Landmarks of Rensselaer county, New York, pt 2 - 3, Part 1

Author: Anderson, George Baker
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 1424

USA > New York > Rensselaer County > Landmarks of Rensselaer county, New York, pt 2 - 3 > Part 1

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Gc 974.701 R29a pt.2 & 3 1835963

REYNOLDS HISTORICAL CENEALOGY COLLECTION

ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01178 3633

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https://archive.org/details/landmarksofrenss23ande

4487

LANDMARKS

RENSSELAER COUNTY

NEW YORK

pt. 3

BY GEORGE BAKER ANDERSON

PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE TROY PRESS

William Lingui.

SYRACUSE, N. Y. D. MASON & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

1897

1835963

PART II.

BIOGRAPHICAL.

Martin & Townsend

BIOGRAPHICAL.

MARTIN I. TOWNSEND.

MARTIN INGHAM TOWNSEND, of Troy, N. Y., is descended from ancestors who, for more than two centuries, have dwelt in this country. His primal progenitor in America was Martin Townsend, of Watertown, Mass, who was born in 1614, fourteen years after the settlement of Boston. In 1668 he married Abigail Train, daughter of John Train, of Watertown, and their youngest son, Jonathan, was born in 1687. Jonathan removed to Hebron, Conn., about 1714, married, and one of his children, who was named Martin, was born in 1727, and married Rhoda Ingham, of the Inghams of eastern Connecticut. Among the children of Martin and Rhoda was a Martin, who was born at Hebron in 1756, who was brought to Hancock, Mass., in 1765, and who married Susannah Allen, of Hancock. One of the children of this marriage was Nathaniel, who was born September 4, 1781, and who died July 20, 1865. In 1805 he married Cynthia Marsh, of Hinsdale, Mass., who was born March 5, 1983, and who died April 2, 1876. Of their four children two still survive, one of whom is Martin I. Townsend, the subject of this sketch, who was born at Hancock, Berkshire county, Mass., on the 6th day of February, 1810.

As has already been noted, he mherits on his father's side the blood of the Ing- hams of Connecticut and of the Trains of Massachusetts. Through his mother he claims descent from Miles Standish, the citizen-soldier of the Pilgrim Fathers, and also trom Heury Adams, of Bramtree. In 1516 Mr. Townsend was removed with his parents to Williamstown, Mass, and was educated at the common schools of that village, at the academy there situated, and at Williams College. At the latter institution he was graduated in 1833; and at the commencement of his class, by reason of his scholarship, he received the second appointment in the literary exer- ercises of that occasion. He took his master's degree in the regular course, and was honored with the degree of LL. D. by his alma mater in 1866. After gradu- ating he read law for a few months in the office of David Dudley Field in New York city; but, having removed to Troy, N. Y., on the 1st day of December, 1833, he immediately thereafter entered the office of Henry Z. Hayner as a law student, and so continued for a year and a half. In May, 1835, he became clerk in the office of his elder brother, Rufus M. Townsend, and in 1836 became his partner in the prae- tice of the law. The connection thus formed continued until July, 1882. It was in 1836 also that he married Louisa B., the daughter of Oren Kellogg, esq., of Williams-

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town, Mass., a lady who for more than fifty-four years aided in making his cheerful life still more cheerful, and who, by her noble presence and pleasing ways, like mel- low sunlight, surrounded him with homelike happiness as he treaded with unfailing step and buoyant mien the bright pathway of his days. She died November 19, 1890.

In 1838 Mr. Townsend was a candidate for member of assembly when his party- which was then the Democratic party -- was in a minority of about 1,000 in the city of Troy. In the canvass he ran ahead of his ticket, but was defeated. He was dis- triet attorney for the county of Rensselaer from 1812 to 1815. He represented the Eighth ward of Troy in the Common Council of that city from May, 1842, to May, 1843, and from March, 1856, to March, 1858. He was a member for the State at large in the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York in 1866-67. By striet attention to his duties, and by his graphic and intelligent expositions of the subjects which were considered by that body, he won the esteem of his learned asso- ciates and maintained the honor of the district which he specially represented. In the year 1869 he was nominated on the Republican State ticket, without his knowl- edge, for the position of attorney-general, but was defeated, with other State candi- dates associated with him, by the machinations and overwhelming frauds-as they are now recognized to be-of Tammany Hall. In 1872 Mr. Townsend was chair- man of the New York Republican delegation in the convention at Philadelphia which renominated General Grant for the presidency. It will be remembered that Mr. Greeley was then the candidate of the opposition. Mr. Townsend, in announcing the vote of New York, spoke as follows: " The Empire State, by the unanimous voice of her delegates, has instructed ine to cast her seventy votes for that man of whom our distinguished fellow-citizen Horace Greely has said, ' lle never has been beaten and never will be,' Ulysses S. Grant." He was chosen by the Legislature in 1873 a regent of the University of the State of New York to fill the vacancy ocea- sioned by the death of llon. John A. Griswold, and still holds that position. In the fall of 1874 he was elected representative for the 44th Congress for the 17th Con- gressional district, and was re-elected to the same position in the 45th Congress in the fall of 1876. He declined a second re-election.

In his chosen profession of the law Mr. Townsend early gained a prominent posi- tion, which he not only maintained while the men with whom he began his career surrounded him, but which he still maintains as he encounters the young blood and the fresh vigor of a new generation. While serving as district attorney of the county of Rensselaer he secured the conviction of Henry G. Green and Henry Miller upon the charge of murder, and both of these offenders suffered the extreme penalty of the law. Always believing that a slave escaping into a free State must, under the Constitution, be returned by the Federal government to his master, Mr. Townsend was most active in extending to the slave so escaping every right that the law could give him, and all the aid which would naturally flow from a sympathizing humanity. He vigorously defended the only two slaves who in Rensselaer county appealed to the courts for protection during his connection with the bar. To one of these, Antonio Louis, who was arrested as a fugitive in 1842 his right to liberty was established; and to the other, Charles Nalle, freedom came on the 27th of April, 1860, he having been taken on that day by an excited people from the custody of the United States marshal while Mr. Townsend and other gentlemen were waiting

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BIOGRAPHICAL.

in the office of the late George Gould, a justice of the Supreme Court, for the return of a writ of habeas corpus that had been issued in behalf of Nalle. He was asso- ciate counsel for the defense in the celebrated trial of Henrietta Robinson for the murder of Timothy Lanagan, Mrs. Robinson was known as the " veiled murderess, ' from the fact that she persisted in wearing a veil which concealed her face during the trial, and which no threat or inducement could lead her to remove, except for a few moments on two or three occasions. The trial commenced at Troy on Monday, May 22, 1854, and was concluded late in the evening of Saturday on the 2ith of the same month, by the rendition of a verdiet of guilty. Mr. Townsend's argument on this occasion was based upon the idea of the insanity of the prisoner at the time the alleged crime was committed, and was peculiarly eloquent, comprehensive, discrim- inating, and exhaustive. The cases adduced by him in support of this theory were specially applicable, and the references to authorities in maintenance of his position demonstrated the research, investigation and study which he had bestowed on the subject. The execution was appointed for August 3, 1854, but on the 27th of July, a week previous to the fatal day, Governor Clark, in the exercise of the great pre- rogative of his office, commuted her sentence to that of imprisonment for life in the Sing Sing prison. There she was soon after taken and at once found by the prison authorities to be insane, and there she remained until a few years ago, when she was placed in the asylum at Anburn foi insane criminals. It is understood that she is now in the prison for the insane at Matteawan. In the thoughtful mind the ques- tion arises whether the insanity which affected her in prison, and has now settled down on her permanently, was not in 1853 the shadowing cloud that then obscured on her troubled nature the distinction between right and wrong, and, as her learned advocate claimed, produced in her an abnormal and irresponsible condition.

Mr. Townsend has always held an advanced position in law reform, and was early a favorer of measures adopted by this State, enabling parties in eivil actions to be witnesses in their own cause, husbands and wives to be witnesses for and against each other in both civil and criminal actions, and allowing alleged criminals to testify in their own behalf. For more than forty years he has been connected with most of the important litigations in Rensselaer county, always maintaining the character of a zealous, indefatigable and accomplished lawver. In arguing a ques- tion of law to the court, the clearness with which he defines his position is specially noticeable. A statement of the principle supposed to be involved is followed by the application of that principle to the case in hand, and then, by apt illustration and by subtle and cogent reasoning, the legal aspect of the ease is developed, and the par- tieular rule which should govern in its decision is evolved and proclaimed. But it is before a jury that the strong and salient powers of his mind are most apparent. His analysis of the subject in hand is searching, skillful and exhaustive. Not a point that can make for his client is left undisclosed, not a statement hurtful to him is adduced, but it is sifted with the most penetrative scrutiny and surrounded with all the doubts that can be raised as to its truthfulness. If he is engaged for the de- fence in a criminal ease, and if it has been shown that his client possesses any trait of character that challenges admiration, such possession is enlarged npou until it spreads out like a mantle of the broadest charity, and is made to cover any inequali- ties of disposition, temper, or conduct that may have been developed to that client s chsadvantage. Yet while his defence is obstinate and protective, his attack is

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trenchant, aggressive and pertinacious. The war is carried into the enemy's coun- try with such dash and courage, and with such appearance of belief in the strength of every position taken, that not infrequently, in desperate cases even, "out of the nettle of danger" he has plucked " the flower of safety."

As a politician Mr. Townsend, during his whole career, has been true to his con- vietions; and those convictions have not sprung from a low standard of political ethics, but have been always referable to an elevated idea of the value and right of personal liberty, Ile was a Democrat until 1818, but was at all times unhesitatingly and openly opposed to slavery, and when in that year the convention that nominated General Cass for president of the United States resolved that it was proper that the territories of the nation should become slave soil, he snapped the ties which had bound him since manhood to a party that had thus disregarded its own traditions, and at Troy June 3, 1818, addressed the first publie meeting convened in the United States to protest against tho pro-slavery action of the Democratic party, and for the consideration of those assembled on that occasion he prepared and presented a series of resolutions advocating the principles of free seil, free speech and free men, and these resolutions were then adopted. From that time forward he has always been the able and conscientious apostle and advocate of those principles and aspirations, which, lying at the foundation of the movements of the Barnburners of New York, who in 1848 nominated Martin Van Buren for the presidency, became more clearly defined in the position of the Free-soil Democracy as taken by them in the nomina- tion of John P. Ilale for president in 1852, and which culminated in the formation of the Republican party, when it first presented itself as a national organization in 1856, and nominated John C. Fremont for the presidency.

During the Rebellion he was the earnest and outspoken upholder of the govern- ment in its efforts to maintain the integrity of the Union. So marked was his ad- vocacy, and so unsparing was he in his denunciation of traitors and treason, that during the draft riots of July 15, 1863, the mob sacked his house in Troy, and either carried off or destroyed or injured nearly all articles of personal property that it con- tained. On becoming a member of the House of Representatives at Washington in 1875 he at once assumed the position of a careful observer of all that was passing about him, and was at all times ready to approve or condemn intelligently the various measures presented to him, in common with other members for consideration. But it was not until the House entered upon the discussion of the Centennial Bill that all its members became aware of the mental energy, keen humor, brilliant thought and illustrative power embodied in the personality of Mr. Townsend. On the 20th of January, 1876, in a speech favoring the appropriation of $1,500,000 for securing the success of the centennial celebration of the origin of the nation, he took occa- sion to display the inconsistencies of those who opposed the appropriation on the ground that it was contrary to the Constitution. During its, delivery he received the marked attention of all present, and his effective sallies of wit and searching analy- ses of conduct, illumined with occasional pleasantries enunciated with clearness and made completely impressive by the force of his own indomitable and peculiar oratory, raised him at once to the level of the most practiced debaters of the House. Com- menting upon his speech, one who heard it wrote, " No printed report can convey a sense of the impression produced on the delighted audience, nor show how deftly, in the midst of all the merriment, the logical results of the war, the clemeney of the

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Union, the worth of the nation to all its citizens, and the wisdom and right of the United States to set forth evidence of its advancement at Philadelphia were all stated with that power of suggestion which is often more potent than labored argument."

The editor of Harper's Weekly, introductory to an epitome of this speech said, on February 19, 1876. " It was a perfect rebuke to the insolence of Mr. Hill, and it was a distinct announcement to that gentleman and his friends, that, although they have ' come back to the Union to stay', they have not come back to rule. The gay- ety of the speech, its wholesome humor, and its kindly and friendly spirit did not in the least conceal the clear perception and the resolute conviction and determination of the speaker. The undertone was one to which every generous and loyal heart responds. Indeed, there cannot well be found a more characteristic and admirable expression of the feeling and purpose of the dominant party in this country than this speech of Mr. Townsend's.

"There is no vindictiveness of feeling, no rancor, no desire to recall the war for the sake of crimination, no feeling but a hearty wish for concord; but also no forgetful- ness of the facts of our history and of human nature, no doubt of the absolute justice of the cause of the Union in the war, no question of the infinite national dishonor and degradation wrought by the long ascendency of the Democratie party ; a pro- found contempt for the old fashioned slave-holding violence and the northern sub- servience to it which have reappeared in the Democratic House; and an equal scorn for the fine spun quiddities of 'striet constructionists.'"

Among his other able speeches was his argument in favor of transferring the In- dian Bureau to the War Department, delivered April 28, 1876; his observations on the protection of the Texas frontier, presented on July 12 and 18, 1876, and his re- marks relative to the settlement of the title of Governor Hayes to the office of presi- dent of the United States, made on Jannary 26, February 20 and 21, and March 2, 1877.

But not alone as a lawyer and politician is Mr. Townsend distinguished. As a man of high culture and of attaimments in the field of letters he is also well and favorably known. Among his miscellaneous writings are several of a high order. His essay entitled "Saxon and Celt," being a brief argument designed to show the influence of the Bible; his address on " Labor " before the alummi of Williams Col- loge; his occasional papers and his speeches, as set forth in the debates of the Con- stitutional Convention of the State of New York; his published lecture upon the origin of the prehistorie structures in Central America and Peru, allevince extended reading, thorough research, and a full appreciation of the topies severally presented.

The extraet following is from the address at Williams College above alluded to:

" That man who fells the giant forest which for ages has dominated the soil, or turns the flowery sod upon the boundless prairie and commits to its bosom the bread- yielding corn-that man whose moistened brow and stalwart arm are bending over the fierce fires that sparkle in yonder workshop as the carth-born metals are moulded to meet the million wants of life-that man whose ceaseless toil brings low the hills and exalts the valleys, or who delves in the bowels of mountains, old as the morning of creation, that he may prepare a highway for the commercial and social intercourse of man -. each of them is doing the will of God, and performing the work which he has for each of them to do. They are all 'dressing and keeping' God's garden, and subduing the earth which they inhabit. From the hum of yonder spinning wheels

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and factory looms there rises an anthem more sacred than choir of cloistered nuns ever hymned; and that tireless mother, whose waking eyes prevent the watches of the night, as she plies her busy needle to clothe and feed her little ones, is offering to God a sacrifice sweeter than the Arabian incense which burns upon priestly altars. Let none who serve their race, their country, or their family by active labor, whether mental or physical, for a moment doubt that their work will be accepted by Him whose eyes see all, and whose rewards, the consequences of well-doing, can no more fail than can the system which He has instituted and which He constantly upholds."

Mr. Townsend, at the age of eighty-six years and a half, is in fine health and in the diligent practice of his profession.

Mr. Townsend is a man of enormous reading and general culture. Books have always been his daily and nightly companions. There are probably very few men in the country who have so large a fund of correct and ready information on all topics, especially those of historical, scientific, theological, political, and economic interest, for he has been a student of such matters for seventy years, and never has forgotten a fact or an argument that he has learned. His talents approach near to genius, and his life should have been that of a statesman rather than a lawyer. Mr. Townsend writes in a style of remarkable clearness and vigor. It may be said of him-and it can be said of very few men who have spoken and written so much- that he never spoke or wrote a dry or unsuggestive line in his life.

The sturdy integrity and grand nobility and humanity of his character have en- deared him to the people of his county, of whom for nearly half a century he has been the conceded "representative man." In his own revered person he illustrates one saying of the Book which he knows and loves so well . The hoary head is a crown of glory when it is found in the way of righteousness."

Mr. Townsend was originally well-grounded in the principles of the law and never has forgotten anything he once learned. Add to this that he has an unusual power of discrimination and the faculty of instantly seizing on the determining point of a case, and it is apparent that he has the equipment of a strong advocate. At his best, and when spurred by special incitement, a stronger advocate has seldom entered a court room. Few men have ever possessed the faculty of addressing a jury with greater effect. Always aggressive, he attacked the weak points of his adversary's case and slutred over those of his own. His theory was to keep the other side "on the run."

In dealing with questions of science, in which his large reading always gave him an advantage over lawyers who simply " crammed" for an occasion, he was con- spicuously able. Ilis tact in seizing on some extraneous circumstance or incident in a trial and converting it to his client's use was illustrated in an amusing way in the trial of an action brought against a steamboat company for the death or injury of a passenger by a boiler explosion. The defendant's counsel, the late Willliam A. Beach, deprecated a large or any verdiet on the ground that it would come out of the pockets of the widows and other poor people who owned the stock. Mr. Town- send convulsed the jury and audience by enumerating some of the " widows" who held the stock-" the widow, Cornelius Vanderbilt; the widow, Daniel Drew," and others.

His fertility in expedients was illustrated in the case of the fugitive slave, Nalle, when he was tracked to Troy by his master and was on the point of being remanded

BIOGRAPHICAL. 579

to slavery. Mr. Townsend, well knowing that a State habeas corpus writ was of no avail against the United States authorities, if the papers were regular, but presuming that no State judge would care to meur the fine of $1,000 for refusing one, demanded and procured one from a State judge, the late George Gould, by virtue of which the Rensselaer county sheriff took Nalle from the United States marshal and brought him into the street to carry him to that judge. The crowd " did the rest ;" thereby vindicating Mr. Townsend's confident expectation.

His addresses to the jury have been frequently marked by apt and striking refer- ences to matters of history or common experience, and especially to Seripture. He has been an unusually successful advocate, not only because of his forensie powers, but because he has had the sagacity rarely to try a bad case in publie-he has tried such by reference or has settled them out of court.

In the appellate courts he has achieved some famous triumphs. Chief among these was the case of Benjamin Marshall's will, upon the first reading of which Mr. Townsend declared that a fund of $150,000, claimed by the trustees under the will to belong to a trust fund created by the will to carry on Marshall's factories by the trustees for the benefit of the Marshall Infirmary, belonged in fact to the next of kin of Mr. Marshall. The final decision, after eight years of litigation, sustained Mr. Townsend's opinion and carried to Marshall's kindred about $175,000, being the original sum and its increments.

Mr. Townsend has been during the last few years a genuine inspiration to any one who may have occasional dark and unanswered doubts about the future after death. He is a constant intimation of immortality. The freshness and buoyancy of a peren- nially youthful spirit, the strength and manliness of a vigorous mind at maturity, with no sign of failing powers, the optimism of intellectual health, are most remark- able and prominent in this remarkable man, That he has been a keen, incisive thinker and lawyer -- a man of lightning perceptions, of tenacions memory, of the rare gift of bringing to bear on any subject a happy illustration in some capital story; that he has been a persuasive and at times a wonderfully interesting orator, can truthfully be said of him; and it would be enough to say of almost any man. Surely few could ever hope to have so much said save in flattery. But to state that to-day at his advanced age these traits and gifts are still abundantly present is to athrin what is the fact and is equivalent to saying that no one in this country ever was in these respects more remarkable at his age, Indeed it may be doubted whether any one of his rare gifts has preserved them undimmed into his eighty-sev- enth year. The world at large could not have known the more endearing qualities of the man, for they were of the heart, betrayed in kindly acts, uniform cheerfulness and unusual consideration for those intimately associated with him. But every one has known, and it is not affectation which prompts the statement, but simply observa- tion which has been common to all who have known hin. at all, that his judgment upon, and attitude toward public questions -- political, theological and social --- are those of a healthy, vigorous, young man. Though his body grows old, his mind and heart are still as sound as they were fifty years ago and suggest that they need not decay as the body wastes away, but may go on to unlimited development.

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Landmarks of Rensselaer county, New York, pt 2 - 3, Part 1

Author: Anderson, George Baker Publication date: 1897 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co. Number of Pages: 1424

Author: Anderson, George Baker
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 1424