Men of early Rome,
D.B.Wager,

GnIiSa Historical Society:

I 8 79.

Men of Early Rome.

BY

E. WAGER.

ONEIDA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

MEN, EVENTS, LAWYERS,
POLITICS AND POLITICIANS
OF EARLY ROME.

BY
D. E. ^VAGER.

An Address Delivered before the Oneida Historical Society, at
Utica, N. T., January 38, 1879.

UTICA, N. T.
Ellis H. Roberts & Co., Printers, 60 Genesee Street.
1879.

At a regular meeting of the Oneida Historical Society, held
January 28, 1879, after the transaction of business, Mr. D. E.
Wager, of Rome, one of the Councilors of the Society, read an
address upon " The Men, Events, Lawyers, Politics and Politicians
of Early Rome." At the conclusion of the address, on motion
of M. M. Jones, it was
Hesohed, Thsd the Oneida Historical Society extends its hearty thanks to
Mr. D. E. Wager for his address upon the Men and Events of Early Rome,
¦which it regards as one of the most valuable additions to the History of
Oneida County ;
Sesolved, That Mr. Wager be requested to furnish a copy of his address
for publication.

MEN, EVENTS, LAWYERS, POLITICS AND
POLITICIANS OF EARLY ROME*

BY D. E. WAGEK.

At the close of the Revolutionary War, and at the time of the
adoption of the United States Constitution, the State of New York
was considerably less democratic than any other State in the Union.
There was more of aristocracy in this State than in any other.
The wealthy and influential families of the Coldens, the Morrises, the
Schuylers, the Livingstons, the Van Cortlands, the Van Rensse-
laers and Sir William Johnson, with their large landed possessions,
and deriving a pruicely support from a numerous tenantry, had
infused into a large class of the people different manners and cur
rents of thought, and made an impress upon the age and condition
of things which required years to eradicate. The great mass of
the people were looked upon by that landed gentry with distrust,
and as incapable of self-government ; and hence, the Stats Consti
tution in force in this State, down to 1822, gave to the people the
rights of suffrage in a gingerly manner, and to a very limited
€xtent. Aside from certain town officers the people elected by
ballot only Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, State Senators, mem
bers of Assembly, and Congressmen ; and to vote for Governor,
Lieutenant-Governor and Senators a person must, for si.\: months
before election, have possessed a freehold of the value of $250,
over and above all debts charged thereon ; and to vote for Con
gressmen and Assemblymen he must for the same period of time,
possess a freehold of the v.ilue of $50, or have rented a tenement
of the yearly value of $5, and actually paid taxes to the State.
All of the other officers in county or State were appointed. The
* This address had been previously delivered by Mr. Wager before the
Young Men's Christian Association of Rome, January 13, 1879, and was read
by him before the Utica Young Men's Christian Association February 4, 1879.

4 MEN OP EARLY ROME.
State appointing body was called " J'Ae Council of Appointment^'^
and was constituted as follows : The State was divided into four
Senatorial districts, called the eastern, western, southern and mid
dle districts, and each year the Assembly selected a Senator from
each of those districts, and the four Senators thus selected (with
the Governor) made such "Council of Appointment." The Gov
ernor had no vote, except in case of a tie. The journals of that
body, still preserved in the Secretary of State's office, at Albany,
showing its appointments, removals and doings, fill fourteen manu
script volumes. In addition to some eight thousand military
officers, that body appointed about seven thousand civil and
judicial officers, consisting of the Secretary of State, Attorney
General, Surveyor General, Comptroller, Chancellor, Masters and
Examiners in Chancery, Judges of the Supreme Court, Judges of
the Common Pleas in each of the counties. Sheriffs, County Clerks,
Surrogates, District Attorneys, Coroners, Mayors and Recorders
of cities, and Justices of the Peace.
Yes, so jealous or mistrustful were the constitution and law
makers of the people, as to their capacity and intelligence in
regard to the elective franchise, that even down to 1821, when
the State Constitution was framed in that year, that instru
ment did not allow Justices of the Peace to be elected ; but
instead thereof, bestowed the power of their appointment upon the
Board of Supervisors and Judges of the Common Pleas. It was
not until 1826 that the people obtained a sufficient recognition of
their claim to elect their own town officers, to wring from the
Legislature a constitutional amendment to be submitted to the
people, as to whether Justices of the Peace should be elected. In
a poll of one hundred and thirty thousand votes, cast that year on
that submitted question, the majority in its favor in the State was
over one hundred and twenty-eight thousand. Oneida County
o-ave three thousand six hundred and ninety-one for, to only six
votes against it. The State Treasurer was appointed by a legis
lative enactment, naming the appointee in the act, and passed

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 0
expressly for the purpose, each time the office was filled. County
Treasurers and Loan Commissioners were appointed by the Board
of Supervisors.
As a further evidence of the distrust entertained of the people,
and the small voice they had in the nomination even, of
those offifeers for whom they could vote, and as showing the self-
perpetuating power of the office-holders, it may be stated that the
Governor and Lieutenant-Governor were not nominated as now,
by a State Convention of delegates from each county in the State,
but by a caucus of their political friends in the Legislature; or by
a public meeting of the citizens, friendly to the nominee, in Albany
or New York, just as it happened, and no one else but those citi
zens taking part therein. State Senators, down to 1811, were
nomiAated by a caucus held at Albany of the members of Assem
bly from the Senatorial districts; and if a political party in a
Senatorial district was unrepresented in the Assembly, it had to
get its candidate for Senator in the field as best it could. Assem
blymen were nominated and elected by the county at large, and
not as now, by districts. The President and Vice President of the
United States were nominated by a caucus of their friends in
Congress, and not as now, by National Conventions. The Presi
dential Electors vt^ere appointed by the State Legislature, and not
as now, elected by the people.
The appointment of such a host of officials gave an immense
power and influence to the appointing body, and tended to make a
strong government, and to keep political power in the hands of the
few. The Chancellor, Supreme Court Judges, and First Judges
of the Common Pleas, were appointed during good .behavior, or
until the appointee reached the age of sixty years. Sheriff's and
¦Coroners were annually appointed; Surrogates for an unlimited
time. The number of side Judges of the Common Pleas, and of
Justices of the Peace, was unlimited, and sometimes as many as
.a dozen side Judges in a county were holding office at a time.

6 MEN OP EARLY ROME.
This process enabled the dominant party to provide places for its
friends. This state of things continued from the commencement of the
Revolutionary War down to the adoption of the State Constitu
tion in January, 1822. That instrument received a majority in the
State of nearly thirty-four thousand, although there were forty-one
thousand persons who voted against it. Oneida County, strongly
federal as she ever had been, yet gave one thousand majority
in its favor. Rome gave two hundred and twenty-four votes for, to
forty-four against that constitution.
Under that constitution radical changes were made (and since
then greater) in the system and management of the government.
It was also the means of producing great changes in the politics,
and in the power and influence of the politicians in the county
and State. Although but a few if any more officers were made
elective, yet the mode of the nomination of those who were
elected, as well as the manner of the appointment of the others,
was changed. The civil and political year was altered from July
to January ; new Senatorial and Assembly districts were formed ;
the right of sufli'age was extended ; the judiciary system was
remodeled, resulting in taking from the Supreme Court Judges
the political power which they had long exercised, and of breaking
up the practice which had prevailed, of taking from the bench of
that court nominees for Governor ; and the time of holding State
elections was changed from April to November. These various
changes virtually annihilated a power which, for nearly half a cen
tury, had distributed the fruits of victory and the spoils of office
in almost every school district in the State, and made the central
power at the Capital the controlling one, in the selection of officers,.
from the highest to the lowest. The power of the few was, by
that constitution of 1821, broken into fragments, and thereafter
the voice of the people was to be heard and respected in the
several and respective localities. It was a revolution almost as^

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 7
great as that of the Colonies, yet it was accomplished only
after the most violent discussion and agitation of the questious
involved. From the foregoing, it will be seen, that the political system in
vogue in New York, from the close of the Revolutionary War
down to the going into effect of the Constitution of 1821, was
well calculated to have a depressing influence upon the great
mass of the people, and to keep in the back ground, all except
those who by their eminent talents and ability, towered head and
shoulders above their fellows. The system was one out of which
" regencies," " rings " and self perpetuating " cliques " would
naturally be formed, and when a few prominent leaders could
dictate or control the appointments to office, and thereby manipu
late and control the political affairs of the whole State. The two
political parties in this State, when Oneida County was formed,
were known as Republicans and Federalists. At the head of the
former was George Clinton, Governor of the State of New York
from 1777 to 1795. The leaders of the Federalists were Alexander
Hamilton, John Jay and the most of the aristocratic families be
fore named. The election in 1800 of Thomas Jefferson, President,
if it did not destroy, it broke the backbone of that party, so that
it did not after that year, elect a Governor of its own in this State,
nor did it even run one of its own distinctive notions, but two or
three times. The political struggle was mainly between the leaders
in the Republican ranks, as to who should be master, nor was there
any particular principle involved, except those made by the war
of 1812, the Erie canal, the convention and constitution of 1821.
In the various contests from the organization of Oneida County,
until after adoption of the constitution of 1821, the county almost
invariably voted for the Federal ticket or its sympathizers, while
Rome just as uniformly voted the other way.
Starting then, with the organization of Rome as a town in 1796
at a time when the country was new, the population scattered, and

8 MEN OP EARLY ROME.
the number of residents in the county eminent for their talents and
abilities very few indeed, I intend to mention and to briefly
sketch those who have resided in Rome, and have made their im
press upon the times in which they have lived, or who have other
wise arisen to prominence in the history of the county within the
first^thirty or forty years of Rome's existence as a town.
I shall endeavor to give the names in the order of the time the
persons came to Rome, as near as may be, or else in the order each
came into prominence in the county. And as I progress, it will
be observed that most of the persons named are the common
property of Rome and Utica, and that both cities are entitled to
be proud of and to claim them.

MAJOR WILLIAM COLBRATH.
Soon after the close of the Revolutionary War, a jolly Irish
man, who~had rendered service to the Colonies in that struggle,
pushed his way westwardly, from what is now the village of
Herkimer, into what was then called "the Whitestown country."
As early as in April 1790, Major William Colbrath was living in the
town of Whitestown, which then included all of the State west of
what is now the Herkimer County line. The town records show,
that at the town meeting held April 6, 1790, in Captain Needham
Maynard's barn, in the town of Whitestown, William Colbrath
received fifty votes for the office of Supervisor, and Jedediah
Sanger^ thirty-four, and a full town meeting ticket was then and
there chosen and declared elected. The records liirther state
"that as .many people being deprived of the privilege of voting
for Supervisor, it was moved to have the ijroceedings of the day
made null and void, which passed in the affirmative." The meeting
was then adjourned to the next day at 10 a. m. The town meet
ing was held on such next day, the polls held open until 5 p. m.,
and on counting the votes it was found that one hundred and

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 9
nineteen votes were cast for Jedediah Sanger for Supervisor, and
none for any one else, for that office, and so he was declared elected.
Mr. Colbrath was therefore Supervisor for less than a day. The
foregoing from Jones' "Annals of Oneida County," shows how
queerly the electors did things in those days, and it is the first
mention I find of Mr Colbrath. In the County Clerk's office
of Oneida County,. I find recorded a power of attorney, from
Baron Steuben of New York City, bearing date, June 1, 1791, to
Mr. William Colbrath, and describing the latter aa yeomen of
Whitestown, giving the latter full power and authority to bargain
and sell lands of the former, and to prosecute for trespasses com
mitted upon the lands of the Baron in the County of Herkimer.
This instrument is witnessed by the subscribing signatures of David
Starr (after whom " Starr hill " in Steuben is named) and Benja
min Wright, a Roman, and from which it is inferred that Mr. Col
brath must then have resided near Fort Stanwix, as he certainly
did a few years later, for in 1796 he had a deed of one hundred
and sixty acres of land, just east of what is now "Factory Village "
in Rome, and which land formerly belonged to Governor George
Clinton, and which land Mr. Colbrath sold to Dominick Lynch, the
year Oneida County was formed. Those who have the curiosity
to examine the first book of mortgages in this county, will find a
mortgage on record to Mr. Colbrath, covering a couple of acres of
land in Coxe's patent, and also a large list of household articles,
evidently mortgaged to Mr. Colbrath (who was also Sherifli" at
the time) to screen them from an execution sale of some unfeeling
creditor, for the articles were (in part) as follows: "three feather
beds, three underbsds with cords, six linen sheets, five Indian
blankets, three chists, one pewter pot, one earthen tea pot, one
earthen coffee pot, five yards of flannel, &c., &c.
Mr. Colbrath was the first Sheriff" of Herkimer County, ap
pointed in February, 1791, and which county then also included
what is BOW Oneida County. He held that office until 1795, when
he was succeeded by Peter Smith, then of Utica, father of Gerrit
Smith. It was while Mr. Colbrath was such Sheriff", that the first

10 MEN OF EARLY ROME.
term of a Court of Record was held within the limits of what is
now Oneida County. It was the Herkimer Common Pleas, and
was held at what is now the village of New Hartford, in a barn»
or in an unfinished meeting house, and was in January, l'f94. The
weather was bitterly cold, and the room where the court was held
was illy prepared for the inclemency of the weather. Towards
night, bench, bar and spectators v^^ere nearly frozen out ; and to
keep the lawyers warm. Sheriff" Colbrath passed quietly among-
them, a jug of spirits. The Judge had told the crier to adjourn
the court until next day, when Mr. Colbrath, hearing the order^
and forgetting or else unmindful of the dignity of the court and
the proprieties of the occasion, called out, " oh, no, no, no, don't
adjourn yet. Judge, take some gin, it will keep you warm. Judge ;"
and suiting the action to the advice, passed the jug to the bench.
There was not the romance to it that there was in Maud MuUer's
case; nevertheless the Court partook, and doubtless thought, if
it did not say " Thanks to you, for a sweeter draught
From a kinder hand was never quaffed."
Oneida County was formed March 15, 1798, and four days
thereafter, Mr. Colbrath was appointed its first Sheriff", and held
the office until the close of the year. I have obtained nothing
further relative to him, but he seems entitled to a place in this
record, if for no other reason than that he was the first SheriflT
of the two counties above named, and the additional fact that he
was the only Roman who held that office (except Israel S. Parker
in 1843 and 1844) for the first seventy years after the organization
of Oneida County.
BENJAMIN WRIGHT.
Benjamin Wright, who figured prominently in after years as a
surveyor and engineer, came to Fort Stanwix in 1790, when
twenty years old. His father's family came from Connecticut the

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 11
previous year, and located in what is now familiarly known as
" Wright Settlement." Benjamin had remained behind to attend
school and study surveying, for which he had a natural taste
and aptitude, and which profession promised to be useful and
profitable in this then new country, but rapidly settling up. The
various owners of the Patents and tracts in this section, were at
that time, sub-dividing their lands into lots, laying them out into
farms, for the accommodation of the settlers. Prom 1796 to 1800
Mr. Wright was engaged in surveying in what are now Franklin,
Jefferson, Lewis, Oneida, Oswego and St. Lawrence counties, in
cluding Macomb's great purchase of near four million acres in the
northern part of the State. In what was then Oneida County, he
surveyed out into farms, over five hundred thousand acres, before
he was twenty-six years of age ; and when the above named counties
were formed, he surveyed out their boundaries.
In 1804 occurred the gubernatorial contest in this State, between
Morgan Lewis and Aaron Burr — ^both republicans. Mr. Lewis, at
the time of his running, was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,
and Aaron Burr was Vice President of the United States. There
was no political principle involved in the election. Benjamin
Wright ran for the Assembly in this county, on the Burr ticket ;
on the other ticket was Gen. Walter Martin, of Martinsburgh,
then a part of Oneida County. Without counting the vote of the
town of Adams, then also in Oneida County, Mr. Wright and Mr.
Martin had received in the county, an equal number of votes,
making the vote between them a tie. The whole number of votes
cast in the town of Adams was thirty-four, and all of those were
for " Senj.'''' Wright, and the question was, whether they should
be counted for Benjamin Wright. The County Clerk returned
the above facts to the Assembly, and that body, on the second
day of its session, awarded the seat to Mr. Wright. At that time
there was no newspaper office nearer Adams than Utica, and quite
likely the ballots for that town were written, and hence the given
name of Mr. Wright abbreviated as above. Mr. Wright was the

12 MEN OP EARLY ROME.
first Roman elected to the Assembly after the organization of
Oneida County. Mathew Brown,' Jr., a Roman, had been elected,
in 1796 and 1797, when Rome was a part of Herkimer County, and
at a time when the Legislature met in New York City. Mr. Brown
was the first postmaster of Rome. The election of 1804 resulted
in favor of Morgan Lewis, by eight thousand five hundred majority.
Rome gave Lewis ninety-six votes, and Burr thirty-three ; it gave
Walter Martin one hundred and fifty-four, and Mr. Wright one hun
dred and forty-one — which indicate about the number of freehold
voters in Rome at that time. Out of that contest grew the duel be
tween Burr and Hamilton, which occurred within three months after
that election, resulting in the killing of Hamilton and the consequent
ostracism and ruination of Burr; In a few years thereafter he was
a prisoner, on trial for treason to the United States Government,
a political outcast and fugitive wanderer in strange lands and for
eign parts. The next contest for Governor, was in 1807, between
Morgan Lewis and Daniel D. Tompkins — both republicans, and
with no political principle involved. Tompkins was Judge of the
Supreme Court, while running for the office of Governor, as Mor
gan Lewis was three years before. Benjamin Wright ran again
for the Assembly this year, on the ticket with Morgan Lewis, and
was elected in the county, although Mr. Lewis was defeated in the
State by four thousand majority. In 1808 Mr. Wright was again
elected to the Assembly. The Erie Canal question at that time was
beginning to attract considerable attention. While in the Legis
lature, he seconded a resolution appropriating one thousand dollars
for a survey of the Erie Canal route. The bill passed the Assem
bly, but the Senate cut the appropriation down to six hundred
dollars. Think of it, six hundred dollars to pay the expense of a
survey of a route of three hundred and sixty miles, and much of
the way through a wilderness ! In these days it would hardly pay
for fi champagne supper that would be given in glorification of
the passage of an appropriation bill. But legislators and the
people were then economical and unaccustomed to lavish expend
itures ; and besides, the great mass and most intelligent of the

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 13
people looked upon the scheme of a canal from Lake Erie to the
Hudson River as wild, visionary and impractical. The patriotic
Governor Daniel D. Tompkins opposed it. A committee from this
State, in January, 1809, called on President Jefferson, to influence
him and his administration in behalf of the project, and after all the
surveys, estimates and portrayal of the commercial prospects had
been laid before the President, even he coolly answered, " It is a
splendid project, and may be executed a century hence." " Why,"
said he, "here is a canal, of a few miles, projected by General
Washington, which has languished, and yet you think of making
a canal three hundred and fifty miles through a wilderness. It is
little short of madness to think of it." The friends of the meas
ure did think of it nevertheless, and in 1810 the Legislature ap
pointed De Witt Clinton and others to cause the route to be
explored, which they did, and reported favorably in 1812. Now
came the question to get a competent engitieer to lay out the
canal, for it was considered that none competent could be found in
the United States. William Weston, of England, had been to this
country and laid out the Western Inland Canr.l. He surveyed
the lands, while here, of Dominick Lynch, and made a map of
Lynohville, now Rome, and laid out the village plot, as reference
is made in all of Mr. Lynch's deeds and leases to that map of Mr.
Weston. That gentleman was written to in England, to see if he
would come, and seven thousand dollars a year salary was offered
him, but as he could not then accept the offered engagement, Mr.
Wright and Mr. Geddes held a consultation, and both went before
the committee and offered their services. They were employed at
fifteen hundred dollars per year. The war with England inter
rupted further proceedings until the termination of hostilities, and
so the matter rested.
In 1813 Mr. Wright was appointed one of the Judges of the
Common Pleas, probably through the influence of his political
friend, Jonas Piatt, of Whitesboro, that year a member of the
Council of Appointment; but Mr. Wright did not ever give

14 MEN OP EARLY ROME.
much attention to judicial duties. In 1816 the canal project was
revived by the presentation to the Legislature of a memorial
signed by one hundred thousand persons, asking legislative action.
The Legislature took action, and Mr. Geddes made a survey of the
western, and Mr. Wright of the eastern division ; and the levels of
the two, where they met, differed less than one inch and a half.
The work of construction was commenced in 1817, and those two
engineers remained in charge until the work was completed, in
1825. In 1817 Mr. Wright ran for the Assembly, but was defeated by
Henry Huntington, owing to the popularity at that time of
DeWitt Clinton and his friends. On the fourth of July that year,
the imposing ceremonies of first breaking ground for the construc
tion of the canal took place in Rome, southwesterly of the United
States Arsenal, on the old route of that canal. DeWitt Clinton,
elected Governor of the State the April before, was present, as
were other State dignitaries, and a large concourse of people. Mr.
Wright was partner in mercantile pursuits in Rome from 1804 to
1817, at first with Peter Colt, and later with his brother, the late
William Wright. He was consulting engineer on a great many
works of internal improvements, such as the Chesapeake and Ohio
Canal, Illinois Canal, the Welland Canal, the Delaware and Hud
son Canal, the New York and Erie Railroad and the Harlem Rail
road. In 1835 he went to Cuba, to consult as an engineer of a
railroad to be built on that island. About 1820 he built, and
occupied for his residence until 1825, the first brick dwelling house
in Rome west of the Willett House, and which was bought
and used as a banking house in 1832, by the Bank of Rome,
organized that year. Mr. Wright about 1825 moved to New
York, and died in that city in August, 1842, at the age of seventy-
two. No one in his day stood higher as an engineer than
Benjamin Wright.

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 15

GEORGE HUNTINGTON.
The first Rome merchant located at Fort Stanwix early in the
spring of 1793, and, for want of other accommodations, opened
his stock of goods in the bar room, or an adjoining room, of the
tavern then kept by John Barnard, and standing a little north
easterly of the present site of the Court House. George Huntington,
then an unmarried man of twenty-three years, was a native of Con
necticut, and while he had clerked it the previous year at Whites
boro, had visited the Fort for the purpose of " interviewing " the
prospect. Settlers were coming in, the trade with the Indians,
then here in great numbers, promised to be good, and so Mr.
Huntington, with his brother Henry, then of New York City, as
a partner, commenced trade in what is now Rome, at the time
above stated. The next year Mr. Huntington erected a frame
store and a frame dwelling on Dominick Street, near the corner
now known as the " Merrill Block." In looking through the
account books of that firm, as I have done from that date down,
for many years thereafter, it is interesting and curious to note
that many of its retail customers then resided in what are now
Oswego, Onondaga, Cayuga. Jefferson and Lewis counties ; and it
is also worth while to mention, for it is in accordance with the
fact, and is true of every other dry goods merchant or dealer fifty,
sixty or seventy years ago, that the charges for rum and brandy
upon the books of the merchants of those times against the cus
tomers, were about as frequent as that of any other commodity
kept on hand for sale ; and the list of that kind of accounts against
members, deacons and elders of churches was about as lengthy as
against any other class of customers. Such was the custom of the
times half a century and more ago, and it affords a striking contrast
with the present times. When Rome was organized as a town, in
1796, Mr. Huntington was elected its first Supervisor. When
Oneida County was formed, two years later, he was appointed one of
the side Judges of the Common Pleas for the new county, and re-

16 MEN OP EARLY ROME.
appointed in 1801, and again in 1804 — both times by a republican
Council of Appointment. He was elected Supervisor of Rome in
1804, 1814, and in 1817. In 1810 an election of Governor took
place ; and although it was two years before the war with England
commenced, yet that subject was thus early discussed, and the
issues or the causes of that war entered largely into that State
canvass. Jonas Piatt, a federalist and a lawyer of note, and the
first County Clerk of Oneida County, then resided at Whitesboro,
in this county. The federalists felt confident of carrying the
State, so they were early in the field. The fore part of January,
of that year, a meeting of the citizens of Albany was held
(none but those citizens taking part therein) at which Mr. Piatt
was nominated for Governor. He had settled at Whitesboro
in 1790; and it was calculated that, as he had settled in and
grown up with the " great west," as all this part of the State was
then called, he would poll a large vote in the western district,
then a republican district. Mr. George Huntington was nomi
nated for the Assembly on the ticket with Mr. Piatt. Henry
Wager, Senior, of Western, ran for Assembly on the other ticket.
Daniel D. Tompkins was re-nominated for Governor in February,
by a legislative caucus of his friends, and the contest was sharp
and bitter, and conducted with great zeal on both sides. In that
contest, as in about every other that has ever taken place in this
country, the " war party " was triumphant in the State. Tompkins
was elected Governor by about ten thousand majority ; Mr. Hunt
ington and his Assembly ticket were elected by about three
hundred and fifty majority in the county, but Rome gave fifty the
other way.
In 1813 occurred another election for Governor. Daniel D.
Tompkins, the "great war Governor" of New York, was renom
inated, and John Taylor for Lieutenant-Governor. At that time
this country was in the midst of a war with England, and the
northern frontier of New York was the scene of active military
operations. The federalists nominated Stephen Van Rensselaer

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 17
^'The Patroon," for Governor, and George Huntington for Lieu
tenant-Governor, and that party went into the canvass with high
hopes of success ; for both nominees were highly respectable and
entirely unexceptionable in their characters, and there was then, as
in the recent war, considerable dissatisfaction with the manage
ment of the war. The election was sharply contested, but the
" war ticket " was successful in the State by nearly four thousand
majority, to the bitter mortification of the federalists, and contrary
to the shrewdest calculations of both parties.
Mr. Huntington was collector for the Western Inland Canal
from its completion in 1797 to the completion of the Erie Canal
from Rome to Utica in 1819.
In 1815 Mr. Huntington ran for the State Senate, in opposition
to Henry Seymour, father of Ex-Governor Seymour, but was de
feated. He was elected to the Assembly in 1818, 1819, 1820 and
1821, being the years when there was the greatest excitement,
growing out of the calling and holding of a convention for a new
constitution — the framing of that instrument, and its submission to
the people, involving the questions of the elective franchise, and
an entire change in the political system in the State ; and also dur
ing the years of the bitter and exciting gubernatorial contest
between DeWitt Clinton and Daniel D. Tompkins in 1820.
Under the new constitution of 1822 Mr. Huntington ran again
for Senator, but he and his three associates were defeated by
Samuel Beardsley and others. That seems to have been the last
time he ran for a political office ; and as he had been nine times
elected to the Assembly, and discharged the various duties incum
bent upon him with credit and honor, he might well be content to
retire from the political arena. He was trustee of Rome village
in 1820 1821, 1822, 1826 and 1827. It was about 1816 that he and
his brother Henry retired from mercantile business, and devoted the
remainder of their lives to looking after a large lauded property,

18 MEN OP EARLY ROME.
much of it held by them in common, and to taking care of the-
large property which they had acquired by their prudence and
careful industry. Mr. George Huntington died in Rome in Sep
tember, 1841, at the age of seventy-one years, universally respected
and esteemed. He was the father of our worthy and honored towns
man, Mr. Edward Huntington.

JOSHUA HATHEWAY.
The Battle of Bennington, in August, 1777, was the first link in
the chain of events which led to the flight of St. Leger before Fort
Stanwix, the subsequent capture of Burgoyne on the fields of
Saratoga, and the consequent frustration of the British plan of that.
campaign— to separate New York from the New England States.
In that battle, under General Stark, was a father and seven of his
sons from the State of Connecticut. One of those sons was
Joshua Hatheway; he had reached his sixteenth birthday but
three days before that battle was fought. Ten years later, and
after further service in that war, Joshua Hatheway graduated at
Yale College, studied law, was admitted to practice, and, in 1795,
came to Fort Stanwix, then in the town of Steuben, Herkimer
County, and was admitted to the bar of that county. After the
organization of Oneida County, and at the first term of the Oneida
Common Pleas, held at the school house in the southeast corner of
the West Park, in Rome, he was admitted to that court. In
1798 he was commissioned for the new county, one of the
Justices of the Peace, and he was also appointed by the Board
of Supervisors the first County Treasurer, and held that
office until 1802 ; and he held various town offices during the
twenty-fivG years thereafter. About 1810 he was appointed by
President Madison the second postmaster in Rome, and he held
that office through successive administrations for twenty-six
years, and until his death. In 1808 he was appointed Surrogate
of Oneida, in place of Arthur Breese, a federalist. He was the

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 19
first Rome Surrogate, and the second one appointed in the county.
It was the same Council of Appointment which, a few days before,
had appointed Martin Van Buren Surrogate of Columbia County,
DeWitt Clinton Mayor of New York, and Samuel Young Justice
of the Peace of Saratoga County — men who, in after years, made
their impress upon the history of the State and Nation. A pretty
clean sweep was made that year of all the offices in the State,
whose incumbents were unfriendly to Governor Tompkins.
In 1813 the federalists obtained the control of the Council of
Appointment, and their broom in turn swept out the Tompkins
office-holders. In February, of that year, Mr. Hatheway was
turned out of the Surrogate's office to make room for Erastus
Clark, of Utica. It was the same year and but ten days after,
the same council turned out of the office of Attorney-General
the eloquent and renowned lawyer, advocate, and Irish exile,
Thomas Addis Emmett, and put in his place that able lawyer,
Abraham Van Vechten, a dyed in the wool federalist. Mr.
Hatheway, this year, went to Sacketts Harbor, as quartermaster
in the " Rome Regiment."
In 1814 the Tompkins people carried the Assembly, secured the
Council of Appointment, and adopted the most vigorous measures,
not only to carry on the war with Great Britain, but to turn out
the federal office-holders in the State. In February, 1815, Martin
Van Buren was appointed Attorney-General, in place of Mr. Van
Vechten, and a month later, Erastus Clark was rotated out of the
office of Surrogate of Oneida County, to make room for Mr. Hathe
way. Four years later in 1819, in a quarrel in the republican party,
between the " Clintonians " and " Bucktails " (anti-Clintonians) Mr.
Hatheway was displaced to make room for Greene C. Bronson,
then of Vernon, in this county. Although Mr. Clinton in 1820', was
elected Governor by about fourteen hundred majority, yet the
anti-Clintonians secured the Assembly and the Council of Appoint
ment, and the friends of the Governor had to walk the plank.

20 MEN OP EARLY ROME.
In April, 1821, Mr. Bronson was turned out and Mr. Hatheway
a third time appointed Surrogate, which position he held until
1827, when his political scalp was again demanded — this time by
a Roman, and a young man of talent and promise, just then rising
into notice and prominence in the republican ranks, as will be
further and more fully noticed, when reference is made to Hon.
Henry A. Foster. When Mr. Hatheway was restored to the office
of Surrogate, in the spring of 1821, he was also appointed one of
the side Judges of the Common Pleas; reappointed in 1823, and
again in February, 1828 ; the last time through the aid and influ
ence of Hon, Henry A. Foster, then Surrogate of the county, and
who, being in Albany at the time, with his own hands took the
nomination of Mr. Hatheway from Governor DeWitt Clinton to
the Senate chamber for confirmation. That same evening Governor
Clinton died suddenly in his chair. It was probably his last
executive nomination. Mr. Hatheway held that office until 1833.
He was Postmaster twenty-six years. Surrogate thirteen years.
Judge of the Common Pleas twelve years, besides holding the
office of Justice of the Peace for many years, and all of those
offices at the same time for a considerable period. Is it a
wonder that the people desired a change, and that they gave
nearly thirty-four thousand majority for the new constitution?
That he discharged the duties of those offices with exactness is not
questioned. He studiously maintained the dignity of the court
in which he acted, and exacted respect to the position he held, and
the government he represented. It is narrated that whenever the
mails arrived for distribution at the Rome post office, he com
manded silence on the part of all spectators then present, required
them to be seated, and said : " Gentlemen, take off your hats, for
the United States mail is now to be opened and distributed." A
church congregation was never more respectful, nor a court assem
blage more orderly than on such occasions in the Rome post office.
Nor need this formality seem strange, for doubtless the memory of
some who now hear me goes back to the time, for mine does, when

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 21
the presiding judge of the court was escorted to and from the
hotel, each forenoon and afternoon session, by the Sheriff, with
sheathed sword, accompanied by deputies and constable with long
staves, and the Sheriff sat on a raised seat in the court room, with
his sword, to preserve order. Mr. Hatheway died in Rome in
December, 1836, at the age of seventy-five years.
HENRY HUNTINGTON.
The year Oneida County was formed Henry Huntington, the
father of Hon. B. N. Huntington, made Rome his home. In 1800
he was elected Assessor and School Commissioner in Rome. In
1803 Supervisor, and again in 1807. In 1801 he and Joseph Kirk-
land, of Utica, ran on opposite tickets for members of the constitu
tional convention, held in October of that year. Without the vote
of the town of Mexico, then a part of Oneida County, the number
of votes in the county for Mr. Kirkland (a federalist) was seven
hundred and forty-eight ; for Mr. Huntington, seven hundred and
thirty-eight. All of the vote of Mexico (eighteen votes in all)
was cast for Mr. Huntington ; but only two of the three inspectors
of election had signed the return, and Jonas Piatt, then County
Clerk, and a federalist, gave the certificate of election to Mr.
Kirkland. Mr. Huntington contested the seat, and the constitu
tional convention, presided over by Aaron Burr, then Vice Presi
dent of the United States, gave it to him. In that contest Rome
gave two hundred and seven votes to Mr. Huntington, and none
to the other ticket. In 1804 Mr. Huntington was elected to the
State Senate, he being the first Senator from Rome. In 1806 he
was member of the Council of Appointment, as was DeWitt Clin
ton that year ; and, although a warm personal and political friend
of Mr. Clinton, yet he earnestly protested against the wholesale
removals from office made that year by his colleagues in that council,
for no reason other than that those turned out were friends of
Governor Morgan Lewis. Hammond's Political History speaks of
Mr. Huntington as a gentleman and politician of great moderation

22 MEN OF EARLY ROME.
and prudence, and altogether incapable of persecution or pro
scription. In 1808 he was chosen by the Legislature Presidential
Elector, and of the six votes from New York State given for
George Clinton for President, in preference to James Madison, Mr.
Huntington's was one. In 1812 he was again appointed Presiden
tial Elector, and all of the votes that year, of this State, were cast
for DeWitt Clinton for President.
In 1816 he was elected to the Assembly, and the only one on his
ticket. It was this Legislature which passed the law abolishing
what remained of slavery in this State, after July 4, 1827. A
law had been passed in 1801 for a gradual emancipation, by pro
viding that all persons born of slaves after July 4, 1799, (at which
time there were twenty thousand slaves in New York State)
should be free, except that such persons should, if males, serve as
apprentices until they reached twenty-eight years of age, and, if
females, until twenty-five ; and further providing that slaves could
not be witnesses in any case, except against other slaves in
criminal trials ; and also requiring owners to instruct their slaves,
so that the latter could read the Holy Scriptures. The law passed
by the Legislature of 1816 emancipated those after July 4, 1827,
who were not freed by the law of 1801. In 1817 Mr. Huntington
was elected to the Assembly again, his opponent being Benjamin
Wright. In June, 1821, he was elected a member of the
constitutional convention, which was held in August of that
year, and was presided over by Daniel D. Tompkins, the Vice
President of the United States. Mr. Huntington was a mem
ber of the convention of 1801, also presided over by a Vice
President, (Aaron Burr.) In 1822 Joseph C. Yates, a republican,
ran for Governor, and was elected by one hundred and twenty-six
thousand majority over Solomon Southwick, who was self-nomi
nated. Henry Huntington and Erastus Root ran against each
other for Lieutenant-Governor, the contest resulting in the election
of Mr. Root. In 1826 DeWitt Clinton was nominated for Gov
ernor and Henry Huntington for Lieutenant-Governor. "Mx.

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 23
'Clinton was elected, but Mr. Huntington was defeated by about
four thousand, owing to local causes. It seems that a State road
had been projected the year previous, to run fi-om the Hudson
River to Lake Erie, through the southern tier of counties, and Mr.
Pitcher was commissioner of that road ; and the friends of that
measure fearing that Mr. Huntington was inimical to it, living as
he did on the line of the Erie Canal, just then completed, and
believed to be a rival route, the southern portion of the State, and
the other counties friendly to that road, cast their votes for Mr.
Pitcher. Oneida County, however, gave Mr. Huntington eleven
hundred majority. As Mr. Huntington had been in pretty active
political life for a quarter of a century, this seems to have closed
his political career. In fact, he accepted the above nomination
with great reluctance, and after much hesitation and persuasion.
The Bank of Utica was chartered in 1812, and the next year he
was elected its second President, and held that position until a
short time before his death, a period of thirty-two years. He died
in Rome in October, 1846, at the age of eighty years. Although
Henry and George Huntington were of opposite politics, and so
decidedly and prominently that the party of each nominated him
;as its candidate for Lieutenant-Governor, yet their business and
personal relations were never in the least disturbed, and much of
their property was owned in common, and in many instances the
partnership funds were used to defray the family expenses of each,
and no separate account kept thereof.

There was a number of the legal profession, who came to Rome
•early in the present century, and although they did not stand out
in the county prominently as lawyers, nor figure very conspic-
.uously in politics, yet they should be mentioned as among the
•early members of the Rome bar.

24 MEN OF EARLY ROME,
JAMES LYNCH.
Mr. James Lynch graduated at Columbia College in 1799, read
law with Joshua Hatheway, and in 1804, was admitted to practice.
He opened a law office in Rome, and had charge of his father's
lands in this locality. The two main streets in Rome bear the
Christian names of father and son — the father when Rome was or
ganized as a town, owning some twenty-five hundred acres of
land, which included Fort Stanwix and the site of the whole busi
ness portion of Rome. He succeeded from Rome Mr. George
Huntington in the Assembly, and was elected on the federal ticket
in the years 1813, 1814 and 1815, all through the hardest part of
the war. He moved to Utica in 1818, opened a law office there,.
and about 1820, he became what was called a "high minded feder
alist," repudiated DeWitt Clinton, and went in for D. D. Tomp
kins, and in 1822 was elected to the Assembly. It was the year
John E. Hinman was elected Sheriff, over S. Newton Dexter, and
E. Dorchester, of the Oneida Observer, County Clerk over Julius
Pond. In 1825 Mr. Lynch moved to New York City, became
Judge of the Marine Court, and held that position until his death.
in 1853, at the age of sixty-seven years.
WHEELER BARNES.
Mr. Barnes was born in Massachusetts ; but he came from Ver
mont to Rome, about 1806, being at that time admitted to practice
law. He was elected Supervisor of Rome in 1815, and again in
1816, and in the latter year was elected to the Assembly on the
federal ticket. He was a member of that Legislaturs which abol
ished slavery, as heretofore mentioned, and which authorized the
commencement of the construction of the Erie Canal. In 1822,
Mr. Barnes ran again for the Assembly, but that was the first year
after the new constitution of 1821 had gone into effect, and it was-

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 25
not a good year for any politician who still held to his federal
notions. Mr. Barnes did quite an extensive law practice for those
times, and was for a time law partner of William Curtis Noyes.
He was trustee of Rome village in 1822, 1823, 1824 and 1825.
Not far from 1837, he resided in Oswego, but in a few years he
moved back to Rome, and died here in July 1858, at the age of
seventy-six years, and as the inscription ^upon his tomb-stone in
the old burying ground reads, " having been a resident of Rome
for fifty years."
JAMES SHERMAN.
In 1806, another native of Massachusetts made Rome his perma
nent home. Mr. James Sherman, the new comer, was a graduate
of Williams College, and when he came to Rome was twenty-six
years of age, and was an admitted attorney. For a year or so,.
and about 1807, he was a law partner of Joshua Hatheway, and
was himself a candidate for the office of Surrogate, and had
obtained the necessary recommendations to secure his appoint
ment ; but, on request, gave way to his partner, who was appointed,
as has heen heretofore stated. Mr. Sherman was Justice of the
Peace for a number of years, and held other towa offices, but did
not mix much in county or State politics. He died in Rome in
1823, at the age of forty-three. He was father-in-law of Judge
Henry A. Foster.
SETH B. ROBERTS.
Two years before Rome was organized into a town, Seth B.
Roberts, then a boy of four years old, came with his parents from
Middletown, Conu., to Whitestown, and there resided until about
1809, when he made Rome his residence. He read law with James
Lynch; was admitted to the bar in 1816, and opened a law office
in Rome. Mr. Lynch, who had acted as the agent for his father

26 MEN OF EARLY ROME.
in the leasing of lands and collection of rents in Rome, moved to
Utica in 1818, and Mr. Roberts was appointed in his place, which
delicate and responsible trust he held for fifty-three years, through
the various titles and successive changes of ownership, of that
landed property. The duties connected with that trust occupied
the main portion of his time, so that he gave but very little atten
tion to law business, nor did he ever become much known, either
as a lawyer or as a polititian. He was firm and decided in his
political convictions, yet he always sympathized and most gen
erally acted with the party that most strongly favored the tem
perance cause and anti-slavery movement, or had for its object the
bettering of the condition and the elevation of the human race.
In the strong democratic town of Rome, he was not infrequently
elected to town offices, although he was always on the other side in
politics. In 1840, he was appointed one of the Judges of the
Oneida Common Pleas, and for five years held that office. For
sixty years of his life he was a resident of Rome, and the oldest
inhabitant can not, through the whole of that period, recall a sin
gle instance where he was seen to be angry, or manifested the least
irritation of temper. He who possesses, or can maintain, such an
equanimity for such a period of time, is entitled to a place in any
history; the recent one of Oneida County not excepted. Without
guile in his heart, and with malice toward none and charity for
all, he had not while living an enemy in the world, and no one
even uttered an unkind word concerning him. He died in October,
1870, in the eighty-first year of his age. Not long before his last
illness, while I was in his office, he pointed out to me the little pine
table at which he was then writing, and which was the only one he
had used since his admission to the bar, fifty-four years before.
Is it not almost enough of a relic to entitle it to place in the rooms
of the Oneida Historical Society ?

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 27
CHESTER HAYDEN.
Not far from 1812 Chester Hayden opened a law office in Rome.
He married a sister of James Sherman. He was, for a time, law
partner of Wheeler Barnes, and in 1818 was Town Clerk of Rome;
ran for Assembly in this county in 1821, and was defeated, and
same year he moved to Pulaski and was appointed Surrogate of
Oswego County, and held that office for three years. In 1826 he
returned to Rome, and was law partner of Henry A. Foster, for a
few years thereafter. In 1830 he was appointed First Judge of
the Oneida Common Pleas, and about that time moved to Utica,
and he held that office until 1840. In 1843 he was appointed side
Judge, and held that position for three years. About that time
he moved to Albany, and in 1848 he published a legal work on
" Practice and Pleadings " under the Code, that year brought into
use for the first time. Subsequently he moved to Ohio, where he
died a number of years ago, being at his death President and
Professor of a law school in that State.

BENJAMIN P. JOHNSON.
Soon after the war of 1812 the father of Benjamin P. Johnson
came from Colurnbia County to Rome, and located here. The
father was a practicing physician. Benjamin P. had read law with
Elisha Williams, that renowned jury lawyer, of Hudson, Colum
bia County, and was admitted to the bar in this county, in 1817.
He was the first Clerk of Rome village, two years afterwards, and
held for many years the office of Justice of the Peace, School
Commissioner and other town offices — was Commissioner of Deeds,
Master in Chancery, &c. In 1826 he was elected to the Assembly
and again in 1827 and 1828. He never was prominent as a lawyer,
although he had great versatility of talent, and was noted for the
accuracy and quickness with which he dispatched business. It is
said that he was able to listen to and carry on conversation with

28 MEN OF EARLY ROME.
several persons on different subjects, and at the same time draw a
contract, or write a letter. In the great religious revival under
Mr. Finney, in 1825 and 1826, Mr. Johnson was converted, and in
February of the last named year, he united with the Presbyterian
church, and about the time as did one hundred and eighty-four
others on the same day. He was quite active and prominent in
church matters, and not far from 1830 was licensed to preach by
the Oneida Presbytery, and occupied the pulpit of the Second
Church, in Rome, during the occasional absences of its pastor,
and also preached at other places, for the then ensuing ten years..
There are those yet living who heard Mr. Johnson preach, and
who inform me his sermons were able, logical and to the point. It
is not an unusual occurrence for persons to leave the ministry for
the legal profession, nor for members of the bar to abandon the
law and go into the ministry ; but the instances are quite rare
when a person occupies the pulpit and practices at the bar during
the same period of time. It affords evidence that all lawyers
are not as bad as they are painted, and that more of them
should " practice what they preach."
In 1841 Mr. Johnson was made the first President of the
Oneida County Agricultural Society, and for two or three
years thereafter he was associated with Mr. Elon Comstock, in the
publication of an agricultural paper at Rome. In 1847 he went
to Albany and became Secretary and Treasurer of the State Ag
ricultural Society, and held that position for twenty-two years.
In 1851 he was delegate or commissioner from this State to the
World's Fair, at London ; and the information he there gathered,
and the sights he there saw, offered him the opportunity to ad
vance the sphere of usefulness of the Society of which he was
Secretary. Mr. Johnson died in Albany, in April, 1869, at the
age of seventy-six years. His remains are now in the Rome
cemetery.

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 29
JOSEPH B. READ.
In the winter of 1819-20, Joseph B. Read, a schoolmate of
Henry A. Foster, came to Rome and entered the law office of Seth
B. Roberts, to complete his law studies. He had previously read
law in Delphi, Onondaga County. For a number of years he was
Justice of the Peace in Rome; was admitted in 1823, and about
1824-5 became a law partner of Mr. Foster. In 1831 he was
Trustee of Rome village, and when George Brown, of Rome, in
1832, entered upon his duties as County Clerk, Mr. Read was
made his first deputy. His health was then poor, and he far gone
with consumption. That fall he started to go south to spend the
winter for his health, but he died while on the boat going down
the river from Albany to New York.
SAMUEL BEARDSLEY.
Prior to 181fl, a young man, then of Otsego County, commenced
the study of medicine in the office of the celebrated Dr. White,
of Cherry Valley, with a view to becoming a practicing physician.
He was about eighteen years of age, and with such an education
as the common schools of the country then afforded. He sup
ported himself* by teaching district schools in winter, that he
might, in summer, study for a profession. Having occasion to
attend court at Cooperstown, he was so charmed with the trial of
causes, and with legal proceedings in court, that he expressed to
Joshua Hatheway, of Rome, who then chanced to be at court at
Cooperstown, a notion and a desire to exchange the study of the
medical, for that of the legal profession. He was encouraged so to
do and invited to become a student in Mr. Hatheway's office. The
invitation was accepted, and Samuel Beardsley came to Rome ;
boarded in the family of Mr. Hatheway ; read law ; tended post
office and assisted in the Surrogate's Court, all in the same office,
then on the site now occupied by " Elm Row " buildings. The

30 MEN OF EARLY ROME.
Studies of Mr. Beardsley were again interrupted, not by peaceful
pursuits, but by the stern realities of war. The northern frontier
of New York was invaded by British troops, and in 1813 Mr.
Beardsley went to Sacketts Harbor to assist in the defense of his
country. On his return to Rome he completed his legal studies ;
was admitted to the bar in 1815 ; took up his residence in Water-
town for a year ; returned to Rome and opened a law office ; mar
ried a daughter of Judge Hatheway, and was law partner of
James Lynch for a short time. He was Town Clerk of Rome in
1817; Supervisor in 1818,1819 and 1820. In 1821 he was ap
pointed District Attorney in place of Nathan Williams — on the
same day that his father-in-law was made Surrogate of the
County. In 1822 Mr. Beardsley, Thomas Greenly, of Madison
County, Sherman Wooster, of Herkimer, and Alvin Bronson, of
Oswego, were elected Senators from this District, over George
Huntington and his associates. This was the first election under
the new Constitution of 1821, and it is a singular fact, and worthy
of mention, that the democrats elected, that year, the whole
thirty-two Senators in the State — a victory no party had won since
the formation of the State Government. And it is also worth
while to note, that of all of these Senators elected that year, the
above named Alvin Bronson is the only one who survives. He is
yet living at Oswego, having passed his ninety-seventh birthday.
*
Mr. Beardsley drew for the short term in the Senate, and
served but one year. In 1823 he was appointed by Presi
dent James Monroe, United States District Attorney for
this District. Soon after his appointment as United States
District Attorney in 1823, Mr. Beardsley moved from Rome
to Utica. Many Romans yet remember the frame house that
stood sixty years ago on the present site of the Tremont
House, and of Mr. Beardsley's residence there, and of his office
in the wing attached. In 1830 Mr. Beardsley was elected to
Congress by sixteen hundred and forty-eight majority over S. N.
Dexter who ran as the anti-Jackson and anti-masonic candidate.

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 81
Mr. Beardsley's majority in Rome, was one hundred and eighty-
four. Fortune C. White ran as the workingman's candidate, and
received three votes in Rome, and two hundred and forty-nine in
the county. On his election to Congress he resigned the office of
United States District Attorney. In 1832, he ran the second time
for Congress, and was elected over Charles P. Kirkland, by about
six hundred majority in the county. In January, 1834, Governor
Marcy tendered to Mr. Beardsley the office of Circuit Judge for
this judicial district ; but as President Jackson needed his services
and the democratic party his vote in Congress, he declined
the proffered appointment, and Hiram Denio was appointed in the
fall of that same year. Mr. Beardsley ran again for Congress, and
was elected over Joshua A. Spencer. In 1836 he was appointed At
torney General, and in 1842, he was again elected to Congress over
Charles P. Kirkland. In February, 1844, Governor Bouck appointed
Mr. Beardsley Supreme Court Judge, and three years later he was
made Chief Justice, and held that office until the constitution of
1846 went into effect. Mr. Beardsley was a democrat of the strict
est sect, the hardest of the " hards " in the time of that party. I was
present in the Cincinnati Convention of 1856, twenty-three years
ago the coming June, when James Buchanan was nominated for the
Presidency, and when Mr. Beardsley headed that half part of the
New York delegation called " hunkers;" and when he arose and an
nounced that " the National democracy of New York cast seventeen
votes for James Buchanan for President," there was a seeming rel
ish to him, in the way he said " National," and announced that result
in the face of the " soft " portion of that delegation. Mr. Beards
ley was one of the very few who could and did take an active
part in politics, for over thirty years of an unusually busy life and
yet stood on a level at the bar and on the bench with the ablest
lawyers in the land, and head and shoulders above a large
majority of his fellows. On his retiring from judicial duties, for it
can hardly be said he ever retired from taking a great interest in
politics, he opened a law office in New York City for a while, de-
votino- himself wholly to counsel business, retaining however his

32 MEN OP EARLY ROME.
residence in Utica. He died in the latter city. May 6, 1860, the
very day he had attained the age of seventy years and three
months.
DANIEL WARDWELL.
In 1812, when Samuel Beardsley was reading law in the office of
Mr. Hatheway, tending post office and boarding in the family of
of his then future father-in-law, he had for a fellow boarder and
student a young man a couple of months younger than himself,
who had graduated the year before from Brown University in
Rhode Island, and that year came with his father's family to Rome
and settled at the "Ridge." That fellow student and boarder was
Daniel Wardwell, who the next year went into the office of Gold
& Sill of Whitesboro, and was admitted to the Jefferson Common
Pleas in 1814 while for a brief time a resident of that county. He
married a daughter of Newton Mann, lived and practiced law in
Rome in 1816 and 1817, his office being a small frame building
Bear where the Sentinel office now is. In 1820 he lived in Utica,
and soon after moved to Jefferson County; and 1824 was appointed
by Governor Yates, side Judge of that county. It was in his
office in 1821 at Adams, that Rev. Charles G. Finney, who after
ward became the noted revivalist, was reading law at the time of
his conversion, and thereupon abandoned the law for the ministry.
Mr. Wardwell was elected member of Assembly from Jefferson
County 1825, 1826 and 1827. In 1826 he was the means of caus
ing great commotion at Albany, New York and the river counties,
by his introduction into the Assembly and advocacy of a resolu
tion favoring the removal of the State Capital to Utica or some
other central point. The project took like wild fire in the central
and western part of the State, and public meetings were held at
Utica, presided over and taken part in by its leading and promi
nent citizens in favor of the projDosition. I regret to add, the
measure failed, and it does not look now as if it would be carried
for the next fifty years. In 1828, in the exciting Presidential

HISTORICAL ADDRESS, 33
contest between Jackson and Adams, Mr. Wardwell ran for
State Senator in this district, on the Jackson ticket. His opponent
was William H. Maynard of Utica. Masonry or anti-masonry
was then one of the exciting topics of the canvass. The election
was close, but Mr. Maynard was elected by about three hundred
majority. In return for this defeat, the Jeff'erson county district
elected Mr. Wardwell to Congress for three successive terms, the
first time in 1830, and which was for a longer time than any other
person has been elected from that county. It is worth while to
note that he was elected for the same three terms and in the same
years, as was his fellow law student Mr. Beardsley from this
county, and that both were warm personal and political friends,
and were among the most determined adherents and supporters of
President Jackson all through the stormy period of his adminis
tration. Daniel Wardwell and Samuel Beardsley were fbr so
many years in such close contact and fellowship with Presi
dent Jackson, it has often seemed to me as if they had much of
the unyielding purpose, unbending integrity and Roman firmness
of that fearless statesman. In the last year of Mr. Wardwell's
life, after his mind had passed into the penumbra of that eclipse
from which it never fully emerged, while his conversation wan
dered on all other subjects, a recurrence to or calling up of the
stormy times when he was in Congress, seemed to remove the
clouds from his mental vision, to bring light and flash to his eye,
determination in his look, as if those scenes were again passing in
review before him, and as if ready to exclaim like Bonaparte in
his wild delirium at St. Helena, "the head of the army!" Mr.
Wardwell was elected to the Assembly for the fourth time in 1837
from Jefferson county. He became a resident of Rome again in
1860, and died here in March, 1878, lacking but a month of his
eighty-seventh birthday.

34 WEN OP EARLY ROME.
HIRAM DENIO.
Some may say that those only should be called Romans, who
were born in Rome. To satisfy such, I point out Hiram Denio.
He was born in Wright Settlement, obtained all of his education
in town except what he received at Fairfield Academy ; read law
at first with Wheeler Barnes, and afterwards with Storrs & White
of Whitesboro ; was admitted to the bar in 1821; opened a law
office in Rome; was appointed in 1825 District Attorney of the
county, to succeed Samuel Beardsley, and about that time moved
to Utica. In 1834, he was appointed Circuit Judge, and after four'
years was compelled to resign by reason of ill health ; held the
office of Bank Commissioner from 1838 to 1841 ; was Clerk of
the oTd Supreme Court from about 1840 to 1845 ; was Supreme
Court Reporter from 1845 to 1847, as the five volumes of Denio's
Reports attest; in June, 1853, he was appointed by Governor
Seymour to fill a vacancy in the Court of Appeals, and in the fall
of that year was elected over Judge Mullin ; when his term run
out, fourteen years later, he was re-nominated. I was in the Dem
ocrat State convention eleven years ago last fall at Syracuse, when
Mayor Fernando Wood, a delegate, tried to defeat the re-nomina
tion of Judge Denio, because the latter had rendered an adverse
decision in the Courts of Appeals on matters in New York City in
which Mayor Wood was interested. He made a very ingenious
and plausible argument against such re-nomination, and would
have succeeded in defeating it, but for the eloquent and powerful
speech of Governor Seymour, also a delegate. Governor Sey
mour's effort on that occasion was among the ablest and happiest
of his life. Judge Denio was nominated and was elected over
Timothy Jenkins.
It is a little singular, that as decided a democrat as Judge
Denio was, and as intimate as he. Judge Beardsley, Judge Foster,
Greene C. Bronson and other democrats were in politics, he

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 35
never attended conventions, nor mixed in politics like them,
nor seemed to aspire to political offices.
That he was a lawyer and judge however second to none in the
State, all concede. He died in Utica, in November, 1871, at the
age of seventy-three.
REV. ALBERT BARNES.
There is another who was born in Rome, and although not
coming within the line of these sketches, for he was neither a
lawyer nor a politician, yet as he has arisen to greater note and
prominence in the world than any who have been mentioned, he can
not be passed by. Albert Barnes was born in Wright Settlement.
He was of about the same age of Hiram Denio — they were play
mates in boyhood, companions in youth, and friends through life.
They attended together the Fairfield Academy, and both were
designed for the law. The conversion of Albert Barnes while
attending Hamilton College, changed the whole current of his
thoughts and the bent of his pursuits in another direction. He
studied for and was admitted into the ministry, and in that sphere
of usefulness, rose to greater eminence than he could ever have
hoped to attain in any other. For thirty-seven years he was
pastor of the same church. His notes of the Gospels, translated
into various languages on the continent of Europe, and reaching a
sale of over one million of volumes, have made the name of Albert
Barnes familiar to millions of Christian households in both hemi
spheres, and the memory of his good work will be revered so
long as the Bible is taught in our Sabbath schools, or piety shall
be reverenced upon earth.
JOHN B. JERVIS.
There is another Roman, although neither a lawyer nor a
politician who by the strict rules would be shut out of this paper,
yet it would hardly be complete without him. John B. Jervis

36 MEN OP EARLY ROME.
came with his parents to Rome, from Long Island, in the same
year Oneida County was formed. In 1817, when the construction
of the Erie Canal commenced, Benjamin Wright-, the engineer, was
in need of an axman, and young Jervis was temporarily engaged.
He was ready with an ax and apt in learning, and soon after he
was promoted to the position of rodman in the survey, for twelve
dollars per month. He then turned his attention to the study and
practice of surveying and engineering, and made such proficiency
under Mr. Wright that in two years he was made resident engi
neer, at one dollar and a quarter a day, on seventeen miles of the
canal, extending from Madison into Onondaga County. After
remaining there two years he was made resident engineer for two
years more, on a more difficult and important division near
Amsterdam. In 1823 he was made superintendent of the work
for fifty miles of the canal, employing and discharging all the
subordinates. When the canal was completed in 1825, having
been seven years on that work, he resigned to engage in higher
duties, and he received from Henry Seymour, Canal Commissioner
and the father of Governor Seymour, a kind and very commenda
tory letter. He received from Benjamin Wright, then chief
engineer of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, the appointment of
assistant engineer, and upon Mr. Jervis devolved the main duties.
He examined the route, and on his recommendation the use of the
river, for part of the way, as was first intended, was abandoned.
He was engaged as engineer on a great many other works of
internal improvement, among which may be mentioned the railroad
between Albany and Schenectady, the Schenectady and Saratoga
Railroad, the Chenango Canal, the eastern division of the Erie
Canal on its enlargement in 1836, the Croton Water Works, sup
plying New York City with water, and which was considered the
greatest piece of engineering skill in the world, and the success of
which gave Mr. Jervis a world wide reputation. He was con
sulting engineer to supply Boston with water, and chief engineer
of the Hudson River Railroad, &c., &c. The water works of Port
Jervis (a place on the Erie Railroad named after him) were con-

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 37
structed under his approval, and the water works of Rome were
not undertaken until the plan had been subjected to the scrutiny
of his engineering skill, and received the approval of his judgment.
In 1816 he united with the first and then the only church in
Rome, and under its first installed pastor, and for over sixty-two
years, he has been an honored member of a church. I think I am
safe in saying there is no one who can show so long a membership,
and that there is no living person whose coming to Rome ante
dates his, or who has made Rome for so many years a permanent
residence. A few weeks ago he reached his eighty-third birthday;
and those who heard or have read his lecture on "Industrial
Economy," prepared a few weeks before he was eighty-three years
old, need not be told that the mind and memory of John B. Jervis
are as clear, fresh and vigorous as when in the full flush of his
early manhood.
HENRY A. FOSTER.
In November, 1819, a young man, but a few months past nine
teen years of age, came from the office of Beach & Popple, attor
neys and counsellors at Oswego, to Rome, and entered the law
office of James Sherman, to complete his law studies. At that
time, to be an attorney and counsellor of the Supreme Court
required a previous course of study of seven years. Two and a
half years of that time had been passed by that student, com
mencing in 1815, in the law office at Cazenovia, of David B.
Johnson, father of D. M. K. Johnson, of Rome. In 1818 he read
law at Onondaga Hill, then the county seat of Onondaga County,
in the office of B. Davis Noxon, who subsequently became an
eminent lawyer in Central New York, and was father of Judge
Noxon, of Syracuse.
When Henry A. Foster entered the law office of James Sher
man as above stated, the Erie Canal between Rome and Utica

38 MEN OP EARLY ROME.
was but just completed and brought into use. What is now the
•city of Syracuse was then unknown, being only a small collection
of houses, and known by the name of ^'¦Corinth.'''' The county
of Oswego was formed but three years before, and what is now
the city of Oswego was, at the time Mr. Foster read law there,
an unincorporated village of about four hundred inhabitants.
Rome was about the 'same size, and had been incorporated in the
spring before Mr. Foster came to Rome. There were at that
time six lawyers in Rome, viz.: Joshua Hatheway, Wheeler
Barnes, James Sherman, Samuel Beardsley, S. B. Roberts and B.
P. Johnson. Mr. Hatheway devoted most of his time to official
duties, Mr. Roberts had charge of the Lynch estate, and Mr.
Johnson had been admitted only a couple of years.
In those days the oldest as well as the foremost members of the
bar practiced in Justice's Court whenever an opportunity offered,
and tried causes therein with as much zeal and tenacity as in
Courts of Record. For a law student to obtain a livelihood, when
he had to compete in those courts with experienced and influential
practitioners, it was requisite he should be one of more than ordinary
pluck, industry and intelligence. It was only for a few years previous
that anybody could practice in Justices' Courts, for, as the law
stood prior to 1812, Justices of the Peace were prohibited by posi
tive law from allowing any one to appear in their courts as an
advocate, or to try causes, except in cases of the sickness of the
suitor. But in April, 1812, that law was repealed, and the pre
amble to the repealing clause reads so quaintly yet so truthfully,
and withal sounds so oddly at the present day, that I have been
tempted to copy it. It reads: " Whereas it often happens that suit
ors are wanting in ability to do justice to their own causes, or are
deserted by that presence of mind which is the requisite to com.tnand
or bring into use such abilities as they may actually possess ; and
whereas it is a constitutional right which every person has, to
employ assistance in all lawful business, therefore the above section
is repealed." It is an acknowledgment of an old saying, that he

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 39
who tries his own cause has a fool for a client. What would the
¦young law^'ers of the present day do, if the above repealing clause
of 1812 had never been enacted?
I have it from the lips of Numa Leonard, an early settler in
Rome, and one of the Justices of the Peace fifty and more years
ago, and I have also learned it from other old residents, since
¦passed away, that it was well understood whenever Mr. Foster
was in a law case, even when a law student, that in the
vernacular of the present day, "it meant business." In 1822 he
was admitted to the bar, and within three hours after his
admission to the Common Pleas, he was assigned by the
Court to defend a person who was indicted for petit larceny,
second offense, the offense having been committed before the
first conviction. In looking through the judicial records in
Oneida County Clerk's office not long since, for materials for this
paper, I came across a record of that trial, which took place that
year at the General Sessions, before Judges Joshua Hatheway,
Truman Enos and Samuel Jones. Samuel Beardsley was District
Attorney. As the law now is, a person convicted for the first
time of petit larceny, is liable to imprisonment only, in the county
jail, and if convicted of a similar offense, after the first conviction,
then the punishment is by imprisonment in the State prison.
The statute as it then read provided for the punishment, by im
prisonment in the State Prison, " of every person who should be
a second time, or oftener, convicted of petit larceny," without say
ing (as the law now does) that the second offense must be com
mitted, after a conviction for a former theft. The objection was
taken by Mr. Foster, that this could not be a State Prison offense,
as the indictment did not allege nor the proofs show, that the
offense was committed after a previous conviction; but that in
fact the conviction was for the second offense ; that the intent
and spirit of the statute were to work a reformation of the
ffender by increasing the punishment, for offences committed after

40 MEN OP EARLY ROME.
a conviction; but if this was a State Prison offense, then the
punishment was the greater for the fi,rst offense. The District At
torney relied upon the literal reading of the statute, and for two
hours the respective counsel argued that question of law to the
court. Two of the judges held with the District Attorney, and the
other one with Mr. Foster, and so the case had to go to the jury.
As jurors in those days were popularly considered judges of the law
as well as of the fact in criminal trials, the prisoner's counsel sum
med up to the jury on that theory and on that question of law, and
for two hours the counsel on both sides argued to the jury as to the
construction which should be given to that statute, without either
side hardly touching upon the merits of the case, as to the guilt or
innocence of the accused. The jury took the law of the case into
their own hands, construed the statute differently from the two
judges, and on that question of law acquitted the prisoner .' With
such a "send off" at the commencement of a professional career
and when but twenty-two years old, it can hardly be supposed
Mr. Foster ever lacked for clients. A few years later, the
same question came up again in this county, and was carried
to the Supreme Court, and that court, (3d Cow. Rep., 347,) gave
the construction to the law contended for by Mr. Foster, and
then the Legislature changed the statute, to make it conformable
to that decision.
It was difficult in those days, if not impossible, for a person to
remain neutral in, or for one of ambition and ability to keep out of
politics during the exciting times growing out of the discussion
relative to the convention and constitution of 1821, the elective
franchise, the Presidential campaign between General Jackson
and John Quincy Adams in 1824, and the still more exciting one
of 1828. Mr. Foster, like Samuel Beardsley, Greene C. Bronson,.
Samuel A. Talcott, William H. Maynard, Henry R. Storrs, Joseph
Kirkland, Ezskiel Bacon, Joshua A. Spencer, Timothy Jenkins,,
and other legal luminaries, drifted into politics, and at an. early
age all of the above took as active a part in caucuses. and conven-

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 41
tions as in the trial of causes at the Circuit. In 1826, in the
gubernatorial contest between DeWitt Clinton and William B.
Rochester, Mr. Foster was nominated for Assembly on the
Rochester ticket; but the Clintonians and federalists were too
strong in the county, and the Rochester Assembly ticket was
defeated. In 1827 Mr. Foster made a bold push for the office of
Surrogate, then held by Mr. Hatheway. It was a hazardous
attempt for a young man, not then twenty-seven years of age, to
try for the displacement of one who had been in political life as
long as Mr. Hatheway, and who knew so well all the ins
and outs of politics; and moreover, who had to back him
his son-in-law, Mr. Samuel Beardsley, then an important factor
in the politics of the county and State. The attempt seemed like
demanding the crown from the reigning King, or the scepter from
the Pope. Nevertheless, the effort was made., In March, 1827,
Mr. Poster was appointed Mr. Hatheway's successor. Surrogate of
Oneida County, by Governor DeWitt Clinton, which office he held
until 1831. In 1830 he was elected State Senator, over Nehemiah
Huntington, an old lawyer of Madison County. Mr. Foster's
majority in Oneida. County was fourteen hundred. Ephraim Hart,
of Utica, ran on the workingmen's party, and received one vote in
Rome, and four hundred and seventy-five votes in the county. So
It seems that the party of last year by that name was not a new one,
but that fifty years ago an organized workingmen's party was in
existence, seeking at the polls a redress for political grievances.
History repeats itself, sometimes in fifty years, and many times
oftener. Mr. Foster was Trustee of Rome village in 1826, 1827 and 1828,
and Supervisor of the town in 1829 and 1830, and again in 1833
and 1834. In January, 1835, he was again appointed Surrogate of
Oneida County, to succeed Allanson Bennett, and held the position
until he resigned in August, 1837, as he was then soon to commence
his Congressional labors at Washington. In 1836, he was elected
to Congress, over Joshua A. Spencer, although Israel Stoddard

42 MEN OF EARLY ROME.
ran as the " bolters " candidate, and carried off twelve hundred
votes. It was the year Martin Van Buren was elected President
of the United States. In the Harrison campaign of 1840, Ex-Gov
ernor Seymour and Ward Hunt were competitors for the nomina
tion for the State Senate. As the Senatorial convention was
about evenly divided between those two candidates, they finally
compromised on the nomination of Mr. Foster, who was elected
over Chester Buck of Lewis County. While in the Senate during
this term, Mr. Foster introduced a resolution, and to him belongs
the honor of procuring its passage through both Houses of the
Legislature, favoring the modification of the franking privilege,
and a reduction of the rate of postage (the cost of sending a sin
gle letter through the mails, then being from eighteen to twenty-
five cents.) That was the first legislative action taken on that
subject, and although it took the general government a long
time to give heed to that request from the Empire State, yet it
was eventually done, and Mr. Foster has lived to see that reform,
initiated by him and so much needed by the people, become the
law of the land. Near the close of his term he resigned, to
accept the appointment of United States Senator, to fill a vacancy.
Hammond's Political History, in referring to the Senate of
1844, uses the following language: "Had we arranged the mem
bers of the Senate of 1844 according to their reputation for talents,
Mr. Foster ought undoubtedly to have headed the list. In debate
he is truly formidable. The rapid and effective action of his
intellectual powers, his retentive memory, his ready recollection
of facts and even dates, combined with his sharp and caustic style
of speaking, made him respected and feared by his opponents, and
the admired champion of his friends."
In April, 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed Mr. Foster
to the office of United States District Attorney for the northern
district of New York. The appointment was entirely unsohcited
and unexpected; the first knowledge or intimation Mr. Foster

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 43
had of such intended appointment, was from the newspapers. He
felt compelled to decline the proffered honor, and Samuel B.
Garvin, then of Utica, was subsequently appointed.
In 1863 he was elected Judge of the Supreme Court from this
Judicial District, for a term of eight years. Such then is a syn
opsis of the political and judicial life of Judge Foster, in addition
to as large and important a law business as any other lawyer in
Central New York, viz.: six and one-half years Surrogate; two
years in Congress ; eight years in the State Senate ; and eight
years on the bench of the Supreme Court — all of which positions
he adorned, and discharged their various duties with an ability,
fidelity and faithfulness that were never questioned. He now
lacks but a few months of his seventy-ninth birthday, and with a
mind unimpaired by increasing years, a memory unaffected by the
accumulation and cares of an extensive law business, a vigor of
intellect that seems to have suffered no diminution by use or age,
and with an activity that is but very little lessened by the burdens
of an unusually active and busy life. Rome is honored by the
residence of such a one who has been a "Roman Citizen" for
nearly one-half a century, and has made a decided impress upon
the times in which he has lived. I think I am safe in saying that
no one is now living in this State, and that the personal knowl
edge of those who now hear me does not extend to any other
person who has attained such an age, with such mental vigor, and
capable of such physical endurance. With the exception of
Alvin Bronson above named he is the oldest Ex-Senator in the
State. And in running my eye over the names of the forty-two
Cono-ressmen from this State at the time Judge Foster was a
member of that body, I find only three besides himself now alive,
viz.: Judge Amasa J. Parker, of Albany; Arphaxad Loomis, of
Little Falls ; Judge Hiram Gray, of Elmira.
The present generation must not be unmindful that the political
work and the political workers of to-day, are not by any means

44 MEN OF EARLY ROME.
like those of the times of which I have been speaking. Those
were the days of arduous political toil, of sleepless vigilance, and
of untiring activity. Those were the times when the foremost
members of the bar, and the most prominent men in county and
State were in attendance at town caucuses, and delegates to dis
trict, county and State conventions, and among the hardest and
most faithful workers at the election polls ; when the note of prep
aration, on the eve of an election, like that on the eve of battle,
sounded all along the lines, and no vigilance was relaxed, no
work left undone until the last vote was in the ballot box. No
one was idle, none slept at his post. Let me narrate an incident
or two as to the way the warfare was waged and politicians
worked forty, fifty and sixty years ago.
Those who knew Wheeler Barnes will remember that for the
last thirty years of his life he was lame, and walked with difficulty,
even with a cane. He was an active partisan in his day, and par
ticularly hostile and bitter in his opposition to General Jackson for
the Presidency in 1828, as were all of the Adams men of that
period. That was the year of the " coffin hand bills," distributed
by the Adams men in every school district, and with wonderful
effect against General Jackson. At the head of each hand bill
were the pictures of six black looking coffins, and underneath was
printed the story of the six militia men ordered by General Jack
son to be shot for desertion, and who were executed in 1815. The
story was told with pathetic tenderness, and with the amplification
and exaggeration usually attending electioneering documents. A
few days before that election, Mr. Barnes started out from Rome
on horseback, with a large roll of those hand bills, to distribute in
Vienna, Camden and adjoining towns. A democratic politician of
Rome in those times, and who is yet a Roman,* seeing Mr. Barnes
start out, suspected the purport of his mission, followed on soon
after with an antidote for that poison. A short distance
west of the United States Arsenal, Mr. Barnes' horse was discov
ered by the Jackson man riderless by the roadside, and on inquiry
¦* Ex- Judge Poster.

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 45
he learned that Mr. Barnes was in a neighboring house, having
fallen or been thrown from his saddle, breaking his leg near the
hip joint. The illness consequent thereon lasted him for months,
and he was made a cripple for the rest of his life. Of course the
Jackson men chose to construe that misfortune as a visitation upon
Mr. Barnes for his activity and bitterness in that canvass.
Four years later, and when General Jackson ran the next time
for the Presidency, a misfortune befel the Jackson party, and had
it resulted as was at first feared, would have given the Jackson
men more annoyance and pain than the breaking of a dozen legs.
The Democratic County Convention was held that year (1832) at
Floyd, and Squire Utley, of Western, David Wager, of Utica, John
Dewey, of BoonvUle, and Othniel Williams (father of Hon. O. S.
Williams) of Clinton, were nominated for the Assembly. It was
in the time of three days' election, the first day commencing
Monday, November 5th. Railroads and telegraph wires had not
then penetrated Oneida County. On Sunday, November 4th, at
six o'clock in the evening, Mr. Williams, one of the above nomi
nees, died suddenly at his home in Clinton ! What was to be
done, election commencing at nine o'clock the next morning ? A
new set of Assembly tickets was at once printed, with the name of
Levi Buckingham, of Marshall, in place of Mr. Williams, and a
printed circular signed by the county corresponding committee,
announcing the death, accompanied the ballots. About midnight
that night a special messenger reached Rome with the news of the
death, and with the votes for all of the northern towns. Thomas
Dugan, then an active democrat, was at once started with the
tickets for the towns of Floyd, Steuben, Remsen, Trenton and
Boonville. Judge Foster started about one a. m. on horseback,
with the tickets of Western, Lee, Annsville, Camden, Florence and
Vienna, and left them in the hands of trusty persons, and was
back by nine o'clock Monday morning at the polls in the " Pish
Creek district " in Rome, where the first day's election was held,
ready for a three days' battle for General Jackson and the demo
cratic cause. The whole county was supplied with the tickets, and

46 MEN OF EARLY ROME.
only twelve votes were lost (in the town of Augusta) by reason
of the above disaster. The whole democratic ticket was elected
that year in county. State and Nation. Such was the way politi
cians did their work in those days, and of such materials were
they composed.
I am not unmindful of such Romans as Allanson Bennett,
Charles Tracy, Norman B. Judd, William C. Noyes, Calvin B.
Gay, Calvert Comstock and others, but as they were not prom
inent actors for the first forty years of Rome's history, they go
into another and later chapter.
JOHN STRYKER.
There is yet one more Roman who should go into this " record "
before this chapter closes, for he has been a resident for almost
one-half a century, and none in the State has been more active in
politics than he. Mr. John Stryker read law with Storrs & White,
came to Rome before he was twenty-one to form a law jjartnership
with Allanson Bennett, was admitted to the bar as soon as he had
attained his majority, and at once glided into politics by a process
so easy and natural, that it was almost second nature to him, and yet
he had a large law practice, in connection with his subsequent law
partners, Henry A. Foster, Charles Tracy and Calvert Comstock.
No person probably in the State, and certainly none in the county
was so fond of politics as he or made it such an exclusive
study and business for over forty years of his life. He was
elected to the Assembly in 1835, held the office of Surrogate for
ten years from 1837, and those were about the only offices he ever
held; and yet he has attended more caucuses, district, county.
State and National conventions, made and unmade office-holders^
and managed and manipulated conventions to a greater extent
than any other man in the State. A few weeks ago he reached
his seventieth birthday, and yet his memory as to facts, dates
and details of fifty years gone by is not equaled by that of any-
living person. The politics of Oneida County and the history of

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 47
State and National conventions would be in a great measure shorn
of their most interesting features, if all that Hon. John Stryker
had to do therewith was left out.
I have spoken of Mr. Stryker more as a politician, he haying
been a delegate to twelve State Conventions of the democratic
party, a delegate to four National conventions, and for ten years
a leading member on the State committee. During a long period
of his political life he was in confidential correspondence with such
eminent men as Governor Marcy, General Lewis Cass, Governor
Bouck, Governor Manning, of South Carolina, John L. Dawson,
of Pennsylvania, Edwin Croswell, &c., &c., and a life-long and
devoted friend and admirer of Governor Seymour. The letters
above referred to, if preserved, would make an interesting history
of the times, and an important chapter of the movements of the
democratic party. To him and Judge Foster is Rome indebted
for its prosperity in securing the Black River Canal and the Syra
cuse and Utica Railroad, against active adverse interests, and the
change of the Erie Canal from the Rome Swamp to the center of
the city — from which time Rome has continued to increase in pros
perity, on a sound basis, and which have been the means of adding
five-fold to her population.
Lengthy as this paper is, it contains not a tithe of what
could be written concerning the important events and prominent
men in Rome for the first forty years of its history — men who
have exerted as great an influence in the history of the county,
State and nation as any who have lived in the Valley of the Mo
hawk since the days of the Revolution.
It is well for the present generation to have occasionally unfolded
to their view a panorama of the past, as it will better enable them
to understand and appreciate its history, and to more fully realize
the nature, character and beneficence of those political institutions
which are destined to live and flourish long after the memory of
the actors in those scenes shall have faded away, like streaks- of
morning cloud, into the infinite azure of the past.