My Genealogy Hound

SAMUEL KIDDER, of Kiantone, lives upon the farm originally bought and cleared by his father in 1816, and which has never been out of the family. He was born where he now lives on October 12, 1825, in what was then Carroll, Chautauqua county, New York, and is a son of Ezbai and Louisa (Sherman) Kidder. The Kidders were originally from Dudley, Mass., Samuel Kidder (grandfather) being born and reared there, and afterwards moving into Vermont, where he died in January, 1805. By occupation a farmer, he married Zilpha Bacon and became the father of four sons and three daughters. Noah Sherman (maternal grandfather) was a native of Wardsboro, Vermont, and married Laura Hubbard, of Brimfield, Massachusetts. Both himself and wife died many years ago. Their children all came to the “Holland Purchase” “when the country was new,” as local custom termed it. Ezbai Kidder (father) was born in Dudley, Mass., in 1787, and was carried to Wardsboro in infancy where he spent several busy years helping his widowed mother rear a large family. He came to this county in 1813, but soon after went to Vermont, and again returned to this county and settled in Carroll, now Kiantone, in 1816. He married Louisa Sherman in 1824, and had four children, one son and three daughters, one daughter (Mrs. Mitchell) now residing at Busti; two are dead. A carpenter by trade, he conducted building in connection with his farming, and many of the old frame houses and barns of the towns of Carroll and Kiantone are specimens of his skill. The farm mentioned at the opening of our sketch was one hundred acres of a plot known as the Blowers’ Lot, having been located by and bought from a Mr. Blowers, one of the first settlers of Jamestown. Originally a whig, he afterwards became a republican, and at the first town meeting held March 6, 1826, was elected commissioner of highways. In 1838 he was supervisor of Carroll town, and at the formation of Kiantone, the election being held February 21, 1854, he was made the first supervisor of the new town. Mr. Kidder was a member of the Congregational church at Jamestown, and died in 1879, aged ninety-two years and three months, Mrs. Kidder passing away November 14, 1867.

Samuel Kidder was reared on his father’s farm, and received his education in the schools of his neighborhood and Jamestown academy. The ring of the axe in the forest was familiar to his ears and the hooting of the owls at night was not unfamiliar. Farming was conducted without the help of improved machinery, hay being cut with a scythe. Schools were not convenient, and the boy who got an education worked for it. Life on his father’s farm in summer was changed for labor and school attendance in winter, later the Jamestown academy opened her fount and he drank knowledge from it. Although always a farmer, the time spent in securing an education was not lost, for the intelligent man is needed in agricultural pursuits as well as in the counting-room. Mr. Kidder has added to the farm his father owned, and today is the possessor of three hundred acres of as good land as may be found in the county, and has at least twelve acres of lots in the city of Jamestown.

On October 17, 1854, he was married to Eleanor A. Partridge, a daughter of Joel Partridge, of Jamestown, N. Y. To this union have been born ten children: Ida, wife of W. C. Parker, a hardware merchant residing at Little Valley, Cattaraugus county, this State; Willard, a farmer of Kiantone, and married to Anna Miller; J. Edward; died when eighteen years of age; Henry E., married to Grace Sherrod, and resides in Knoxville, Tenn., where he follows carpentering, building and dealing in real estate; George C., who married Lilian Van Duzee, and is a farmer of Kiantone; Dora, Samuel P., Mary L. and Fannie E. at home; Jay H. is dead.

Samuel Kidder affiliates with the democrats, but was a whig before the advent of the Republican party. He has served the people of Kiantone three terms each as supervisor and assessor, and belongs to the Congregational church at Jamestown.