>From THE HISTORY OF CLINTON AND FRANKLIN COUNTIES, NY 1880 pg. 112A "The subject of this sketch dates his ancestry in this country back to Newton Ransom, a native of Colchester, Conn., who was born in about the year 1710. His son, Elisha, was born Dec. 24, 1753. Roswell, son of Elisha, and father of the subject of this notice, was born in Shelburne, Mass., Sept. 22, 1781. He married Ruth Kingsley on the 19th of March, 1807, and their family consisted of the following: Nancy, Adaline, Augustus, Sabrina, Irena, and Harry Sawyer, all of whom are living, except the two former. Harry Sawyer Ransom was born in Chazy May 7, 1824. The rudiments of his education were acquired in the district schools of his native town, and he subsequently attended the Champlain Academy. In 1845 he left home and went to New Madrid, Mo., and entered as clerk in a mercantile establishment. At the expiration of two years he returned to his native town, and during the following four years remained on his father's farm. He then became manager of the union store at West Chazy, remaining at that place two years, when he removed to Watertown, Wis., and engaged in the hardware business. Two years later, having resolved to locate farther west, he settled in Marysville, Cal., where he conducted a milling business until 1862. In that year he again returned to his native county, and in the darkest hours of our country's peril, - the summer of 1862, - he raised Company I, of the 118th Regiment New York Volunteers, and became its captain. The record of this gallant regiment and a description of the disastrous and bloody conflict at Drury's Bluff, where Capt. Ransom, while in the discharge of his duty, lost his right arm, and fell dangerously wounded, his body pierced by! an enemy's bullet, the reader will find in detail in the military history in this volume. The battle of Drury's Bluff occurred May 16, 1864, and in the following July Capt. Ransom returned to his native county, not in the pride and strength of manhood, but maimed and shattered, conscious, however, of having performed his whole duty on that disastrous field. His recovery was slow, and at times his life was despaired of. The people recognizing his services upon the tented filed, placed him in nomination for sheriff, to which office he was elected in 1865. At the expiration of his term of office he received the appointment of postmaster at Plattsburgh in 1869; was reappointed under the second administration of Gen. Grant, and was the first postmaster, says the NEW YORK HERALD, commissioned by President Hayes. Politically he is a Republican, and has been since the organization of that party, and was a member of the first Republican convention held in Clinton County. As a father, Capt. Ransom is kind and affectionate; as a citizen, upright and generous; and as a public official, ever faithful to his trust."