My Genealogy Hound

LIEUT. PHILANDER W. BEMIS, one of Phil. Sheridan’s cavalry-men in the late war, was born in the town of French Creek, Chautauqua county, New York, February 5, 1842, and is a son of David and Bethiah (Vanostrand) Bemis. David Bemis left his native State of Vermont when a boy, and settled in French Creek, where he followed farming until his death in 1867, at sixty-five years of age. He was accompanied by his father, Stephen Bemis, who was also a native of Vermont. David Bemis married Bethiah Vanostrand, who was a native of New York and died in 1850, aged forty-six years.

Philander W. Bemis grew to manhood on the farm, attended the public schools, and in 1861, enlisted in Co. I, 8th Illinois Cavalry. He was promoted to sergt.-major of his regiment, by reason of his efficiency and soldierly conduct, and was mustered out of that regiment during the latter part of 1862, by order of the war department as a supernumerary officer. He re-enlisted in 1863, in the fifteenth New York Cavalry and served until June 17, 1865, when he was discharged on account of a wound received at the battle of Five Forks, where he was struck in the left arm and shoulder by a minie-ball, which he carried in his body fifteen months. Lieutenant Bemis made an enviable war record of which he may be justifiably proud, as he served under Sheridan in all of that great commander’s famous campaigns in Virginia, and participated in thirty-five engagements and battles. After the close of the war he came to Westfield where he has resided ever since, and where he has served five years as a lieutenant in the New York State troops. He has been, since boyhood, a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and is now class leader and chairman of the board of trustees of the Westfield church of that denomination, in which he served in an official capacity for twenty-five years. He is a republican in politics, has been active in the temperance cause for many years, served several terms as town clerk and as a member of the board of education and is now deputy sheriff of the county. He is a Past Master of Summit Lodge, No. 219, Free and Accepted Masons. He has been connected with the Chautauqua Assembly ever since it was organized and has had entire charge of the ticket department, in which he handles from thirty to fifty thousand dollars every year and in connection with which he has served for five years as chief of police of the grounds. After coming to Westfield he engaged in the mercantile business, from which he retired three years ago.

August 14, 1866, he married Jennie A., a noble Christian woman, daughter of Alexander and Malinda McCollom, of Westfield. Lieut. and Mrs. Bemis have two children: Ernest W., a printer, who is also a fine musician; and Pearl A., aged respectively twenty-two and thirteen. Pearl A. could read in the Bible at two and one-half years of age, and when eight years of age, wrote the prize poem for which fifty competitors under seventeen years of age were contesting. She is a good musician and has already written poems which have been published.