Union and Advertiser
January 15, 1883, page 2
Rochester, NY
Death of a Venerable Pioneer
Z. PHILLIPS, a pioneer of the County of Monroe, N.Y., died at his residence in
Churchville, January 7, aged 88 years. Mr. PHILLIPS was born in the town
of Digiton (?), Mass. in 1795, and was the youngest of the family of eight
children who emigrated, when he was seven years old, with widowed mother, to the
town of Bristol, Ontario county, N.Y., by means of a wagon and ox team and was
twenty-seven days in making the journey. In his younger days he says he
did some hunting in the wild woods of the new country, and the first money that
he ever earned and became possessed of as his own was done by snatching
chipmunks and red squirrels that were very destructive to the corn of the
pioneer, at a cent a head, until he had earned one hundred cents. And this
dollar, he spent for a sheep, and from this sheep he raised others, letting them
to farmers, whereon he received sheep to half of the amount of the increase
every three years until he became the possessor of seventy sheep. At the
age of sixteen he commenced to work for neighboring farmers and continued at it
for seven yeas and the highest price he ever received for this work was $12 a
month. The winters he spent in chopping wood, or threshing wheat with a
_ail and as pay for doing the latter he received every eleventh bushel threshed.
In 1818 he brought a farm in Chili, N.Y. paying for it twelve dollars an acre,
cleared it of the wood and lived on it about thirty years. He then bought
a farm in the town of Riga, N.Y., and after living on it a number of years, on
account of age and infirmities in 1876 he disposed of his lands, retired with
abundant means for his comfort, purchased a house in Churchville, N.Y., and
resided in that village until his death.
He had been four times married, namely; to Sophia SERIBAER, Martha Ann HADLEY,
Rebecca KINGSLEY, and last Mrs. Eunice TULLER, the latter he survived about two
and a half years. He was the father of nine children, many of whom are
living in the Western States.
Mr. PHILLIPS was one of the very early pioneers in Western New York, and had
passed through all the trials, vexations and privations of the early settler,
and had the satisfaction of seeing the wild woods changed to fruitful fields and
the home and war-whoop of the savage changed to the home of civilization and
peace. Very few of these adventurers are left to tell the story of the
hardships they had to endure to make this wilderness, as it does, to bloom as
the rose. In politics he was an old school Democrat, having never failed
from the time he was old enough to vote cast it for the Democratic nominee, and
the last one was for Gen. W. S. HANCOCK. He was a man much respected in
the community in which he ever lived, and was noted for the honesty of this
dealings and obligingness to his neighbors, kindness to the destitute, and
sympathy with the sick and afflicted, as well as for the frugality of his habits
and the modesty of his life. In religious faith he was an Universalist,
and had long been one of the supporters of that church in Churchville.
Dan LeLion
Deaths Frequent Visits.
Miss Frances J. DONNELLY, eldest daughter of Robert J. DONNELLY and a young
woman grown, departed this life this morning at the residence of her father,
Lake Avenue Park. She had been for a year or more prostrated by the
destroyer, consumption and was prepared to die a happy and edifying death,
leaving to relatives and friends the satisfaction of knowing (didn't get the
rest). psm
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Rochester, Monroe, N.Y.
Union & Advertiser
Jan 29, 1883
DEATH of Mrs. Dorcas BAINBRIDGE
Mrs. Dorcas BAINBRIDGE died at her residence, No. 9 Jelyn Park, this morning, aged 82 years. Until quite recently
she enjoyed good health and had returned but a short time since from an extensive western trip, where she was visiting
friends. Her sprightliness on the journey for one so aged was quite remarkable. J. BAINBRIDGE is her son. Dr. RIGGS
will officiate at short funeral ceremonies at the house the afternoon, and the remains will be taken to Warsaw
at 4 o'clock, where the interment will take place.
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FROZEN TO DEATH
Saturday night Mrs. Sarah BEST, a widow, was found in a back room of her hotel in the northwestern part of the
village of Brockport, frozen to death. Vermin had gnawed holes in her arms and over one eye. She was first missed
by the landlord of a hotel where she had been given food, and searching for her he found her as described. She
had been dependent for some years upon cold charity, which finally allowed her to freeze to death.
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JAIL BREAKER RECAPTURED
Last Saturday afternoon Deputy Sheriff WEBSTER, of Ogden, arrested in Hoboken, N.Y. J. Fred BOSS, who escaped from
the Monroe county jail on the 12th of last Feb., at the time when Stein, Weissenberg, Shepard, Hall and Thomas
escaped. At the time of his escape he was waiting for trial on the charge of stealing brass?? From the Central
Railroad Company.