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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York published by John M. Gresham & Co. in 1891.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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SETH ALDRICH, one of the most prosperous farmers in this section, came from sterling Quaker ancestry on both sides of the house. He was born in Hamburg, Erie County, N. Y., October 7, 1827, and is a son of Scott and Eliza (White) Aldrich. Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island is a family connection. The paternal grandfather of Seth Aldrich, Nathan, married Phiobe Applebee, each a member of the Society of Friends, and to them seven children were born, six sons and one daughter: James, Sayles, Simeon, Nathan, Thomas, Scott (father), and Esther. Scott Aldrich, was born in Smithfield, Providence county, Rhode Island, June 6, 1801. When eighteen years of age he went to learn the trade of shoemaking, and so apt was he that it might be said he made a pair of shoes the first day. After serving his full time as apprentice, he worked for some time as a journeyman. In 1820, having married, he and his wife drove from their Rhode Island home to Evans, Erie county, this State, carrying all their earthly possessions with them in a one-horse covered wagon. His brothers, James and Sayles had preceded him, and he spent the winter of 1823-24 with them. In the spring he purchased a farm of one hundred acres, located east of Hamburg, Erie county, paying ten dollars an acre for it, and cleared and improved it with the aid of an ox-team and a wooden plow, adding to it until he owned three hundred and seventy-five acres. In 1849 he bought a farm on the flats of Buffalo creek, containing one hundred and eighty-five acres, for which he paid one hundred dollars per acre, and in 1853, only four years later, he sold it for two hundred dollars per acre, netting him eighteen thousand five hundred dollars, which was a big business transaction in those days, involving an output on the part of the purchaser of thirty-seven thousand dollars, a handsome fortune then. This was the best investment he ever made, and profits of one hundred per cent, were extremely rare in any business. He was one of the original promoters and managers of the plank-road from Hamburg to Buffalo, acting as the chief executive in its construction. Some of the directors becoming dissatisfied, Thompson Culbertson offered him a farm near Forestville, this county, in exchange for his plank-road stock, and he accepted. He had then (1857) resided in Hamburg thirty-three years. After a year’s residence on his Forestville farm, he moved to Fredonia (1858) and bought the place where Chas. Z. Webster now resides. This lot of land he soon sold to T. Z. Higgins, and bought the place known as “Sunset Hill,” and most of the territory enclosed by Central avenue, Division, Free and Day streets, where he built the house in which T. S Hubbard now resides, but after a while exchanged his “Sunset Hill” place for a farm on the main road, just west of the corporation line, but after a short time returned to the village and built a house on the corner of Free and Day streets. At the time of his death he owned thirteen hundred acres of land, but had previously at one time possessed twenty-eight hundred acres. Some time before he was summoned to a higher sphere, he disposed of a portion of his land to his sons, giving to each one three thousand dollars to be applied on these purchases, and an equivalent in cash to the other children, who did not take land. He was a member of the Free Will Baptist church in Hamburg, but in his later years practiced the simple usages of his Quaker ancestors. The poor had in him a most excellent friend and benefactor, and in all his business transactions he was honest and upright. He will be remembered kindly by many who, in their early struggles for the possession of a home, experienced his generous and forbearing treatment. Just in all his dealings, his word was as good as a bond, and when once he had made a bargain, even verbally, he never in any way retreated. When the board of commissioners was appointed to appraise the lands for the Lake Shore railroad between Buffalo and Eighteen Mile Creek, he was a member. He died October 16, 1885, in his eighty-fifth year. Scott Aldrich was married April 13, 1823, to Eliza White, by whom he had seven children, four sons and three daughters: Amos, a farmer, who married Cordelia Culbertson; Mason, a farmer, who married Licena Clark; Seth; Ira, a farmer, who married Louisa Taylor; Mary, who married Benjamin Miller, a farmer and gardener at Hamburg; Ann, who married Isaac Long; and an infant, Amy, who died September 28, 1838. The mother of these children died in April, 1855. July 26, 1855, he was married to Anna Meal, of Boston, Erie county, this State. Of their children, the eldest, David, died in Sheridan, May 6, 1872. The others are still living, namely: George, a farmer, who married Martha Dye, of Sheridan; Nathan, a farmer, who married for his first wife, Mary Prescott, and for his second Ellen Dye; Sayles, a farmer, who married Virginia Sweet; Simon, a farmer, who married Carrie Spink; Eliza, who married Carmie Daily of Fredonia; Martha, who married J. J. Kelly; and Maria, who married Jasper K. Aldrich. The second wife of Scott Aldrich died May 14, 1857, in her forty-fourth year, and he married, July 29, 1858, Lydia A. Snell, of Waterford, Pennsylvania, who bore him one child who died in infancy.

Seth Aldrich was educated in the common schools of Erie county, this State, and also at the select schools of Hamburg, in the same county, attending at these founts of learning until he was twenty-two years of age. In 1851, in company with his brother, Mason, he bought the stage line running from White’s Corners, now in Hamburg, to Buffalo, carried it a year, and in the fall of 1852 sold out. In the fall of 1853 he moved to Wyoming county, where he and his brother, Mason, bought a farm of one hundred and ten acres, located near Wethersfield Springs. Here he remained until the spring of 1855, when he removed to Sheridan, this county, on a farm owned by his father, where he stayed two years, and then went to Hamburg and bought a farm of forty-four acres, on which he lived a year and then went to Wethersfield Springs, and traded his Hamburg farm for the one he formerly owned, his brother having sold it. On this farm he resided four years, after which time he sold it and moved to Pomfret, this county, where he cultivated a leased farm for five years. Then his father disposed of his property and he bought the so-called “Old Tarbox farm,” four miles south of Fredonia, containing two hundred and fifty acres. Here he remained until March, 1887, when he bought a farm of eighteen acres one mile east of Fredonia, situated on the main road, on which was a fine residence, which he now occupies and raises grapes and small fruits.

He is a member of the Methodist church of Fredonia, of which he is a class leader, and has been trustee, steward and Sunday school superintendent. All his life he has retained the many excellent qualities taught him by his good Quaker father and mother. Seth Aldrich was married May 10, 1853, to Martha M. Clark, a daughter of Levi and Sallie (Fisk) Clark, the father being a farmer and blacksmith of Hamburg, Erie county, this State, and this union has been blessed with two children, a daughter and a son; the former died July 26, 1860, in her third year.

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This family biography is one of 658 biographies included in Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York published in 1891. 

View additional Chautauqua County, New York family biographies here: Chautauqua County, New York Biographies

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