Angus Cameron

Angus Cameron by John R. Strang; an article in the Livingston County, NY, Historical Society publication:

Angus Cameron of Caledonia, a member of this society, was born at Edwardsville, Illinois, June 28, 1848, and died at Brooklyn, New York, December 18th, 1888. His grandfather, John Cameron, was a native of Inverness, Scotland, where he passed his early manhood and married Catharine Cameron, emigrating to America in 1804, and settling in Geneva, this state. There he engaged in mercantile business, out only remained about a year, when, at the request of the Scotch settlers at the " Big Springs," as Caledonia was then called, he removed to the latter place and opened a general store. He was the first merchant who engaged in business in Caledonia, and remained in it until a few years before his death, which occurred in 1820.

Of the eight children who were born to him, John Greig Cameron was the fifth, the date of his birth being July 31, 1813. In early life John Greig Cameron, who had become a lawyer, went west, settling at Edwardsville, Illinois, and married Miss Jane Allen (of St. Louis, Mo.,) where their only son and child, Angus, was born, and there his mother died when he was about three months old. When Angus was about three years old he was brought to Caledonia, and intrusted to the care of his Uncle Angus, and Aunt Margaret, the two eldest and unmarried members of his father's family.

Census 1850

Caledonia, Livingston, New York, United States

Household Role Sex Age Birthplace

Angus Cameron Male 45 New York

John G Cameron Male 37 New York

Charles Cameron Male 30 New York

Margaret Cameron Female 42 New York

Caroline Simmons Female 35 New York

Angus Cameron Male 2 Illinois

John C Simmons Male 2 Illinois

Margaret Simmons Female 0 New York

Jane Smith Female 30 Ireland

From early childhood his personal appearance was strikingly handsome, and in his manner and development he gave promise of those attractive qualities of person and mind which were fulfilled in his maturity, and so endeared him to all those brought into contact with him. His education, begun in the public school at Caledonia, was continued in select schools at St. Louis, Mo., and Union Springs, New York, and completed at the LeRoy Academy. Choosing the legal profession as his life work he studied in the office of Judge Bangs...afterwards graduating from the Yale Law School before attaining his majority. Soon after that he came to Geneseo, entering the office of Hon. Scott Lord, with whom he formed a partnership in 1869. In the next year, (February 23, 1870) he married Miss Ella Wilson of Brooklyn, N. Y., who, with four children, survives him. From Geneseo, Angus removed in 1871, to St. Louis, where his father was then living, and remained there for about ten years and until after his father's death, when the increasing age and feebleness of his Aunt Margaret Cameron, who had cared for him during his infancy and youth, impelled him to return to Caledonia, take her into his household and care for her during her remaining years. In St. Louis he had practiced his profession with marked success, and secured a desirable and increasing clientage. Possessed of ample means after his father's death, he was yet unwilling to retire from his profession, and while retaining his home in Caledonia, he opened an office in Rochester, and continued to go back and forward daily, until after his aunt's death. Since then he has lived for short periods in Rochester, Washington and Brooklyn, always retaining, however, his residence in Caledonia, to which place his family now return permanently. For the last two years of his life he was in charge of the eastern branch of McDonald's Loan Agency of Pierre, Dakota, having his headquarters in New York city.