My Genealogy Hound

HON. S. FREDERICK NIXON, of Westfield, who served for three consecutive terms as a member of the New York Assembly, is one of the active and prosperous marble dealers of the State. He is the younger of two sons born to Samuel and Mary E. (Johnston) Nixon, and was born at Westfield, Chautauqua county, New York, December 3, 1860. Samuel Nixon was the youngest son of a wealthy Nixon family of County Down, Ireland, where under the law of primogeniture as it exists in the empire of Great Britain, his eldest brother inherited the landed estate and all the property of his father. He was born in 1826 and at the age of nineteen years came to Jamestown where he resided until his death in 1876. He was engaged in the marble business and left at his death quite an estate which he had accumulated during the thirty years of his business life. He was a Presbyterian in religious faith, and a successful business man who had made himself prominent in the commercial circles of his part of the Empire State. Shortly before his death he was engaged in perfecting arrangements to go to Scotland in 1877 with his son, the subject of this sketch, and embarked in the wholesale marble business. He married Mary E. Johnston, a native of County Down. They were the parents of two sons.

S. Frederick Nixon grew to manhood at Westfield where he attended the public schools and Westfield academy from which he was graduated in 1877. He then entered Hamilton college and was graduated from that well-known institution of learning in 1881. Upon the completion of his college course he read law for one year but his business interests demanded so much of his time that he was compelled to relinquish his legal studies. He is a republican in politics and in 1885 was elected trustee of his village. In 1886 he was elected as supervisor and the following year represented the Assembly district of Chautauqua county, in the New York Legislature, in which he served on several important committees. He was returned in 1888 and again in 1889 but owing to various causes of disturbance in his party was defeated in his candidacy for a fourth term. He and Matthew P. Bemus are the only residents of Chautauqua county who have ever been honored with three consecutive terms as members of the New York Assembly. In the legislative sessions of 1889 and 1890, Mr. Nixon was chairman of the committee on internal affairs which included all matters pertaining to the villages and towns of the State. In 1889 he also served on the committee of general laws for two years besides being a member of the committee on ways and means in 1889. He has always been active and successful in his county as a leader and speaker in the Republican party. In 1887 and 1888 he was chairman of the republican county committee and in the latter year Chautauqua county rolled up a heavier republican majority than she ever gave before that year.

He united in marriage with Myrtle Redfield, a resident of Chicago and a native of Michigan. They have two children: S. Frederick, Jr., and Redfield.

In addition to his property in Chautauqua county Mr. Nixon owns two good farms of one-hundred and seventy-five and two hundred acres respectively, some three miles from Des Moines, in Warren county, Iowa. He and his brother Emmet are actively engaged in dealing in marble at Westfield, where they do an annual business of twenty thousand dollars. He is one of the directors of the Crowell & Pulley Manufacturing company which was organized in 1889 and employs a force of forty hands. He owns two farms in his town, one of which is one of the earliest settled farms in the county, Mr. Nixon is a member of the F. and A. M., and of the Royal Arcanum.