New England Families Genealogical and Memorial: Volume IV
Author: William Richard Cutter
Daniel, son of Josiah (2) Beardsley, was born at Stratford, July 15, 1779. He was a farmer all his active life. In politics he was a Whig. He lived at Butternuts, New York, but with his wife made frequent visits to his old home in Stratford, and upon his return used to take a load of clams, then a great luxury at places distant from the shore. Their last visit was in 1843. He was a thrifty farmer and used to buy pork of all the farmers in the section where he lived, packed the pork, smoking the hams and shoulders. He found a good market for this meat among the men then building the Delaware & Hudson canal. He became well-to-do. "I have heard him speak of it as a remarkable fact," says a descendant. "that one year he made clear over a thousand dollars, which was a large sum, when in those days the best dairy butter sold for from three to ten cents a pound and brown sugar at over twenty cents a pound." He married, November 11, 1804, Hannah Achsah Hurd. Children: Elvira, born June 6, 1806, died in 1850; Erastus, August 12, 1812, mentioned below; Chauncey, 1816, died 1879; William Hurd, November 30, 1818, died in 1886.
