My Genealogy Hound

LEVI M. GANO. The subject of this sketch is a resident of Watkins and one of the prominent and influential citizens of Schuyler County. His life has been largely devoted to journalism, and while laboring to promote the interests of his party and the prosperity of his village, he has done much to elevate the standard of his profession, reaping incidentally a share of the rewards with which it not infrequently repays persistent and sagacious efforts.

Mr. Gano was born in Hunterdon County, N. J., his mother, Anna Stires, being of an old Dutch family, and his father, Philip Gano, of Huguenot extraction. With his parents became, at the age of five, to settle in the town of Dix, where he was given, and was quick to profit by, such educational advantages as the county afforded. A part of his early life was passed under the instruction of that famous old pedagogue, Squire John A. Gillet, of Hector, whose school at Peach Orchard was known far and wide through western New York. Later he himself became a teacher, and was for a time the successful head of the Watkins School. After this he studied law in the office of Edward Quin, and, being subsequently admitted to the Bar, practiced for a time in the state of Iowa.

Returning to New York, Mr. Gano founded, in i860, the Olean Times, now a prosperous daily at Olean, Cattaraugus County. Four years later, at Watkins, he established the Watkins Express, which he has since edited and published, a paper which has won a deservedly high rank among the weeklies of the state, having been for thirty years the most influential journal and leading organ of its party in Schuyler County.

During this time Mr. Gano has been called upon to serve his town and county in various official capacities, and has also filled a number of important appointive offices. Commencing as clerk to the Superintendent of the Chemung Canal, he has been School Commissioner and Supervisor of Dix, Canal Collector at Olean, Assessor of Internal Revenue under Presidents Lincoln and Johnson, Sergeant-at-Arms for two terms of the Assembly, seventeen years a member of the Village Board of Education, sixteen years Postmaster at Watkins, and finally Deputy Collector of Customs in New York City during the administration of President Harrison. In every public position held by him his zeal, fidelity and efficiency have won him the esteem of his constituents and the high regard and confidence of his party friends. An aggressive and indomitable fighter, a far-seeing, level-headed man, steadfastly loyal to party and principles, his conceded sagacity and conservative judgment in matters political have gained the Express an enviable standing as one of the most reliable and excellent publications of its class in western New York.