Winslow Churchill was the patriarch of the Churchills, the first family to settle here. He was 64 years old when he and 27 others in his family, spanning three generations, left their homes in upstate New York to move to the frontier. Back east he was a stone mason and farmer by trade. He had sold part of his farm for the construction of the Erie Canal and joined with several of his sons to run a canal boat before moving here. He and his sons built five cabins and staked out five farms. Winslow Churchill’s cabin was on the northwest corner of what today is St. Charles Road and Swift Avenue. (A large boulder with a plaque marks the site.) He was a Methodist who conducted the earliest religious meetings and was referred to as Deacon Churchill.
Winslow Churchill died here in 1847 at the age of 77 and is buried in the Forest Hills Cemetery.
