a republican and a member of the Presbyterian church, he reared a family of twelve children, whom he trained to those precepts.
Mason Cushman has always followed farming, buying and selling live stock and kindred work. He owns a fertile farm of one hundred and eighty acres, which is thoroughly tilled. Politically he is a republican and has served on the board of highway commissioners; belongs to the Methodist church at Silver Creek and has been its steward.
Mason Cushman married Melissa Beech, a daughter of Ethan H. Beech, a native of Madison county, New York, on December 28, 1846, and they had four children: Mason E., born October 28th, 1848, married Adelaide McDaniels, is a farmer in the town of Hanover, and has a son George; Joshua E., born April 12th, 1851, married Millie Young, and now lives with his father and conducts the farm — he has two children, Vera and Livia; Maro, born September 28th, 1856, and died when four and one-half years old; and M. Livia, born November 26th, 1860, now the wife of W. B. Horton, a farmer living at Hanover Centre. Mrs. Melissa Beech Cushman was born in Madison county, New York, May 24th, 1818. After spending a happy and useful married life of forty-five years, she died April 28th, 1891, and is laid to rest in the Hanover Centre cemetery.
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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
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