My Genealogy Hound

D. B. ADAMS, one of the substantial agriculturists of Fredonia, is a son of Bishop and Betsey (Palmer) Adams, and was born in Van Buren, Chautauqua county, New York, November 5, 1829. Justus Adams (grandfather) was born in Dutchess county, this State, in 1764, and moved to Delaware county, where he bought a farm, on which he remained a few years and then removed to this county in the spring of 1811, where he purchased, in May of that year, one-half of lot No. 21, in township six, now Pomfret, comprising one hundred and eighty acres, which he cultivated until his death, in 1848, at the age of eighty-four years. The farm was then occupied by two of his sons, later by another son, Bishop (father) and now by his grandson, D. B. He married Jemima Bishop in 1785, by whom he had nine children, five sons and four daughters: Bishop, Morris, Jessie, John and Thomas; Rebecca, who married a Mr. Ganung; Eliza, married to another Mr. Ganung; Jemima, married to Wm. Birch; and Polly, married to Thomas Lacelles. Mrs. Adams (grandmother) died in 1837. Joseph Palmer (maternal grandfather) was born in Connecticut, and came to this county in 1810, settling in Pomfret, near Fredonia, where he took up a large farm, which he cultivated until 1834, when he sold it and removed to Indiana and took up a tract of land on the St. Joseph river. He married and reared seven children, four sons and three daughters: Daniel, James, Asher, and one whose name is forgotten; Betsey (mother); Cynthia, who married Mr. Gier; and another who married Mr. Stilson. Bishop Adams (father) was born in Dutchess county in 1789, came to this county in 1809 and bought a tract of land consisting of three hundred acres, for which he paid less than three dollars an acre. This he sold in 1836 and moved to the farm now owned by his son, D. B., one mile northwest of Fredonia, for the purpose of assisting and caring for his father, who had passed the three-score and ten years allotted to man, and remained here until his death, in 1866, at the age of seventy-seven years. Bishop Adams was married in the fall of 1811 to Betsey Palmer, by whom he had nine children, five of whom died in infancy: John was a physician in this county, and married Chloe Wilbur; Elizabeth married Smith Wilbur, a farmer in this county; and Philinda married Daniel Ellis, a farmer in Panama, this county.

D. B. Adams was educated in the common schools of this county, of which, happily, the youth of the present generation have no knowledge. He worked on the farm during the planting, haying and harvesting seasons, and winters he sawed, split and chopped wood, “done chores,” attended to the live stock, attended the school which was located close by, on one corner of the farm on which he lived, until he was fifteen years old. Fortunately nature partly compensated for this pursuit of knowledge under difficulties by endowing him with a phenomenal memory, so that his mind is a storehouse of knowledge gained by a wide range of reading, and never fails to honor the drafts made upon it. He worked upon his father’s farm and cared for him when the infirmities of age grew upon him, and after his death purchased the interest of the other heirs, the entire farm being know in the very centre of the grape-growing district, which materially increases its value. He has eight acres devoted to the cultivation of that succulent fruit of the vine, and is increasing the average each year. In June, 1863, he enlisted in Company A, Sixty-eighth New York Volunteers, but was honorably discharged on account of the expiration of his enlistment, August 1st of the same year, and is a member of Holt Post, No. 403, G. A. R. of Fredonia, also of Fredonia Grange, and the Temple of Honor, Select Templars and of Fredonia Lodge, No. 338 I. O. O. F., all of Fredonia, and takes an active interest in each. In politics he is republican.

D. B. Adams was married November 9, 1848, to Mary E. Hyde, a daughter of Joseph and Laura (Woodcock) Hyde, her father being a farmer at Springville, Erie county, this State, which union resulted in four children, two sons and two daughters: Florence A., married to M. J. Mattison, a teacher at Cedar Rapids, Michigan; Marvin B., a farmer in Pomfret and lives on Brigham street, Fredonia, married to Anna Fry; Eva, married Delos Keith, a farmer on Brigham street, Fredonia; and Frank M., a farmer, married to Sarah Van Wey, and resides with his parents.