My Genealogy Hound

JOHN G. RECORD, a strong democrat of Forestville, and a member of the Chautauqua county bar, was born at Smith’s Mills, in the town of Hanover, Chautauqua county, New York, October 2, 1836, and is a son of Israel and Mary (Gardner) Record. During the last century his ancestors were settled in the rich and fertile valley of the Hudson river, which has been made famous for all time to come by the pen of Washington Irving, the prince of American writers. Rev. John Record, the paternal grandfather of John G. Record, was an active minister of the Baptist church. He ran a grist-mill, and was a man of prominence as well as of usefulness in the community in which he resided. His son, Israel Record (see his sketch), the father of the subject of this sketch, was born and reared at Poughkeepsie, and came to the town of Sherman about 1830. He afterwards removed to the town of Hanover, of which he was a resident until his death in 1887, at eighty-nine years of age. He was a cattle dealer during the active part of his life. His wife was Mary Gardner, who was born in Dutchess county, in the Hudson river valley, and passed away in l880, when in the eighty-fourth year of her age.

John G. Record spent his boyhood days in his native county, and received an academical education at Middlebury and Wyoming academies. Leaving school he read law in 1858 with Sherman Scott, of Forestville, was admitted to the Chautauqua county bar in December, 1859, and has practiced successfully at Forestville ever since, excepting two years when he had an office at Silver Creek.

He was married in 1862, to Mary Farnham, of Forestville, who died in March, 1886, and left four children. On October 2d, 1887, Mr. Record united in marriage with Flora M. Haywood, of Versailles, New York. To this second union have been born two children.

In addition to his law practice Mr. Record gives some little time to the management of his farm of one hundred and fifty acres of land, which is situated one and one-half miles from Forestville. Thirty acres of this land is devoted to the culture of grapes, and shows this section of the county to be well adapted to the cultivation of the vine. In politics Mr. Record is a zealous democrat of Jeffersonian views, has always stood upon the platform of the old-time genuine principles of his party, and advocated honesty and economy in State as well as National affairs. John G. Record has served his town as supervisor, and has several times accepted a nomination from his party in its plucky, but hopeless fights against the over-whelming republican majority in Chautauqua county.