BIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

THE LEADING CITIZENS OF MADISON COUNTY

CONTENTS
Preface
Names Index
Portrait Index

   SEMUN EDDY, an intelligent farmer and mill-owner at the town of Lenox, was born at Merrillsville, N. Y., about two miles south of his present home, in the year 1824. The family name of Eddy is a very old one in New England. In 1630 Richard and Samuel Eddy, sons of the Rev. William Eddy, vicar of St. Dunatan's Church in Cranbrook, Kent, England, who died in 1616, sailed from Boxhill in the good brig "Handmaid," which brought, it is said, the last company of the early Puritan colonists to Massachusetts. They landed on the 29th of October. Samuel soon purchased a home, and was enrolled a "freeman" in the same year. These were the days when the blue laws were in full force: and Samuel's wife, being of a rather independent turn of mind, had the misfortune to fall under the displeasure of the Governor of the Colony, and was twice fined, one for leaving her washing out over the Sabbath, and secondly for travelling on the same sacred day from Plymouth to Boston, to minister to a dying friend.
   The grandfather of our subject was Reuben Eddy, of Massachusetts, who came to Madison County in 1801, with his son William, the father of Semun. The wife of Reuben was the widow of Jasper Aylesworth. Reuben died on his farm, aged eighty-three. William Eddy, the son, was born in Massachusetts in 1779, and was twenty-two years of age when he came with his father to Madison County. His wife was Miss Nancy Torey, daughter of John and Amy (Arnold) Torey, whose family were of the Shaker persuasion. She survived her husband (whose death occurred at his farm in 1854, at the age of seventy-five) seven years, and was totally blind during all that time. She died at Chittenango, at the age of seventy-five. While not being extremely wealthy, they had lived in comfortable circumstances, having an abundance of the good things of this life. Their burial-place is at Merrillsville; but the grandparents were interred in Cazenovia, N.Y. Of the nine children born to Mr. and Mrs. Eddy, seven grew to maturity, five sons and two daughters; but only three are now living, namely: Seneca, of Manlius, N. Y., nearly eight years old; Leroy, aged seventy-four, living on the old farm home; and Semun, who is the youngest.
   Our subject was sent to the district school, and was reared a farmer. He married November 5, 1846, to Miss Sally Jane Hainesworth, of Camillus, Onondaga County, N. Y., who was the daughter of Joseph and Lovina (Van Deusa) Hainesworth, they being of English and Dutch descent. Mr. and Mrs. Semun Eddy have three children, namely: Lovina, whose husband, James Shaver, a farmer, died on year after their marriage; James L., of Syracuse, N. Y., who is married and has two children; and Arthur M., who lives at home with his parents. He married Miss Ida McRouse.
   Mr. Eddy having been a farmer nearly all his life, having worked at the homestead two years, and at other places, including Chittenango, where he lived for ten years, trading his farm of one hundred acres there for the property he now owns near Merrillsville. This property consists of twenty acres of land, with saw-mill, grist-mill, two dwellings, two barns, and a blacksmith shop -- all in excellent condition. For the past twenty-three years he has worked a small farm near Wampsville, letting his mills to his son and grandson, who now take charge of them. He votes with the Republican party, and, like his New England ancestors, is stern and uncompromising in regard to the principles he has adopted. In October 29, 1882, our subject attended a reunion of the Eddy family at Providence, R. I., and found about two hundred people claiming the same descent--his relatives near and distant. Quiet and unobtrusive in his manner, acting before the world honestly and uprightly, Mr. Eddy fills his place in it creditably and with honor.