My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM GILES. The agricultural interests of Schuyler County are ably represented by Mr. Giles, who is the proprietor of a handsome property in the town of Orange, his possessions including two farms of eighty-four acres each. The farms adjoin and are both admirably improved. In 1870 Mr. Giles first settled on his property, which is in the northern portion of the town. It was formerly owned by Dr. Silas B. Hibbard, who located here upon his removal from Massachusetts, about the year 1825. Besides carrying on a large practice, the latter made many valuable improvements on this property, and continued to make it his home until his decease, in 1865, when eighty-four years of age.

The subject of this sketch was born in the town of Orange, near his present home, March 1, 1828, the son of William and Elizabeth (Parkhurst) Giles, both natives of Monroe County, this state. They removed to this locality about the year 1825, at a time when the country bore but little improvement in the way of good farms. The father went industriously to work to clear his tract, and, as he possessed some means, was enabled to do this in a much shorter time than it would otherwise have taken. The old homestead is now owned by Levi Giles. The father died in 1851, aged fifty-five years, while his good wife, who survived him nine years, was in her seventy-fourth year at the time of her decease.

To William and Elizabeth Giles there were born nine children, of whom two sons and three daughters are now living. William, of this history, remained with his parents until twenty-two years of age, when he hired out to work for Dr. Hibbard. He remained with him just one summer, when his father asked him to return home and oversee the work of the estate. On the death of the latter he was made the administrator, and settled up the estate.

He then formed a partnership with his brother Levi, and together they worked the farm until 1875, when our subject became the owner of his present farm. The buildings upon the place were erected by Dr. Hibbard, but Mr. Giles has remodeled them, so that the farm presents a very pleasing appearance to the passer-by. He is very handy in the use of carpenter’s tools, and has been prevailed upon by many of the residents for ten miles around to aid in the construction of their dwellings.

The marriage of Mr. Giles with Miss Margaret Ann Horning was celebrated January 8, 1851. She died in November, 1887, after having become the mother of six children, namely: Horatio H., a farmer in the town of Tyrone; Arsula D., who married Smith Holliday, of Watkins, an engineer on the Northern Central Road; Cytheria, who married James Dove, also a farmer of the town of Tyrone; Plummer Deroy, who is cultivating a farm in that locality; Ida May, Mrs. Sardus Rappalye, a tenant on the old farm; and John, who died when eight years of age.

April 4, 1895, Mr. Giles was married to Mrs. Emma (Evans) Obert, the widow of Peter Obert, of Beaver Dams. Her birth occurred near Townsend, town of Orange, in 1842, and by her marriage she became the mother of a daughter, Edith May, who is now the wife of Clyde Bronson, of Townsend. Mr. Giles is an ardent Christian, and for forty years has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Tyrone. In politics he is a Democrat, and has been the recipient of many official positions within the gift of his fellow-townsmen to bestow.