My Genealogy Hound

HORACE H. SHAW. One of the representative citizens of the town of Westfield, who has sprung from a family who settled here early in Chautauqua county’s history, is Horace H. Shaw, a son of David and Sophia (Barney) Shaw, and was born in Cayuga county. New York, April 16, 1820, and was two years old when brought to Westfield by his parents. The family is of Scotch-English extraction. David Shaw was born in 1793, in Massachusetts and moved to Cayuga county when twelve years old. He was reared a farmer and when twenty-two years of age, in 1815, married Sophia Barney, a daughter of Daniel Barney, who lived in Cayuga county. They had seven children, six of whom are now living; one died in infancy. The year 1882 saw him in this town which was then in Portland, and he charred a small tract of land (charring, is deading the trees preparatory to clearing), when he returned to Cayuga for his family whom he soon after brought back. The log house was built and a home established, clearing continued until enough land was converted into fields to raise food for the family. Mr. Shaw continued to farm until within a few years of his death, which occurred in 1880, when eighty-seven years of age. He was a communicant of the Universalist church and a member of the Republican party, by whom he was elected to the office of assessor, but being of an unassuming and modest disposition he never essayed to higher political honors. Mr. Shaw served in the army during the war of 1812, and drew a pension until his death. Mrs. Shaw, too, belonged to the Universalist church and survived her octogenarian husband less than one year. She died in the spring of 1881, aged eighty-six years.

Horace H. Shaw was reared a farmer in Westfield by his parents, remaining there with the exception of the decade between 1864 and 1874, which time he lived in Huron county, Ohio. In 1874 he returned to the farm in Westfield, on which he now lives. He was educated in the district schools and prepared for the busy life which has followed.

In 1849, he married Sophrona Chatsey, a daughter of Benjamin Chatsey, a respectable farmer of the same town, and they had one child, a daughter: Adlade, who married, and now the widow of William Palmer, who died in Fitchville, Ohio, in 1887. They had two children: William A. and Horace D., who with their mother now lives with their grandfather; in 1850 he lost his wife and in 1851 he married Phoebe Chatsey, also a daughter of Benjamin Chatsey, by whom he had two daughters: Harriet and Mary; Harriet S., is the wife of Eugene Waterhouse, M.D., a successful physician of St. Louis, Mo.; and Mary I., is at home.

H. H. Shaw is a republican and has served the town in several offices. He is upright in character and his name is synonymous with integrity.