Markham family

This collection documents the Puffer and Markham families, centering on the business dealings of William Guy Markham and Charles Chenery Puffer, both investors in the Sea Island Cotton Company, which managed South Carolina cotton plantations after the Civil War.

The Markhams were some of the first settlers of Genesee County, New York, and heavily involved in agriculture and real estate in the area. William Markham (1762-1826) and his wife Phoebe Dexter (1765-1851) moved from Massachusetts to Rush, New York, where they purchased several plots of land, including a farm near Avon, New York. Of their ten children, Wayne Markham (1796-1872) settled in Kalamazoo, Michigan, while Guy Markham (1800-1892) married Eliza Emma Williams (b.1802) of Goshen, Massachusetts, and inherited and expanded the family's land holdings in western New York. Guy and Eliza had four children: Mary, Mary Elizabeth, Susan Emma, and William Guy.

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