This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Obituary Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/BUB.2ACI/5950 Message Board Post: Charles L. Ricker Charles L. RICKER, who built the first independent telephone line in the country, died unexpectedly Friday 17, 1950. Born in the Town of New Hudson, May 22, 1861, Mr. RICKER was the son of Henry Paris and Sara REYNOLDS RICKER. He attended Cuba High School and at the age of seventeen entered business with his father and brother-in-law in a hardware store in the Bradford oil field in 1878. Then came to Richburg and in 1881 he was a hardware merchant there. And of course, then came the bursting of the boom and Fillmore beckoned. "I had $57 when I got here and opened a hardware store," he relates. "I didn't need any more. Of course, I still wasn't of legal age, but the salesmen all knew me from Richburg and I never lacked for goods." Time passed. With a knack for making friends, public life next called. He became the county treasurer. Sometime later a brother, Clarence RICKER, aspired to be county clerk. So Charles bowed out, with a gesture characteristic of the man to make his friend, Sherman BURDICK of Alfred, his successor as county treasurer. By the time he became county treasurer, a trunk telephone line passed through Allegany County by way of Belmont and Wellsville. But the idea of branch lines, to serve communities, was frowned on, even arbitrarily opposed. "Well, I wanted a Fillmore connection from Belmont for my business," he said. "Right at the start I was told no, in terms known to be final. That didn't help what I needed, so I went through to New York. There the futility of my case was rather sharply told to me. It took a little time, but the outcome was the line to Fillmore." After leaving public office, he headed up movements for independent telephone companies in Fillmore, Cuba, and Bolivar, among others. Mr. RICKER was one of three who raised the money and organized the State Bank of Fillmore, of which he was for many years a director. Other utilities beckoned and Mr. RICKER built the Fillmore Water System. This was sold to the village recently. He was for some time with the United States Treasury Department as a bank receiver. Mr. RICKER was a member of Oriona Lodge, No. 229, Free and Accepted Masons, Fillmore and at the time of his death was the oldest living Past District Deputy Grand Master of Masons in the state and held the Grand Lodge Medal for Service. Mr. RICKER had gone to the Masonic rooms Friday afternoon following his usual custom, and was apparently stricken with a sudden illness. The body was found Saturday evening by an official of the Masonic Lodge who visited the rooms. Mr. RICKER lived alone at his home on West Main Street. He was preceded in death by his wife, Cora L. NORTON, to whom he was married October 17, 1883, and a daughter, Elizabeth. Surviving is one sister, Mrs. Edith HICKS, Attica, N.Y. Funeral services were held at the home on West Main Tuesday afternoon, November 21, 1950 at two o'clock with burial in the Pine Grove Cemetery, Fillmore. [Northern Allegany Observer obituary, transcribed by Louise Y. Mills, 2003, from Cora Lahr's scrapbooks, Fillmore, NY]