Bancroft F. Bishop, M. D., a prominent physician of Garrattsville, Otsego
County, was born in Edmeston in 1858.  He is a son of Dr. John Bishop, who
is a resident of Otego, Otsego County, and was born in this county in 1822.
His father, Dr. Oliver Bishop, was born probably in the town of Otego, in
1796.  His father, John Bishop, of Connecticut, came to this county at a
very early day and settled in the woods.  His wife was Dorcas Hawkins, also
of Connecticut, where they were married.  They soon afterward came to this
new country, moving with their ox team, and had but little money.  They
settled on 100 acres of heavily timbered land, which Mr. Bishop cleared, of
which he made a good farm, and upon which he lived and reared his family,
consisting of four sons and two daughters, viz:  George, Ira, Polly, Oliver,
Emeline and Asel, the latter an octogenarian now farming on the old home
farm, and who had three children.  The father of these children died at
about the age of ninety years, and his wife about five years later, in 1858,
at the age of eighty.
 
Oliver Bishop, the grandfather of our subject, married Hannah Morris, and
they became the parents of thirteen children, eleven sons and two daughters.
  One son died when an infant, and a daughter at nineteen years of age.  The
eleven arriving at adult age were as follows:  Robert, Andrew, John, Orris,
Laura, Oliver, Samuel, Malcomb, Ferdinand, Marvin and Emeline.  All of these
have died for four, three sons and one daughter.  Orris was a shoemaker in
Utica, NY., and was a bright and brainy man.  He died in Tampico, Mex.,
where he was engaged as a recruiting officer.  Marvin and Robert served in
the war in the 121st New York Regiment.  The former served three years,
re-enlisted, and was killed by a spent ball while cooking his rations behind
the breastworks.  He ws twenty-five years old, and unmarried.  Robert served
two years, and died in the hospital.  The four now living are:  John Bishop,
the father of our subject, who lives in Otego; Laura, the wife of Henry
Prentice, of Oneonta Plains; Ferdinand, a farmer of Allegany County, NY.,
and Samuel who is a farmer near Garrattsville.
 
The wife of John Bishop and mother of our subject, was before marriage
Esther Marcy of Burlington Flats.  She is a daughter of Abraham and Sarah
(Wilber) Marcy, both from Connectidut.  The Marcy family belong to the same
family as did William Learned Marcy, Secretary of State under President
Pierce.  Dr. John Bishop was Internal Revenue Collector for several years.
He is the proprietor of Bishop's Balsam.  He and his wife have buried one
son, Erskine J., who died at Cheyenne River Crossing, S. Dak., when
thirty-one years of age.  He was at the time Principal of the schools at
Lead City, and left a wife and one son.  The children still living are as
follows:  Irving P., Professor of Natural Science at the State Normal School
at Buffalo, NY, is married and has two children, a son and daughter;
Bancroft F., the subject of this sketch; and Bertha E., the wife of Charles
Chase, a farmer of Burlington Flats.
 
Bancroft F. Bishop was brought up on a farm, and received a good academic education. 
He commenced teaching school at the age of sixteen years, and in 1879 went to 
Illinois and taught in LaSalle County, and was graduated from the Long Island 
College Hospital, Brooklyn, in 1886.  he took a three years course of medicine 
under Dr. E. D. Hills, and practiced one year at Burlington Flats, and in 1887 
removed to Garrattsville.  He was married, November 4, 1891, to Mrs. Fannie 
McClellan, widow of Dr. J. J. McClellan, and daughter of Luther Reynolds, of 
Davenport Centre, Delaware County.  Her mother was Phebe Wickham, also of 
Delaware County.  Mrs. Bishop was married first to Matthew J. McClellan, May 11, 
1875.  He was a son of William and Sarah (Ridley) McClellan, the former of 
Delaware County, and the latter from Scotland.  They were the parents of three 
sons and one daughter, of whom Dr. McClellan was the first-born.  He was 
educated at Albany, in the Albany Medical College, and was graduated there at 
the age of twenty-one.  He began practice soon after his marriage, which took 
place when he was twenty-one, and his bride sixteen years.  He was a very 
intelligent young man, and was graduated some eight months before the class to 
which he belonged.  He built up a fine practice, and probably had the largest 
ride of any physician in the county at the time of his death, which took place 
when he was thirty-six years old.  His brother John, now a physician of 
Hartwick, was formerly a student in the office of Dr. Bishop.  By her first 
marriage Mrs. Bishop has one daughter, Anna M. McClellan, who is now seventeen 
years of age.  The union of Dr. Bishop and his wife has been blessed with one 
child, a daughter, Mildred Irene, who was born December 8, 1892.