In July of the last mentioned year Samuel B. Stebbins moved in from the town of Butternuts, Otsego county (his native place), and settled on the farm he still owns—part of lot 20 on Honeoye creek. Myron Allen was the pioneer settler on lot number 1, in the northwest part, in 1839. The next year Jared Emerson settled in the town. In the spring of 1843 William Andrus, from Steuben county, located on lot number 22, and has resided there most of the time since.
R. R. Russell, a native of Homer, Cortland county, and a step-son of William Andrus, who had come to Canisteo, Steuben county, in 1837, and carried the mail from that place to Scio two years, located on his present farm in Alma in 1844. Jacob Crandall, from Alfred, settled at the head of Knight’s creek in 1845, and died there in 1863. His son, Luke G. Crandall, is a resident of the town. About 1848 David S. Clair, son of Paris Clair, who settled in Andover, where the former was born in 1836, moved with his father to Alma and they located on lot number 2, on the place where the elder Clair still lives. Davis S. Clair located upon his present farm in 1866, and has since cleared and improved it. In 1849 Joseph Smith moved in from Michigan and settled on the north part of lot number 114.
Among those who came in 1853 were Benjamin Cole and N.H.Chamberlain. Cole, who was a native of Springfield, Otsego county, located on Honeoye creek. Chamberlain was born in Tioga county, Pennsylvania, but lived in Steuben county for a while previous to his advent in Alma, in August of the year mentioned.
In 1851 Daniel Oviatt, son of Barber Oviatt, an early settler of Amity, bought and located on his present farm in Alma. In September, 1854, Josiah Bartlett, a native of Oxford county, Me., settled in the northeast corner of the town.
Robert D. Garrison and Clark White were settlers in the town in 1855. Garrison, a native of Schoharie county, had formerly lived in Tioga county, where White, who was his son-in-law, was married to his daughter Catharine. Mary Garrison, sister of the latter, married Aaron White.
In 1856 Timothy Nobles, formerly of Steuben county, moved into Alma from Grove, and in December of the same year Martin Strickland, a native of Somerset county, Maine, located where he has since lived, on Honeoye creek. I.J.Elliott, who had lived in Wellsville since 1855, located on the Honeoye in 1857 and has since been engaged in farming and lumbering. J.P. Elliott, a native of Chenango county, who had settled with his father’s family in West Almond in 1826, came to Alma about 1859, settling on the Honeoye. He became identified with the affairs of the town. G.S. Wilcox, a native of Tompkins county, after a residence of two years in Broome county removed to Wellsville in 1852, and from there to Alma in 1860, and purchased a mill on Centre brook, which he converted into a steam mill and has since successfully operated.
Alonzo H. Lewis, who was born in Tompkins county in 1827, and lived several years in Cayuga, Cattaraugus, Cortland and Broome counties, came to Alma in 1861 and located on the farm where he has since lived. C.G. Johnson, a native of Chenango county, came, with his father, to Allegany county about 1835, and after residing in Amity, West Almond, and Ward removed to Alma in 1862 and bought the farm he now (1879) owns—part of lot number 128.