BIOGRAPHY: John Dales; Newburgh, Orange co., New York

transcribed by W. David Samuelsen for USGenWeb Archives

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Portrait and Biographical Record of Rockland and Orange Counties New York
Containing Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative
Citizens of the Counties.
Together with Biographies and Portraits of all the Presidents of the United
States.
New York and Chicago; Chapman Publishing Co., 1895

JOHN DALES, one of the oldest and most highly respected citizens of Newburgh,
is senior member of the real-estate and insurance firm of John Dales & Co.,
and has also been identified with numerous enterprises calculated to benefit
this community. His business career has been remarkably successful, but at no
time has he overstepped the boundaries of absolute integrity and fairness to
his fellows. He was one of the original members of the Board of Trade, is a
Director in the Quassaick National Bank, Secretary of the Woodlawn Cemetery
Association, and held a like position in the Newburgh & Midland Railway
Company in former years. He is an apt example of what may be accomplished by a
young man, provided he possesses requisite industry and a determination to
succeed.

At a very early day in the history of this country, three brothers by the name
of Dales emigrated from Wales, one settling in South Carolina, another in New
York, and the third going further west. Our subject's great-grandfather was
the one who located in Orange County, N. Y., and here many of his descendants
are still living. His son John died on his farm inthis county, and John Dales,
Sr., father of our subject, was born at Little Britain in 1775. When he was
twenty years of age he moved to Delaware County, N. V., where he married, and
improved a farm. There he took up a tract of one hundred and six acres of wild
land, for which he paid twelve and a-half cents per acre. This property is now
owned by our subject, who also possesses adjoining farms, amounting in all to
three hundred and thirty-six acres. The old lease, dated 1795, is a most
remarkable relic of old days, and according to the old agreement he has to pay
an annual rental of a shilling per acre on the land. The senior Mr. Dales died
in 1831, and his wife, who was formerly Miss Sarah Cavin, survived him until
1847, when she passed away, aged sixty-six years. The parents were members of
the old Scotch Seceders Presbyterian Church, now called the United
Presbyterian. Mrs. Dales was born in Little Britain, and was a daughter of the
earliest settlers of Delaware County. Her father died in early manhood, but
her mother, Sarah Cavin, reared the family, and lived to be one hundred and
five years of age.

In 1839 John Dales came to Newburgh and entered the employ of Crawford,
Mailler & Co., wholesale and retail merchants, and proprietors of a line of
boats running between this point and New York City. At the end of a year young
Dales became connected with the retail dry-goods house of George Cornwall,
with which he continued for three years. In 1843 he went to Memphis, Tenn.,
and for two years was employed in a general store, then for a similar period
was in a New York City wholesale dry-goods house. In the spring of 1847 he
located in Jordan, N. Y., where he successfully engaged in business in company
with Henry Cornwall, son of his old employer, but now an Episcopalian
minister. At the end of six months the partnership was dissolved, Mr. Dales
continuing alone for four years. He then purchased a mill and engaged in the
manufacture of flour for fifteen years.

In 1865 Mr. Dales sold out his other interests in order to take up his
residence in New-burgh. In company with W. O. Mailler, he en-gaged in the
wholesale grocery and freighting business for several years, but since 1869
has given his principal attention to the real-estate and insurance business.
He has represented the Home, the North American and the Phoenix Companies here
for over a quarter of a century. In 1877 he was made ticket agent for the Erie
Railroad, and still transacts the company's business. In 1884 he took into
partnership with him his son-in-law, C. D. Robinson, and has gradually
withdrawn from arduous duties, though he is in the office every day.

In 1845 Mr. Dales married Susan Oakley, a native of Newburgh and daughter of
Jacob Oakley, the latter of whom was born in this county and was by trade a
tanner. Mrs. Dales departed this life in 189o, and their only son, William,
who was Cashier of the Millerton National Bank, died in 1882, aged
thirty-three years. Mary, the only daughter, is the wife of Charles D.
Robin-son, previously mentioned, and one of the Alder-men of this city. In
April, 1843, John Dales be-came a member of the Old Presbyterian Church, of
which Calvary Presbyterian Church is a branch, and in the latter congregation
he has been a Ruling Elder, a Trustee and Treasurer for many years. The
last-named office he has honorably filled twenty-six years, and for a long
time he was Superintendent of the Sunday-school. Since the close of the war he
has been an active Re-publican. Fraternally he is a charter member of Hudson
River Lodge No. 607, F. & A. M., is a Royal Arch Mason, and also belongs to
Hudson River Commandery No. 35, K. T. He has traveled extensively in various
parts of the United States, and is a man of wide information and liberal
ideas.