Pioneering Families with Roots in Madison County

Pioneering Families
... with Roots in Madison County

Madison County Residents Who Removed to Oswego County

The Town of Richland
The first physician was Dr. Isaac Whitmore, who came from Madison county and settled on the south side of the river in 1810. (p. 697)

Dewey C. Salisbury, born in Madison county in 1811, came to this town with his father when thirteen years of age, and the next year was apprenticed to Luther Smith to learn the tanner's trade in the latter's tannery on Mill street in Pulaski. In 1836 he leased a tannery in Sandy Creek, but two years later was burned out and returned to Pulaski village He was prominent in business affairs and died in March, 1892. (p. 690)

The Town of Oswego
In 1822 Nathan Lewis, who was born October 27, 1797, and had moved with his parents to Madison county in 1805, came to this town where he spent the remainder of his life. (p. 643)

In 1838 Abel Wilder came from Madison county and purchased of Ansel Frost 437 acres on lots 32 and 32. To 100 acres of this his son Eli succeeded. On Eight-Mile Creek on this farm William Lewis, at a very early date, erected a saw mill, which was rebuilt by Eli Wilder in 1838. Abel Wilder died in 1852, aged sixty-seven. Eli, the eldest of three sons and two daughters, was born December 18, 1816. (p. 643)

The Town of Palermo
Isaac N. Lansing born in Hoosac, N.Y., in 1796, came from Madison county to Palermo in November, 1830, and settled on the farm now occupied by his son J. Fitch Lansing. His children were Joseph Fitch born in 1831; William S. born in 1840; Sarah E. (Mrs. Benjamin G. Eaton); and Eunice L. and Erastus W. His wife's father Frederick Wilcox came from Connecticut the same year and settled on the farm now owned by J. Fitch Lansing. (p. 653)

The Town of Volney and Village of Fulton
Jason S. Markham, a blacksmith was born in Madison, N.Y., May 6, 1814, came to Volney with his father, Isaac, in 1816, and is still living in town. Isaac Markham settled on lot 63 and died January 9, 1859. Jason S. Markham followed his trade here, in Oswego, and from 1838 to 1848 in Madison county, and in the latter year returned and purchased 300 acres of timber land and built a saw mill. He had five children. (p. 787)

Timothy Pratt, son of Caleb, a Revolutionary soldier, was born in Vermont in 1790, and came from Madison county to Fulton in 1833. He engaged in the manufacture of linseed oil and also largely of lumber. He built a grist mill and carried on a large milling business, and also conducted an extensive transportation business. He was long interested in the Citizens' National Bank of Fulton and a liberal donor to Falley Seminary. He was the father of John W. Pratt. He died October 19, 1879. (p. 791)

Family Sketches
S. O. Willmarth was born in New Haven in 1832, and is the son of Orrin and Sarah Utter Willmarth, who came from Madison county and died here. Subject was reared a farmer, has been in the mercantile trade and is a stock dealer. He married in 1866 Caroline Burton, who died in 1878 leaving one child, George of Mexico. He afterward married Alice Hall and has one child, Avery. (p. 255)

Hiram D. Fox, proprietor of the Windsor Hotel and the Windsor Opera House of Phoenix, was born in Onondaga county in 1843, son of John and Esther Cole Fox, natives of Madison and Saratoga counties. When thirteen years old he moved to Schroeppel with his parents and when twenty-three removed to Phoenix. He followed boating eleven years, owning and running a canal boat from Syracuse and purchased the Windsor House in 1886. He has filled the office of justice of the peace, supervisor and assessor. His first wife, Mary Eno, died in 1822, leaving two children John and Hortense. He afterward married Carrie Payne and has one child. (p. 243).

Oliver B. Maury is a native of Oswego county, born in 1848, and in 1872 married Ella A Calkins. In 1864 he enlisted in the 184th Regiment, Co. G and is now serving his third term as inspector of elections. His father, Ephraim D., was born in Oswego county in 1827, and was a descendant of one of the brothers who came from Wales and settled in Rhode Island. His first wife, the mother of Oliver B., was Helen Peckham, a native of Madison county, who died in 1885, leaving six children. (p. 233)

Source: Churchill, John C. Landmarks of Oswego County, New York. Syracuse, N. Y.: D. Mason & Company, Publishers, 1895.