Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2010, All Rights Reserved U.S. Data Repository Please read U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on this page: Title: History of Livingston County, New York: with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers Authors: Smith, James H. City of Publication: Syracuse, N.Y. : Publisher: D. Mason & Co., Publication Date: 1881 Transcribed by Linda Talbott ========================================================================== Page 488, 489 BENNETT, George Hosmer George H. Bennett was born in Avon, June 9, 1820. He is the son of Augustus A. and Maria (Pierson) Bennett. The father was born in Connecticut, July 27, 1789, and the mother was born May 30, 1799. Augustus A. was the fifth of a family of sixteen children. His father was a mason by trade, and was also a local Methodist preacher, who, not being blessed with an abundance of this world's goods, was unable to give his children anything but a limited education. Augustus attended school only about six months. He learned the mason's trade and worked with his father at that business till he was twenty-one years of age, his parents, in the meantime, having moved from Vermont, where they had lived since he was an infant. When Augustus became of age, he located at Livonia, N.Y., where he worked at his trade, employing his leisure hours in the study of Blackstone, and was afterward engaged in teaching school, during which employment he spent every spare moment in perfecting himself for the pursuit of his chosen profession -- law. He studied with Judge Timothy Hosmer, then First Judge of Ontario county, and was admitted to the bar in 1816, after which time he formed a co-partnership with George Hosmer, son of the Judge already spoken of. March 10, 1818, he was married and followed the practice of his profession in Avon the sixteen years following, during twelve of which he was alone, having, after four years' practice, dissolved with his partner. In 1833, he located in Lima, where he remained until 1839, when he mysteriously disappeared and has never been heard of since. He was a man of magnificent presence, of large legal attainments, and ranked among the foremost lawyers of Western New York. His wife died May 4, 1879. Six children were born to them, viz:--Sarah A. wife of Jeremiah Whitbeck, of Rochester; George H.; Mary W. wife of Leander Mix, of Batavia, now of Wheeling, West Virginia; Charles J. a resident of Australia for the past thirty years; Jane E. wife James L. Page, of Rochester; and James A. who married Rowena Warfield, of Ontario county, and is now residing in Prattsburgh, Steuben county, N.Y. George H. lived at home till he became seventeen years of age, and attended the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary at Lima. He then went west to Lima, Ind., where he remained one year, then returned to Lima, N.Y., where he worked on a farm during the following year. He again went west and located at Austinburg, O., where he spent two years attending the academy, and then again returned to New York State and located in Avon, where he immediately commenced preparing himself for a physician. In 1844, he was enrolled as a student with Dr. John F. Whitbeck, then of Lima, with whom he remained four years. He then attended one course of lectures at the Geneva Medical College, and one course of lectures in the medical department of the University at Buffalo, whence he was graduated in 1848. Immediately following this he settled in Lima, where he has since followed his profession with great diligence. Oct. 25, 1848, Mr. Bennett was united in marriage with Eliza C., daughter of Ernest A. and Mary (Johnson) Dunlap, of Ovid, Seneca county, N.Y. She was born August 5th, 1825. Her father died in 1827, aged about thirty- seven years. He was a farmer and surveyor, and was clerk and surrogate of Seneca county two terms, and died while still in office. Her mother died in 1848 aged forty-eight years. Three children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Dunlap, viz:--Mary Jane, who died at the age of twenty; Eliza C., and Ernest Augustus, who died in infancy. To Dr. and Mrs. Bennett have been born eleven children, as follows:--Mary Jay, wife of W. W. Pierce, of Des Moines, Iowa; Charles A., who died at the age of twenty-six; Sarah M., who died in infancy; Emma M., wife of Sidney T. Palmer, of Wayne county, N.Y.; George D., now a practicing physician at Honeoye Falls, N.Y.; John W., a medical student in the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia; Eliza P., Helen E., Jason J., Ernest W., and Amanda J. The doctor united with the Presbyterian church twelve years ago, and his wife has been a member of the same for twenty-five years. In politics Dr. Bennett is a Democrat. Personally he has never indulged in any desire for political preferment, though at all times deeply interested in the general welfare of his party. He has kept pace with all the advancements of the age, possessing strong powers of application and a well balanced mind. He is best known in the community as a physician, though always looked up to as a man of ideas. His cheerful countenance and disposition make his presence in the sick room, in no ordinary way a source of consolation to his patients, and the high regard in which he is held by all classes, clearly shows that he not only enjoys but is eminently entitled to the name of friend. ==========================================================================