Note 97 — Chapter III · THE VITICULTURE OF NEW YORK

Elijah Fay was born in Southborough, Massachusetts, in 1781. He moved to Brocton, Chautauqua County, New York, in the fall of 1811. The early history of not only the viticulture but of the horticulture of the Chautauqua region is interwritten with that of the Fay family. Elijah Fay’s children and grandchildren inherited a love of horticulture from their ancestor and several of them, as mentioned in the text, have been noted for their horticultural work in this region. Lincoln Fay, a nephew of Elijah Fay, one of the first men to grow and sell grape vines in the region, originated the Fay currant which was afterwards introduced by him and his son Elijah H. Fay. Of the Fay family, noted in the annals of grape-growing in this region, only G. E. Ryckman and L. R. Ryckman, grandchild and great-grandchild of Elijah Fay, are now living. Elijah Fay lived to the ripe age of eighty, dying in 1860. His memory should be long cherished as one of the founders of the viticulture of New York.