Denison Baxter was born in Oneida County, NY in 1819. He was the son of Alvin Baxter and Ellen White. They were both born in Massachusetts, and later moved west – first to Oneida County, and later to Clarkson, NY by 1830. Denison Baxter married Polly Wright in June of 1842, and lived his remaining years as a farmer on Burritt Road. He was an avid democrat and involved in local politics as a delegate to the Democratic Party, helping to elect Dr. Royal Arthur Cochran as postmaster of North Parma in 1885. Known as the party of the “common man,” the early Democratic Party stood for individual rights and state sovereignty, opposed banks and high tariffs. Denison lived to the old age of 80, and died in 1899.

Polly Wright Baxter, born on October 16th, 1822, was the daughter of the Parma town pioneers Barber Wright and Jane Vanderwater Wright. She lived her entire life in the town of Parma, and at the time of her death in 1919, she was the town’s oldest resident at age 97, with 15 grandchildren, 20 great-grandchildren and 4 great-great-grandchildren.