My Genealogy Hound

JOSEPH W. HUNTLEY is a son of Michael and Mercy R. (Higgins) Huntley, and was born in Lyme, Connecticut, April 21, 1812. His grandfather, Reuben Huntley, was also a native of Connecticut, but emigrated to Chenango county, this State, where he passed the remainder of his days as a farmer. In politics he was a democrat. Sylvanus Higgins (maternal grandfather) was a native of Lyme, where he spent his life on a farm. Michael Huntley (father) was born in Lyme on October 27, 1777, and for a few years followed farming as an occupation. He then sought the sea for a livelihood, and became captain of a merchant vessel running between New York city and the West Indies, and during a passage home from the latter port, died of yellow fever, January 23, 1818. Politically he was an old-line whig. In 1800 he married Mercy R. Higgins and had five children, all of whom are dead except Joseph W.

Joseph W. Huntley was educated in the common schools of his native town, and after leaving school began the life of a sailor, which he followed until twenty-three years of age, when, in 1836, he exchanged the tempestuous kingdom of Neptune for the more quiet and peaceful realm of Ceres by coming to Sherman, this county, and buying a farm of two hundred acres in the primeval forest, where an axe had never been seen, which he cleared and cultivated until April, 1881, when, feeling he was justly entitled to enjoy the harvest of his labors in a serene old age, he moved into the village of Sherman, where he has since resided. In his political opinions he is a republican, and has held the offices of road commissioner and assessor several terms.

Joseph W. Huntley was married on October 10, 1835, to Mary E. Reed, a daughter of Ely Reed. To this union have been born three children, two sons and one daughter: Sylvanus H., who died at seven years of age; William R., who married Delia Frost, of Cherry Creek, and is a farmer in Sherman; and Elizabeth M.