admin GEN. GAIUS BARRETT RICH, former President of the Buffalo Commercial Bank, and for many years President of the Bank of Attica, has long occupied a leading place among the financiers of Western New York.
The Rich family, long numbered among the leaders in Buffalo’s business and social circles, are purely English in origin. Among their ancestors are counted Richard Rich, Lord Chancellor of England in the reign of Henry the Eighth, Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, and Robert and Henry Rich, Earls of Holland, all sprung from one common stock.
The American branch of the family traces its lineage back to Massachusetts, where the name first appears in 1625, this being the year of the earliest settlement of the family, on Cape Cod, in the town of Eastham. Here lived Thomas Rich, who married Mary Taylor at Springfield, Mass., March 29, 1696. They resided in Brookfield, Mass., where were born to them four children, of whom the eldest, Thomas, married Ruth Nichols in that part of the town now called Warren but incorporated as Western. This Thomas Rich, the second of the name, was a deacon in the Congregational Church and a man of substance in the .community. To this day the legal title to the village common of Brookfield belongs by descent to his heirs, barring the possibility that the claim may be outlawed by lapse of time., Thomas Rich was the father of six children, of whom the second son was Solomon, born August 2, 1726, and whose house in Brookfield still stands as an interesting memorial of Colonial days. At Western, in September, 1753, Solomon Rich married Phoebe Weeks. There were eight children of this marriage, of whom the fifth child and the second son was Solomon, born November 23, 1766. This Solomon Rich married Sophronia Barrett, thus bringing into the family a name which has been handed down to the present generation. About 1800 Solomon Rich removed to the northern part of the State of New York, and settled at De Kalb, St. Lawrence Co. His children were three. Gains Barrett, born September 26, 1790; George H., born in 1802, and Sophronia, born in 1816.
SOURCE: Memorial and Family History of Erie County New York; Volume I