Luther Gates is one of the old and honored
citizens of Beaver township, Crawford county, and for the past
thirty-three years his home has been on tile farm which he still owns and
cultivates. He has always been a good and patriotic citizen, in times of
peace and war alike, and has taken an active and interested part in public
affairs bearing upon the welfare of this community. His influence is not
small in local matters, and from time to time he has been called upon to
serve in minor offices of trust. In politics he is a stalwart Republican,
but is not an office-seeker. During a period of three years he represented
this county in tile state board of agriculture, and to everything bearing
upon the subject of farming he gives intelligent consideration.
Calvin Gates, whose birth occurred in Herkimer county, New York, was the
father of the subject of this sketch. He was reared upon a farm and in his
young manhood removed to Chautauqua county, New York. There he was married
and there engaged in agricultural pursuits up to 1836, when he became one
of the early residents of Beaver township, Crawford county, Pennsylvania.
At that time there was not a rod of graded road or a bridge in the
township, and he was one of the first to institute improvements. He took
up two hundred acres of land on the present site of Beaver Center and
continued to improve and cultivate this property until shortly before his
death, at the age of eighty years. For years he occupied various township
offices, and among his neighbors was looked up to as an authority on
disputed questions. He was a Republican, and was a devoted member of the
Christian church. His father, Luther Gates, was a native of Newport, Rhode
Island, and grew to man’s estate there. Later he was married in Rensselaer
county, New York, He was a hero of two wars, and though he was a mere lad
when the Revolutionary war came on,—perhaps fourteen years of age,—he
enlisted as a drummer-boy and served for the entire seven years of the
conflict. He was a witness of General Israel Putnam’s famous ride on
horseback down the stone steps at Horseneck, in Connecticut. During the
war of 1812 he acted in the capacity of a drum-major. Death claimed him
when he was about sixty-five years of age. His father, Joseph, was a
native of New England, as is believed, and was of English extraction.
The mother of the subject of this article bore the maiden name of Caroline
Hubbard. She was born in East Bloomfield, New York, and removed to Pomfret
township, Chautauqua county, same state, when she was young. Her father,
Jonathan Hubbard, was a farmer and was one of the strict old “blue”
Presbyterians of his generation. He never failed to go to church, some
five miles away, taking his whole family with him, the journey being made
with an ox team. In 1836 they removed to this county and settled near
Conneautville. Mrs. Gates began teaching in district schools when she was
seventeen years of age and was thus occupied up to the date of her
marriage. Subsequent to that event she began housekeeping on a farm near
Dunkirk, New York, and remained there several years. Though now past
eighty-eight years, she is quite active, reads a great deal and possesses
all her faculties. She has always been a faithful member of the Christian
church.
Luther Gates was born April 5, 1834, in Pomfret township, Chautauqua
county, and was but two years old when his parents brought him to this
township. He received a good education, supplementing his common-school
course by a short term at the Grand River Institute, Austinburg, Ohio,
after which he taught for one term in this county. He did not like this
vocation, however, and for the next four years followed carpentering. Then
he purchased a farm in this township, at Beaver Center, and in 1866 came
to his present homestead.
In 1861 he responded to his country’s call, and enlisted in the Second
Pennsylvania Cavalry, for three years’ service. He remained at his post of
duty for the entire time, and participated in many of the most important
campaigns of the war. Among others, he fought in the battle of Gettysburg
and the second battle of Bull Run; was with Grant in the Wilderness and
took part in the famous siege of Petersburg. At Bull Run he was injured by
the falling of a horse upon him. Since the war he has been a member of the
State Police and Home Guards, of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and is a charter
member of Springboro Post, No. 346, G. A. R., of Springboro, Crawford
county. He and his wife were very active in the organization of Harmony
Grange in their township and they are both workers in the Christian
church, with whose interests they are prominently identified.
In 1854 Mr. Gates married Miss Mary West of Beaver Center, Crawford
county, Pennsylvania. They have three children, namely: Ida, wife of M. B.
Malloy; Florence, Mrs. Frank A. Boyce, and Ernest A., who is still at home
on the farm. Mrs. Gates is a daughter of Matthew West, a native of
Rensselaer county, New York. He came to this state about 1836, settling in
Erie county, and in 1853 he became a resident of this township. Here he
dwelt, engaged in farming until 1891, when he removed to Clark Corners,
Ohio. where he is still living, in his ninety-third year. His father,
William West was born in 1761, in Rhode Island, was a soldier in the
Revolution, and died in Rensselaer county, New York, in 1835. His father,
Francis West, was a fisherman on the New England coast, his home being at
Newport. He was of English lineage and held a commission as justice under
the king.
Our county and its people: a
historical and memorial record of Crawford County, Pennsylvania by Samuel
P. Bates, 1899, pages 696-698.
