My Genealogy Hound

ASHBILL R. CATLIN. Among the gentlemen of the old school who have adopted and put in active practice the modern method of transacting an honorable and legitimate business Jamestown is proud to number the gentleman whose honored name stands at the head of this tribute to his successful career. He sprang from an honest, rugged, hard-working, honored and honorable ancestry, who were enrolled in the ranks of that first of man’s vocations — tillers of the soil. He was born in North Hudson Essex county, New York, July 7, 1827, when Taurus was in the midst of his reign among the planetary orbits, and is a son of Linus and Sabrina (Jones) Catlin. His grandfather, Theran Catlin, was a native of Vermont, but during his early manhood he removed to and purchased a farm in Wyoming county, Pa., and there spent the remainder of his life. He married and was blessed with eight children four sons and four daughters. Peltiah Jones (maternal grandfather) was born in Schroon, Essex countv, this State, where after reaching man’s estate, he bought a farm, married, reared a family of children, tilled the earth, led an honest, healthy, happy life, and obeyed, without a murmur, the summons to join the silent, majority. Linus Catlin (father) was a native of Vermont and was born in 1799, almost at the very blush of the dawn of the nineteenth century — that era which was to witness the most gigantic strides in the development of science, art, education and labor, the world had ever seen. When he attained his majority, he removed to North Hudson, this State, where he spent the prime of his life in the vocation of his immediate ancestors, and when the pulse slowed and the heart beat serenely even, he transferred his lares and penates to Jamestown and there, when he passed the ninth decadal point of a century’s life, was gathered to his fathers. He was a Jacksonian democrat and was steadfast in the faith. He married Sabrina Jones, who bore him one son and three daughters, and only the son, Ashbill R., survives.

Ashbill R. Catlin received his education mainly in the Jamestown academy, and resolved to supply a portion of mankind with more of the necessaries of life than did even his ancestors and in pursuance of this determination, he opened a grocery store in Jamestown in 1850 and has steadily pursued that business to the present time, having built up a large and lucrative trade. He also sells large quantities of salt, provisions and grain. He inherited the democratic proclivities of his father, tempered withal by the softening and broadening influence of the generation now asserting itself.

On November 20th, 1851, Ashbill R. Catlin exercised his usually sound judgment, when from among the scores of womanly women, he chose as his life companion Ruth A. Southwick, a daughter of Alwin Southwick, of Busti, this county. She bore him six children, two of whom were early enrolled among the angels. Of the survivors, Frank L. married and resides in Denver, Col., where he is a wholesale confection manufacturer; Ada E., wife of John C. Palmer, who is in the oil well supply business in Pittsburgh, Pa.; John B., married to Maude Steirly, of Jamestown, and is in business with his father; and Agnes, wife of Charles W. Warrington, of Denver, Col., who is engaged in the meat and provision business.

A. R. Catlin is a relative of George Catlin, the famous delineator and historian of the Indian races of North America, whose books are read wherever the English language is spoken.