My Genealogy Hound

DWIGHT A. HORTON is an extensive dealer in wood, coal, and fertilizers at Northampton, and was born in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, June 5, 1830. His father, Ansel Horton, who now resides at Savoy, Mass., hale and hearty at the age of eighty-nine years, was born on May 28, 1806, and is a son of Asahel Horton, whose birth occurred at Rehoboth, Mass., in 1771. Asahel Horton settled in Windsor, Berkshire County, Mass., when a young man, and followed agriculture there during the remainder of his life. He was a very eccentric character, and was known as Uncle Horton. He married Jemimah Aldrich; and she was the mother of three sons and one daughter, of whom two sons are still living, namely: Aaron, who now resides at Leverett, aged seventy-nine years; and Ansel, Mr. Horton’s father. Asahel Horton’s wife died at the age of ninety-three years.

Mr. Horton’s mother was before her marriage Hannah Thompson, of Windsor. She was a daughter of Samuel and Mary Thompson, residents of Cummington. Ansel Horton was a carpenter by trade, and reared his eight sons to the same occupation. He was a prominent builder in this section, and during his six years of apprenticeship worked for one year upon the first United States Hotel at Saratoga Springs. The Baptist and Methodist Episcopal churches in Savoy were erected by him, as were also the first glass works building and the blast furnace at Cheshire, Mass. He possessed three large farms at Savoy and Windsor, the last of which he sold in 1893. He was a Methodist in religious belief; and his wife, who died in 1867, at the age of sixty-two years, was a Baptist.

Dwight A. Horton attended the district schools in his boyhood, and at the age of fourteen years commenced to learn the carpenter’s trade. He followed that occupation until 1860, when he went to St. Charles, Mich., and assumed charge of a lumber business. In 1862, with ninety-eight others, he went to Lansing, Mich., for the purpose of enlisting for service in the Civil War, but was rejected on account of disability. Returning East he again sought to enroll himself among the Union’s defenders, but met with the same difficulty. He has been an extensive contractor and builder, and among his enterprises in this direction are the Schimmerhorn House at Lenox and the Northrop Block at Lee. Mr. Horton is a Master Mason, having been Secretary of the Lodge, and is a Republican in politics. He was for nine years an Assessor in the town of Hadley, was a member of the Common Council at Northampton two years, during one of which he was chairman of that body, and has been a member of the State Board of Agriculture for the past seven years. He was a charter member of the State Grange, and has held the office of Deputy Grand Master of two local Granges, having also been a member of the State Dairy Bureau since its organization.

On August 24, 1854, Mr. Horton was united in marriage to Miss Amanda M. Mason, a school-mate, daughter of Edward and Maria Mason, of Savoy. Of their six children one died in infancy; the others are as follows: Frederick, who for the past eighteen years has been a prominent railroad official at Vera Cruz, Mexico, having a wife and one son, Frederick D.; Helen L., wife of H. L. Phelps, of West Springfield, Mass., having three daughters and one son; Ralph M., a salt dealer of Northampton, who resides at old Hadley, having a wife, two sons, and three daughters; Susan P., wife of Eugene Dickinson, turnkey at the Hampshire County Jail, having two daughters; and Dora, a graduate of the Saxon River Academy, who was married September 25, 1895, to Dr. J. H. Roberts, a veterinary surgeon of Northampton, and with her husband lives at her father’s home. Mrs. Horton died on May 20, 1893, at the age of fifty-nine years. Mr. Horton is a Baptist in his religious belief, and the family attend that church.