Stafford RAYDURE was born in Randolph, Orange county, Vermont, March 22, 1809.  He lived with his grandfather and attended school several years and then went to the State College at Montpelier, after which he studied medicine with Dr. O. POND, at Castleton, Vermont, and was licensed to
practice.  In the fall of 1837, he taught school in Fredonia, New York, and soon came to Crawford County and settled in Evansburg.  Two months after his arrival he was married to Miss Desolate QUIGLEY, of Vernon township,
April 1, 1832.  He then moved on to a farm which belonged to his wife, and which she had paid for by teaching school.  In 1833 he worked on the canal and kept boarding house, and afterwards went to Brightstown and commenced
the mercantile business in company with Matthews & Cook.  At the end of six months the partnership was dissolved, and he bought a farm in the Beatty settlement, and then peddled clocks and bought cattle for about one year.

After this he peddled for Seymour and Barton for about four years, and then peddled tinware for Cadwell & Bartle, of Meadville.  In 1842, he tired of peddling, and bought a farm in Sadsbury township, south of Conneaut Lake, and moved onto it.  In 1849 he built a mill at the outlet of Conneaut Reservoir.  In 1853, he built another in East Fallowfield township, and in 1867 built two more in Athens Mills.  He followed the lumber business extensively about twenty years, marketing his lumber at New Castle, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Louisville.  In 1859, he went to Lancaster county with a drove of oxen, and in 1860 took another drove of beeves to the New York market, and was dealing in stock more or less from 1842 to 1868.  In 1862, he went into the oil business, producing near Tidoute and
Watson's Flats, and again in 1868 at Pleasantville and Church Run.  He was a candidate for the Legislature on the Liberal ticket in 1872, and got more votes than any other candidate, but was counted out because of a mistake in
spelling the name on a portion of the tickets.  He has held nearly all the township offices at different times, and has always been an active man in politics as well as in business.  He now owns about eight hundred acres of
land in Crawford county, and about three hundred and fifty in Indiana, eight miles southwest of Louisville.

from "A Complete Directory of Crawford County, Pennsylvania, 1879-80" Meadville, PA., October 1879
Reprint by Clossen Press, 1935 Sampson Drive, Apollo, PA 15613-9208
July 1998