By Carol Fisher-Linn
Ely Samuel Parker (1828 –1895), born a Tonawanda Seneca, was an engineer, U.S. Army officer, aide to General Ulysses Grant, and Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in charge of the government’s relations with Native Americans. As a bilingual youth he read law for three years and lived in Ellicottville before being denied application to the bar because he was Seneca and non-citizen. He earned an engineering degree and spent years working on the Erie Canal and made himself a name and strong connections. When General U.S. Grant became president in 1869, he appointed Parker as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the first Native American to hold the post. Parker had served as adjutant and secretary to General Grant. He wrote the final draft of the Confederate surrender terms at Appomattox. Later in his career, he rose to rank of brevet brigadier general. Parker lived his last years in poverty, dying in Fairfield, Connecticut in 1895. He was buried, but the Seneca did not believe that this Algonquian territory was appropriate for his final resting place. They requested that his widow relocate his body. On January 20, 1897, his body was exhumed and reinterred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York. He was reinterred next to his ancestor Red Jacket, a famous Seneca orator, and other notables of Western New York.
an American industrialist in the rubber industry
and founder of B.F. Goodrich Company. He
was born in the farming town of Ripley, New
York, November 1841. Goodrich is buried in
Lakeview Cemetery, Jamestown.
Benjamin Franklin Goodrich (1841–1888) was an American industrialist in the rubber industry and founder of B.F. Goodrich Company. He was born in the farming town of Ripley, New York, November 1841. Orphaned at the age of eight, he was raised by his uncle. He graduated from Fredonia. He went on to become a surgeon after he graduated from what is now Case Western Reserve U. School of Medicine. He served as a Captain and battlefront surgeon for the Union Army in the Civil war. Medicine was not very good to him so he gave up struggling and went to work in Pennsylvania’s oilfields and became a real estate speculator. Later, with J. P. Morris, he bought the Hudson River Rubber Company from Charles Goodyear. The company failed yet he relocated to Akron, Ohio and ultimately founded B. F. Goodrich Co. He produced cotton wrapped fire hoses, garden hoses, and bicycle tires. The company still teetered, and before it became successful, Goodrich died at 46. Once the company introduced the pneumatic tire, the business finally boomed. The company now is big in aerospace, defense and homeland security markets and was sold to United Technologies. Goodrich is buried in Lakeview Cemetery, Jamestown.
Commodore Perry Vedder was born in Ellicottville, New York in 1838, the son of Jacob Vedder. Vedder grew up on Jefferson Street in a stately home which is now the Edelweiss Lodge, he attended the common schools, and then spent five years as a sailor on the Great Lakes. In 1858, he entered Springville Academy, and afterwards began to study law. He served in the 154th NY Volunteers, fought in the battle of Chancellorsville (where he was captured and held for a time), and other significant battles. He mustered out as a lieutenant colonel of Volunteers. After the war, he finished his studies, was admitted into the bar in 1866 and practiced in Ellicottville. Over the years from 1872 to 1891 he served as a member of NYS Assembly for Cattaraugus County, NS Senate and in the NYS Legislatures. In 1894 he served as a delegate of the NYS Constitutional Convention. He died in NYC and is buried at the Sunset Hill Cemetery in Ellicottville.
Patricia K. McGee (1934-2005), from Franklinville NY was a longtime NYS Assemblywoman and Senator. I met Pat when she worked as secretary and administrative assistant at the Olean campus of Jamestown Community College. She had also served in the same position at Franklinville Central School. In 1978 she was elected to the Cattaraugus County Legislature. She capably served ten years as the county’s first female majority leader, winning hearts and solving problems along the way. She was elected to the 149th District Assembly in 1987, serving on various committees. She then served in the NYS Senate, earning the title of chairperson of the Agriculture Committee, The Commission of Rural Resources and the Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse and others. Seen as a conservative maverick she always put her Southern Tier District first, even against odds from her own Republican party. She frequently wrote columns for the Cattaraugus County Chronicle and had her own website. McGee died in 2005. Yet, she remains legendary in the county. How many of you have hiked or snowmobiled the Pat McGee Trail which was built on 12 miles of abandoned railbed from Cattaraugus NY to Salamanca, NY?