My Genealogy Hound

PHINEAS BIRDSEY, of the town of Hanover, who has been successfully engaged in carpentering and cabinet-making for over fifty years, is a son of John J. and Clarissa Ward (Crampton) Birdsey, and was born in the town of Paris, Oneida county, New York, February 29, 1812. The Birdsey family in the United States was founded by two brothers, Joseph and John Birdsey, who came in 1639 from England to Stratford, Connecticut. In 1710 John (great-grandfather) settled in what is now Middlefield, that State, where his son Seth (grandfather) was born in 1736 and afterwards killed by a falling tree. One of his seven children was John J. Birdsey (father), who was born in 1774, and in 1811 removed to Oneida county, where he died in the town of Paris on April 8, 1826. He married Clarissa W. Crampton, a daughter of Josiah Crampton, an old Revolutionary soldier, who died in Genesee county, They had five children: Phineas, Capt. Comfort (see his sketch for full ancestral history); Eunice (deceased), who married Mr. Southridge, and after his death William Yates, who is now dead; Clarissa, widow of Samuel Russell, a republican politician and once port-warden of New York city; and Abbie, widow of Wells G. Russell, now a resident of Hamilton, Madison county,

Phineas Birdsey was reared in his native town, where he received his education in the common schools of that early day and learned the trades of carpenter and joiner and cabinet-maker, which he has followed ever since. He came to the town of Hanover, and is an industrious and useful citizen. He is a democrat in politics, always supports his party, but is no politician or office seeker.

He married Jeannette, daughter of Benjamin Horton, and they have two children: John J., a resident of the town of Hanover, who married Hattie Dagett and is extensively engaged in buying and selling lumber; and Elmer J., who was in the lumber business for ten years, married Mary Cockburn and is now engaged in farming and raising small fruits.