Transcribed from the Belmont Dispatch, August 5, 1904.
DEATH OF OLD PIONEER
Henry S. Norton, Of Belmont, Run Over by Wagon While Haying, and Instantly Killed
Henry S. Norton, one of the oldest residents of Belmont, and an early settler of Allegany County, met a sudden death last Saturday while working on the farm of Eugene Brown in the haying. Mr. Brown was backing the wagon from the barn, assisted by his men. Mr. Norton was pulling on the back end when he fell and a rear wheel passed over his chest. Henry Thomas quickly pulled Mr. Norton from under the wagon, before the front wheel reach him, but the death blow had been given the fallen man. He gasped “Turn me over” as he was carefully laid on the hay on the barn floor and was not seen to stir afterwards. Dr. Van Orsdale, who was summoned at once said that death probably was almost instantaneous.
In the death of Henry S. Norton Belmont loses an esteem citizen and Allegany County one of her children, who in the early days of local history, helped to lay the foundation stones of her growth and advancement. He was born March 16, 1815. When sixteen years old his father, Ebenezer Norton and mother and a family of eleven children, came to Allegany County from Martha's Vineyard. For some time Henry worked for his uncle on Knights Creek and then, coming to Belmont he purchased and cleared the farm, which is now occupied by his son Charles H. Norton. Mr. Norton was a true pattern of the hardy pioneers to whom the [trackless forests] were as familiar as a book. The young people and older ones too, of the present generation, remember the stories told by “Uncle” Henry of the old hunting and logging days. Equipped with his gun and powder horn he frequently made such hunting jaunts as over the hills to Hornellsville, when that place was a small village and his stories of the logging camp and rafting the cut trees down the river to mill would surpass in thrilling interest many a tale which has been deemed worthy of publishing.
Mr. Norton's wife died eight years ago. Only three of his fathers large family survive him, a brother Aaron D. Norton of Black Creek, and two sisters Mrs. Ebenezer Hyde of Belmont and Mrs. Clementine Blackman of Indiana. To Mr. and Mrs. Norton were born five children, all of whom are living: Charles H. Norton and Mrs. Joseph Demmer of Belmont, Mrs. Arthur Brown of Silver Creek, Mrs. Susan Gardiner, and Emory Norton of Mt. Morris.
The funeral was held Monday afternoon at 2 o'clock. Rev. [W. S. Llewellyn Romilly], Rector of St. Phillips Church, of which the deceased was a member, officiated assisted by Rev. Edgar S. [???] of the Presbyterian Church. Interment was made in the family burying plot in the Thibou cemetery. A host of relatives and friends came from out of town to attend the funeral. Among them where Aaron Norton, Ebenezer Norton, Mr. and Mrs. Grant Norton, Lucius Norton and [E. J. Norton] of Knight’s Creek, Mr. and Mrs. W. L. Norton and two children, Miss Mabel York, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Norton, Mr. and Mrs. John Smith of Wellsville, Judge and Mrs. S. M. Norton of Friendship, Mrs. J. A. Vincent and Mrs. O. S. Norton, her son Oliver and daughter Blanche of Allentown, D. D. Babcock of Rochester, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Brown and three children of Silver Creek, Mrs. M. A. Snyder of Hornellsville, E. E. Norton of Mt. Morris, Maj. Richard Church of Belvidere, Mr. and Mrs. Oak Duke and Mrs. S. A. Duke of Wellsville.
Photograph of Henry Norton is from the Elmira Telegram, July 31, 1904.