Silas Mainville Burroughs Sr. (1810-1860) made many important contributions to Medina, where he owned considerable land, farmed, ran a lumber business, and practiced law after being admitted to the bar in Orleans County in 1840. He served as Medina village clerk in 1835, village trustee in 1836 and 1839-1843, again as trustee in 1845-1847, and as village attorney in 1845-1847. He represented Orleans County as a Democrat in the New York State Assembly four times between 1837 and 1853, then served as a Republican in the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1857, until his death in Medina on June 3, 1860. He played a key role in the bill to enlarge and improve the Erie Canal, was offered the role of Canal Commissioner, worked for the welfare and rights of Native Americans, stood at the forefront of the struggle against slavery, and in 1859 was labeled treasonous by a Richmond, Virginia, newspaper for supporting the John Brown raid on Harper's Ferry. He donated 2 acres to found the Medina Free Academy in 1851, helped purchase land for Boxwood Cemetery, gave land for use by the local militia, and served as brigadier general of the 29th brigade of the New York State Militia. His son, Silas Mainville Burroughs Jr. (1848-1895), was educated at the Academy school, apprenticed to a local doctor, worked in stores and druggists in Albion, Lockport, and Buffalo, then moved to Philadelphia, qualified at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1877, and founded Burroughs and Co. in London in 1878. After Henry Wellcome joined him, Burroughs Wellcome and Co. became an international success, using American marketing and manufacturing methods and introducing products including tabloid medicines and medicine chest. Burroughs Jr. introduced an eight-hour working day and profit sharing, supported social reform, Irish home rule, and the Single Tax movement, founded the Livingstone Hospital in Dartford, returned often to Medina, left portions of his estate to John Parsons, the Medina Cemetery Fund, and the First Presbyterian Church of Medina, and after his sudden death from pneumonia was buried in Monte Carlo. Also on this site once stood the Burroughs Mansion, a splendid gothic-style residence built in the late 1840s for Silas Burroughs Sr.; considered one of Medina's finest homes, it cost about $10,000, stood in a grove by the river with a pond and fountains, survived a serious fire in 1851, was sold after his death for $2,805, served as a smallpox quarantine home in 1903, and was demolished after a fire around 1915.