My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE R. BACON, a public-spirited and enterprising citizen of Ripley, New York, who has been emphatically the architect of his own fortune, is a son of James and Eliza J. (Ketcham) Bacon. He is of New England ancestry, and was born in the town of Portland, Chautauqua county, New York, on January 7, 1834. His grandfather Bacon was a native and a life-long resident of the State of Massachusetts, and in that early day belonged to the old-line Whig party. He married and reared a large family of children. His maternal grandparents claimed the State of New York as the place of their birth. James Bacon (father of George R. Bacon) was born in the town of Springfield, Worcester county, Massachusetts, in the year 1805, and is still living. About 1826 he changed his place of residence to the State of New York, locating with his family in the town of Portland, Chautauqua county. While in Massachusetts he was the superintendent of a cloth manufactory at Lowell. In earlier life he had learned the trade of a mechanic and, when he came to Chautauqua county, engaged in carpentering. He was a constant reader and a close student of books and general literature, which coupled with his wonderful memory and innate love of study, gave him great mental power and enabled him to acquire a good practical education. In matters of religion he was a man of profound reverence and deep convictions, and devoted not a little time to the study of the Bible, church liturgy and ritual and the lives of the church fathers. He was first united in marriage to Miss Olive Persons, by whom he had two children, one of whom is dead. His second marriage was to Eliza J. Ketcham, who became the mother of seven children, five sons and two daughters, three of whom (two sons and one daughter) are yet living. Their children were: Samuel M., entered the Union army at the beginning of the civil war as a volunteer in the 64th regiment, served until wounded, re-enlisted and was killed at the battle of the Wilderness; Jasper M., now living at Silver Creek, New York. He entered the 112th regiment, New York volunteers, as a private at the beginning of the war and served until its close; James F. M., also enlisted at the beginning of the war and served until the battle of Gettysburg, when he was taken prisoner, carried to Andersonville and Libby prisons, in the latter of which he died; Ira J., now living in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he is superintendent of the largest sheet-iron mill in the United States; Louisa died at the age of fifteen years; Alice D., wife of E. A. Kelsey, of Corry, Pa.; and George R.

George R. Bacon acquired his preliminary education in the common schools, but afterward supplemented it by continual independent study and reading. He learned the trade of carpenter, became foreman on the old Buffalo and State Line R. R. in 1854, and has been continued in that capacity through all the various changes in the ownership and management of the road ever since. Aside from his main business, Mr. Bacon has dealt somewhat in real estate and devoted his spare time to the care of his five-acre vineyard.

George R. Bacon was married to Miss Mary A. Lay, daughter of William and Elizabeth (Rowe) Lay. Her father was a native of Cornwall, England, and emigrated to the village of Ripley, Chautauqua county, in the year 1853. He lived in Ripley until his death, March 13th, 1871. Mr. Lay’s education was such as is given by the common schools, and his occupation an engineer and a farmer. In politics he was a republican; religiously a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. His wife bore him six children: William, Jr., of Ripley, a stone-mason by trade; Thomas H., married and living in the State of Kansas; John R., of Ripley, a grape-grower; Jane, wife of Hart Endy (dead), of Ripley; Elizabeth, wife of Oliver Stetson, a grape-grower of Ripley; and Mary A. Having lost two infant children, they in 1874 adopted an infant girl. Bertha Isabel, who is fully adopted and is as such considered one of their natural children.

G. R. Bacon is a supporter of the Republican party and a member of the Royal Arcanum. He is an upright man, straightforward in his business dealings and stands high in the estimation of Ripley’s best citizens.