186 



HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



William B. McCay, private, 161st Inf.; eiil. Sept. 8, 18C3, three years; sub. for 



Clarence Ferine, drafted ; pro. to 1st lieut., 161st Inf. 

 Parley Cole, priv. ; enl. Feb. 15, 1865, three years; sub. for Wm. McFee, drafted. 

 John Richardson, Jr., corp., 1st H. Art. ; enl. Feb. 7, 1864, three years. 

 Welcome Richardson, private, 107th N. Y. Regt. ; enl. Aug. 5, 1862, three years; 



wounded at the battle of Gettysburg; discharged, 

 William Barnes Mason, private, 161st N. Y. Regt., Co. F ; enl. Aug. 21, 1862, 



three years; disch. Sept. 20, 1865. 

 Arthur McGuiggan, private, 161st Regt.; enl. Aug. 21, 1862, three years; disch. 



Sept. 20, 1865. 

 Robert Gansvoort, capt., 107th Regt. ; enl. July, 1862, three years. 

 John J. Layman, capt, 107th Regt. ; enl. July, 1862. 

 William Rumsey, Ist lieut.; enl. Oct. 17, 1861, three years; pro. to capt. and 



asst. adj.-gen., Sept. 12, 1863; maj., Sept. 9, 1864; lieut.-col., March 16, 



1865; wounded at Fair Oaks, May 31, 1862; must, out Sept. 1865. 

 Dr. Ira P. Smith, act. asst. surg., regular army, Aug. 17, 1862, to Sept. 24, 1864. 



NAVAL RECORD. 



Gilbert Higgins, enl. May 8, 1864, one year; Colorado. 



Edward Stillman, enl. May 8, 1864, one year ; Colorado. 



Phineas Towle, asst. paymaster; enl. Aug. 22, 1862, four years; VanderUlt and 



Brooklyn. 

 Charles Brother, private, marine corps; enl. xVug. 1862, four years; Vartderhilt 



and Hartford. 

 Theodore Harris, private, marine corps ; enl. Aug. 1862, four years ; Vanderbilt. 

 Josiah H. Gregg, private, marine corps ; enl. Aug. 1862, four years; Vanderbilt 



and BrooMyn. 

 Wm. Ingersoll, private, marine corps ; enl. Aug. 1862, four years ; VanderUlt. 



■» ^t^ " 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



COL. IRA DAVENPORT. 



Ira Davenport was born at Spencertown, Columbia Co., 

 N. Y., on the 20th day of September, 1795, and died at 

 Bath, N. Y., May 2, 1868, in the seventy-third year of his 

 age. His life was one of active business enterprise, begin- 

 ning in early boyhood and attaining practical results rarely 

 realized as the fruit of one's own unaided exertions. lie 

 probably obtained his first ideas of mercantile life, to which 

 he began early to devote himself with so much assiduity, 

 in his filth er's store, who was a merchant at Spencertown, 

 and had also an interest in a store at Harpersfield, Delaware 

 Co. To this latter place he was sent as a clerk at the age 

 of fourteen, and remained till he had attained his majority. 

 His plan of future business, on his own account, seems to 

 have been devised while he was gaining this practical ex- 

 perience ; for we find him at once, in the year 1815, start- 

 ing out for himself to the western portion of the county of 

 Steuben, in the then backwoods settlement of Canisteo, 

 now the town of Hornellsville, — named by Col. Davenport 

 after Judge Hornell, who was one of the earliest settlers, 

 — and taking with him his first wagon-load of goods, a dis- 

 tance of three hundred miles through a newly-settled coun- 

 try. On his arrival he was the first merchant in the place, 

 and he built with his own hands the store in which he sold 

 his first goods. By such enterprise Col. Davenport laid the 

 foundation of his future ample fortune. Few young mer- 

 chants in these days, we fear, would be content to call such 

 a beginning " commencing business." But, as might have 

 been expected, a youth of such courage brought persever- 

 ance, economy, and untiring industry to add to his little 

 capital ; and, as to these qualities were added integrity, 

 strong, shrewd sense, and first-rate business talents, he was 

 soon in the full tide of success. The career of Col. Daven- 

 port as a merchant at Hornellsville embraced a period of 



about thirty-two years, during which he was engaged in all 

 the leading business enterprises of the times. While car- 

 rying on mercantile business at that place, he had stores at 

 Baker's Bridge, Angelica, Burns, Canisteo, North Almond, 

 Hammondsport, Dansville, Almond, and Independence. 

 He was also a partner in a mercantile house and in a coal 

 company in the city of New York, and was largely engaged 

 in running lumber and arks down the river from Hornells- 

 ville. It is said that he and Hon. John Arnot, of Elmira, 

 were almost the only survivors, at the time of their death, 

 of the men who, in the early days, were largely engaged in 

 arkino; grain. He removed to Bath in 1847, where he re- 

 sided the remainder of his life. 



While through most of his life he was chiefly conspicuous 

 as the enterprising and successful business man, he will only 

 be known to posterity as the founder of The Davenport 

 Home for Orphan Girls. This institution was the con- 

 summation of a purpose long since formed. Unostentatious 

 as he was, and totally indifi'erent to popularity, he was yet 

 a man of deeper sympathy than many others whose philan- 

 thropy is trumpeted to the world. The condition of 

 friendless and destitute female orphan children had ex- 

 cited his profoundest commiseration, and the admirable 

 institution which bears his name is a proof that his pity 

 was not left to exhaust itself in mere emotions. He began 

 to erect a building designed for children of this class in 

 1861. In 1863 the corporation was organized, and the 

 first orphan was received July 19, 1864. There are now 

 sixty children in the Home, enjoying all the benefits of a 

 genial Christian home, and a more cheery family can hardly 

 be found in any of the benevolent institutions of the 

 world. 



Col. Davenport conveyed to the Home sixty-five acres of 

 the beautiful Cameron farm, in the village of Bath, which, 

 with tlie massive structure of stone and iron which forms 

 the main building, cannot be valued at less than seventy- 

 five thousand dollars. He besides in his lifetime endowed 

 it with funds to the amount of one hundred thousand dol- 

 lars, to which his brother, Mr. Charles Davenport, has added 

 thirty thousand dollars. Col. Davenport also made a bequest 

 to the Home in his will of fifty thousand dollars more. At 

 the time of his death additions to the building were in 

 process of erection, which were subsequently completed. 



If the future management of the Home shall follow the 

 spirit in which it has been inaugurated, and its usefulness 

 shall be developed to an extent commensurate with the 

 munificence of its endowment, — as there is reason to believe 

 from the test of experience thus fiir will be the case, — fu- 

 ture ages will not fail to honor the memory of the founder 

 till stone and iron shall crumble. Orphaned little ones will 

 come forward, generation after generation, to bless the 

 fatherly spirit which was mindful of them before their 

 lives began. And when centuries shall have passed away, 

 and this good year of grace become one of the dates of 

 antiquity, may there not be wanting the happy voices of 

 children rescued from want and dishonor (if such evils must 

 needs burden the earth so long) to sing on yonder hill-side 

 the simple songs which their benefactor loved so well to 

 hear ! 



Col. Davenport married, in 1824, Lydia, eldest daughter 



