My Genealogy Hound

PROF. ANDREW YATES FREEMAN. The children of to-day are the statesmen of to-morrow, and as Providence has given us no way to foretell the future, we educate them all alike. A. Y. Freeman, the subject of this sketch, is engaged in this work.

He is the oldest son of Edmund and Rosetta (Young) Freeman, and was born in North Pitcher, Chenango county, New York, January 29, 1848.

Samuel Freeman, his grandfather, was born in Mansfield, Conn., about 1785. In the early part of this century he moved to Chenango county, and in 1806 married Huldah Barrows, by whom he had eleven children. He farmed summers and taught winters, teaching twenty-four terms in all. During that time each one of the eleven children had the rare opportunity of being taught at school by their father.

Edmund Freeman, the seventh child, was born at North Pitcher, August 16, 1821. He worked on the farm summers with his father, and attended his school winters. In 1866 he moved to Sherburne and purchased a farm of ninety acres where he now resides. In 1846 he married Rosetta A. Young, by whom he had four sons: Andrew Yates; Harlan Page, who was assistant cashier in the Sherburne National Bank; Edmund Byrd is a shoe merchant in Oxford; and Charles Storrs operates his father’s farm. Harlan Page Freeman died in 1884.

A. Y. Freeman received his education, until twenty-one years of age, at the district schools, with the exception of six weeks at the Norwich academy. He began to teach when seventeen years old, teaching winters and working summers. He also taught one term of select school, after which he took the classical course in the Brockport Normal, from which he was graduated in 1873. He has since been continually in educational work. The two years succeeding his graduation were spent in Spencerport, where he was principal of the school. In 1875 the voters of Chenango county elected him school commissioner for a term of three years. On August 16, 1876, he married Emma W. Hall, who was preceptress of the Union school at Union Springs, this State, but was called upon to mourn her death eight months later, April 9, 1877. At the expiration of his term of office Mr. Freeman returned to Spencerport and taught two years, when, in the fall of 1880, he was elected principal of the intermediate department, and later superintendent of practice at the State Normal school, at Fredonia, where he has since remained. He is a popular instructor, giving satisfaction in whatever capacity he has been called upon to act.

On June 23, 1886, he married Kate E. Hendee, daughter of Joel E. and Catherine (Pangborn) Hendee, and they have a family of three children: Harlan Page, Andrew Yates, and Edward Hendee.

Prof. Freeman owns a valuable tract of twenty acres, planted with choice varieties of grapes, on Central avenue, where he lives; a farm of fifty-nine acres at Cordova, and one of one hundred and forty acres at Sherburne.

Prof. Freeman is an elder in the Presbyterian church, and has for many years been superintendent of the Sabbath school. He takes a deep interest in all Christian and temperance work, and is highly respected by all who know him. His life has been spent in imparting knowledge to the youth of his locality, and while the nation has not yet advanced to the plane where such services are rewarded with honors like those conferred upon warriors and statesmen, the world knows that the education of the children is of greater importance than the winning of battles.