My Genealogy Hound

EDWARD DENNISON, a representative farmer of the town of Hanover, was born on the farm on which he now lives, in the town of Hanover, Chautauqua county, New York, May 5, 1828, and is a son of Joseph and Deborah (James) Dennison. The founder of the Dennison family in America was William Dennison, who was born in England about 1586, and came, in 1631, to Roxbury, Massachusetts, with his wife and three sons: Daniel, Edward and George. A descendant of one of these sons was Joseph Dennison, the paternal grandfather of Edward Dennison. Joseph Dennison, who was born at Norwich, Connecticut, March 20, 1750, married Mary Smith, by whom he had seven sons and four daughters. In 1829 he removed to Galway, Saratoga, county, this State, where he followed farming until his death, March 17, 1833. His son, Joseph Dennison (father), was born at Norwich, Connecticut, October 25, 1787, and in 1816 removed to the town of Hanover, in which he died in the year 1872. He purchased the farm from the Holland Land company, containing one hundred acres, upon which the subject of this sketch now resides. He dealt largely in real estate, and although a carpenter and joiner by trade, yet gave his time principally to farming. He was an old-line whig and an active worker in the Baptist church, with which he had united in 1820. His wife, Deborah James, was the daughter of Jesse James, a farmer of Saratoga county, Their children were: Sallie E., born 1814, and now widow of David Strong; Dr. John, born August 8, 1818, and a graduate of Albany Medical College, who married Eleanor Johnsonworth, and after practicing for twenty years at Alden, Erie county, removed to DeWitt, Iowa, where one of his sons, Dr. John, Jr., is practicing medicine and the other son, Walter, is in the hardware business; Flora, wife of a Mr. Dinehart, a banker of Stator, Iowa; and Edwin.

Edward Dennison was reared on the farm on which he resides and received his education in the common schools and Fredonia academy. Leaving school, he engaged in his present business of farming on the old homestead which he now owns. He has a large apple orchard, and also makes a specialty of sheep-raising. Mr. Dennison is a democrat in politics and has been an active member of the Baptist church for many years. He is a member of the A. O. U. W., of Forestville, the Grange and No. 235 Patrons of Husbandry of Sheridan. He is one of the oldest Masons of western New York, being a member of Hanover Lodge, No. 152, Free and Accepted Masons of Forestville, in which he was initiated in July, 1850. Although frequently solicited, Mr. Dennison has never presented himself for any office within the gift of his fellow-citizens.

On May 20, 1852, he was united in marriage to Elizabeth A. Dorner, who bore him two sons and three daughters: Florence, a graduate of the Fredonia Normal school, who was a leading teacher for ten years, and was principal of the Middletown school, when she married Stoddard Draper, a real estate dealer of San Bernardina, California; Minnie, who was graduated from the Forestville High school, and is the wife of T. A. Riley, of Cleveland, Ohio; Charles, who was furnishing beef to the United States troops in Idaho, where he was drowned in the Snake river at twenty-one years of age; John, a builder and contractor of Cleveland, Ohio, who married Carrie Ross; and Elizabeth, a teacher in the public schools.