# Farmersville, Cattaraugus County, New York Farmersville sits in the northern reaches of Cattaraugus County, in the hill country of western New York. For the Strong family, it was the place where they took root in the 1830s and where three generations were born, married, and raised before the family finally turned west. ## The First Settlers Ezra Brewster Strong Sr., a native of Vermont, came to Farmersville from Monroe County, New York, in 1832. He settled on a farm and married Eleanor, daughter of Matthias Lane. It was the frontier work of clearing and holding a farm, and by the accounts left of him he "made a manly struggle with poverty while rearing and educating a family of six sons and three daughters." Eleven children were born to Ezra and Eleanor. His son Jacob L. Strong likewise came to Cattaraugus County in 1832, took up farming, married Phebe Louise Phelps, and served more than thirty years as a deacon of the Baptist church. The Strong household of the 1840s and 1850s was a large one. Ezra Sr. appears in the community across the decades from 1832 through 1865, alongside his wife Eleanor Jane Lane and their children — William Nelson, Reuben E., Joseph Gardner Haskins, Walter Van Cleat, Lucy Eleanore, Eleanor Josephine, and Jacob Lane Strong among them. Henry Chaffee, who married into the family through daughter Sally, was living in the area as early as 1840. The children scattered as they grew. William, the eldest, became a wealthy farmer in Michigan. Joseph served as a captain in the 28th Iowa Infantry. Walter and Jacob remained farmers, and it was through the third son, Ezra Brewster Strong Jr., that the line carried forward in Farmersville itself. ## The Second Generation Ezra Brewster Strong Jr. was born 15 May 1829 and spent his life in and around Farmersville. He worked as a carpenter and farmer, listed on a small holding of two and a half acres, and he was present through the household counts of 1850, 1855, 1863, 1865, 1870, and 1875. He married Priscilla B. Crandall, who lived in Farmersville across those same years, from 1855 into 1880. Their children — including Emma Eugena, Elizabeth M., and Martha A. Strong — were born and raised here through the 1860s. Ezra Jr. died before 1880, leaving Priscilla a widow. She remained in Farmersville through 1880 before eventually joining her son's family in their move west. ## The Third Generation and the Journey West Walter Ezra Strong, son of Ezra Jr. and Priscilla, was born in Farmersville on 6 February 1855. He grew up on the family farm, appearing in the local counts of 1855, 1860, 1865, 1875, and 1880. Nearby lived the Newman family — Franklin H. Newman, Hannah Elizabeth Easton, and their children Carl William, Mabel, and Jeanette "Jennie" Lydia Newman, all present in Farmersville in 1870. Jennie had been born in the town in 1859. Walter and Jennie married on 3 July 1875. Their children were born in Farmersville over the following years: Franklin Dewitt on 21 April 1876, Grace Ruby on 6 October 1880, and Mattie Pearl on 26 June 1882. The young family shared the town with grandmother Priscilla and the wider web of Strong and Newman relations. In 1884, Walter and Jennie left Farmersville behind. He moved the whole family out on a train to the Washington Territory, settling on Wild Rose Prairie, and brought his widowed mother Priscilla along with them. Younger children — William "Will" Henry, Ethel May, Guy Alfred, and Carl "Carlie" F. Strong — would be born and raised on that western prairie rather than in the New York hills. For the Strongs, Farmersville was the whole of their eastern chapter: the farm Ezra Sr. carved out in 1832, the carpenter's trade of Ezra Jr., and the marriages and births of the 1870s and 1880s that produced the family who would carry the name across the continent.