Fort Klock Historic Restoration

Chapter Twelve, Benton's History of Herkimer County

CHAPTER XII.

Biographical Sketches of Stephen Ayres, Alexander H. Buell, Robert Burch, Stephen W. Brown, Benjamin Bowen, Dan Chapman, Atwater Cook, William H. Cook, Rufus Crain, Henry Ellison, John Frank, Simeon Ford, David V. W. Golden, Gaylord Griswold, Joab Griswold, Elihu Griswold, John Graves, David Holt, Michael Hoffman, Stephen Hallett, Philo M. Hackley, Henry Hopkins, Sanders Lansing, John Mahon, Thomas Manly, Jacob Markell, John Mills, Michael Myers, William Petry, George Rosecrants, Nathan Smith, Ephraim Snow, Henry Tillinghast, Stephen Todd, Abijah Tombling, Edmund Varney, Richard Van Horne, Evans Wharry, George Widrig, Westel Willoughby, Chauncey Woodruff, Sherman Wooster, Samuel Wright.

The writer has indulged in some personal gratification in collecting and writing out the biographical sketches presented to the reader's attention in this chapter. That gratification would have been greatly increased, if the means of doing more ample justice to the subject had been within his reach, and he could have included every name found in the official list printed in the appendix. He was familiarly acquainted with very many of the individuals of whom he has written, and take them as a class, or individually, with one exception, for purity of character, elevated and patriotic purpose in action through life, they should not have a second place on the scroll of fame. Their sphere of action was limited, but they bore the same relation to the people of the county, that others filling higher and more elevated positions held in respect to the communities they represented. There have been and always will be, I suppose, grades of excellence in official men; some may have no excellence at all, but this can not be said of those whose biographies are found in the succeeding pages of this chapter.

Was a native of Massachusetts, and born at Braintree, February 16th, 1770. He came into this state with his father, Jabez Ayres, in the year 1792, who settled in the town of Salisbury, where he made his clearing, raised his family, and went to his final rest, leaving the subject of this notice to inherit a good farm and a large share of his energy of character. Mr. Stephen Ayres purchased a lot of land in the then town of Norway, now Fairfield, in the fall of 1792, which he brought under cultivation and on which he lived until his death. He was a practical surveyor, an occupation he occasionally pursued until age incapacitated him from service in the field. In the course of a long and active life he had traced many of the lines of lots on the patents on the north side of the river, and could designate the boundaries of lots, and describe and locate the corner trees from memory, many years after be had quit the active pursuits of his profession, and indeed many years after he had made his survey. His son, Hiram Ayres, was called on, not many years before his father's death, to trace the lines of a lot at a distant point on the Royal grant, from the family residence, and when told the number and location of the lot, Mr. Ayres described to his son with particular exactness, the corner of the lot where the survey commenced, and lest these landmarks might have been removed or destroyed, he also described a peculiar witness tree, and its course and distance from the true corner, when surveyed about twenty years before and not since visited by him.

In 1836, Mr. Ayres represented this county in the Assembly, with Frederick Bellinger and Thomas Hawkes. He was not ambitious of political preferment, although he deservedly enjoyed the confidence and esteem of his fellow citizens. In stature he was full six feet, and "well proportioned." He was of that class and school of men who reasoned well and endeavored to act wisely. He chose to be governed by the results of his own reflections, and the dictates of a sound judgment, rather than hazard a novel experiment directed and controlled by a sudden excitement. It required no " sober second thought " to bring himself to a position he deemed it his duty as a citizen to occupy, under any and all circumstances. I may have plaaed a false estimate upon the character of Mr. Ayres, but I think not. He lived in the easterly part of the town of Fairfield, where he also pursued the occupation of husbandry through a long and well spent life, and having by industry and frugality gathered and enjoyed a competence of this world's goods, he closed his earthly pilgrimage on the 17th of September, 1850, in the 81st year of his age, respected by all who knew him.

ALEXANDER H. BUELL

Was a native of Fairfield, in this county. His father, Roswell Buell, a native of Killingworth, Connecticut, came into the county at an early day, and seated himself on the spot now known as Fairfield village. In 1795, he married Sarah Griswold, daughter of Daniel Griswold, also a native of Killingworth, who settled in Fairfield about the year 1790, and has now numerous descendants residing, in that town.

About the year 1800, Mr. Roswell Buell opened a store in Fairfield, and was some time engaged in the mercantile business. He was distinguished for his enterprise and benevolence. He donated an acre of land to the trustees of Fairfield academy, in 1802, on which the first academic edifice was erected. In the midst of an active and useful life, he fell a victim to the epidemic which prevailed in the winter of 1812-13, aged 40 years. His affairs were somewhat involved by this sudden event, and after the settlement of his estate was effected, only a small patrimony remained to the surviving members of his family. His widow still lives, and at the close of 1855, has attained the venerable age of 86 years.

Alexander Hamilton Buell, the subject of this notice, was born July 14th, 1801. The loss so early in life of the counsel and sustaining aid of a father, when both were so much needed, was no doubt viewed by young Buell as a severe calamity. He soon seemed to appreciate the circumstances which surrounded him, and was fully impressed with the idea that he must be the artificer of his own fame and fortune; that success could only be looked for through his own exertions. The position in which he was placed had great influence in molding his character and developing those traits which led to his subsequent success in life as a merchant. His opportunities for an accomplished academic education were somewhat limited by his engagements as a clerk in the store of Mr. Stephen Hallett, then one of the principal business men at Fairfield. His time at school was however well employed, and he sought to make up by diligence and studious application during his leisure hours, what he lost while engaged in the store of his employer.

A marked feature of young Buell's character is developed in the following facts: During the first three years of his employment with Mr. Hallett, and he commenced at the age of 14, he was diligent and attentive as a clerk in the store, supporting himself by his own exertions, and at the same time superintending the affairs of his widowed mother with all the efficiency of a man of mature years, and with a kindness and solicitude that carried with it a sweet and soothing solace. Nor was this all; his sisters, orphaned like himself, were not infrequent recipients of presents from the surplus of his earnings. He had become so accomplished in business, several years before he reached his majority, that he was repeatedly sent by his employer to the city of New York to purchase goods to replenish his store.

Mr. Buell, at the age of 21, became a partner in business with his former employer, and at Mr. Hallett's death, assumed the sole proprietorship of the business at Fairfield. He subsequently, in connection with different individuals, extended his mercantile business into the neighboring town and villages in the county; afterwards, giving scope to a clear and comprehensive mind, and the exertion of an excellent business talent, his commercial operations were extended to counties in this state remote from his native home; and he did not finally stop until he reached the distant shores of the Pacific ocean ; even California was not neglected by the accomplished and successful Fairfield merchant. I am not aware that Mr. Buell ever thought of removing to New York, where fortunes are so rapidly made and marred in commercial pursuits. He was several times gratified and honored by the confidence of his townsmen, in electing him to local offices of trust and confidence. He was a member of the assembly from this county in 1845. This, I believe was his first appearance at Albany as a legislator. He was placed at the head of the important committee on banks and insurance companies, in a house in no respect destitute of men of talents. Although it is not usual to select the chairmen of the leading committees from new members, the appointment in this instance was judicious, and the compliment well deserved. In this new and untried position, Mr. Buell sustained himself in every respect to the satisfaction of the house and his friends. An ardent politician of the Herkimer school, and I use this term because our neighbors in other counties charge us with being "of the strictest sect," it was his duty and his pleasure to square his official conduct to suit the feelings and opinions of his constituents.

Mr. Buell was chosen member of the 32d congress from the 17th congressional district, composed of Herkimer and Montgomery counties, at the November election, 1850. His competitor was a personal friend, and then the member from the district, Henry P. Alexander. The canvass was briskly conducted and adroitly managed by the contestants and their friends. The district was one in which there could not be much doubt when the whole vote was polled and party lines strictly drawn as "in olden time." He was married to Miss Harriet E. Gruman, of Clinton, Oneida county, November 9, 1840. Before taking his seat in the congress, to which he had been elected, Mr. Buell closed his connection with most of the mercantile establishments in which he had been interested, over which he could not well exercise a personal supervision. He won and enjoyed the confidence and regard, not only of the business community, but of his political friends and associates. By his industry, application and unwearied exertions, he accumulated a fortune, enough to satisfy the reasonable desires of an ambitious man a little removed from the commercial and financial emporiums of our state, where few men are counted rich who are rated under a million of dollars, where comparisons serve only to stimulate to hazardous experiments, and even wild and imaginary speculations. He must, of course, have been punctual in all his pecuniary engagements, and prompt in all his other business relations. His surviving townsmen have cause to remember him for his public spirit, and the worthy recipients of charity never solicited his aid in vain.

Mr. Buell died at Washington city on the 31st January, 1853, after a brief and painful illness, in the 52d year of his age. The house of representatives passed the usual resolution of condolence; and while a monument in the congressional burying ground commemorates his official connection with that eminent body of American statesmen and his death, his mortal remains, distinguished by a suitable memorial, have found a final resting place in the grounds of Trinity church, Fairfield, by the side of which repose the remains of a father, brother and an infant daughter. His wife, two sons and a daughter, survived him.

ROBERT BURCH

Was born in Killingsly, Connecticut, December 3d, 1761, emigrated from Berkshire county, Massachusetts, into this state, seated himself in the present town of Schuyler in 1799, and died on the farm he had opened and reduced from a wilderness state, on the 26th of June, 1830, in the 69th year of his age.

Devoted to agricultural pursuits, Mr. Burch bore the even tenor of his way through life unobtrusively, and left several sons, who are among our prominent and active business men.

He was one of the members of the assembly from this county at the sessions of 1811 and 1812, at a period when national and state politics very much engrossed public attention. He possessed a quick apprehension and a sound and discriminating judgment. He was diligent and attentive to his public duties, and was careful in those times of high party strife to be prepared to vote promptly when the question was propounded by the speaker. I have heard an anecdote repeated of him to this effect. His seat in the house was near that of Mr. Brayton, a member from Oneida, with whom he was on terms of friendly, social intercourse, although they differed on political subjects. My. Burch was always in his seat and prompt to respond in a pretty audible tone of voice when the roll was called on a division. Mr. Brayton may have been, and probably was, classed among the leading men of his party. Now for the anecdote. On one occasion, after a pretty stormy debate and close vote on a division, Mr. Brayton accosted his political adversary and said to him, " Burch, how does it happen that you are always so prompt and ready to vote, your party friends following your load to a man, and you seem to give yourself but little trouble in regard to matters before the house ?" Mr. Burch coolly remarked, "I'll tell you, sir, how it is; your name being called next before mine, I am careful to notice how you answer, and, always on questions of this sort, vote against you, and feel assured I am quite right." The question may have been prompted by some momentary feeling of irritation under defeat; the answer shows that the respondent was fully satisfied he had done his duty.

A few years after Mr. Burch settled in Schuyler, some of his former neighbors "at the east" sent him some branches of a dwarf evergreen, too frequently found in the soil of New England, not only to remind him of his former home, but as they said, "to keep him from being homesick." A pretty good antidote that for any such ailment in one then reposing in the luxuriant valley of the Mohawk.

STEPHEN W. BROWN

Was a native of Williamstown, Mass. He was several years engaged in mercantile business, in the town of Salisbury, in this county, which resulted favorably. He removed to Little Falls in the year 1830, with a view to a more extended field of business operations, and to give a wider scope to a mind fertile in expedients. He was liberal and public spirited, if not to a fault, so far as regarded his pecuniary resources, it may well be said, lie indulged his generous feeling to the extremist limit of prudence. He was active, ardent and almost incessantly engaged in business. Always among the first, and with the foremost, in any local business

enterprise that required associated capital, and combined personal exertion, to carry it forward to a successful result, or in founding and rearing some public institution, permanently beneficial to the locality where it was to be established. After his removal to Little Falls, he was several years engaged in trade at that place, which he finally relinquished, and devoted his whole time and attention to the affairs of a manufacturing establishment, which had been brought into existence mainly through his personal exertions. He closed his mercantile business in 1843.

He was chosen sheriff of the county at the November election, 1837, and held the office one term. He was a popular officer; kind and agreeable in manners, and cheerful in disposition, he had many friends, and very few, if any, enemies. With an almost inexhaustible flow of kindly good feelings, and hopeful in the extreme, anticipated results were sometimes counted as accomplished, when in fact actual realization was not within the measure of a fair probability. His character, as a man, was irreproachable, or if not so, the tongue of blame has not blazoned his faults to the world. He was a reformer in almost every thing relating to politics and civil government, and exerted his influence, effectual at times, to correct some of the flagrant abuses of the bad men of the legal profession, which were oppressive. I say bad men, for I know that only a few of that honorable class, would descend so low as to commit the faults which, through his agency, were immediately and successfully remedied by legislative interference. He was suddenly and violently attacked, when absent from home on business, with a fatal malady, from which he did not recover. He survived but a few days, after his return to his family at Little Falls.

The monument erected to his memory by those who knew him well and appreciated worth, bears this inscription:

STEPHEN W. BROWN
Died May 30th 1846,
Aged, 49 years.
This stone is erected by his
neighbours to evince their
high estimation of his character.

BENJAMIN BOWEN

Was a native of Rhode Island. He came from Newport, in that state, to Fairfield, in 1787, where he purchased a farm and settled. He remained at Fairfield until 1792, when he removed to Newport, and commenced the erection of mills at that place, and laid the foundation of the prosperity of that pleasant and thrifty village. He was a man of great activity and enterprise. He was a member of the legislature in 1798, elected on the same ticket with Gaylord Griswold, Henry McNeil, Nathan Smith, Mathew Brown, Jr., Lodowick Campbell and Isaac Foot. This was the only time that I find lie was chosen a member of either branch of the legislature. He was appointed one of the judges of the county courts October 30th, 1800, and held the office nearly five years, and probably as long as his political friends had the bestowment of patronage. He died at a somewhat advanced age, leaving no male descendants in this county. His only son emigrated to Alabama with his family in 1819, and died there. I believe Judge Bowen also died in Alabama, but I am not certain of this fact. Thus the name of one of the earliest and most enterprising pioneers of the northern part of the county has become extinct, but a memorial of his active and zealous efforts to make the " desert blossom as the rose " still remains.

DAN CHAPMAN

Was a native of the state of Connecticut. He came into the county at an early period after its erection, and settled on the Stone ridge, Herkimer village, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits, but the ledger balances showing a deficit, he abandoned the weights and measures of merchandising, and betook himself to those of the legal profession. He must have been admitted to the bar previous to May, 1804; his name does not appear on the roll of attorneys commencing at that date. He was appointed surrogate of the county March 23d, 1803, superseded in 1807 by an adverse council of appointment, reappointed in 1808, and held the office until November, 1816. He seems to have escaped some of the political vicissitudes of the times during his last period, that appear to have been visited upon the sheriff and county clerk. The federal party held the appointing power of the state in 1810 and 1813, and if political conformity preserved to him the seals of probate and administration, Mr. Chapman must have been exceedingly adroit and flexible. He quit the profession about the year 1820, and removed to Oneida county. He again returned to this county, and after remaining here a short time removed to Montgomery county, where he died a few years since at a very advanced age. He was a subaltern officer in the revolutionary army, and enjoyed the gratuity of his country in his old age, which softened and assuaged the "ills that life is heir to." He was not successful in accumulating wealth, although his life was morally and religiously irreproachable.

ATWATER COOK

Was born in the town of Salisbury, in this county, December 17, 1795, of parents in moderate circumstances in life, who were of English or Anglo-Saxon extraction. His father lived to attain a pretty advanced old age.

Like most young men of that day, Mr. Cooks education was limited to the course instruction taught in country schools time but he endowed with a strong and vigorous mind sound discriminating judgment much practical good sense. Experienced some vicissitudes life charms its varieties were not unknown him at commencement his career manhood. He resolved, by just laudable efforts overcome all obstacles attainment reasonable competence enjoyment confidence will fellow citizens. He early turned attention dairy among first our farmers who abandoned grain-growing resorted grazing. His exclusive given agriculture. At different periods engaged mechanical mercantile pursuits.

Mr. Cook was many years one of the justices of the peace of his town; the duties of the office he discharged with ability and satisfaction to the people. He also held other town offices of confidence and trust, and exerted, when he chose, no inconsiderable influence among his fellow citizens. When in the prime of life, he bestowed considerable attention, by reading and study, to the cultivation of a sound and vigorous understanding. At the general election in 1830, he was chosen one of the members of assembly for the county. Nicholas Lawyer, of Danube, and Olmsted Hough, of Schuyler, were his colleagues. Mr. Cook was an attentive and industrious member of the house during the session of 1831, and was active and efficient in his exertions to promote the interests of his constituents in regard to local legislation, and especially in removing the alien dead weight which had many years pressed so heavily upon the village of Little Falls.

Although not trained to public debating, he spoke several times during the session on important subjects before the house, and was listened to with great attention. He was much respected, and his familiar acquaintance with the internal local affairs of towns and counties, made him a useful member. In 1839, Mr. Cook and Benjamin Carver, represented the county in the assembly. This time his party was in a political minority in the house.

It may truly be said of Mr. Cook, he possessed a mind of considerable conservative tendencies, still be was a man of progress. He lived in a progressive age, and belonged to a progressive race, and he failed not to meet the exigencies of the day and the hour when action was called for. He was among the first in the town of Salisbury to initiate the temperance movement, and he continued, through life, to give the cause his warmest advocacy and most hearty support. He was equally active, prompt and devoted to every movement which would tend to ameliorate the condition of his race, or promote the welfare and best interests of the community where he lived.

Mr. Cook's health was quite infirm during the latter years of his life, and he suffered much and acutely, from severe sickness; nevertheless, his death was sudden, and unexpected to his friends at a distance. He died at his family residence, in Salisbury, February 14th, 1853. He was then the oldest male inhabitant, born in the town. By industry, strict application to business, and a watchful providence of his yearly gains, he had accumulated a competence of wealth, for all human purposes, which he left to be enjoyed by his family.

WILLIAM H. COOK

Was a native of this state, and came into Norway, in the fall of 1792, from Dutchess county. He settled a short distance westerly of Norway village, where he devoted him self to farming and merchandising, pretty extensively, and if I have not been misinformed, made some effort at the milling business, which did not in the end amount to much, in the way of increasing his wealth. He was appointed sheriff of the county, March 17th, 1802, and was annually thereafter appointed, until 1806; when be was left out of

commission but was again appointed sheriff, in 1807, and held the office one year longer. This ended his official career in this county, and it might have been well for him if he had never tasted office.

Mr. Cook was in the battle of Tippecanoe, fought on the night of the 6th of November, 1811, between a small American force, under Gen. Harrison, and a numerous body of northwestern Indians. He died at Vincennes, Indiana. Jabez Fox, a native of Connecticut, came into this county about the year 1810, married a daughter of Mr. Cook. He was admitted as an attorney, at the Herkimer county common pleas, in January, 1813. Mr. Fox pursued his profession a few years at Herkimer, and then removed to Little Falls, in 1818, or about that period. He was elected county clerk, under the then new constitution, at the general election, in 1822, to hold for the term of three years, from the 1st day of January following. He died at Herkimer, in January 1825, at the age of 35 years.

Was a native of Western, Worcester county, Massachusetts, and the second son in a family of ten children. His father, Isaac Crain, was born in Coventry, Connecticut, and his mother, whose maiden name was Putnam, and a near relation of Gen. Israel Putnam, was also a native of Western. His early education was entirely sufficient to enable him to study and practice the medical profession with much success. He studied under the direction of Dr. Ross, of Colerain, Mass., who is spoken of as an eminent and successful practitioner, and after completing his course, formed a connection in business with his late tutor, which terminated when he came to this state in 1790.

His first object was to fix himself at Cooperstown, Otsego county, but passing through Warren on the route to his place of destination, being pleased with, the country and the inhabitants, and finding many of them from New England, he changed his determination and seated himself in Warren, which at that time was destitute of a physician. Here he devoted himself to his profession with the characteristic zeal and assiduity of a young New Englander, and in a few years found himself enjoying the rich fruition of an extended and lucrative business. His position in a country town containing as good lands as any in the county, enabled him to engage in agricultural pursuits, which lie prosecuted with success in connection with his professional business, which received his chief attention, to nearly the close of his life. Doctor Crain came into the state early in life and formed a connection by marriage with an influential family of the town in which he died. He was one of the early patrons of the Medical college at Fairfield, and devoted himself earnestly and efficiently to its success. He, like hundreds of others who left the then over populated and not very prolific soil of New England, near the close of the last century, had determined to try his fortune in Western New York, as then called, and became, as be once told me when we were riding together from Herkimer to Little Falls, resolved on success. Yes, sir," said he, in reply to a remark of mine, "a young Man with a good profession and a fair share of talents, need not not fail, he can not fall in a new country, if he is prudent, industrious and attentive to business. He can, if he wills to do it, establish a reputation and accumulate a competence." With a mind so constituted, success in life could only have been prevented by a series of disastrous events, beyond the control of the individual whose fate is affected by them, and against which human foresight could erect no guards.

Although uniform and decided in his political principles, Doctor Crain did not usually take an active part in the contests which agitated the country, and especially his adopted state, during many years of his life, in reference to public measures. He preferred to devote himself to the more peaceful and congenial pursuits of his profession, and these were not often affected by the success or defeat of his party friends.

In the course of a long and useful life, Doctor Crain was often called upon by the confidence and partiality of his townsmen to perform the duties of various local offices in his town. He was appointed one of the judges of the court of common pleas of the county on the 24th of February, 1817, and superseded in March, 1820, for political causes. He was again reappointed in March, 1821, February, 1823, and April, 1828, and held the office until 1833, when he was left out of the commission at his own request. The doctor was enough of a politician to be struck down whenever his opponents, could reach him.

In the presidential contest in 1828, between President Adams and General Jackson, Doctor Crain was the democrat candidate for elector in this congressional district, and was chosen to that office. The presidential electors were own chosen by districts. When I say he was the democratic candidate, I suppose the fact that he favored Jackson's election is sufficiently indicated. If it is not, then I will say he was one of the twenty electors of this state who voted for the general in December, 1828. The selection of Dr. Crain to perform the great and important trust of declaring the will of a constituency in the choice of the highest elective office in the world, was alike due to his social position and political standing. Do Toequeville thinks we have adopted a most happy expedient in our mode of electing a chief magistrate, combining, as it does, the "respect due to the popular voice with the utmost celerity of execution, and those precautions which the peace of the country demands." The last part of the sentence might have been omitted, for the American people have not yet seen the time when they would go seriously to work cutting each other's throats for the sake of any candidate for the presidency, and probably never will.

Doctor Crain possessed a large fund of anecdote, and was very social and hospitable. He died in the town of Warren, September 18th, 1846, having arrived at the mature age of three score years and over, leaving a handsome estate to the inheritance of two descendants, a sea and a daughter.

HENRY ELLISON

Was, I believe, a native of one of the New England states. He came to this county, and settled in the town of Herkimer, at an early period of its history, on the West Canada creek, several miles north of Herkimer village, where he was many years successfully engaged in farming and tanning. He was a sagacious, intelligent man, although, like most of his compeers in age and occupation, his early school education was limited. A sound judgment, industry and frugality, make ample amends for the absence of mental adornments, in the industrial pursuits of life, where the letter can have but little application.

Mr. Ellison was chosen an elector of president and vice president, in 1836, and gave his vote in the state college of electors for Martin Van Buren, as the successor of Gen. Jackson. To him a most grateful office, the remembrance of which he long cherished. This selection was due to his character, as a man, and his political standing with his party. He was a strict economist, in public affairs, as well in his domestic relations. He accumulated an ample estate, which be left to his posterity. Mr. Ellison died about six years ago, at his residence in Herkimer, at a pretty advanced age.

JOHN FRANK

Was the son of Conrad Frank, a Palatine emigrant, and one of the patentees of the grant commonly called Staley's 3d tract. John was appointed a justice of the peace for Montgomery County, March 27^th, 1790, and afterwards commissioned as one of the justices of Herkimer county, February 17th, 1791, and appointed one of the judges of the county courts, March 27^th, 1794, and held that office until 1799 or 1800. From my recollection of him, he was small in stature and when young, must have been a remarkably energetic man. He was in the prime of life and vigor of manhood, during the dark and calamitous period of the revolution, and one of the committee of safety, in the German Flats and Kingsland districts, The name is spelled Frick, by Campbell and Stone, when giving a list of the members of the committee, from different districts of Tryon county.

When the news of the destruction of Andrustown, by Brant and his dusky servitors, on the 18^th of July, 1778, reached Fort Herkimer, Judge Frank was among the foremost and most zealous of the resolute patriots, who volunteered to repel and punish the marauders. Brant, having the advantage in time, was too wary and nimble-footed for his pursuers. He had accomplished his objects, and had no wish to encounter, in a hand to hand fight, an exasperated and resolute foe, although not his equal in numbers.

Brant's escape being fully ascertained when his pursuers reached the Little lakes, their mortification and disappointment was distinctly manifested in plundering and burning the habitations of Young and Collyer, two decided Tories who had given "aid and comfort" to the enemy, on his way to Andrustown, and who had not been molested or injured by Brant and his followers. This application of the lextalionis would be would be considered rather severe at this day, when not provoked by some active participation in aggression, on the part of the sufferers. But let it be remembered, that the Tory inhabitants of the country, although they might, from policy, refrain from being seen with arms in their hands, making making war upon their liberty-loving neighbors, were at all times active and diligent in conveying intelligence to their hurt; and ever ready to supply the king's adherents with provisions, and shelter them from pursuit, when required or needful, and whose humanity was never known to give a sympathetic tear of sorrow or regret, at the manifold and unspeakable sufferings inflicted upon their nearest neighbors, and former fellow subjects; and we can not, and should not condemn them for any acts of retaliatory severity, short of taking life. I crave, indulgence, for justifying by argument, what some may from tenderness set down in the catalogue of wrongs.

There is not, in my judgment, any grounds for supposing Judge Frank disapproved of the conduct of his companions, in their dealings with Young and Collyer. What had he seen within a few hours? A small, secluded hamlet of seven families, remote from the track of war, invaded for the mere object of plunder, everything valuable that could be removed carried away, five of the inhabitants killed, the remainder driven into captivity, and every house and other building in the settlement, reduced to ashes by the invader's torch.

Judge Frank closed a long and eventful life, in the town of German Flats, about 15 years ago. When the infirmities of age had bowed his venerable head, so that he could no longer stand or walk erect, he retained to the last, and in a remarkable manner, the full possession of a sound, vigorous and intelligent mind. His residence was near the south bank of the Mohawk river, nearly opposite to Herkimer village, and a few rods west of the site of old Fort Herkimer. He had seen the infant German settlement, on the north side of the river, twice destroyed. Once, by the French and Indians, in 1757, and again, by the Indians and Tories, in 1778; he had also seen the settlements on the south side of the river, devastated by the French and Indians, in 1758, and again by Brant and his followers, in 1778. He lived to see his country again involved in the war of 1812; the patriotic alacrity of his countrymen, as they marched to the frontiers for her defense, and he saw that struggle closed by an honorable peace. And, he lived to see what cheered the ardor of his noble heart, and soothed the anxieties of his declining years, his country free, prosperous and happy.

SIMEON FORD

In 1816, when I came into the county, this gentleman was a prominent and leading member of the bar, a position he had held several years. He came into the county previous to 1797, and after his admission to the bar, was associated in the profession with Mr. Gaylord Griswold, until the death of the latter. Being the junior member of the firm his partner, as was then the fashion, stood first on the list, as the recipient of political favors and promotion. Mr. Ford was appointed district attorney of the county, early in the year 1819, and held the office until May, 1823, the duties of which he performed with ability, and most untiring fidelity. He was a sound, well read, criminal lawyer, and a good advocate, and in saying this, I must not be understood as intimating he was not in other respect eminent in his profession. He always conducted his prosecutions as if he believed, and felt, the prisoner was guilty, and it was his duty to convict. The rogues often stood appalled, when the grand-jury came into court with true bills against them. Mr. Ford again hold the office of district attorney a short time in 1836. He had, previous to 1820, been several times a candidate for popular suffrage, more with a view, as I suppose, of gratifying his political friends, than with a confident expectation of success. Not because the candidate was unpopular with his party, or was in any respect unfit for the place. The reader familiar with the history of Herkimer county politics, in former times, can well understand, why Mr. Ford should be defeated in a popular election, at the times referred to.

No name, in the county had stronger hold upon the feelings of party friends, or stood higher in their estimation, than Mr. Ford, and they were ever ready to place him as a candidate before the people, when a chance of success should occur. At the annual elections, in the spring of 1820 and 1821, he was chosen a member of assembly. His legislative career was limited to the two sessions of 1821 and 1822, during which, if he was not the party leader, he was an influential and prominent member of the house. He was attentive, watchful and industrious, and Governor Clinton could not have had a more ardent and devoted supporter of his policy, than Mr. Ford was. Old associations, and long tried attachments, clustered around him, and he could not bear to see them dissipated, without making an effort to prevent it. He had always been the advocate of the canal policy, enunciated by Mr. Clinton, which was strongly assailed by many of the governor's opponents. He was moreover, deeply imbued with a conservative feeling, in regard to the existing judiciary. It was those views and opinions, commendable in any man, which brought Mr. Ford into the position, a false one, as respected the public feeling, of attempting to stem or turn aside a popular torrent, which eventually swept him and his friends from power for a time. If we claim to justify our own conduct, in public affairs, on the basis of an honest conviction, that what we advocate is right, we must allow the same immunity to an opponent. What the majority may say, in respect to the merits of the question debated, is quite another matter. This much has been said, because many worthy citizens of the county believe Mr. Ford was entirely conscientious in the course he pursued, and they could not but admire his courage and devotion.

Mr. Ford became pecuniary embarrassed by the purchase of some lands in the Hassenclever patent. Perhaps, other real estate purchases, near Herkimer, were connected with it. At any rate, if he had held the lands in the patent, a few years longer, the result would have been quite different. Instead of suffering a loss, he would have realized a handsome profit by the rise in prices.

In the year 1825, he was appointed by Governor Clinton to an office at the salt spring, Syracuse. He remained there several years. He resigned his post at Syracuse, and removed to Rochester, where he remained five years and then he returned to Herkimer, and resumed his profession in 1832, with all the ardor and buoyancy of a vigorous young man. But his professional business had been broken up, and his former clients has been compelled, in his absence. To seek professional aid and advice in other quarters and among his successors. He remained, however, at Herkimer until about the year 1836, when he removed to Cleveland, Ohio, where he pursued his profession successfully several years, giving much of his attention to the office of prosecuting attorney, which he received when he went to Cleveland, and held at the time of his death, which took place in the year 1839, at the age of 62 years. He was a native of Berkshire, Massachusetts, and removed from Berkshire county into this state. He was high-minded, honorable and generous, almost to a fault. His office was the chief resort of students in the legal profession in this part of the state for nearly twenty years. Few men in the legal profession have been more highly respected in the circle of their acquaintance than Mr. Ford, and few have better deserved it.

DAVID V. W. GOLDEN

Was a native of Beekmantown, Dutchess county. In 1792 he removed to Niskayuna, in this state, where he was several years engaged in the mercantile business. In 1798 he came into this county, and established himself in the present town of Columbia, where he carried on his mercantile business until his death, which took place on the 11th of February, 1814, aged 41 years. Mr. Golden opened the First store in the town, and is reputed to have been quite successful in business.

He was appointed one of the judges of the county courts in March, 1810, and commissioned first judge of the county, March 21st, 1811, and held the office until his death. The records of the courts show that Judge Golden was attentive to the duties of his office. He was a man of considerable note in the county, and was regarded for his honorable conduct and fair dealing.

GAYLORD GRISWOLD

Was a native of Windsor, in the state of Connecticut. He settled in the county soon after it was erected, if not before. He is said to have been a man of rare endowments and great energy of character. Thomas R. Gold came into the then western country about the same time, and Mr. Griswold and Mr. Gold made an arrangement that one of them would stop at Herkimer, and the other at Whitestown; the courts in the county then being held alternately at these two places. Mr. Gold, it seems took the most expanded field of operations, though he was not Mr. Griswold's superior in legal talents. The reader may recollect, that in the chapter devoted to that object, reference has been made to the supposed political feeling of the population of the county at its first organization. Mr. Griswold was one of the strong and vigorous men who aided largely in holding the popular vote subservient to the views of his own party. We find him, in 1797 and 1798, a member of the assembly from the county, having for colleagues men, some of whom afterwards acted with the political party which he opposed. Party lines may not then have been so strictly drawn as they were two or three years afterwards.

We next find Mr. Griswold elected a representative in congress, about the year 1802, from the 15^th congressional district, composed of the counties of Herkimer, Oneida and St. Lawrence. It appears, from the recorded events of the times, that Mr. Griswold lived and was in public life at a period when one of those political ebullitions which not unfrequently visit our state, was about making its appearances, in a contest between Aaron Burr and Morgan Lewis, as candidates for governor. Mr. Hammond, in his Political History, states that "Gaylord Griswold, then a member of congress from Herkimer county, wrote a letter, which was published, in which he urged his friends to support Mr. Burr, as the only means of breaking down the democratic party, and charged the opposition of Gen. Hamilton to personal resentment against Burr."

We must not inflict an injury on the memory of Mr. Griswold, by allowing it to be supposed that this was other than a private letter, written to a political friend, and that its publication was a breach of confidence. However well disposed he may have been to embrace the ordinary or extraordinary means often resorted to by political partisans to break down their opponents, he could not have willingly sought an opportunity of openly charging Gen. Hamilton with being governed by private hatred in his opposition to Col. Burr. Small men will often be guilty of mean and dirty acts, but Mr. Griswold was not of that clan. He was ardent, it is true, high-minded and generous, and knew too well what belonged to his position and character to commit such an act of indiscretion.

Since writing the above, a friend has put into my hands a handbill containing the letter referred to by Mr. Hammond. The letter was written at Washington, in February, 1804, and was not made public until April 23d, 1807, three years after the contest between Lewis and Burr, and when the latter was being proceeded against for treason and high misdemeanor, in attempting, as was charged, to subvert the government and setting on foot a hostile expedition against a power with whom we were at peace. This letter does not show that Mr. Griswold upheld Col. Burr's conduct which led to his arrest as an offender against the laws of the United States, nor does Mr. Griswold charge the opposition of Gen. Hamilton "to personal resentment against Burr." The letter contains this expression, in reference to Hamilton, and nothing more: "It is a matter of surprise among our federal friends here, how Hamilton can take so important a part. Report says, Hamilton made a long speech in favor of Lansing, and against Burr. I fear his personal resentment to Burr, and not policy, governs his conduct." The object of the publication at the time was not to inflict a personal injury upon Mr. Griswold, but to damage the leading federalists in the public estimation. Having placed Mr. Griswold rectes in curia, on this point, I leave the subject. He was connected by marriage with the Hooker family, in Connecticut, several of whom emigrated into the state, and were largely engaged in mercantile business. He died at Herkimer March 1^st, 1809, aged 41 years, 2 months, and 11 days, leaving a handsome estate, and a family to enjoy it.

JOAB GRISWOLD

Was born at Goshen, Connecticut, June 29^th, 1769, and died at Herkimer, August 20^th, 1814, aged 45 years. He came into the county at an early period after its erection, and settled at Herkimer. Joab, Elihu and Gaylord Griswold, although natives of the same state, emigrating about the same period, and seating themselves in the same locality in another state, did not claim any relationship or affinity. The subject of this brief notice was also one of the active and influential men who exerted themselves so successfully and efficiently in upholding the federal party in the county the first ten years of its organization.

He was rewarded for his devotion and services with the office of county clerk, conferred upon him by his political friends, on the 19^th March, 1798, which he held six years, when he was visited by the adverse turn in political affairs. The office building in which the county records and papers were kept, was burned down with all the contents, the night before he was to deliver possession to his successor. This was a singular and probably unavoidable occurrence. Mr. Griswold was a lawyer by profession, engaged in agricultural pursuits while he lived at Herkimer, and these constituted his chief engagements, aside from his official employment. He left a family; some of them were residents of Herkimer village until recently, if they are not at this time.

Was a native of Windsor, Connecticut, and he also came into the county and settled at Herkimer at an early period. He was educated in the medical profession, and was therefore called Dr. Griswold, by way of distinction, although he did not pursue his profession after he settled in Herkimer. When he first came into the county, and for some years afterwards, he, like Gaylord and Joab, was attached to the federal party; but as man is not bound always to adhere to one side in politics, even though he may have been nurtured in a particular school, and at this present writing, floods of people seem to be looking out for new political homes, the doctor placed himself in antagonism to his former political friends, about the year 1801, and made gallant fight with his republican compeers to bring about a political revolution in the county.

Mr. Griswold was appointed county clerk, April 6^th, 1803, by Governor Morgan Lewis, or rather by the council of appointment, about the time Governor Lewis was elected. He held the office six years, when he was superseded in 1820; was again reappointed in 1811, when he was succeeded by his son-in-law, Aaron Hackley, Jr., Esq. He was born August 17^th, 1756, and died at Herkimer, January 12^th, 1812, aged 55 years. He was educated and accomplished; a man of considerable energy of character, courteous, generous and social. It is worthy of notice that all three of these Griswolds died in the prime of life and vigor of manhood. Among Doctor Griswold's descendants were several daughters, all of who were respectably connected by marriage to prominent and influential citizens of the county. I depart a little from my rule to say one of them married a Mr. Townsend, a merchant in the village of Herkimer, who meeting with reverses in business, made up his mind to seek a home in the far west, and lay the foundation anew of a fortune for his family, be devoting himself to farming.

About the year 1817, Mr. Townsend, with his resolute and devoted wife and several small children, left a home where ease, refinement and elegance had surrounded them, bade a sorrowing adieu to relatives and friends, and started on their journey to the interior of Illinois, over land to Olean point in this state, thence down the Allegheny and Ohio rivers in a flat boat, and from Shawneetown, or some point on the banks of the father of waters, to their haven of hope and rest amid the broad, smiling prairies of the embryo state. An intimate friend of the writer, who visited the family in the spring of 1820, said he found them seated about thirty miles northeast of Edwardsville, on a beautiful prairie, containing several hundred acres, not far from a considerable stream of water, near which is usually found an adequate supply of woodland. Mr. Townsend had erected his log dwelling, farm buildings and yards to secure his farm stock during night, from such pestilent poachers as bears, foxes and prairie wolves, and sometimes two-legged animals called thieves. The visitor, after a brisk ride of forty miles over broad prairie fields, redolent with the wild flowers of spring, encountering often herds of deer, with nostrils distended and antlers erect, not unfrequently followed in full chase by a brown, cowardly prairie wolf, whose voracious gaze was fixed upon a fawn; then the sharp rattle of the usually dull snake, giving timely notice of its dangerous proximity, ever and anon enlivened by the brisk flight of the prairie hen, and the awkward but rapid stride of the wild turkey, arrived near nightfall at Mr. Townsend's place, just as he, with his farm aiders, had returned from the field of labor and were housing the cattle and stock. Although his acquaintance with Mrs. Townsend before she left the state had been slight, he approached the door of the cabin and met a lady on whose countenance he had never seen a more happy and gladsome expression. "O! Mr. S.," said she, extending her hand to him, "I can not express how much satisfaction I feel in meeting one from Herkimer, the dear, dear home of my youth, where still live many cherished relations and friends, and where too is found the revered resting place of an honored and loved father and mother." But turning to her husband and laying her hand upon his arm, she in a subdued and firm tone, "I am happy with you and my children, and happy in this house. I have resolved to be contented and am."

My friend was fed and lodged as sumptuously as could be hoped for or expected by one who had become fully acquainted with the ways of a frontier life and new beginners. The short evening soon passed away in social chat, in which many questions were asked of friends and acquaintances, and many responses given. Just before retiring, Mrs. T. said to her visitor, "We sometimes have nightly doings here which the eastern people, generally, are not accustomed to, and you will not, I hope, be frightened at any unusual noises. Our log walls are a perfect protection. Indeed, the music of our midnight serenaders will not, I dare say, convince you that 'all discord is harmony not rightly understood.'" In the course of the night my friend said he was awoke by sounds more resembling what he would imagine to be the dismal and frantic yell of infernals; than living animals. "Do you hear the music," asked Mrs. T. of her guest, "and what do you think of it?" "Think of it?" he replied, "you must be more than a Roman matron, if you bear these tormenting wolf yells." The concert was soon ended by the crack of a rifle, and the prowling serenaders fled from the habitation of man. After overhauling his defensive weapons, and breaking his fast, my friend left this family, happy in the enjoyment of the present and hopeful of the future, and turned his face towards St. Louis.

JOHN GRAVES

Was a native of Dutchess county in this state and removed into the town of Russia in 1795, where he selected and purchased by contract a lot in the "wild woods" which he designed to convert into a farm, and make it his abiding place and home. At the age of 19 years he had paid the contract price for the land, when calling for his deed the seller could not make him a title, and he was compelled to find the true owner and again bargain and pay for the lot, which he did. This was a hard and discouraging beginning in life to be encountered by one so young and in a new and wilderness county, but he no doubt believed it better for him to combat the adversities which had overtaken him, where he then was, than to try any new locality or other expedient. The sequel of life with him proved he acted wisely and prudently.

He was elected member of assembly in this county in 1812, on a ticket with Rudolph I Shoemaker and Hosea Nelson. His majority, although he had the largest vote of any candidate on his ticket, was only 40; and the average majority of the successful candidates was fifty-three. This was at the eve of the eventful period of the war with Great Britain when political party lines were stringently drawn. Mr. Graves supported the war policy of the then national government. He was again chosen member of assembly at the November election in 1823, with Christopher P. Bellinger and Caleb Budlong, and was consequently a member of the house during the storm session in the winter of 1824, and at the extra session in the following November. The subjects which engrossed public attention at this time are noticed in another portion of this work. He favored the claims of William H. Crawford to the presidency and acted throughout with the republican party of this state in the fruitless effort of securing his election.

Having been chosen sheriff of the county, he entered upon the duties of the office on the 1^st day of January, 1829, which he discharged with great fidelity and satisfaction to the public. At the end of his official term her retired from public life to the enjoyments of a domestic home, surrounded by competence and the society of friends who knew and appreciated his worth. He died at Gravesville in the town of Russia on the 16^th of February, 1855, aged 76 years, leaving a widow and two sons, one of whom is the Hon. Ezra Graves of Herkimer.

The obituary notice of his death disclosed the fact that he died of consumption after a protracted and painful sickness. Mr. Graves was among the first of the hardy and resolute pioneers who penetrated the wilderness to the northwesterly portion of the Royal grant, where for sixty years he marked the times and seasons as they came and went, and noticed the exit of his compeers as they passed life's threshold to their long rest and silent home. But few remain of those, who, before the years 1800, emigrated into the county for the purpose of settlement, and the sod of the valley shall soon mark the place where that few must rest.

I can give only an outline of the official character of Mr. Holt, for although nearly half a century a resident of the county, where he raised a pretty numerous family in our midst, he is now gone, and they have emigrated to that great field of eastern enterprise, the far west. He was a practical printer, came into the county in 1805, from the city of Hudson, and commenced the publication of a republican newspaper, which he continued a few years and then was compelled to abandon it for want of patronage. He was a short time engaged in editing a republican paper at Herkimer, not far from the year 1811. He held the office of post master at Herkimer may years, and collector of the internal revenue under the general government. He also acted as a justice of the peace, an office conferred by the state government, and was esteemed an excellent magistrate.

He was appointed one of the judges of the county court on the 24^th of February, 1817, and first judge of the county in February, 1821, and held the latter office until March, 1825. He adhered to the fortunes of Governor DeWitt Clinton, as he had, I believe, to those of George Clinton, and was stricken down in the political revulsions which overtook the former. This was a dark period in Judge Holt's life, but like a true man and one resolved to do his whole duty, he resumed his mechanical trade, and again managed bank and handled quoins although he was poor.

Judge Hold was engaged for a brief period in printing the Republican Farmer's Free Press at Herkimer; he then removed to Little Falls, and printed the Mohawk Courier while that paper was published by C. S. Benton & Co. He may have remained a short time in the office after Mr. Noonan bought the establishment, but I think he did not. He then removed to Albany where he was engaged in type setting more than ten years, and from thence he went to Wisconsin where some of his sons had settled. Now he no longer "moves the lever that moves the world."

He met the reverses of life with resignation and fortitude. He many years, as the reader must conclude, from a perusal of this brief notice, enjoyed a large share of the public confidence, worthily bestowed, and exerted an influence in political affairs not yet forgotten.

In attempting a brief sketch of the life and public career of Mr. Hoffman, I feel some embarrassment at the outset. Our personal and political relations for many long, long years had ripened into a deep seated and almost fraternal regard, but in the evening of his, and I might say of my own days, it was our fortune to differ on some questions of domestic policy, that in no respect to say knowledge disturbed in the least our personal relations, and that circumstances can in no respect induce me to do the least intentional wrong to his character or fame. I know I am touching a delicate subject to speak of myself in this connection, and only do it to enter a broad and unqualified disclaimer at the threshold to meet all ungenerous cavilings and unkind surmises in regard to the motives and objects that induced me to perform a labor which should have been undertaken by abler hands.

Mr. Hoffman was born on the 11^th of Oct., 1787, at Half Moon, Saratoga co., in this state. His father was a native of Germany, and his mother though born in this country was of Protestant Irish descent. Her parents emigrated directly from the Green isle, and by this means the pure blood of the Teuton and the Celt mingled in his veins. He commenced the study of medicine in 1807, and obtained the diploma of M. D. in 1810. For some cause, and what I am unable to state, he abandoned the pursuit of this profession, commenced the study of law in 1811, and was admitted as an attorney in 1813. This must have been the date of his admission in the supreme court, or at the common please of some other county than Herkimer. His name is found on the rolls in this county entered December 14^th, 1815. My acquaintance with him commenced soon after the month of March, 1816; he was then in an office with Aaron Hackley, Esq., at Herkimer, and probably as a partner. It was about this time, and also afterwards, that papers came to the office in which I was a student at law endorsed "Hackley & Hoffman, Attys," Mr. Hackley had established himself at Herkimer in 1807, and at the time I now speak of was county clerk. As Mr. Hackley was chosen member of assembly in the spring of 1817, and left the clerk's office at the commencement of that year, the partnership I speak of may not have commenced until that period.

By his assiduous attention to his profession, the force of a strong native talent, very much improved and cultivated in after years, aided by the desire of his partner to promote his welfare, Mr. Hoffman had reached the front rank in his profession in the county when about thirty years old. He had lost four years in his medical pursuits.

He was an earnest and zealous advocate, and conducted the trial of his causes, from the opening to the close, with unabated ardor and confidence, and although beaten by the ruling of the court, or the finding of the jury, he would never admit he was conquered. He seldom failed to bring forward all the points of fact and law applicable to his case, and to present the strongest in such a form as to attract the attention of the court and jury. He was prone to adhere to the technicalities and precision of legal precedents, and in urging them he might waive points that involved, to some extent, the substantial merits of the case. At any rate, he seldom, if ever, failed to do full justice to his cause and his client to the extent of his duty as counsel.

Mr. Hoffman's constitution was neither robust nor firm, and the labor of a long and intricate trial at the circuit would sometimes nearly exhaust him; but he always bore up under these infirmities with an almost unconquerable resolution. He was afflicted many years with an internal chronic affection, which eventually proved fatal.

I am not aware that Mr. Hoffman had participated, to any great extent, in the political contests of the day previous to 1819; in the spring of that year, he attended a political meeting held at the Court House in Herkimer, and offered a series of resolutions disapproving the course of Governor DeWitt Clinton, and urged their adoption by the meeting in an able and eloquent appeal. The resolutions were adopted, and the disruption of the republican party in the county into Clintonians and bucktails took place at that time. After the nomination of a federal assembly ticket, the disjointed sections attempted to coalesce, but were defeated at the election.

About this time, Mr. Hoffman removed to Waterloo, Seneca county, which had recently been established as a county seat, and opened an office in connection with Mr. Bartow, a young gentleman who had studied with him, and who, I believe, was a relative; but owing to the impaired state of his health, and some severe domestic afflictions, he returned again to Herkimer, and resumed the practice of his profession, after an absence of a few years. He was appointed district attorney of the county, by the county court, at the May term, 1823, and held the office until the December term, 1825. He was again reappointed in March 1836, and resigned the following September.

I have elsewhere noticed Mr. Hoffman's election to congress in 1824. This was his first appearance before the people of the county as a candidate for popular favor. He sustained himself nobly through an excited and stormy canvass, and was vigorously and efficiently supported by as resolute and active body of friends as ever, in this or any other state, and brought out to support a candidate. He was known to be a man of the first grade as to talents. His character was beyond and above reproach of any sort; he was moreover a sound democratic republican. If he at any after period of his life thought differently on the subject of national politics, it matters not; he was then a firm national democrat. He came out of the contest a victor, beating his competitor by only 246 votes, while every other democratic candidate running on the same ticket, or voted for at that election in the county, were beaten by majorities ranging from 43 to 138. There were then sixteen towns in the county; he obtained small majorities in then of them, and his opponent in six. The peculiar circumstances which attended this election, and the marked public favor with which Mr. Hoffman's name was received, could not and did not fail to place him in the front rank of the democratic party in the county, and among the prominent men of the state, which position he maintained seemingly without any effort, while he lived. He was again chose member of congress in 1826, 1828, and 1830. In 1828, he was elected without opposition. His course during eight years' service in the house of representatives was marked by an able and assiduous attention to his public duties, and the places assigned to him on the different committees of that body showed the distinguished appreciation in which he was held by the presiding officer of the house and his colleagues from this state. I do not propose to notice the particulars of his congressional career. This may be the proper place for an extended review of that subject, but my limits will not allow it. It must suffice to say, the favored the election of General Jackson to the presidency in 1828, and his antecedent political action was directed to that object. He was a decided advocate for free trade, and opposed to protective tariffs; against the reincorporation of the United States bank, and sustained the Maysville veto message of the president. Although a state rights republican in the strictest sense of that term, when applied to a northern politician, he strenuously upheld President Jackson's administration, even to an approval of the celebrated nullification message, sent to congress in January, 1833, calling on the two houses to pass the necessary laws to enable the government to collect the national revenue in the state of South Carolina.

While in congress, he occupied prominent places on important standing committees of the house of representatives, and during his last term he was chairman of the committee on naval affairs, a position which brought him into confidential communication with the executive departments of the government. It has been usual in the practice of our government, and especially when the speaker of the house accorded in political sentiment with the president, to consult the heads of the executive departments in respect to the constitution of the five executive or strictly departmental committees. This course enables the government at all times to designate the individual member with whom, as the organ of the house, it would be thrown into confidential communication on delicate and important national questions, when the public interests require that the intentions and objects of the government shall not be promulgated to the world, and that the popular representative branch of the government shall sustain the executive department.

Mr. Hoffman was very averse to being placed at the head of the committee on naval affairs. The subject was spoken of at the time, but his friends were not able to find out any satisfactory reasons for his objections. The administration at this time possessed his unlimited confidence, and the president, General Jackson, could not fail to consider Mr. Hoffman an able and efficient supporter upon the floor of the house. His objections must have been purely personal, as he finally consented to accept the post.

The political struggle was very active, acrimonious and bitter during the whole eight years of General Jackson's administration, but I am not aware that Mr. Hoffman, in public debate, indulged in personal allusions to his political opponents, or denounced the individual conduct of his antagonists. He assailed the policy and measures of the opposition with so much zeal as to provoke the ire of George Poindexter, a senator from the state of Mississippi, who called on Mr. Hoffman for an explanation or retraction of words spoken or written by him. This being declined, Poindexter challenged him to single combat with mortal weapons. There were two reasons, and pretty strong ones, why he could not fight, even if he had been the aggressor; the laws of this state were extremely severe against dueling, and a deep seated religious conviction forbade his making an effort to take the life of a fellow being by single combat, or to expose his own by being shot at, without an attempt to cripple his opponent. His personal friends at Washington insisted, however, that Poindexter was not justified by the code of honor in calling him out, and that he might decline the challenge without violating the duello. The whole matter was referred to southern gentlemen, who, without any hesitation, decided that under the circumstances of the case, Mr. Hoffman could with honor decline to meet the challenger. There were not ten electors in his district at this time who did not approve of his conduct, as well in regard to this duel, as his course in other respects, as their representative, which was emphatically declared at a county convention of his political friends not long after the affair happened; yet when an election for member next came round, he did not command voices sufficient for a renomination, and his name was not presented as a candidate, nor did he, by any means known to me, seek a renomination. The known hostility of the president to a renewal of the United States bank charter, Mr. Van Buren's rejection, as minister to Great Britain, by the senate, and the pretty evident indications of General Jackson's preferences in respect to his successor, had produced an almost unexampled excitement at Washington, and in the public mind throughout the country, on the subject of politics, and the aggressive action of intemperate partisans appeared to find no restraint in the courtesies of civilized life. In giving Mr. Hoffman's statement of this affair, which the reader will find below, I am not aware that I violate any confidence or do any act disrespectful to his memory. It is a brief and terse summary of the transaction, and placed him on high, honorable grounds.

"Washington City, Feb'y 26, 1832

"Dear Sir: The public papers advise you of the manner in which I have been hunted and abused. Illness, which still confines me, has prevented my early expose to you of this matter.

"My first letter was a full and satisfactory answer: 1^st, that I had not procured the publication. 2d, that the conclusions of the editors, sometimes called in the correspondence, imputations, were not made on any request or suggestion of mine. 3d, a brief statement of what Clement had said to me. 4^th, that I had spoken of these in conversation with my colleagues, who had informed me that he had made similar statements to them; and 5thly, that for the truth of his statements I had at no time vouched.

"Davis' note objects that the 2d paragraph of that letter was irrelevant and exceptionable. I know that what is relevant can not be exceptionable or offensive. In my first note on that 4^th point, I had not been as explicit as I might be. To obviate his objection to irrelevancy, and to render that part of my former note too explicit for cavil, I stated that it was relevant, and added in express terms, as I had before said in substance, that I had repeated these statements made by Clement to me, in casual conversations. After this no objection is made on the ground of irrelevance.

"Indeed, it had been made and waived in Davis' first note, because in that note, after making that objection, he expressly narrowed down the controversy to the single point of agency in procuring publication. Asking an answer to this alone was a waiver of all other matters either of exception or inquiry.

"The concluding paragraph of my second note, repeats by express reference the denial in my first. I contend then, that by this reply, P. was concluded in his only inquiry and excluded from all other inquiry whatever.

"But it is right that you should understand all this miserable quibbling. The printed card, as well as the violent and intemperate "call" on me and others, was a design to muzzle the press, cut out the tongue and prevent the utterance of what Clement had stated. Meantime he was almost daily employed in making denials in the Telegraph on the subject, not only of the truth of what he had stated, but also that he had made any such statement. After these denials, however clearly it may be proved that he made these statements, he can not, I think, be successfully employed as a witness to prove that his statements to us were true.

"In this view of the subject you will duly appreciate the reason why the second paragraph of my first letter was deemed exceptionable; why it was not published in the Telegraph, and why I was challenged because I would not make my answers in substance and form as my "inquisitors" in their holy office thought proper to order.

"My concluding note sums up the matter as it then stood. But these honorable men, after they were told the correspondence must close, push in a reply. To understand, answer and refute its sophistry and falsehood, it is only necessary to underscore the words "statements," which always mean the relations of Clement, and "Imputations" which throughout the correspondence, and in the very nature of things here, means the "conclusions" of the editors from those statements.

"Davis had required me to say that 'you do not vouch or believe the truth of the imputations cast on Governor Poindexter,' &c. I declined this as unnecessary. He did not ask me either in relation to the statements. I did not decline doing either as to the statements.

"But in this supplemental letter he argues while he states that I was required to vouch or believe as to the imputations, and refused to do either, it left it to be inferred that I believed the statements of Clement, and for that single cause I was challenged. But I had in my very first note said I had at no time vouched for the truth of his statements.

"So much for the sophistry of that supplement on its face.

"Suppose I had said I believed every word that Clement stated to me; ought I to be shot for yielding a belief to a man whom Mr. P. had introduced tot he senate as the witness of truth against Mr. Van Buren? According to Clement's letter the senator had sought him out, and in his character of senator asked in a letter for the precious information; and this man, who admits he raised the corpse of Hicks, reluctantly yields to the solicitations of the senator and makes the disclosures. Yet the senator reads that letter, and I was to be shot for merely hearing the same witness speak.

"I am sick and too fatigued to write more, and must lie down.

Yours, Michael Hoffman.

N.S. Benton.

Mr. Hoffman was very urgent that Mr. Sandford should be reelected to the senate of the United States, in 1831, and wrote several letters to the members of the legislature on the subject; but a strong belief that he was interested in the Untied States bank, coupled with a desire to bring out a man who would be available as a candidate for governor, induced the republican members to select with great unanimity another individual. Another fact had strong influence upon the democratic members of the legislature, in induce them to bestow the office upon William L. Marcy. He was known to be the confidential friend of Martin Van Buren, and the war waged against that gentleman by the combined opposition, gigantic in intellect and power, did not fail to draw around him at that time, the deep sympathies of the friends of Andrew Jackson, in this state as well as elsewhere, and they were therefore prepared to throw around him as strong a bulwark as could be erected.

On Mr. Hoffman's retirement from congress, he was appointed one of the canal commissioners of this state, in the year 1835; he held the office but a short time. He suffered a heavy pecuniary loss by having been a surety for a young man, a distant family connection, I believe, and he surrendered all, or nearly all, his property in arranging the unhappy affair, and procuring a final discharge from his liability. This occurrence reduced him from comparative ease and comfort in pecuniary matters, to the necessity of again resorting to the labors of his profession, which continued to engross his attention until the year 1836, which he was appointed by the president and senate, register of the land-office, for the Saginaw district, in Michigan where he remained until after the general financial explosion, in 1837. I have to say, that Mr. Hoffman was appointed first judge of the county, in June 1830, and held the office until April, 1833; and that he again held the office of district attorney of the county, a short time, in 1836.

He represented the county in the assembly, with Arphaxad Loomis, in 1841 and 1842, and with Peter H. Warren, in 1844. His party was in a minority in the house, in 1841, but, it had regained the ascendancy in both branches, in 1842, when democratic state officers were elected, and a series of financial measures were initiated and carried through the legislature, for the avowed purpose of reviving the credit of the state, which had suffered pretty severely from causes not necessary here to discuss, and concerning which the two political parties of the day did not agree. A direct tax was levied to aid the funds, appropriated for the Erie canal enlargement, and the construction of the lateral canals. Mr. Hoffman was at the head of the committee of ways and means, and labored assiduously to perfect and carry through his favorite measures. He was willing to levy a tax, to resuscitate the credit of the state, and keep its faith unimpaired with its creditors, in regard to existing obligations and indebtedness, but he was not disposed to go one step beyond that. The financial officers of the state, A. C. Flagg, then recently elected comptroller, favored this policy. The consequence was, that the further progress of the public works on the canals was suspended, for the time being, and the state stocks, and the state credit, soon regained their former healthful position. These measures were approved by William H. Seward, then governor of the state, and ardent and enthusiastic advocate for the speedy completion of the canals. It was repeatedly stated during the discussion of these measures, that the people would not willingly be taxed to support or aid the construction of the canals, or even to bring the finance and credit of the state into a healthful condition. Mr. Hoffman and his friends, it seems, did not misjudge the public feeling on this subject, Governor Seward convened an extra session of the legislature, in the summer of 1842, to provide the means for carrying on the public works, but the majority was intractable, and adjourned without doing anything, but to take the per diem and mileage allowed by law.

The session of 1844, was not prolific of any great or interesting questions of legislation, and although a majority of the democrats elected to the assembly was friendly to what was called the "canal policy," and elected a speaker who was known to differ from Mr. Hoffman in regard to the "stop and pay law, " there are few, if any, instances in the history of the legislation of this state, when a single member exerted such powerful influence as did Mr. Hoffman during this session. He did not trouble himself to advocate many of the measures brought before the house, but he took unwearied pains to oppose and defeat every project he considered unsound, impolitic or mischievous, and he seldom failed.

The election of Mr. Polk, in 1844, brought into the executive chair of the United States an individual with whom Mr. Hoffman had served in congress; and this intimacy, it is said, was the reason why the president nominated Mr. Hoffman to the senate as naval officer in the city of New York against the remonstrances of a member of his cabinet from this state. During the progress of the controversy on the tariff question, and with South Carolina, he felt, and often expressed, a deep anxiety in regard to the issue of events and the fate of the country. His mind not unfrequently foreboded an appeal to force, which he deprecated in the strongest terms, and urged the adoption of conciliatory measures so far as these could be tendered, by a modification of the tariff, in order that confidence might be fully restored between the antagonistic sections of the country. Happily his fears and somber anticipations were not realized, nor could they well be under the wise and energetic administration of Andrew Jackson, The man who, by one sentence from his pen, could compel the ruler of thirty-four millions of people, and one of the first continental powers of Europe to fulfill the obligations of a solemn treaty, whose conditions had been violated, was not to be "frightened from his propriety" by any threats of domestic treason. His advice to his countrymen to "ask for nothing but what was right, and submit to nothing which was wrong," and his known patriotic devotion to the best interests of his country, had seated him too firmly in the hearts and affections of the American people, to be disturbed by the denunciations or threats of sectional politicians. But is is not any purpose to eulogize General Jackson in this place, or speak of him outside of the nullification controversy.

Mr. Hoffman's appointment to the lucrative post assigned him by the partiality of the president, and in my judgment it was not undeserved under the circumstances of its bestowal, placed him in a condition where, by the application of the prudential regulations which had governed him through life, he soon retrieved his fortunes, and he was enabled to leave his family, on, his demise, possessed of an ample competence. His former connections with the financial policy of the state, as settled by the legislation of 1842, no doubt produced his election in Herkimer county, in 1846, to revise the constitution of 1821, although he was then a resident of the city of New York. The convention met at the Capitol, in the city of Albany, on the 1^st day of June, 1846, and it is probably needless for me to state, that Mr. Hoffman participated largely in the initiatory proceedings of that body, or that his course in the convention in any respect disappointed the public expectation, founded upon the antecedents of his public career.

Although every portion of the fundamental law, when under revision, presents questions of the most grave consideration, there are no doubt some points of more engrossing importance than others. Mr. Hoffman was named chairman of the committee to which was referred that part of the constitution relating to

"3. Canals, internal improvements, public revenue and property; public debt, and the powers and duties of the legislature in reference thereto; and the restrictions, if any, proper to be imposed upon the action of the legislature in making donations from the public funds; and in making loans of the moneys or credit of the state."

Broad and comprehensive inquiries, imposing great labor to analyze and digest, and much power in debate to illustrate and defend the details of a constitutional article involving such varied and deeply interesting subjects. Mr. Hoffman, from this committee, reported two articles, each comprising several sections, on the 30^th July, 1846. They were the outlines of the existing 7^th or financial article of the present constitution. The debate was opened by him on the 11^th of September, by an able and elaborate argument, showing the condition of the finances and debt of the state, its inability, except from taxation, to meet any increased liabilities, and urged upon the convention the necessity and expediency of placing some restraint upon legislative discretion over the subject, which, he insisted, was not to be depended on. He occupied the whole of one day in elaborating his views on this occasion. I can not even attempt a synopsis of his argument. The debate which followed was highly interesting, and exhibited much talent in the members who participated therein, and was finally closed on the 7^th of October, when, having been considerably modified while under discussion, the tow originally reported articles were incorporated into one, and was adopted by a vote of 77 to 9. Some of the most important modifications to the original reports were moved by Mr. Loomis, but whether with Mr. Hoffman's assent, I do not know. If he felt it incumbent on him to carry through this favorite proposition, he did not confine his whole attention to this one subject. He participated largely in the doing of the convention generally, and evinced great ability, research and experience. He voted for the restricted right of suffrage imposed by the constitution upon the colored population; and voted for the separate submission of the articles conferring free suffrage on this class of citizens. There was no incongruity in these votes.

Mr. Hoffman's legislative career closed with the adjournment of the convention. It had been an unusually long and varied one, twelve of the twenty-one years since his first election to congress; and it may with truth be said, he occupied, during this period, a distinguished and prominent position on the political stage. He was nearly twenty years the recipient of official favors of some kind, and enjoyed the popular confidence of the citizens of this county in a somewhat remarkable degree. His health, which had been rather infirm some time previous to 1847, gave way more rapidly under the accumulated difficulties of deep seated chronic disease, about that period, and he closed his earthy pilgrimage at Brooklyn, Kings county, on the 27^th day of September, 1848, aged 61 years.

He held the post of naval officer when he died, and his remains were brought to Herkimer for interment. He was a man of generous impulses, strong personal attachments and unwavering political principles. In private life, his character was wholly blameless; as a public man his reputation was unsullied by an acts of peculation upon the public, or any effort to further the prospects or promote the interests of his political friends or his party, by a prostitution of patronage, or the partial appropriation or application of the public treasure to promote similar objects. While in congress, he represented a district which called for no appropriation for local objects, and that was the condition of this county when he was in the legislature. I do not mean to say he was more pure than any other man living in his day; but he was not assailable on points that some men have been.

Was a native of the town of Salisbury in the county, and was born there in the year 1787. He was the son of Major Jonathan Hallett, and officer of the revolutionary army. What business he was engaged in antecedent to the year 1820, I am not informed of; he that year removed to Fairfield village, where he engaged in merchandise and also carried on the same business in the town of Norway. Mr. Hallett was appointed by the council of appointment, sheriff of the county in 1821. The designation of the candidate was made by a county convention, and the recommendation of that body was approved by the council. He was reappointed in the winter of 1822, and at the November election of that year was chosen sheriff of the county under the provision of the constitution of 1821. His term of office expired on the 1^st of January, 1826. He was a prompt and efficient public officer, and possess a pretty full share of the "irrepressible energies" of a Herkimer politician of the dominant party. He was intelligent, public spirited and humane. He died at Fairfield, November 19^th, 1827, aged 40 years, leaving a family to mingle tears for their bereavement, with the regrets of friends and neighbors for their loss.

Was born at Wallingford, New Haven county, Connecticut, in October, 1776, and died at Allegan in the state of Michigan, the 24^th of October, 1849, aged 73 years. Aaron Hackley, his father, removed into this state with his family and settled in the town of Salisbury, in 1795. Within a few years of this event, Philo M., the son, removed to the village of Herkimer, and established himself in the mercantile business, which he pursued with varied success, nearly twenty years. He had been well educated, was gentlemanly in his deportment, and a high-minded and honorable man. He was a federalist in politics, and not ashamed to avow it on all proper occasions; was one of that talented and influential body of men, who early established themselves at the county seat, who during several years exerted a potent political influence in the county. He was well informed on most subjects, and active and zealous in promoting the success of his party. His political friends were not unmindful of this, but sought out several occasions to show their grateful attachment to a true and worthy adherent of a cause which they no doubt believed was worthy of their best efforts to sustain. He was appointed surrogate of the county in 1807, but a political revolution displaced him the following year. He was appointed sheriff in 1810, another change in the appointing power transferred the office to a political opponent.

The succeeding ten years found him enjoying the comforts of private life, although a period of very considerable political excitement, and during which the country had passed through a foreign war, and its institutions had been subjected to the severest tests. At the spring election in 1819, he was chosen member of the assembly on a ticket with James Orton and Jacob Markell. The election of three old fashioned, although highly respected federalists, was an unusual occurrence in the county. The causes which produced this change in the ascendancy of parties in the county at the above and two succeeding elections are explained in another chapter. He did not after this hold any prominent office. He lived several years at Little Falls, and removed from thence with his family to Auburn, in this state, about the year 1839, where he remained five years and then went to Michigan. He met the vicissitudes of life with the characteristic resignation of a Christian. He left several children at his death, who had settled in different parts of the country, none of whom, however, were residents of this county. The American people, and especially the descendants of the old Puritan stock, are, I believe, the greatest antigregarians of any in the world.

Emigrated into the county at an early day and settled in the village of Herkimer, where he engaged in merchandising, and carried it on for some time. He received the appointment of sheriff of the county in 1815, and had the good fortune to hold the office two years against John Mahon, the perpetual successor of federal sheriffs in those days. He was intelligent, gentlemanly, kind and social, and personally very prepossessing in appearance. Full six feet high and very "well proportioned." He was quite popular as a public officer, and being highly regarded by his fellow citizens of all classes, he did not fail to attract the special attention of his political associates.

He was put in nomination for the assembly in the spring of 1815 by his party, with Thomas Manley and Mathew Myers, and was elected.

He was put in nomination for the assembly in the spring of 1815 by his party, with Thomas Manley and Mathew Myers, and was elected. One of the republican candidates, George Paddock, died only five or six days previous to the election, and there was not time in those days of bad roads and tardy movements to assemble the county convention and present another candidate previous to the election, and the voting went on as usual. Mr. Hopkins led his ticket by a few votes, and beat his dead competitor by 19 majority. The canvass shows that 1368 votes were cast for Hopkins and 1349 for Paddock. The election was a very close one, and each party appears to have placed their most prominent and popular men before the people. The average majority of the two highest on the republican ticket was only 22 ½ over their two highest opponents. I notice a fact which presents the remarkable uniformity of the freehold vote of that day. There were then eleven town in the county, and each federal nominee received an equal number of votes in every town except two, and so it was with the republican candidates. The losses and gains among the candidates running on the same ticket were in Herkimer and Schuyler, and those losses and gains between the candidates running on opposing tickets were equal. The difference being only four in about nine hundred cast by each party. A greater uniformity prevailed in 1809, when there were six candidates, three supported by each party, and a variation of only two votes between the highest and lowest of each set. Mr. Hopkins was a candidate for reelection the next years, 1816, but failed of an election by 133 votes, although the highest on his ticket. He died at Herkimer in November, 1827. I have not found any memorial of his final resting place, except in the fond recollection of those who knew him, nor am I aware that he left any descendants.

Was born at Albany June 17^th, 1766. He was the youngest of four brothers: John, formerly chief justice of the supreme court, chancellor, and delegate to the convention of 1787, which formed the constitution of the United States; Abraham G. and Garret G., late of Oriskany. He had one sister, Mrs. Barent Bleecker of Albany. On the 10^th of December, 1789, he married Catharine, the eldest daughter of Abraham Ten Eyck of that city. He was educated to the legal profession, and was appointed register in chancery on the promotion of his brother to the chancellorship. He was of the ancient Dutch lineage, who came from Holland in the glorious days of Petrus Minuit, Wouter Van Twiller, Willem Keift or Petrus Stuyvesant, representatives of their high mightinesses, the states general. It matters not, however, when they came or where they were from, their descendants were her on the day of our nation's birth, and claimed the right to be numbered among her children.

Mr. Lansing removed into the county with his family, in 1820, and settled at Little Falls, where he was several years engaged in closing up some extensive land agencies, in which the collateral branches of his family were interested. He was chosen delegate to the convention, in 1821, with Sherman Wooster and Richard Van Horne, called to revise the constitution of 1777, although quite a stranger to the great mass of the electors. The name was no doubt familiar to a considerable portion of the population, but he was known individually to only a few of them. His course in the convention was marked by that cool deliberation, and sound judgment, which great experience and a practical knowledge of the working of our system would very naturally head him to adopt. He was not a visionary theorist; nor was he opposed to a change in the fundamental rules of government, when that change was required to conform them to present exigencies, and advance the best interests of the state. He did not often engage in protracted forensic debate; and this was probably owing to his withdrawal from practice in the courts, soon after he came to the bar. A majority of his constituents in the county approved of his official acts, and he lived many years after this event, to mark the upward and onward progress of his native state, endeared to him by grateful recollections of the past, and hopeful prospects for the future.

Mr. Lansing was appointed one of the judges of the county courts, in March, 1821; reappointed, in 1823, by the governor and senate under the new constitution, and held the office until 1828. I can venture to say, that he never neglected attendance at court a single term, during this whole period, unless prevented by sickness. His rule was, that no man ought to accept a public office and neglect to perform its duties, whatever they might be.

Judge Lansing also held the office of master in chancery, and commissioner to perform certain duties of a justice of the supreme court at chambers. The latter appointment was conferred after he left the common pleas bench. He was a gentleman of great purity of character, and held in strict observance those rules of conduct that diving revelation enjoins, as the believed, on all who would secure a happy future. He left only two sons. My attention was always attracted to the uniform exactness, and methodical precision, in which he transacted all his business, whenever I made professional calls upon him. This I attributed to early training. Some would say this was a national characteristic. Well, if this be so, the peculiarity is the child of education, and is called "national," when applied to the people of Holland, because they uniformly observe the thorough rules of instruction, and an exact method of training as far as they go. I can not regard Dutchmen, native or a descendant, as the only people of all the Caucasian races who are constitutionally or by nature endowed with the particular mental faculty of attaining method and exactness in the transactions of life.

Mr. Lansing resided in the town of Manheim, several years preceding his death, and died there, September 19^th, 1850, aged 84 years, 3 months, and 2 days; his beloved and respected consort died on the 23d; a grandson, on the 20^th, and a granddaughter on the 24^th of the same month. Within the period of a week, four members of a family were placed in the silent grave. This occurrence was somewhat remarkable, in regard to the rapid succession in which the events happened, as there was not at the time any epidemic diseases that touched three of the cases.

Was born in Ireland, and came to this country when quite young. After remaining here a few years he went back to Ireland and again returned to this country. He crossed the Atlantic three times before he was sixteen years old. He lived several years with "blind John Smith," who carried on merchandising in a small way at or near Utica. He was in this county some years before 1800, and acquired all his education after he left Ireland His first wife was a daughter of Judge John Frank, of German Flats, in which town he resided, some years acting as constable and deputy sheriff. Being connected by marriage with a German family, he acquired and spoke the provincial dialect with all the fluency of a native German of the Mohawk. He was a man of much energy of character and great native talent. I knew him well more than thirty years, and in all that time never heard him speak in any other terms than of strong dislike an execration of the government and institutions of his native country. My curiosity was sometimes so strongly excited as almost to tempt me to inquire of him the particulars of his parentage, but he was not a man to gratify other people's curiosity only when it suited himself. I always imagined his ancestors had suffered some deep wrong, or what he believed to be so, from the British government in Ireland.

He said he was indented out to service for a limited time to pay the expenses of his first passage. I am not aware that this practice continued after the revolution. He was appointed sheriff of the county in 1808, and held the place till 1813; and in 1815 he was again reappointed and held two years more. He seems to have come into office and gone out on every political change in the council of appointment. He was an active and efficient public officer, and a very ardent politician, as the reader will probably conclude by this time. He never asked any favors from this political antagonists, and was very careful not to be too liberal in granting them. From 1817 to 1821, he was engaged to some extent in private pursuits, and upon the restoration of the republican party to political power in the state, in the latter year, he was appointed clerk of the county, and held the office until January, 1823. In 1819, he was actively engaged in organizing an opposition in this county against Governor DeWitt Clinton. He was the prime mover and leading spirit in that movement, and did not fail to extend his exertions to the close of the election in 1820, when Clinton and Tompkins were rival candidates for the gubernatorial chair.

On his exit from the clerk's office he was appointed one of the county judges in February, 1823, and held that office until 1822. This was the close of his active political career. Judge Mahon died at Herkimer in October 1851, aged 78 years. He left one descendant, a son, Patrick Mahon. I am not aware he had any attachments for the predominant religious faith of his native country. I do not think he had any; and it is this circumstance which seems to throw obscurity over his origin and early life. This is one of the many cases often presenting themselves to our view, which exhibits in bold relief some of the striking peculiarities of American institutions. An alien orphan, destitute alike of money and education, immigrates to our country, and by application and industry acquires both. But this is not all. He does not loiter at the foot of the official ladder. He secures the confidence and good will of the people whom he can rightfully call his fellow citizens, and enjoys for nearly forty years high and important official trusts, and only leaves them when about to go on a last and final resting place. Judge Mahon possessed some very marked peculiarities. I never heard that the vigor of his intellect had been in the least impaired from the time he quit public life to his death. But this is no place for questions not relating to public life and character. The grave throws a mantle over our foibles, and let that be the end.

Was a native of Dorset, Bennington county, Vermont. He came into the present town of Norway, in the spring of 1789, opened a small clearing, and erected his log cabin, and brought his family into the town the next year, 1790. It will probably be noticed, that Norway was first organized in 1792, but its territory has been subsequently very much circumscribed. Mr. Manley being among the first settlers on the northern part of the Royal grant, and a man of energy and force of character, was a prominent man in this town. He held the office of supervisor fifteen years, and was twice commissioned by Governor John Jay superintendent of highways in the county of Herkimer. These commissions respectively bear date April 4, 1798 and March 8^th, 1800. One of his sons, Dr. Manley, of Richfield, Otsego county, told me his father, the first year he came on to the grant, put up a bark hut as a sleeping place for himself and his hired man, and a store room for such few things as they had, requiring protections from the weather. They used a blanket to cover the entrance of their primitive lodge. The needful cooking was done at the fire outside. As they were then quite destitute of such substantials, in the way of food, as beef, pork, mutton and lamb, the forest was resorted to, to supply deficiencies, and the white rabbit being numerous, were taken whenever occasion required. Not having the fear of cholera before their eyes, and being intent in felling the forest and opening their clearing for a small crop, they did not stop to enquire into the origin and causes of diseases, but threw their culinary offal down near the door of the hut, where a considerable quantity of rabbit bones had of course been accumulating. Mr. Manley and his companion were one night disturbed by an unusual noise outside, but near their hut: listening a moment, they concluded, from the cracking of the rabbit bones, that some strong mouthed native of the forest was making a night meal of them. Manly took his gun, and moving the blanket door gently aside, fired in the direction of the heap of rabbit bones; a terrific growl was the only response, except the echo of the discharge in the surrounding dense forest. The night was dark, and having struck up a light with steel and flint, and recharging their gun, they cautiously examined the ground about the hut, but found nothing except some traces of blood. The animal, although wounded, was not disabled from making its escape. Early the next morning, Mr. Manley and his companion took the blood trail into the forest, and in about an hour found a good sized bear, weary and faint from the effects of his late night feast, and the unkind treatment he had received. The bear was killed, in the hope that the meat would give the captors a savory change in animal food. But it was poor, and the meat was coarse, dark and tough.

Mr. Manley was an agriculturist, and highly respected in his town and in the county. He was elected a member of the assembly in this state in 1799, on the ticket with John Mills and John Myer; again in 1809, with Rudolph Devendorff and Christopher P. Bellinger; and again in 1820, with Simeon Ford and Daniel Van Horne. He was uniform and adhered with unwavering tenacity to his political principles and party in this county more than sixty years. It is no slight evidence of the good feelings of his friends, or of his standing in the county, that his name was often presented by them as a candidate for member of assembly, as well when there was a fair prospect of success, as when this chance was quite doubtful. He died in Norway, where he lived 63 years, on the 21^st of January, 1851, aged 88 years and six months. He was born in August, 1763. In closing this notice, I need hardly add, that such a man as Mr. Manly must have been highly esteemed while living, and died regretted by all who knew him.

JACOB MARKELL

Was born in the county of Schenectady, on the 8^th of May, 1770, about tow miles west of the city. His parents were Germans, or of German descent. He received his English common school education, while quite young, at Schenectady. This name is found in the list of Palatine immigrants, who came over in 1710, but his ancestors were not among the Burnetsfield patentees. Judge Markell's father came to Stone Arabia, in the present town of Palatine, Montgomery county, at an early period, but whether before or at the close of the revolution, I have note been able to ascertain. Young Markells health was not robust, and he was placed in Maleys store, in Albany, where he served out a clerkship. He married, when twenty years old, at Palatine, and removed to Manheim, and commenced farming, which be carried on during the remainder of his life, until he became too infirm, in consequence of age, to attend to the laborious duties of that occupation. When he first came to Manheim, he opened a small country store, and manufactured potashes, a business that yielded a good re turn while the country was new, and timber plenty. He was an acting justice of the peace, almost time out of mind, and held the office of supervisor in the town of Manheim twenty-seven years. When that town remained attached to Montgomery county, he held the office of judge of the court of common pleas, and was elected to congress for one term, during Mr. Madison's administration, and in the war of 1812. He was elected one of the members of assembly from Herkimer county, in 1819, on the same ticket with James Orton and Philo M. Hackley, and closed a long and well spent life at the residence of his son, John Markell, Esq., in Manheim, with whom he had lived the two preceding years, on the 26th of November, 1852, aged 82 years, 6 months and 18 days, after a very brief illness. His wife survived only seventeen days. She was about five months younger than her husband. They had lived together after marriage about sixty-two years, and raised a family of children. She was as well, apparently, as she had been for many years previous, when her husband died, but immediately after his funeral she sank under her afflictions, and yielded her life to the messenger that never calls but once.

Judge Markell was very methodical in all his business affairs, and with other qualities possessed a shrewd and intelligent mind, which, from long practice, had become considerably imbued with legal principles, and especially those in reference to domestic relations. Hence, when his faculties were unimpaired, he wrote most of the wills made in his town, was usually called upon to adjust, settle and arrange important and difficult questions or matters of business between neighbors, was often entrusted with the administration of estates, and the guardianship of infants. In view of the facts already stated, I need hardly say, he possessed, in an eminent degree, the confidence and good will of his townsmen.

In the prime of life, he was capable of exerting a political influence, which was usually felt by his opponents.

Was born of Chatham, Columbia county New York. He came into the town of Columbia about the year 1790, and was by occupation a farmer. In stature he was just what one would wish, being, "six feet high, and well proportioned," and in all respects a fine looking man. He was truly one of natures noblemen; his conversational powers were good, was fond of company, pleasant and agreeable in his manners; few men possessed the art of pleasing to so great an extent. He seldom said a foolish thing, and never did a mean act. He had the faculty of accommodating himself to the company he was in, and of going with his whole mind into the subjects which were the topics of conversation; and whether light and frivolous, or sound, substantial and grave, it made no difference to him, he was at home in either, and whatever he said was listened to with attention. His countenance and manner, in fact, the whole man, changed to suit the company, the subject matter and the occasion. He could look pleasant or serious and grave, or frown with great severity. He was honest and fair in his dealings, and was deservedly popular. Had many friends, and few, if any, enemies. He was a kind hearted, good neighbor, never had lawsuits or difficulty him self, and did much, by example and otherwise, to preserve friendship and good morals in society. He was several times supervisor of the town, and usually held some town office, although the political majority was against him. He was elected to the assembly of this state, in 1799, and was frequently a candidate and lost his election, not for want of fitness or popularity, but because he belonged to, and acted with, the federal party, which was in the minority.

He died in 1836, at the age of 76, having always resided on the farm on which he first located, and helped clear with his own hands.

A highly respectable correspondent says: "1 lived within three-fourths of a mile of Capt. Mills some thirty years, and was in almost all sorts of company with him. I knew him well. His education was limited. I think him the best specimen of a man I ever knew. I was also acquainted with his father; he was a real Yankee. His mother was low Dutch."

Was born at Auville, New Jersey, February 1st, 1753. Although of German descent, he was not from the original Palatine stock of the upper Mohawk valley. The name is not found in the list of Palatine immigrants who came to the colony in 1709 and 1710. His ancestors may have been among those who composed the third emigration in 1722. With a view of giving as much of the early history of the prominent public men who labored in organizing the county, as well as to aid in establishing the liberties of the country, as might be any way interesting, I have endeavored to reach that object in respect to the subject of this notice, and have failed. Mr. Myers was with the American forces at the battle of Johnstown in 1781, where he was severely wounded in the leg, and from the effects of which he never recovered. He was then about twenty-eight years old. The American forces in this action were composed of levies and militia; it may therefore be presumed that be had come into Tryon county before or during the war. Upon the organization of the county courts, he appears to have been appointed one of the judges and a justice of the peace, February 17th, 1791. He was several times reappointed, but was left out of the civil commission in 1805.

He was elected the first member of assembly after the erection of the county and reelected the following year, and was in attendance at the winter sessions of 1792 and 1793. Judge Myers had been a resident of that part of Tryon or Montgomery county now embraced in Herkimer, several years before 1790. He was elected to the senate in the spring of 1795, took his seat at the following session and served his full term of four years. After this he does not seem to have occupied any prominent official station. His successor in the senate from this county was John Meyer, who was several years one of the county judges, and in 1800 appointed the first judge. He served but one year of his senatorial term, and left the county about the year 1802. John and Michael were not relatives. The former retained the German usage in writing the family name; I think the latter did not.

Judge Michael Myers was many years a prominent and influential politician in this county, but he attached himself to that political party which found but few adherents among the Germans in this quarter, when the people ranged themselves as federalists and republicans. He was appointed by President John Adams, commissioner of stamps for this county, but stamped paper, bearing the impress of the American eagle even, fared no better in the upper Mohawk valley in 1797--8, than that showing the lion and the unicorn and a jeweled crown, encircled with England's loved motto, "HONI Son Qui MAL Y PENSE," did among the Bostonians, in 1765. "Dunder and Blixum," muttered the German in his provincial dialect, "what for gaut I gif mine node any more to bay for der horse or der gow I puy, mitout I bay dwenty-fife zents for der baper mit der stamb." "Why, neighbor Hauyost," responded the Yankee follower of Shays, "I guess all them tarnel Britishers have kum back to Filladelfa agin, and ar ony putin on the tax to show whos who; darn the old tories, I wont stand it, thats sartin." The stamps came to a bad market, and the commissioners periodical returns showed a good supply on hand of those first sent.

Judge Myers possessed a good share of energy, and his position gave him opportunities of laying the foundation of one of the most splendid fortunes in the state, and it was believed by many of his, townsmen that he had accumulated great wealth in the purchase and sale of wild lands, at an early period after the close of the war. Although at his death his fortune was ample, it was by no means so extended as it might have been, if he had retained the interest in the lands purchased in his name, connected with others. He seems to have had a good many transactions with the late John I. Morgan, in those speculations, and when we compare the reputed wealth of these two gentlemen at their respective demises, it will not be supposed the judges actual share in these original purchases, retained by him, was nearly as large or beneficial as the public records seem to indicate. He may not have been as confident in respect to prospective value of real estate as his partners were, and alienated at the prices paid, three shillings and three pence per acre, with a small advance. This must have been a moderate price for lands in the 20 townships, even in 1791. Lands in the Royal grant were sold in 1785, at $2.5O per acre.

Judge Myers died at Herkimer, February 17, 1814, aged 61 years and 16 days. He left numerous descendants, sons and daughters, those who yet survive have sought homes in other parts of our broad country. I believe there is not at this time a single male descendant of this stock now in the county, but there are several in different parts of this state, and in other states of the union.

Peter M. Myers who was appointed county clerk in 1810, was a son of Judge Myers. He held the office one year, under this appointment, when by a political revolution in the counsel of appointment he was removed, and again by another change in politics in 1813, he was reappointed and held the office two years. Mr. Myers has been dead many years. He left descendants, several of whom remain in this state.

I now introduce to the reader a native of Germany, who did good service for the country during the revolution in the capacity of physician and surgeon, as well as in other respects. He was born near Oppenheim, December 7th, 1733, came to this country in 1763, and married Salome Wolf, the daughter of Mr. John Wolf of Cosbys manor, December 22, 1766. Dr. Petry was a Bavarian, no connection of the Petrie family from the Palatinate, and before he came to America, be served as a surgeon in the Prussian army. Having obtained a professional diploma in Germany, he of course must have previously received a classical and professional education. He was interested in a store or employed in selling goods before the revolution, at the present village of Herkimer; the outbreak of the war put a stop to that business for a time, although he seems to have re-engaged in it in 1784. He did not feel a very strong sympathy for the royal cause, for we find him on the 2d of June, 1775, attending a meeting of Tryon county committee of safety as a member from the German Flats and Kingsland district. He continued a member of that committee several years and probably until the state government was organized. I also perceive he acted as a justice of the peace during the war. He was employed as a surgeon at Fort Dayton in 1776 and 1779. He was General Herkimer's medical adviser, and did not concur in the treatment of the young French surgeon who amputated the Generals leg below the knee several days after it was shattered. I also notice an account for medicine and attendance, by direction of the commissioners of Indian affairs, on some Indian children, and on "Scanandos daughter when beaten with a stone by an Indian" As a memorial of the past I transcribe the following:

"At a council of appointment held at Poughkeepsie, April 27, 1781: Present : --His Excellency Governor Clinton, President. The Honorable Abraham Ten Broeck, Stephen Ward, Arthur Parks, Esqrs., Members.

"Resolved, That William Petry be Surgeon of the Regiment raised for the immediate defence of this state, whereof Marinus Willet, Esquire, is Lieutenant Colonel Commandant. State of New York, ss:

"The aforegoing is truly extracted from the minutes of the council of appointment. Robert Harper, Clerk."

In April, 1782, Doctor Petry was appointed by the council of appointment surgeon of the regiment of state levies commanded by Colonel Willett. He was present at the Oriskany battle and wounded in the leg, from which he suffered a good deal of inconvenience. He dressed General Herkimers wound on the battle field. It is understood that at this time there was not as much cordiality between the general and the doctor as had previously existed. As the latter was then one of the county committee of safety, he may with the other members of the committee have disapproved of the generals policy in regard to an immediate march to the relief of Fort Stanwix. It is reported of the doctor that he was not strictly a noncombatant at Oriskany, that after the first assault by the enemy he was very active in encouraging the militia, and forming them so as to present a combined resistance to the enemy. His former experience in the Prussian service enabled him to afford essential aid on that occasion. He was with his regiment under Col. Willett in October 1781, when that brave and active officer pursued Ross and Butlers party on their retreat across the country to reach their boats at the Oneida lake, and when the latter was killed after crossing the West Canada creek. He also accompanied his regiment under Willett in February, 1783, on the expedition to capture by surprise the British fortress at Oswego, which failed of success, not however by any fault of the American commander.

Doct. Petry was actively engaged in his profession, nearly the whole length of the Mohawk valley, during the revolution, and before and after, he being the principal physician and surgeon in the county, until nearly the close of his life. He always went armed during the war, in going the round of his visits. He was somewhat brusk in manners, and firm in his resolves. Many anecdotes are told of him, some of them quite amusing and characteristic of the man. Not being within call at the moment when an operation was required upon one of the men of his regiment, several of the young American surgeons were called in, and while they were consulting what to do, he returned, and coming into the room where the disabled man and the doctors were, asked the Yankee surgeons to retire a few minutes, as he wished to confer with the wounded man. While they were absent he amputated and dressed the limb, and then sent for them to return, and remarked that they might now consult as long as they pleased. After the peace he again engaged in mercantile business at Herkimer, which he continued till near the close of life. He died at that place, August 6th, 1806, aged nearly 73 years. He left several sons and daughters, and of the latter is the mother of the Messrs. Earls. His memory has been, and still is, highly cherished by the old German inhabitants of the county, who knew him. His descendants still retain the paternal estate, for which they entertain a high regard.

When the doctor had made up his mind, on almost any subject, all further debate with him was not of much use. His family residence was a little distance from the Court house, and the compact part of the village, where he often resorted to hear and talk over the news of the day, with his neighbors and old revolutionary compeers, who were never at fault for fruitful, themes of discussion, when modern affairs did not present them. He had become very deeply interested in regard to the stamp act, passed under Mr. Adam's administration, and stoutly denied the justice and propriety of compelling the American people to buy stamped paper for their ordinary business, as they had just got through with a long war to get rid of it. He became very much excited on the subject, when, one day, he was in the village where the stamps had been long and warmly discussed, and arguments, pro and con, wholly exhausted, the old gentleman returned home greatly vexed and annoyed, the din of stamps, and stamp acts ringing in his ears, when the peculiar voice of a flock of guinea hens, on his premises, arrested his attention; the innocent cry of the poor hens sounded to him very like stamp act, and he could not endure it. He ordered his boys to kill them at once, for he would not, he said, have any d--d stamps about him. The innocent hens were beheaded for the treasonable cry of stamps. I can not better close this brief notice of the doctor, than by giving in this place a copy of his diploma, translated from the German.

We, ordained by Grace an Electoral-Palatine MEDICAL ASSEMBLY; appointed Privy Counselor, and First private Physician, DIRECTOR and ASSESSORS, Court Physicians and City Physicians, &c.,

Do hereby testify and make known that the proprietor of this, named WILLIAM PETRY, born in Neustein, in the Electoral-Palatine Bailiwick of OPPENHEIM, came to us with a dutiful petition to be examined in the art of surgery, according to the graceful Electoral Royal Medical Order. Therefore, after producing his authentic indentures, showing that he had regularly studied surgery for three years with John George Heuser, the City Surgeon of the Electoral Palatine Bailiwick of OPPENHEIM; then studied with Schimdt, the City Surgeon here in Manheim, one year and a half, and attended the Anatomical School in Berlin; after that served one year in the Royal Prussian Hospital, in Dresden and Torgau, also served as company surgeon during four years in the Estimable Schenckendorfs Infantry Regiment and in like manner served two years among the English Grenadiers; and that during all the time he practiced the surgical and anatomical art. We had no hesitation to comply with WILLIAM PETRYS petition to give him the customary examination. In which examination, as to all questions about wounds in general, contusions, tumors, fractures, luxations, anatomical and surgical operations, he having answered to our perfect satisfaction; and in our presence, also to our satisfaction, attended to several practical cases in surgery. We all agree that he is a skillful and well instructed surgeon, which we hereby attest to him by virtue of our usual seal and with our own hands. Manheim, 8th Febr., 1763.

Consilium Medicum Electorale Palatinum

[L. S.]P. J. WALCK, Jc. SCHROTT, Medico.
FRANCISCO HELM, Actuarius.
M. PRIA.

GEORGE ROSECRANTS

Was the son of the Rev. Abraham Rosecrants, who for many years presided over the German congregations in the Mohawk valley. George was born on the 15th of March, 1764, on Fall hill, in the present town of Little Falls. His mother was a sister of Gen. Nicholas Herkimer. He died December 21st, 1838, at the place of his birth, aged 74 years, 9 months and 6 days. He had four brothers, Henry, Abraham, Joseph and Nicholas, and three sisters. He left one son, Abraham G., now living, and five daughters. Although of German descent, he did not belong to the original Palatine stock, and therefore the sketch of his life and family belongs to a different chapter of biographies.

Mr. Rosecrants was called pretty early into public life. At the age of thirty-five, he was elected to the state convention with Evans Wharry and Matthias B. Tallmadge, from this county, which was called in 1801, to act upon certain propositions in respect to the power of the members of the council of appointment, and limiting the number of members of assembly. In 1805 he was appointed one of the judges of the court of common pleas, which office he held until March, 1821. In 1812, he was appointed by the legislature one of the electors of president and vice-president of the United States, and voted with the other electors of this state for De Wilt Clinton, in preference to James Madison. He was one of the members of assembly from the county, in 1817 and 1818, and was chosen a state senator at the spring election in 1818, and held that office the full term of four years. This closed his official career. He was a member of the council of appointment in 1819, and warmly attached to Governor De Witt Clinton while that distinguished statesman occupied a prominent position in the councils of the state.

It must be evident to any one familiar with the history of political parties in the county, that Judge Rosecrants was of the old republican school of politicians. In voting for Mr. Clinton, in 1812, for president. If he erred at all, he erred in common with a. majority of his political friends in the legislature, who had nominated Mr. Clinton in opposition to Mr. Madison.

Judge Rosecrants possessed good sound sense, and a discriminating judgment. He was industrious, diligent and attentive to his public duties, and highly esteemed for his many amiable qualities as a private citizen. He was a warm admirer of General Andrew Jackson, and much elated at the generals election to the presidency. When not engaged in public life, Judge Rosecrants devoted himself to agricultural pursuits on one of the most delightful farms in the county, situated on Fall hill.

Was a native of Massachusetts, came into this county in 1790, and opened a country retail store, in company with Naham Daniels, a few miles from the present village of Fairfield, on the farm recently occupied by Robert Alexander, and now by his descendants. They, at the same time, carried on the manufacture of potashes. Mr. Daniels removed to Newport two or three years afterwards. Mr. Smith then removed to Fairfield village, where he continued the mercantile business for some time in connection with his brothers William and Samuel. He was many years a prominent politician in this county, and his first appearance in the legislative balls of the state appears to have been in 1798, associated with Gaylord Griswold and five others. This was the year that Oneida was erected. I state the fact that one at least of Mr. Smiths colleagues, Mr. Griswold, was, in after life, a leading and influential politician of the federal school, and more than fifteen years after his first election, Mr. Smith was associated with the republican party. He was again chosen member of assembly, and was in his place at the sessions of 1801 and 1802. These successive elections, at a period when the political opinions of candidates were drawn out and freely expressed, lead to the conclusion I have formed in regard to his early political attachments.

He was appointed a judge of the county courts and justice of the peace, in March, 1805, but it does not appear he was again commissioned in 1808 and 1811, and no other person seems to have been appointed at either of those periods to fill his place on the common pleas bench. Judge Smith was chosen a senator from the western district at the election in 1805, and held the office two full terms by a reelection in 1809. in February, 1808, he was chosen by the assembly one of the council of appointment. This great political machine had the previous year been in active operation under the direction of Gov. Lewis, who had been elevated to the executive chair by the combined votes of the federal and a section of the republican parties; but a large portion of the latter were very much opposed to the governor, and were arranging themselves in formidable masses to defeat his reelection. The governor and his council of 1808, sought to strengthen themselves by the removal from office of every unfriendly republican; but as usual on such occasions the official patronage was principally bestowed upon Lewisite republicans, or quids, as then called. The federalists, although they had supported Lewis's election, were not permitted to taste the "loaves and fishes" of office, and one of those not uncommon Occurrences in New York politics had happened, in which the whole patronage and emoluments of place were bestowed upon a section of the republican party, and that section in this instance was the least numerous and influential of the two in the several counties of the state. The rivalries and jealousies of the potent and wealthy families existing in this colony at the outbreak of the revolution, and who embraced the popular cause, was often exhibited at the elections, and for nearly forty years after the peace of 1783, this great political star chamber, the council of appointment, rewarded the faithful and punished the insubordinates with unerring precision. Woe to the official who failed to support the regular nominations of the party; from that moment he was a doomed man. The election of Mr. Tompkins to the executive chair, and the return of more than two to one members of assembly friendly to the new governor, with a majority in the senate, gave note of preparation for one of those periodical removals and appointments which often visited the state before and since the time now being considered.

The council of which Judge Smith was a member proceeded in the work of" crushing out insubordination" with a zeal and dispatch that in a very few months produced a change of individuals in nearly all the civil offices in the state.

The application for the charter of the Bank of America with a capital of $6,000,000, was made at the session of 1812, and Judge Smith was still a member of the senate. This application was generally opposed by the republican members and favored by the federalists. Governor Tompkins was by no means friendly, and on the 27th of March, prorogued the legislature until the 21st of May following, assigning as a reason for this act that the applicants had used or attempted to use corrupt means to procure the charter. The bill had passed the assembly by a vote of fifty-eight to thirty-nine, and was sent to the senate, when on a motion to reject, the vote was thirteen to fifteen and failed. The prorogation took place soon after and caused great excitement and some violence and outrage. This was a strong executive measure, but if, as was then and still is believed, a bill was about to be forced through the legislature by corrupt appliances, any legal and constitutional measure might be adopted to defeat it. The governor was sustained by the public judgment and this showed pretty conclusively the popular belief in the charges of corruption.

When the legislature met, on the 21st of May, the senate immediately proceeded to consider the bill to incorporate the stockholders of the Bank of America. As may be well supposed under the circumstances, the opposition to its passage was long and ably conducted, but the bill finally passed the senate by a vote of seventeen to thirteen, Judge Smith voting for it. The early history of the bank legislation of this state, exhibits scenes of the most revolting character, highly discreditable to the state. The public mind was not only satisfied but had a surfeit of such matters, and for many years after chartering the Bank of America, but few applications for laws of this sort were presented to the legislature. The last attempt to procure bank charters by bribery of members was made in 1825. The effort was exposed and severely punished, as all such acts should he, if the purity of legislation is to be preserved. This remarkable fact is shown in the history of the passage of the Bank of America charter. The vote in favor of the bill was considerably increased in the assembly, after the exposure of the corrupt conduct of the agents of applicants; and why the senate should have entertained the bill at all, after these acts were known, must surpass the comprehension of modern legislators. During the bank legislation of 1829, 1830 and 1831, very serious doubts were entertained in relation to reincorporating any of these tainted charters. One of them was rejected in the senate, and on winding up its concerns exhibited a beggarly account of insolvent assets.

I have alluded to this subject in this place only because Judge Smith was an actor in chartering the Bank of America, and that was an event of his public life, in which he participated. It is due to his character and fame that I should say in this connection, I am not aware that he was in any respect damaged by the vote he gave, and certainly in the published history of those times, which I have seen, his name no otherwise appears than in the affirmative on the passage of the bill. After the close of his last senatorial term, Judge Smith was appointed the first judge of the county courts, in April 1814, and held the office till February, 1821, when he resigned the place. He died at Fairfield in this county, October 7th, 1836, at the mature age of 67 years; ripe in honors and in the enjoyment of competent wealth, the fruits of a long life devoted to business pursuits. He left a family.

While devoted to the cause and responsibilities of legislation, he was not unmindful of local affairs near home. He aided in the founding and building up the first academy established in the county, and exerted his best efforts, in conjunction with others, in behalf of the medical institution located at Fairfield, some notice of which will be found in another place.

Was a native of the state of Connecticut, and removed from Killingworth into this county, some time before 1800. He was appointed sheriff of the county, in 1806, and held the office only one year. The appointment being an annual one, owing to a political revolution in the appointing power, he of course was not continued or reappointed in 1807. He lived and died at Herkimer village. I place Mr. Snows nonreappointment to political causes, because, I notice his predecessor, Mr. Cook, whose place he took, was his successor in 1807.

Was a native of East Greenwich, Kent county, Rhode Island; the son of Benjamin Tillinghast, one of an extensive circle of family connections, known in former times to have exerted a pretty potent influence in that state, and not the least influential of the numerous and wide spread family, was the father of the subject of this notice; and the son emulated the fame of a worthy sire. Henry served an apprenticeship to the tanning business, with Charles Dyer, Bennington county, Vermont. He went to Vermont, in 1789, arid in 1792 took up his residence in the town of Norway, when about twenty years of age. In the following year lie returned to Vermont, married Miss Sarah Dyer, who at this present writing is his respected surviving widow; and seated himself permanently in the almost unbroken wilds of the Royal grant.

He was an active, thorough, business man; early gave his attention to the business of tanning, an occupation not only useful, in a new country, but very remunerative when the home demand exceeded the supply, as is most usually the case where the population is rapidly increasing, and there is almost a total nonintercourse with the general market, owing to bad roads, and the want of facilities for communication.

But Mr. Tillinghast did not confine himself to this mechanical pursuit alone. Farming early engaged his attention, and the hitherto untouched forest was subdued, and fertile acres were made to yield their annual crops for the sustenance of man. These employments, however, did not content the active energies of this son of the land of Roger Williams. I do not think he was aspiring and ambitious of political distinction, merely for the sake of office, and the emoluments of place. A conscientious conviction that his own cherished political views were the cardinal maxims of good government, prompted Mr. Tillinghast, at an early day, to take the field as a champion of republicanism, against one of the most formidable opponents of that party in the county, Thomas Manly, who had seated himself in Norway, a short time before Mr. Tillinghast.

While I wish to place Mr. Tillinghasts actions on the basis of a love of country, I must not be understood as questioning in any way the motives and objects of Mr. Manly. The contest was long, and attended with varied success. The majority of votes polled by either political party, for several years, was very small, seldom exceeding ten or twelve, often a less number, and one year, each of the assembly candidates received 105 votes in the town. Mr. Manly was then one of the candidates. There was not any personal antagonism indulged by either party, during this long contest for political supremacy. Mr. Tillinghast held various town offices in his town, and performed the duties of them to the general satisfaction of his fellow citizens. In what I have said about Mr. Manly and Mr. Tillinghast, it should not be inferred that there were not other prominent and leading men in the town, of both parties, who participated in the strife for the political mastery, and who exerted a proper share of influence whenever the parties were rallied to the polls.

At the legislative session of 1823, the first convened under the constitution of 1821, Mr. Tillinghast was one the members of assembly from this county. He was elected on the ticket with John Dygert and Abijah Beckwith. The session was an important and interesting one. He was again a member of the assembly in 1835. He was a cautious and prudent legislator, and attentive to his public duties. His practical good sense, sound judgment and clear perception of things, seldom failed him on any emergency.

He held the important office of supervisor of his town nearly thirty years in succession, and that of a magistrate several terms. His devotion to his country, its safety and honor, lay deeper and broader than mere wordy pretensions. He was ready and willing to act in a pose of danger, should occasion require it, and with that view organized during the war of 1812, a company of volunteer exempts, of which he was designated the captain, who held themselves ready to serve their country in the field against the common enemy. He was somewhat of a military tactician, and would often, after the weary labors of the day were ended, call his little sons around him and teach them the "manual exercise."

Mr. Tillinghast was born on the 22d of May, 1772, and died suddenly in the harvest field on the 29th of July, 1841, in the full fruition of a well spent life. He left a numerous family the inheritors not only of his justly earned fame, but of an estate, the accumulation of fifty years of frugal industry. I have spoken of Mr. Tillinghast's political opinions as I knew them. He was a republican of the Jeffersonian school, and although ardent in feelings and actions, these were always tempered and controlled by a just regard to the conservative principles of the constitution of his country.

Was born in Wallingford, Connecticut, December 23d, 1773. His father removed to Salisbury, Herkimer county, in 1792, with his family, and commenced the laborious work of converting a wilderness of forest into fruitful fields. Mr. Todd, the younger, worked with his father on the new farm a few years, when he commenced the study of medicine, obtained a license and commenced practice in Salisbury previous to 1800. Doct. Todd attained a very considerable eminence in his profession, and was justly esteemed for his active, humane and zealous efforts to alleviate the "ills that life is heir to," and highly respected for a sound and vigorous understanding. He continued his professional pursuits in Salisbury till near the close of life. He combined, to some extent, agricultural with his professional pursuits, and I heard him remark that he was one of the first in the county to adopt the change from grain-growing to grazing, and that he felt it to be a duty to encourage and promote this change as the best and only means of reviving the farming interests of the county. He said it was unwise to continue the competition with the western part of this state, Ohio and Michigan, in raising wheat, under almost any circumstances; but it was especially so while the fly and weevil were cutting off the wheat, and the cold seasons so inauspicious to Indian corn. These remarks were strongly impressed upon my mind at the time in consequence of the question, what are the farmers to do, being much discussed, amid made the subject of anxious inquiry.

Doct. Todd was the captain of a company of militia light infantry, in the war of 1812 with Great Britain. Now, although neither the active nor passive sympathies of the doctor were with the general or state administrations of that day, at all times and on all occasions, he obeyed the call of his country with patriotic alacrity. I am enabled to give the following incident in the life of Poet. Todd, the facts having been elicited in the course of a semi-judicial investigation had in my hearing. In 1814, Captain Todd, as I will now call him, and a few members of his company had been detached to join the American forces at Plattsburgh in this state, at the time of the invasion by the British under Sir George Provost. Within a few days of the first call, orders were received from Governor Tompkins for the militia of Montgomery and Herkimer counties, en masse, to march immediately to Sackets Harbor to defend that post. Capt. Todd felt himself called upon to perform an extra duty, which does not often fall to the lot of an officer, and, when it does, is not always performed with the same anxious solicitude for the welfare of others. He directed the detached men of his company to repair to the rendezvous at Johnstown and report themselves to the commanding officer, and then started with his company en route to Sackets Harbor. After proceeding one or two days march with the company, and seeing that his men were furnished with all needful equipage and provisions, and leaving them under the charge of his lieutenant, Abraham Marsh, to march to the Harbor, he retraced his steps home to Salisbury, and then made hot pursuit to overtake his command before it reached Plattsburgh.

The mention of Sir George and the invasion, brings to recollection an anecdote connected with that event, related by Sir A. N. McN., who was then an ensign in the British army. This, I know, is not exactly the place for such things, but it is too good to keep, and therefore it must come out somewhere, and may as well appear in company with Capt. Todd, at Plattsburgh, as any other officer. Sir A. tells the story with much good feeling and very spiritedly, and I only wish it could be here repeated with the same amusing action he gives when relating it. After the British army had crossed the line on its march to Plattsburgh, Sir A. and two or three other young officers obtained leave one morning to forage for a breakfast at some of the American farmhouses near the line of march. They looked around and selected a house some distance from the road, where from outside appearances they would be the most likely to obtain what they very much required, a good warm breakfast. The young gentlemen were not slow in reaching the goal of their desires, as they wished not only to be first to occupy the ground, but very much inclined to have the smell and taste of a savory meal. They were kindly received at the house, civilly told in reply to their inquiry, that breakfast would be prepared for them as soon as it possibly could. In due time they were seated round the table and appeasing hunger as fast as they could, momentarily expecting a call to duty. My informant says a bright, active and healthful young woman waited upon them, and brought from an adjoining room the hot cakes prepared for them.

The signal or call to join corps and regiments was heard while the young woman was out of the room; the officers had quit their seats at the table and were about to leave the house, when she came in with another plate full of cakes, and seeing they were ready to start, said to them, "Gentlemen, don't be in a hurry, I have more warm cakes for you, and you had better take them now." The young officers in reply, said they would call for them on their return from Plattsburgh. She rejoined, "Perhaps you may then be in too much haste to stop." Sir A. says they were much more light of foot in returning to, than in coming from Canada; and that on his way back with a party of flankers, he passed near the house where they had breakfasted, and hearing some one call, looked up and saw the same young woman standing in the door, who said to him with a roguish smile, "Halloo, mister, wont you call and get your cakes?"

Doctor Todd's campaign to Plattsburgh closed, I believe, his active military service during the war. I think he was on the frontier in one or both of the previous years of the war, but of this I am not certain.

At the November election, 1821, he was nominated by his political friends as a candidate for the assembly, on a ticket with Simeon Ford and Robert Shoemaker, and received a majority of the popular vote over his competitor, but failed to obtain a certificate of election from the county clerk. Dr. Todd's whole vote in the county was 1941; his highest competitor, Gen. Bellinger, had 1644. The returns of two towns, Russia and Winfield, were rejected, whereby he lost 98 majority; but he yet had 199 more votes than either of his opponents. The returns from Danube were assumed to show 207 votes given for Robert Shoemaker, 211 for Simeon Ford, and 202 for Stephen Tood. I say assumed, for that was the construction of the canvasser on examining the certificate of the town inspectors, sent to the county clerks office. It was, at the time, supposed to be a remarkable fact, that two of the three candidates running on the same ticket should receive so large a vote, and the third none at all, when the printed ballots used at the election throughout the county were alike. The mistake in the certificate made by the town inspectors, if there was one, must have occurred in writing out the names of the candidates and the top of the first d in Todd so much depressed as to look like an o. At any rate, the rejection of the Danube votes from Todd's column, and placing them to Stephen Tood, after the other rejections above noticed, elected Gen. Bellinger by three majority, and he consequently obtained the certificate. The committee on privileges and elections in the house corrected this matter as soon as it came before them, and the assembly, without hesitation, awarded the contested seat to the rightful occupant. The political parties in the house were so nearly balanced, that it was not clearly known, until the legislature met, whether the democratic majority would be one, or the numbers 64 to 64. Casualties might prevent a full attendance at the opening of the session, but these chances were equally balanced. The political opponents of the county clerk complained of his conduct, in not notifying the Danube inspectors of the mistake in their certificate, and whispered pretty audibly that lie was looking to the election of speaker and the council of appointment. A democratic majority of one in the house, after Dr. Todd was admitted, rendered any such precautions needless.

Dr. Todd died at Salisbury in the month and same day of the month of his birth, in the year 1827, aged 54 years. He left a family of several daughters, but I do not know whether any sons survived him to bear his name to posterity. He accumulated a very considerable fortune, by active and judicious application to business; and had attained a standing in his profession which many aspire to, but few achieve.

Was not a native of this county. He came into the town of Norway near the close of the last century or at the commencement of the present, where he pursued his profession as a physician and surgeon with considerable success. He was contemporary with Dr. Willoughby. I am not able to fix the date of his removal to Herkimer village. He succeeded David Holt as United States collector of internal revenue, and held the office until the repeal of the laws imposing those duties. Dr. Tombling was appointed surrogate of the county in November, 1816, and held the place until April, 1821. He was amiable, unassuming and benevolent. In quitting or rather neglecting his profession, and giving his attention to politics, he was not fortunate. He died at Herkimer more than twenty years ago, regretted by a large circle of friends, and leaving a family to mourn his loss.

Was born in Armenia, Dutchess county, New York, June 6th, 1778. His father, John Yarney, was one of the patriotic men of the revolution. He served his country through a protracted war of seven years, enduring its privations, fatigues and sacrifices, with heroic fortitude. His time and substance were devoted to the service of his country, leaving him little of either for the education of his family. The subject of this notice having, by untiring industry and perseverance, accumulated a small patrimony, emigrated with his family, in 1809, to the then wilds of Herkimer county. He became at once a proprietor and tiller of the soil.

In 1812, he was appointed a justice of the peace, an office which, by repeated appointments and elections, he filled with honor during twenty-five successive years. During the same period, he was for many years clerk of the town, and for five years one of the judges of the county court. His first appointment as county judge was made in February, 1823. He also filled the office of supervisor five years, was master in chancery, commissioner of schools, &c. In 1825, he was elected member of assembly. In 1841, he was elected senator of this state in the fourth senate district.

In all stations in which he was called to act, he showed himself capable, faithful and honest. Elevated in principle

and urbane in manners, he secured the respect and confidence of his associates. He was bold as he was frank, honest and undisguised. In all his acts, whether private or public, he yielded to the voice of rectitude and conscience, regardless of consequences. Edmund Varney was a republican of the Jeffersonian school.

An ardent admirer and lover of his country, and believing the welfare of that country could only be secured by the supremacy of the democratic party, Judge Varney, during his long life, seldom failed to attend the polls, and to deposit his vote. He has often remarked to the writer, that "the right of suffrage was sacred, and should be preserved inviolate." A few days previous to his death, speaking of the present political aspects of our country, he expressed a decided opinion against the institution of domestic slavery, the "peculiar institution" of the south, and hoped its limits would, under no circumstances, be extended.

He sustained a long and painful illness, from chronic bronchitis, with Christian resignation and fortitude, believing and hoping, with firm assurance, in the immortality of the soul, and that he had the promise of a happy life in the world to come. He calmly expired at his residence in Russia, December 2, 1847.

I find the above obituary notice published in one of the county papers about the period of Judge Varney's death; and after making a few slight alterations in the original article, cheerfully incorporate it with the biographies of the public men of the county. A long and somewhat intimate acquaintance with Judge Varney, enables me to say, the writer has placed a just estimate upon his character, and has done no injustice to the subject.

Was a native of Sussex county, New Jersey, and was born the 15th of November, 1770. He was a son of Abraham Van Horne, a narrative of whom will be found under the town of Stark.

Mr. Van Home removed from Fort Plain in 1791, with his father and other members of the family, to the head of the Otsquaga creek, now known as Van Hornesville, and commenced the mercantile business in connection with his brother Daniel. As the country opened and became more populated, they increased and extended their business until they became pretty largely engaged in the purchase of wheat and the manufacture of flour for the Albany market. There being neither turnpikes, plank roads, canals nor rail roads in those days, the waters of the Mohawk were used as the medium of transport from the point of shipment at Fort Plain to Schenectady, and from thence the communication was by teams to Albany.

Mr. Van Horne was elected to the legislature of this state from Montgomery county in 1809, 1810, and again in 1812. His official connection with the people of this county, after the annexation of a portion of Montgomery county to Herkimer in 1817, brings this case within the scope of biographical notices to be embraced in this work.

At the election on the 19th, 20th and 21st June, 1821, Mr. Van Horne was put in nomination as a delegate to the convention to revise the constitution of the state with Simeon Ford and Nathan Smith. Sherman Wooster and Sanders Lansing were the opposing candidates to Messrs. Ford and Smith. I have noticed the reasons in another place why the democratic party adopted Mr. Van Horne, or rather did not nominate a candidate against him, and will not again repeat them. That election presented a somewhat curious result. Van Homes aggregate vote in the county was 3410; Wooster and Lansings average was 1935 and Ford and Smiths, 1553; showing Van Hornes vote to be nearly 80 less than the other successful candidates, and the democratic majority was 382 only. When the constitution was submitted for ratification, the vote in Danube, Mr. Van Homes town, was For it, Yes, 68; Against it, No, 363; majority, No, 295; and the majority in the county for the constitution was only 329. Speculation upon matters of this sort may not be very entertaining but may prove useful. The vote in Danube on the election of delegates was nearly divided, or rather the majority against the democratic candidates was only fifty-five. The avowed opinions of those gentlemen in favor of the prominent features of amendment or change, were fully known to the electors, and hence there must; have been a change of sentiment, or there was an influence exerted on the vote for ratification that was quiescent at the delegate election. Mr. Van Horne did not approve of the constitution of 1821, but this objection may not have been founded on the modified extension of the right of suffrage and the abolition of the councils of appointment and revision, the points on which he was understood to be in accord with the democratic party at the time of the election.

The provision in that instrument which ousted the justices of the then supreme court from office, which gave rise to much elaborate discussion in the convention, and on which the political majority in that body did not agree, encountered his opposition at every step, and in every stage of its progress. He would not be likely to sanction an instrument containing unobjectionable provisions, which carried with them what he judged an unjust act of proscription against his friends.

Although several of the members of the convention, with whom he had usually acted, and who sympathized with him on political questions, finally yielded their assent, his mind seems to have been unalterably fixed on the subject, and he gave one of the eight votes against the constitution, when the final question was taken. The posterity of the men of that day, have passed judgment upon the instrument, and repudiated most of its provisions, but they have not made a very rapid stride towards Mr. Van Hornes notions, of a sound and safe constitution.

Mr. Richard Van Horne died at Van Horneville, in the town of Stark, March 12th, 1823, aged 72 years, 4 months and 27 days. He left a widow and seven children; the former was living at the writing of this brief notice. I hardly need remind the reader, that Mr. Van H. was of Dutch, and not German descent. His ancestors emigrated from Holland. In the prime of life he was actively engaged in business pursuits, appertaining to merchandise and manufacturing, and when the "sere and yellow leaf" of old age overtook him, he reposed on the comforts of a good farm, and the accumulations of an industrious and well-spent, life. It is not strange that such a man should win the regards of his neighbors and fellow citizens, and bear their regrets to his final resting place.

EVANS WHARRY

Filled a prominent space in the early history of the county, at the close of the war in 1783. He was of Irish descent, and born at or near Wallkill, Orange county, in 1749. Left an orphan at the early age of sixteen years, by the death of both his parents, being thrown, by this sad event, upon his own resources, he devoted himself to study, and particularly to mathematics, in order to acquire the theory of navigation; having made up his mind to adopt and pursue a seafaring life. He made several voyages to the West Indies, as supercargo of some of the small vessels then engaged in that trade, but he found a nautical life unsuited to his health and inclinations, abandoned it, and gave his attention to surveying.

The advent of the American revolution found him in the prime of life and vigor of manhood, and probably with no sympathies for the royal cause. If a thought of adhesion to the crown ever crossed his mind, it "must soon have passed away as the idle wind," for we find him in command of a company in Canada, when the American army under Gen. Montgomery approached and assaulted Quebec. Being stationed at or near Montreal, he was ordered to join the provincial forces below, but afterwards hearing of the fall of Montgomery and the defeat of the Americans, he consulted with Dr. Franklin in regard to the expediency of marching to the city, under the altered circumstances. The American sage said to him "it is a good officer that obeys the command of his superiors," and Wharry immediately commenced a forward movement with his men. After a short progress, however, he was directed to return, and he left Canada with the evacuating army.

Mr. Wharry served his country well and faithfully, during the whole of the eventful struggle for provincial emancipation. The theater of his service was mostly in the northern department, under General Schuyler. The routine of duty was that usually performed by a subaltern staff. I am not aware that he performed permanent service in the line of the army after the expedition into Canada. His country acknowledged those services, by the bestowment of the usual gratuity or pension upon him to the close of his life, and after that upon his venerable relict, who survived him nearly twenty years.

He came into this county in 1785-6, purchased a tract of land, and commenced farming. The home place where he died, near the Little Fails, was a part of that purchase. Being a good practical surveyor, and possessing no small share of energy in mind and body, he was much engaged in the business of surveying, the first fifteen or twenty years of his residence in the county, and was often employed on behalf of the state in making surveys of the public lands. He was appointed one of the judges of the common pleas, and a justice of the peace, August 27, 1798, and held those offices until March 18th, 1805, when he was commissioned as first judge, on the resignation of John Meyer. Judge Wharry continued to hold the office and discharge the duties of his last appointment, until he was sixty years old, the constitutional limit. We have made the important discovery, since 1777, that three score years does not unerringly produce mental incapacity, amounting to disqualification to hold judicial office. So long, however, as the incumbent held by the tenure of good behavior, it may have been well to fix some limit when even that qualification should no longer serve him; and if it was found that mental incapacitation commenced at sixty years, with the average of educated men, that was probably a safe period of limitation. It must, however, be acknowledged, that new lights in the science of government have been pouring in upon us the last fifty years with astonishing rapidity and unexampled exuberance. If we can not discover the origin and cause of the Asiatic cholera, nor detect the peculiar miasma which invigorates this most appalling of modern plagues, who will venture to doubt the capacity of man at this time to originate and perfect such municipal rules of government, as, acting upon the mind, and giving it a direction, must inevitably produce a terrestrial millennium.

Judge Wharry was chosen one of the delegates from this county, in 1801, to the convention called under the authority of an act of the state legislature. He had been elected in the spring of 1800 to the assembly, with George Widrig and Nathan Smith, and was consequently a member of that house when the act authorizing the call was passed. He was again chosen member of assembly in the county, at the spring elections of 1803 and 1804, with Samuel Wright and George Widrig, and the legislative session of 1805 ended his career as a representative of the people of the county. Judge Wharry's position during the revolutionary war enabled him to form a personal acquaintance with Washington, Knox, Hamilton, Burr, George Clinton and other distinguished leaders in that mighty effort in the conquest of freedom and assertion of right. He was an active and zealous politician, and the reader may have noticed his intimate connection and association with Matthias B. Tallmadge. They both came from the same part of the state into the county, although not in the same year.

The upper section of the Mohawk valley was growing into importance; it had been partially occupied along the borders of the river, by an indomitable race of men, since 1724, whose opportunities and facilities for schooling had been extremely limited, owing to their insulated frontier situation, and whose theoretical and practical education were circumscribed to their farming pursuits. This was true of the German population generally, at the opening of the last decade of the eighteenth century, but there were exceptions, and even at that early day, a few educated and well-informed men were found among them. The country, outside of the limits occupied by the German population, north and south, was fast filling up with the Anglo-Saxon race and the descendants of the pilgrims, and the crash of the mighty forests, prostrated by the sturdy blows of the New England axman, was echoed from hill to hill, and rumbled through every valley. Here there was opening a wide and fruitful field for the operation of politicians. I have in another place stated, somewhat at large, the reasons which induced me to suppose that the leading men of the anti-federal or republican party in this state took a deep interest in the political affairs of this frontier.

Governor George Clinton was well, acquainted with Judge Wharry in Orange county, during the war, and after its close; and he was aware that the judges occupation as a surveyor would necessarily require him to be much abroad among the inhabitants, running and marking boundary lines in a new country. This, I think, must have led the governor to direct Wharry's attention to this quarter as a desirable field of operations, professionally and politically.

It will be remarked that Judge Wharry was brought into public life soon after he became an inhabitant of the county; and let it be remembered, that he continued an active and prominent politician until after the close of Governor George Clinton's career in this state. I have left unnoticed several of the minor incidents of the judges life, which would interest the reader, but my purpose is to deal with time public acts of individuals, which are connected with this county. The subject of this notice died at his residence, in the town of Little Falls, in the month of April, 1831, aged 82 years. His wife, the daughter of Joseph Belknap, of Newburgh, Orange county, whom he married near the close of the war, survived him several years, and died a few years since, at a very advanced age. She was, in many respects, a very remarkable woman. He left several daughters. He had one or two sons, who left the county many years ago. He died on the spot he had converted to a fruitful field from a dense forest, where he had lived to see his country free, prosperous and happy.

Descended from German parents, but was, I believe, born in this country. I have but little information in respect to the incidents of his life and character, and therefore my sketch must be limited, On the development of political parties at the accession of Mr. Jefferson, he appears to have ranged himself with the republicans. He was seven years in succession chosen a member of assembly in this county, and every year with politicians of his own party, with perhaps one or two exceptions. He was first elected in the spring of 1800. His colleagues, during this long period of service, were Nathan Smith, who served two terms, Evans Wharry, three, Samuel Wright, five, Samuel Merray, Jr., Stephen Miller, Eldad Corbit and John Kennedy, each one term. But few public men in this county have enjoyed the confidence and retained the regards of his fellow citizens to such an extent. He resided many years, if not all his life, within the present limits of the town of Frankfort, near the western borders of the county, after Oneida was erected, where he closed a long and well spent life. Being a major-general of militia during the war of 1812, he was desirous that his division should be called into service to defend his country; but failing in this effort, yet resolved to mingle with her patriotic defenders, and there being no other place where he could serve, in consequence of his military rank, he joined the wagon train one campaign, and served as a teamster.

Who for a time filled a large space in the public regard, was a native of Connecticut, and lived in that state and in Massachusetts until he came into this state, when a young man, and settled upon the highlands in the town of Norway, about the period of the first settlement of the Royal grant by New England emigrants, and commenced the practice of medicine, which he pursued several years, traversing the by-paths of the then dense wilderness on foot, with his saddlebags on his arm. At this time the old town of Norway embraced a portion of the present town of Fairfield, the whole of Newport, and other parts of the northerly part of the county. He subsequently removed to the valley of the West Canada creek, near the present village of Newport, where he established himself, selecting a beautiful spot of ground on the eastern shore of the creek, on which he erected a beautiful mansion for those times, improved his grounds surrounding it, and spent the remainder of his life, to within a few years of his death, in the practice of his profession. Doctor Willoughby was about twenty years professor of midwifery and of the diseases of women and children, in the college of physicians and surgeons in the western district of New York, established at Fairfield, and during a considerable portion of that time was president of the institution. He was highly distinguished in his profession, and a remarkably public spirited and benevolent man. His position and influence while in the prime and vigor of manhood, contributed largely to the support of the college, and he was among the first who exerted themselves to establish that once highly flourishing and useful institution.

Doctor Willoughby was twice chosen member of the assembly with John M. Petrie and Aaron Budlong, at two successive elections in 1807 and 1808. Being elected at the April elections of those years, he did not take his seat until the sessions held the following winter. Although a man of much learning in his profession, I am not aware that he was accustomed to speak often or to any extent in a legislative body. This was at the first election of Governor Tompkins in 1807. At the election in 1808, the federalists obtained a majority in the assembly, but Doctor Willoughby was not one of that majority.

He was appointed one of the judges of the court of common pleas of the county in March, 1805, and was continued in that commission until March, 1821. Doctor Willoughby belonged to the medical staff of the militia of the county during the war of 1812, and was at Sackets Harbor and on the frontier, whenever his country required his services in that direction. He was elected to congress from the district composed of the counties of Madison and Herkimer in 1814, and must have taken his seat the year following, as his congressional term did not commence till the 4th of March, 1815. My information of his public course as a legislator, is too limited to permit me to speak of it with any particularity. From his connection with the dominant political party in the county and state, I suppose he belonged to the republican party of the times. In the division of that party into bucktail and Clintonian sections, he adhered to the latter.

Dr. Willoughby died at Newport, in this county, in the year 1844, aged seventy-five years.

Was a resident of Herkimer village, where he was several years engaged in mercantile business. After the erection of Oneida county, Mr. Woodruff was appointed sheriff of this county in the place of William Colbreath, who retained that office in Oneida.

Mr. Woodruff was first appointed March 19th, 1798, and held the office by reappointment annually till March 17th, 1802. He died at Herkimer, May 10th, 1810, aged 41 years.

In several respects, possessed peculiarities of character which are worthy of extended notice. Although cut down at a mature age, he bad already achieved, without the adventitious aids of fortune or family connections, or a popular profession, and laboring under all the disadvantages of a very limited early education, the highest offices in the gift of the people of this county. He had accomplished this, by force of a strong native intellect, cultivated and improved by application and study, in hours of relaxation from work at his trade. He was emphatically a self-made man. His mind was not cast in the mold which gave forth scintillations of wit and fancy, and if it had been, the want of an early polish did not afford any opportunity of bringing them out. His mind was more like that of Roger Sherman, the Connecticut shoemaker, as shadowed forth in the Madison papers, in the debates on the federal constitution, than that of any other public man within my knowledge.

He was a native of Danbury, Connecticut; born the 17th February, 1779, and died suddenly at Newport, in this county, May 21st, 1833, aged 54 years, 3 months and 4 days. He came to Ballston Spa, in 1787, where be was apprenticed to a hatter. In 1801, he removed to Utica, where he remained working at his trade, until 1804; when he finally settled permanently in Newport, in this county. He was married a short time before this removal, and his wife survived him, and is still living. He carried on his mechanical business a few years after he came to the county, but finally devoted his whole time and attention to the discharge of the duties of various public offices and trusts, principally of a local character, at the early stages of his official career. Besides other town offices, he held those of supervisor and justice of the peace, many years. The former being a town elective office, it was seldom, if ever, a candidate could be brought out against him, who could carry a majority of the electors. He was a faithful and diligent magistrate, and his official conduct generally received the public approval. He was appointed, by the governor and senate, one of the judges of the court of common pleas of the county, in April, 1828, and held the place one term only. He declined a reappointment.

Mr. Wooster's name was first presented to the people of the county, for an elective office, in 1821. He was that year chosen a delegate to the convention called to revise the constitution, of 1777. He was known to the people of the county to be firm, but moderate in his political notions, and the use of his name, at that time, aided materially in securing the election of the republican delegates, in the county, which had very recently cast a small majority against the call of the convention.

A particular reference to Mr. Wooster's votes, on the various important and interesting propositions brought before the convention, in settling the principles of the constitution of 1821, do not seem to me to be called for, at this time. He must be ranked with the movement party, in the convention, of which the principal leaders were, Gen. Root, Gov. Tompkins and Col. Young, although he did not always vote with them, on several of the propositions which they advocated. He was in several instances found arrayed against Mr. Van Buren, on votes where that distinguished member of the convention had made able and zealous efforts to carry a majority of the convention with him. On the whole, Mr. Wooster's course in the convention was highly satisfactory to his political friends in the county, and placed him in a prominent position as a public man. He approved of, and voted for the constitution, as framed and submitted to the people, and I make the above qualification because a large minority of the electors in the county voted against that instrument. Mr. Wooster was neither an ambitious nor a turbulent politician. He was cool, deliberative and conscientious, and seldom gave any public measure his approval simply on the ground of public expediency.

At the November election in 1822, he was chosen one of the four state senators elected in the fifth senate district, under the constitution recently adopted. On taking his seat he drew the long term of four years. Although he was elected in an almost political calm, nearly the whole term of his service in the senate, from January 1st, 1823, to January, 1827, was one of the most stormy and exciting periods. In the political history of this state that has occurred; and we have not, before or since, been unfrequently visited by political tornadoes, which not only baffle all description, but set at defiance the ingenuity of man to discover or detect the true causes of their origin. Such is the opinion entertained of us in other states. Even an attempted elucidation of problems of this sort would be unsuited to our purpose.

The political agitations preceding the election of Mr. Monroe's successor, did not commence until after Mr. Wooster's election, and he was consequently not subjected to any personal pledges in regard to that subject. He was left free to ascertain the opinions and wishes of his constituents in the best way he could, and act accordingly. In regard to the celebrated electoral law, which has been necessarily mentioned in the preceding pages of this work, he voted for its postponement to a future day, which was beyond the succeeding annual election, and this was therefore considered a virtual rejection of the bill by its friends, and it was so, in fact, in reference to the pending election. Hence his name, associated with others, as one of the famous SEVENTEEN SENATORS, was pasted up in black letter in public barrooms, and had a conspicuous place in most of the newspapers which advocated the passage of the law. Neither Mr. Wooster nor his friends considered him materially damaged by a proceeding of this sort. At any rate, there never was a body of men so resolutely sustained by their friends in subsequent political conflicts, as were these same seventeen senators, and the names of Bronson, Dudley, Earl, Livingston, Suydam, and Wright, have not been unfamiliar names at the polls of election for more than twenty years. But Mr. Wooster was friendly to Mr. Crawford's elevation to the presidency, and if he supposed the best interests of the country would be promoted by his election, as he no doubt did, was he not fully justifiable in adopting every legitimate expedient to effect his object and defeat the measures of his opponents? I will not repeat what has been elsewhere stated in regard to the choice of electors by the people, but it is impossible to avoid the conclusion which forces itself upon all familiar with the politics of this state for the last half century, that if the contest in 1824 had been confined to two candidates, the selection of the two great political parties, the controversy about the electoral law would have ended where it began, within the walls of the two houses. This was a contest for political power by the adherents of numerous presidential aspirants, and involved no principle of government acting upon the masses of the community beyond one single election, and so long as the legislature so exercised the powers conferred by law as to be the true exponents of the will of the majority of the electors, the political party or politicians, acting in conformity to this idea, risked but little with friends, when their "sober second thoughts" were appealed to. When the parties come to reflect upon what had been done, and the whole ground had been surveyed, the voters in this county by a majority of about six hundred, at the election in November, 1825, reversed the decision of the preceding year, by returning those members of the assembly who had heartily concurred in Mr. Wooster's course on the electoral law question, and thereby directly sanctioned his previous political course in the senate.

He was elected to the assembly of this state in the fall of 1832, with Dudley Burwell and Joseph M. Prendergast, and was consequently a member of the house of assembly when he died. His votes in the house during the session of 1833, on all the important questions which came up for discussion, were in accordance with his preexisting and expressed opinions. He was opposed to all projects of internal improvements, such as the Chenango canal, whose eventualities were the entailment of a certain debt upon the state, without the slightest prospect of reimbursement from income, even to the extent of the ordinary expenses of repairs. He was one of those statesmen who did not esteem it prudent to contract a debt to develop the resources of a section of country, whose trade and business was not sufficient to maintain and superintend the work constructed; and on this question he agreed in opinion, not only with a large majority of the people of the county, but with many distinguished men in the state. This, it is true, is a subject which has afforded, and always will, a wide range of discussion, and even fair-minded men might possibly entertain antagonistic views in regard to particular projects, and even the general proposition as above stated; but that generation on whom the burden of canceling the debt might be cast, would not be likely to disagree in regard to the wisdom or prudence of measures that submerged their country in debt. It is difficult to limit the powers of commerce, or even to define the extent of taxation or burden a highly commercial people can bear, without materially affecting the healthful action of trade. Our own experience as a nation shows the paralyzing effects and the ruinous consequences of an overshadowing and crushing public and private indebtedness; and it shows, too, that an animated but steady application to industrial pursuits, aided by extensive commercial relations, how soon a people can wipe out and even forget financial embarrassments. We have only to look at a kindred nation, whose annual revenues exceed our own five fold, and whose public debt, set down in figures, would seem ponderous enough "to crush out" seventeen millions of people; yet we see that nation adding millions to the annual burdens of its subjects, and fitting out naval armaments sufficiently extensive to blockade the approaches by sea of a power whose boundaries circumscribe a large portion of two continents, and some portion of a third, and whose ambition reaches to grasp at a fourth, and this mighty effort is sustained by the power of commerce and trade, domestic and foreign, without seeming to disturb in the least the general prosperity of the country. But here we must pause. The people of the most powerful nations on the continent of Europe, with the exception of France, and she is sustained by internal and external trade, are literally groaning under the burden of taxation, much of it being required to pay the interest on public debt; and so little credit have many of their governments with the money kings of the day, that they can not negotiate a loan except at a ruinous discount of fifteen or twenty per cent. The credit of an impoverished country, or whose subjects are ripe for rebellion, will not command a premium with modern money lenders.

There are but few men in the walks of civil life, and especially those whose minds have been embellished with nothing more than a common school education, who burst forth like meteors, blaze for a moment, attract universal attention, and then become as suddenly extinguished and forgotten. This, however, was the brief course of Mr. Wright in this county. He came from Vermont, and settled within the limits of the present town of Russia, about the year 1793, where he engaged in the business of farming, which, in a new country, consists, for the first few years, in opening roads, clearing up lands, and erecting such buildings as may be required for family purposes.

So soon as the country around him had become pretty well filled up with population, he opened a country store, and traded in "West India and dry goods," not neglecting the "cod fish," a very needful article to a full assortment for the country trade in those days. Having made successful progress in farming and merchandising, Mr. Wright next turned his attention to politics, in which he prospered remarkably well for a time. He was elected member of assembly in 1802, and the four following years. He appears to have been the standing candidate of his party, with General Widrig, for a long time, but his popularity could not always last. Dr. Westel Willoughby, Jr., was a townsman of Mr. Wright, all the northern part of the county then being embraced in Norway, a rising man, and competed vigorously with him for popular favor. Notwithstanding his extraordinary native talents and indomitable Yankee perseverance, Mr. Wright was compelled to yield the palm of victory to his rival. At the election, in 1806, his vote was the lowest of three members who obtained certificates of election, and even then was defeated by the popular votes. Willoughby's official canvass was only 43 below Wright's, and this after 63 votes, intended for the former, had been rejected for informality.

In the winter of 1805, the Merchants Bank, of the City of New York, was chartered, after being strongly opposed, but not without strong suspicions and direct charges of bribery and corruption; and Ebenezer Purdy, a senator, "who introduced in the senate the bill to incorporate the company, finally was compelled to resign his seat, to avoid expulsion for bribery." On the 16th of March, 1805, Luke Metcalf, a member of assembly, made a statement under oath, which was laid before the house, to the effect that Mr. Wright told him, there were fifteen shares of the stock for each member who would favor or vote for the bill incorporating the bank, which would be worth twenty-five per cent on the nominal price of the stock. That Wright afterwards asked Metcalf if he remained opposed to the bank, and being answered in the affirmative, Wright then said, the same provision would be made for those members who would absent themselves, when the vote was taken on the bill, as for those who should be present and vote for it.

Wr. Wright was twice elected to the assembly after his vote on the bank bill, and after this expose; it was not, however, generally known to his constituents, in April1805, that he was suspected of improper practices in regard to the incorporation of this bank. His two colleagues in the assembly also voted for the bill, but were not charged with foul conduct, in procuring its passage. The republican party at this time was hostile to the granting of bank charters, the leading men of the party fearing the influence their managers, who were generally federalists, would be able to exert at the elections, by the influence they would give. Governor Lewis, however, favored the incorporation of this bank; and gave an approving vote for it in the council of revision, when it was objected to by Ambrose Spencer, judge of the supreme court, on the ground that the passage of the bill was procured in both houses by bribery of the members.

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