These two paintings were done by Carlos Leonardo Stebbins, a very gifted portrait painter for over 50 years, during the last half of the 19th century, in Pike, New York. They are of Volney Mills, and his wife, Sarah Fuller Mills.
Volney Mills was a great grandson of Roger Mills, Sr., the first settler in the town of Hume. He and Edwin Hodge, as “Mills and Hodge”, operated the grist mill at Mills Mills, which had originally been constructed by his great grandfather about 1808.
This mill, with alterations and additions, operated for 94 years and was conducted by several generations of Millses, until it was swept away by a flood about 1902.
Volney and Sarah were the grandparents of Beula Mills Knibloe, whose son, Wells E. Knibloe, donated their portraits to the library.
Volney died very suddenly at age 45, probably from a ruptured appendix. His obituary appeared in the “Genesee Valley Press” on February 14, 1877. Sarah died at the age of 49. The report of her funeral was carried in the “Rushford Spectator” on January 21, 1892.