Chester B., son of Benjamin Force, was born at Kendall. in Altay valley. Steuben county, New York, now (1910) in Schuyler county, in 1832, died in 1906. He was educated in the public schools. He was a gifted musician, but his principal business through a long and active life was farming. His home was near Geneva, Ontario county, New York. In politics he was a Republican; in religion a member of the Christian church. He married, in 1860, Catherine Cromwell Winter, born in Ontario county, in 1832, died in 1893, daughter of Joel Winter, born 1799, died 1872. Her father was a native of Danbury, Connecticut, a farmer by occupation, and a carpenter by trade; a Democrat in politics, and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. Her mother, Lina (Witter) Winter, was born in 1805 in Orange county, New York, died in 1859, and resided from her second year until her death upon the homestead in Ontario county, near Geneva, New York, and was buried on the old homestead. Abner Winter, father of Joel, was born in Connecticut or Massachusetts; was a soldier in the revolution and died at Sodus Bay, New York. The father of Abner Winter came to this country from France; married Anna Miner, of an old Connecticut family, and while he was in the service during the revolutionary war she cared for the family, harvesting the grain with a sickle and doing the other work of the farm. Ezra Witter, father of Lina (Witter) Winter, purchased a tract of “new country” in Ontario county. New York, near Geneva, in 1807, and this estate was held in part by his descendants until the fifth generation. He married Patience Green, of Orange county, New York, and they have many descendants. Most of the Witters of the later generations have been Republicans in politics, and Baptists in religion. Children of Chester B. and Catherine C. (Winter) Force: Ida Agnes (who uses the spelling La Force), born June 22, 1861, in Ontario county, near Geneva: Susie E., born March 29, 1893, married (first) Charles W. Lewis and (second) William Henry McKelvie (see McKelvie) : Lewis.
