Sunday’s Obituary – A Little Irish for St. Patrick’s Day

[Ellicottville, Cattaraugus County, New York]
From the Ellicottville Post, Wednesday, September 30, 1896:
Obituary
Charles Cotter, aged about ninety-eight years, died at his residence in this town, Thursday at 8 o’clock. Mr. Cotter was born in Brandon, county Cork, Ireland, in about the year 1798. When twenty-one years of age he started for America and after a long and tedious voyage of twelve weeks crossing the Atlantic he landed in Boston, Mass., then a small town, where he made his home for several years, afterward spending a great portion of his time in the South. He would tell many interesting stories about those cruel slavery days.
In 1840 Mr. Cotter was united in marriage to Mrs. Mary Duffy in the city of Buffalo, where they resided for a time. In 1852 they came to Ellicottville and settled on the farm where he resided until the time of his death. Mr. Cotter was a kind neighbor, always ready to help others. He was a good Christian man, a true member of the Roman Catholic Church.
Hour after hour on long winter evenings he would sit by the fire and relate to his grandchildren the stories of his boyhood days, and the hardships which he endured when he first came on the farm, without a roof over his head to shelter him and his family from the cold winter blast.
For many years Mr. Cotter has been afflicted with rheumatism, and for the last ten years was unable to leave his home. He was a great sufferer but bore the pain with patience until death came to him as a happy release, and he died with a smile on his face.
To Mr. Cotter and wife three children were born—J.W. Cotter and Mrs. Peter Lyons of Ellicottville and Mrs. Michael O’Connor of Salamanca, who survive him; also two stepsons, Andrew and Michael Duffy. Michael was killed on the farm by a limb of a falling tree in 1856, and Andrew was killed at the battle of Fredericksburg in 1862.
He also leaves a wife, several grandchildren and a host of friends.
The services were held at the church of the Most Holy Name of Mary, Saturday morning, Rev. Fr. Caraher officiating, and the remains were laid to rest in the Roman Catholic cemetery. May God have mercy on his soul. ~

Irish Cross tombstone from Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo, NY

Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 7, 2012 at 9:53 PM

    I am a descendant of Charles Cotter and Mary Duffy. Their daughter, whose name (I believe) was Elizabeth Cotter, and Michael O'Connor were my great-grandparents. I grew up in Salamanca where Michael O'Connor and Elizabeth Cotter O'Connor are buried near my grandmother.

    I will try to contact you via e-mail in the coming week. I presume we are distant cousins.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

COG: The Love of Reading

Life is funny sometimes, wouldn’t you agree? I sit here this evening checking out my blogger dashboard and find Jasia’s post about reading for the Carnival Of Genealogy . Ah, reading! One of my absolute favorite pastimes. And Jasia wants to know my family’s history of reading? How ironic that on the third anniversary of my father’s death, I am asked that question, for he was influential in the development of my love of reading. Furthermore, I was in a training at work today and we were asked to discuss characteristics about our fathers that we would like to keep, toss, or add in reference to their values, beliefs, etc. One of the items I listed in the “keep” column was his emphasis on the importance of reading and education. My mother tells the story that my father had heard that reading to your child was a good thing, so he instructed my mother to read to me every night. (Until I was about eight, he was often away because of his Navy service.) He purchased several books for me,
Read more

Bannerman Family Mystery

Image
Among the many old photographs originally in my grandfather's possession, there is one that has haunted me and has remained a mystery all these years. The photograph is of three children with their names and ages typeset at the bottom of the photograph. “William, 10 years, Robert 8, and Maggie Bennerman, 4 Years Old.” Who were they? My grandfather was not able to identify them, though his memory was remarkably sharp and accurate until his death at the age of 96. I first noticed this picture and the others that my grandfather had in 1989 when I embarked on the adventure of genealogy. Since then I have traced all of my father's ancestors at least back to the early 1800s (and a lot beyond). But I never ran into the Bennerman name, anywhere. Not as ancestors of mine, not even as neighbors. I am lucky enough to even have a name to match the faces in the photograph in the first place. Early in my research, I visited the Tampa stake of the LDS church and I mentioned the Bennerman na
Read more

Friday Faces from the Past: Moorefield

Image
I am perusing through old photographs from my paternal grandparents side these days. In essence, I have been visiting Kentucky although really only in my mind. Things like this come and go in spurts. I have not looked at the research I have done on these lines in a number of years but every now and them something draws me back. What pulled me this time was an email from a gentleman who saw a photograph on my blog that was taken by Randolph in Cadiz, Kentucky (see the photo here ). This gentleman informed me that he and another local historian were doing research on this photographer who did work in Cadiz from about 1893 to 1913. He wanted to know if I would share an electronic copy of the photograph and also asked if I had anymore photographs taken by Randolph. I hunted around and found one more. This is a photograph identified by my grandfather as "My daddy's first cousin [John Willis Watts], Otis Moorefield." Otis Moorefield (1875-1958) Until I put the two tog
Read more