My Genealogy Hound

JOHN R. FAY. One of the most enterprising citizens of Westfield and one who is always found in the fore-front of any movement tending toward the advancement of the material welfare of his town, is John R. Fay, who was born in Stockton, Chautauqua county, New York, April 14, 1847, and I is a son of Nathaniel and Nancy D. (Bowdish) Fay. His grandfather, Nathaniel Fay, was a native of Massachusetts and came to the county in 1808, locating in Portland six years before the first town meeting was held there. He was subsequently elected a member of the board of supervisors of that town. He was a farmer by occupation and died well advanced in years. His son, Nathaniel Fay, Jr., (father), a native of Portland, this county, became a local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal church, owned and cultivated a farm in Stockton, and in 1877, moved to Iowa, where he now resides engaged in farming. In politics he is a republican, and married Nancy D. Bowdish, a native of Columbia county, this State, by whom he had several children. She is also a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.

John R. Fay was reared on a farm, where he remained until 1873, when he came to Westfield. He received a good common school education and shortly after coming to Westfield, erected a cheese factory and engaged in making cheese until 1883, when he entered the coal trade which he has most successfully continued to the present time. He has enlarged it considerably and at his place of business, corner of Pearl street and the Nickel Pate Railway, can be found not only coal of all kinds, but salt, plaster, stone flagging, sewer-pipe, drain tile, brick, fertilizers, etc. He is also extensively engaged in the cultivation of grapes. In his religious convictions he is a Methodist, being a member and a trustee of the church of that denomination at Westfield, and superintendent of its Sunday school. In politics he is a prohibitionist. He is a member of the F. & A. M., and of the Royal Arcanum.

John R. Fay married, in 1876, Emma J. Neill, daughter of Hugh Neill, of Westfield, and to them has been born one child, a daughter: Clara S.