Biographies of Early Settlers of Elma Township, Erie County, NY. Submitted by Doris Cline Ward on August 15, 1998. ************************************************************************ USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ************************************************************************ James Fairbank was born 23 March 1779 in Lancaster, MA, the son of Silas and Lydia (Prouty) Fairbank. The family moved to Putney, Windham County, Vermont in the 1790s where Silas and Lydia died and are buried. James married Eunity Moore, the daughter of Gideon and Arvilla (Hobart) Moore in 1800 and they settled on a farm not far from both their parents. They had three daughters and one son - Eliza who married Perry Knight; Laura who married James Larned Blood, s/o Jonathan and Polly (Scott) Blood; Willard; and Nancy Fairbank who married Horace Blood, also s/o Jonathan and Polly above. The Erie Canal opened about 1825, and the push was west. Willard went to Western New York and chose land in Elma Township, then part of Aurora, in Erie County, and he and his father purchased the land in 1830. Father and son worked to develop the farm and the community. Lumber from their farm went into the building of the Baptist Church in East Aurora, and the little schoolhouse built at the corner of (now) Maple Road and Billington Rd. and women of the family took their turn in being the teacher. This school was later re-established on Maple Road quite near Jamieson Rd junction. James was killed by a falling poll on Jan.18, 1851 and was buried in the early Baptist Church cemetery located behind the Church (which faced Main Street in the village at that time.) James descended from Jonathan Fairbank who built the original Fairbank homestead in Dedham, MA, now an historic museum. through son Jonas (2) and Lydia Prescott; Jabez (3); and Mary Wilder; Thomas (4) and Dorothy (Carter); Silas and Lydia (Prouty). Eunity (Moore) Fairbank was born 25 February 1783 in Putney, Windham Co., VT, the d/o Gideon and Arvilla (Hubbard) Moore. Her grandfather was Capt. Abijah Moore who led a company of minute men from Windham County, VT back to Massachusetts in response to the Lexington Alarm. It had taken about two days for the news to reach Vermont, and the group left a day later. It was the first military unit from what is now Vermont to participate in the Revolutionary War. Eunity shared the hard work of helping to create a home in the double log house built by her son Willard, and shared with Willard's family. Her eyesight began to fail, but she kept knitting for the family anyway, with someone else to help rectify the dropped stitches from time to time. She died 8 November 1868 and was buried beside her husband, James, in the Baptist Cemetery in East Aurora, laid out behind the Church. Eunity was a descendant of a pioneers who arrived in the Massachusetts colony - starting with the Mayflower in 1620,(Mary Chilton) ; the Fortune, 1621 Mary's husband John Winslow; the Anne ca1623; and numberless ships in the Winthrop Fleet which arrived in 1630, and then shuttled back and forth bringing additional colonists. She shares descent from Edmund Hobart with former President George W. Bush. Willard Fairbank, only son of James and Eunity (Moore) Fairbank; born 10 Sept. 1803 in Putney, Windham County, VT; married Mary Blood, d/o Jonathan and Polly (Scott) Blood. They had five children before moving to Elma, Erie County, NY. - viz James Freelove Fairbank, born 28 April 1829 in Putney, Windham County, VT. who became a Doctor of Medicine, graduate from Buffalo Medical School and moved to Iowa. Horace Scott Fairbank, born 26/7 May 1831 in Elma Township. The first white child born in Elma. He married Catherine Perry of Aurora, and they settled on the Bowen Road in the town of Aurora. Mary Eliza Fairbank, 26 August, 1833 in Elma Township; who married Mortimer Proctor Adams of the early Adams family of Aurora area. They settled on the Bowen Road. Willard Harrison Fairbank, born 16 Jan. 1840 in Elma Township; married Mary Hines, d/o Thomas Hines of the area. Willard's wife Mary (Blood) died in 1840 and he married (2) her sister Mahala Blood. They had one daughter Mahala A. Fairbank who married Matthew Hansenburg. They inherited the farm and descendants lived there until 1954. Willard and both wives are buried in the Baptist Cemetery in East Aurora, behind the former location of the Baptist Church...possibly now called the Pioneer Cemetery. Matthew and Mahala (Fairbank) Hansenburg are buried in the Oakwood Cemetery in East Aurora. Willard and Mahala adopted a little girl, Frances E. Zindell, who took the name Fairbank. She married Solon Hines, brother of Mary above. Their daughter Jessie married Benjamin Eldridge of Marilla who was prominent in Democratic circles for many years. Mary and Mahala Blood, daughters of Jonathan and Polly (Scott) Blood likewise had ancestry that reached the early Massachusetts Bay colony in every line. Polly was descended from Henry Adams of Braintree, sharing this ancestor with later presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Jonathan's line went back to Robert Blood who married the daughter of Major Simon Willard, prominent early settler of Concord, MA, in charge of the militia during the Indian wars of 1676. Sources: From voluminous family records and personal correspondence collected by the Hansenburg family and published by Esther Hansenburg Cline and Doris Cline Ward. For further information, write the latter, at 42 Larchmont Rd., Asheville, NC 28804. E-mail: Individual family histories available.