My Genealogy Hound

HON. A. L. CHILDS, editor and proprietor of the Waterloo Observer, was born in Seneca Falls, N. Y., April 12, 1840. He is the son of Amhurst Childs, who was born in Massachusetts, and who came to Seneca County in 1820, and read medicine with Dr. Welles, one of the early physicians of Waterloo. He was a graduate of the old Geneva Medical College. He soon rose to eminence in his chosen profession, and at the voice of his co-workers in the healing art became President of the State Medical College, and was long the head of the State Medical Society. He died in 1869, in his seventy-first year, in Waterloo, where he had long conducted a most successful practice. His wife was Larissa Southwick, a daughter of Maj. David Southwick, of Junius, Seneca County. She and the Doctor had seven children, three daughters and one son surviving.

Mr. Childs, the subject of this article, as might be expected from the learning, the broad views and the substantial prosperity that had characterized and attended his father, was thoroughly trained and educated for a useful and honorable career. From the public school he passed to the Waterloo Academy, and in 1857 entered Hamilton College, at Clinton, N. Y., graduating from that institution in 1861. Then, bearing in mind the saying about traveling making a “ready man,” he spent a year or more in traveling through the Western States and territories. His continuous school course was interrupted by a course of law study under the guidance of Judge Sterling Hadley, and his admission to the Bar in 1865.

In 1878 Mr. Childs founded the Seneca County News, and for seven years remained at its head, making it one of the influential papers of the region. It then passed from his hands into the possession of Varr & Medden, the present proprietors. For several years he devoted much time to the practice of law in Rochester. In 1894 he secured the control of the Waterloo Observer, an eight-column paper, finely printed and ably edited.

Mr. Childs has received honors from his community and from the state. He was Clerk of the Senate Judiciary Committee under Charles J. Folger, President Arthur’s Secretary of the Treasury, and his party honored itself and him by electing him as a Member of the Assembly to represent Seneca County. In 1885 Isabel Emmett, of Waterloo, became his wife. They have two daughters, Alice and Maria Isabel. It need hardly be said that their home is delightful.

Mr. Childs is a man of influence, not only in his immediate neighborhood, but throughout the state, and is much in demand for stump speaking in every campaign. He takes much interest in political affairs, and gives himself freely to the call of his party.