USA > New York > Ontario County > A history of Ontario County, New York and its people, Volume I > Part 8
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"William H. Harrison, the mainstay-Matty, the flying jib."
The Farmington delegation was large and furnished some of the best timber on the ground.
The scene now became highly interesting and an mating. The street where the cabin was to be erected was literally blocked up with teams unloading the ma- terials they had borne. The large piazzas of the Ontario House were crowded with spectators, many of whom were ladies. The excellent band of music belonging to this village enliven- ed the scene with spirited strains. Per- haps never before has this village presented such a mingled scene of active bustle, good feeling, and enthusiastic de- light, as was evinced on this occasion.
At 11 o'clock, the first log, which was of live oak, and furnished by our worthy friend, Mr. Joel S. Hart, of Hopewell, was laid with appropriate ceremonies by our venerable and highly esteemed fel- low citizen, Abner Barlow, Esq., assisted by several of our oldest and most re- spected citizens. Mr. Barlow is now eighty-nine years old, and assisted in putting up some of the first log cabins ever erected in Ontario county and plant- ed the first field of wheat. west of Utica, which was some fifty years ago.
The concourse was briefly addressed, in a happy manner, by E. P. Parrish, the marshal of the day, after which the building began rapidly to rise.
Let us look now into the dining room of our host, Mr. Powers, and watch the busy note of preparation going on there. Long tables were spread out groaning under the weight of substan- tial articles which had been sent by ladies from the several towns, consisting of boiled ham, pork and beans, acres of Johnny cake and mince pies, pickles, doughnuts, and other articles too numer- ous to mention.
FRANCIS GRANGER.
Francis Granger, son of Gideon Granger, was born in Suffield, Conn., December 1, 1792; graduated from Yale College in 1811; removed with his father to Canandaigua in 1814; was a Member of Assembly from On- tario county from 1826 to 1828 and from 1830 to 1832; the unsuccessful anti-Masonic nominee for Governor of the State in 1830 and again in 1832, and in 1836 was the can- didate for Vice President on the unsuccessful Whig ticket headed by General William H. Harrison ; elected to Congress in 1835, and being returned at successive elections, continued to hold that office until in 1841, when he was called by President Har- rison to serve as Postmaster General, a posi- tion which he filled until, upon the death of his chief, Tyler became President and the Harrison cabinet was disrupted. Declining an appointment to a foreign mission and invitations to take other public office, he spent the rest of his life in comparative retirement in Canandaigua. It was from Mr. Granger's beautiful gray locks that the administration branch of the Whig party derived its name of "Silver Grays." Mr. Granger died in Canandaigua, August 31, 1868.
At the hour of 12, the dinner horn was heard at the door, and soon after the room was filled with the hardy sons who had been at work on the cabin, who partook bountifully of the fare and occasionally regaled themselves upon hard cider, the only beverage the use of which custom has sanctioned on such
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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
occasions, and which had been abundantly furnished by the committees of arrangements. At one o'clock a long procession appeared from Naples. To the Democratic Whigs of Naples belongs the honor of furnishing the flag staff to the log cabin; and a noble one it is, being nearly one hundred feet in length. The building went up rapidly and by four o'clock was ready to receive the flag staff, etc.
The Messenger, which was the Democratic or Van Buren organ, in describing the meeting, said that "One of the many odd contriv- ances to make up a show for the occasion was a large canoe, which was mounted on wagon wheels and drawn up and down the street by four horses. It was filled, continued the opposition organ, "with some thirty or forty assorted specimens of Whiggery." The Messenger saw a discouraging omen to the Whigs in the breaking of the cord just as the flag was being run up on a fine liberty pole. Then after referring to the speeches, it said that "a Connecticut singing master" came out on the platform of the tavern, and taking a pitch pipe from his pocket, commenced a song as follows :
"Come, all ye Log Cabin boys, we're going to have a raisin', We've got a job on hand that we think will be pleasin'; We'll turn out and build old Tip a new Cabin, And finish it off with chinkin' and daubin'."
In response to an encore, the singer then rendered a very classical parody on "Auld Lang Syne," beginning as follows :
"Should gude old cider be forgot, And never brought to mind."
The canoe mentioned was afterwards carried all over the county, its passengers always including a glee club. Singing was a feature of all the meetings, and the songs had a swing and pepper that set the whole country afire and that earned for them immor- tality in the Walhalla of campaign literature.
The Democratic opposition vainly attempted to offset the Whig's singing campaign, and one of their efforts, written by a local bard, was a song, "The Gathering of the Factions," to be sung at Canandaigua, on the 23rd of April, the date of the log cabin raising heretofore described, or, as the heading stated, "At the Raising of the Grocery for retailing old Federalism and hard cider." It read as follows:
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RISE OF ANTI-SLAVERY FEELING.
The Gathering of the Factions.
"Little wat ye wha's coming, Pierson's coming, Bemis's coming, Stout is coming, Worden's coming, Philpot's coming, Dwight is coming, Major General Granger's coming, Log Cabin Folks are a coming.
"Little wat ye wha's coming, Farnum's coming, Northrup's coming, John is coming, Paul is coming, Til and Jonas both are coming, Farmer Willson, too, is coming, A' the Working Men are coming.
"Little wat ye wha's coming, Orson's coming, Kibbe's coming, Hall is coming, Clark is coming. Hudson's coming, Jones is coming, Ottley's coming, Johnson's coming, Office Holders a' are coming.
"Little wat ye wha's coming,- Codding's coming, Frisbie's coming, The Doctor o' the cloak's coming. Pitts and Garlinghouse are coming, Robinson and Royce are coming, A' the Darkies sure are coming.
"Little wat we wha's coming,- Feds of ev'ry hue are coming :-- They gloom, they glower, they look sae big, At ilka lift, they'll take a swig. Till cider stills each Tory Whig :- Their gude old frien', the De'il's, coming."
A Tippecanoe muse furnished the Repository the following additional stanza to this song :
"Ah, little wat we wha's coming,- Stanch old Jackson men are coming,- With sturdy teams they onward jog, Each mounted on a hickory log; And what is more, they've tucked a slab in, To help the Whigs build Old Tip's Cabin."
The young men's Whig committee in this campaign was headed by John S. Bates, and included Albert G. Murray, LeDran Brown,
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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
Sidney S. Lampman, G. W. Bemis, George L. Whitney, and E. B. Northrup.
Excitement grew as election day approached. The fact that Francis Granger and Jared Willson, the Whig and Democratic candidates respectively for Congress, were both residents of Canan- daigua, and that Alvah Worden, of Canandaigua, whom the Mess- enger contemptuously referred to as "the brother-in-law of W. H. Seward," the Whig candidate for Governor, ran on the same ticket as a candidate for the Assembly, must have made the county a veritable storm center.
In the success that crowned the "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too," campaign, Ontario had its share. It gave Harrison 4,828 votes, as compared with 3,451 for Van Buren and 152 for the Abolition ticket. The county gave William H. Seward for Governor 1,294 plurality, and Mr. Granger led his popular opponent by 843 majority.
Upon the inauguration of JARED WILLSON. President Harrison in 1841, On- Jared Willson, a prominent member of the early Ontario county bar, was born in West Stockbridge, Mass., May 23, 1786. Settled in Canandaigua in 1811, immediately after gradu- ation from the University of Vermont, and studied law with John C. Spencer. Served as a lieutenant of militia in the War of 1812 and was taken prisoner at the Battle of Queens- town. Died in Canandaigua, April 8, 1851. tario was again given notable recognition in National politics by the appointment of its honored citizen, Francis Granger, as Post- master General in the cabinet of which Daniel Webster was at the head as Secretary of State. Mr. Granger retired from office, with the other members of the cabinet, a few months later, upon the death of President Harrison, but in this distinction he was accorded an honor that rounded out a political career of great activity and usefulness. The son of Gideon Granger, who previous to his removal from Connecticut to Canandaigua had served successively in the cabinets of Jefferson and Madison as Postmaster General, Francis Granger had a laudable political ambition, and, as we have seen, took a prominent part in the politics
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RISE OF ANTI-SLAVERY FEELING.
of the county and State. He was a recognized leader in the Clintonian, Anti-Masonic, and Whig parties, and was repeatedly honored by his political associates with support for the highest public offices, including those of Governor, United States Senator, and Vice President. Unfortunately his candidacy was several times unsuccessful, through the mis- chance of events or the treachery of pretended friends, but through all the years he maintained in eminent degree the confidence of the people of the State, as well as of his immediate constituents.
President Tyler, in his re- organized cabinet, had also an Ontario county statesman in the person of John C. Spencer, whom he made Secretary of War, and later Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Spencer had been a prominent figure in Western New York and for a long time had a very large influence in shaping State politics. He was Secretary of State through the two administrations of Gov- ernor Seward, and, as we have seen, was repeatedly elected to the Legislature and Congress.
ALBERT G. MURRAY.
Albert Guthrie Murray was born in Pompey, Onondaga county, in 1810. Removed to Can- andaigua when a young man, engaged in merchandise, and took an active and influen- tial part in politics as an Anti-Slavery Whig. Appointed Postmaster at Canandaigua by President Lincoln in 1861, and continued in that office until succeeded by Major F. O. Chamberlain in 1878. Died April 15, 1879.
The closing years of the fifty-year period which we have been considering saw the beginning of what was to be a complete re-organization of party lines. Slavery had become an imminent issue. The Free Soil slogan was raised by Mr. Seward in this State, and was winning recruits from both the old parties. The recently victorious Whigs were irretrievably divided, the opposing factions being known as "Silver Grays" and "Woolly Heads," the latter con- stituting the Seward wing. The Free Soil Democrats became "Barnburners" and the old liners "became "Hunkers," "Hard" or "Soft" as their prejudices or interests inclined.
The times were changing. The leaders of neither of the old parties seem to have had the sagacity to discern or the courage to
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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
meet the ground swell of the more aggressive political force at hand. They were most of them patriots, and theirs likely the wiser way to deal with the generally recognized evils of slavery. But it was not to prevail. Opposition to the "Institution" was no longer confined to the cranks or radicals. The young, forceful men all through the North, inspired by high principle, were impatient of delay. The new occasion was breeding new leaders. Neither prestige nor birth could stand in the way. The day for temporiz- ing and compromising was almost passed, and be it said in honor of many of those who had heid high positions in one or the other . of the old party organizations, that while they hesitated, with the conservatism of experience, to make the plunge, forseeing perhaps the long train of war and sectional dissension that was to follow. they finally allied themselves with the new political movement and gave loyal adherence to the policy enunciated by the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia conventions and to the new duties typified in the leadership of Seward. Fremont and Lincoln.
So it was all through the North. So it was in Ontario county, and thus was ushered in the second half century of Ontario county politics, a half century fraught with new and momentous issues.
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POLITICAL REVOLUTION AT HAND.
IX
POLITICAL REVOLUTION AT HAND.
Ontario County's Protest against Repeal of the Missouri Compro- mise-Conscience Whigs Obtain a Newspaper Organ-A Roll of Honor-Call for County Anti-Nebraska Convention-Dele- gates Elected to State Convention-Resolutions against Slavery Extension.
Through the refusal, in 1851, of the conservative or Silver Gray wing of the Whig party to follow the leadership of William H. Seward, and the consequent defection of the Whig organ of Ontario county, the Repository, the way opened for the establish- ment in Canandaigua of a new paper to voice the sentiments of the Anti-Slavery or Conscience Whigs, and Nathan J. Milliken, of Seneca Falls, was called to undertake the task. These were but the local expressions of a ferment that was permeating the North. The people of the Free States, both Whigs and Democrats, had become determined to prevent the extension of the area of slavery, as had been shown as early as 1846 by the votes of their represen- tatives in Congress in support of the Wilmot Proviso excluding slavery from new acquisitions of territory. Although those repre- sentatives had supinely retreated from their position the following year and the Whigs had nominated General Taylor on a platform silent on the slavery question, public sentiment at the North was crystalizing and intensifying, the people of the North were becom- ing impatient and disgusted at the cowardly attitude of both the old parties, and, even as early as 1852, the portents heralded the complete reorganization of political forces.
The editor of the new paper at Canandaigua aggressively declared that "without seeking to enlist the interference of govern- ment with the affairs of slavery, as now existing in the several States, it will firmly and earnestly oppose its extension over terri- tory now free, and resist by all honorable means the admission of
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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
new slave States and the encroachments of the slave power upon the rights and interests of the people. Regarding the present law, providing for the recovery of fugitive slaves, as unnecessarily stringent in its provisions, and unjust in its practical operation, it will claim, and on all proper occasions exercise, the privilege of urging its entire repeal or essential modification, and of expos- ing to public condemnation the shameful and dangerous abuses by which its execution is often characterized."
This editorial, expressing the sentiments of the Conscience Whigs of 1852, shows that the young men of that time were ani- mated by a spirit of liberty and supported principles of govern- ment that were not only destined to create a new political organiza- tion, but that were to direct the policy of that organization for years to come.
The election of General Pierce, the Democratic candidate for the Presidency in 1852, was on a platform that solemnly promised NATHAN J. MILLIKEN. the country repose from slavery Nathan J. Milliken, founder of the Anti- Slavery organ at Canandaigua, was born at Keene, N. H., September 27, 1821. Worked at his trade of printing at Burlington, Vt., and Keesville, N. Y .; editor and proprietor of the Seneca Falls Courier, 1845-48; estab- lished The Times at Canandaigua in Janu- ary, 1852; Ontario County Clerk, 1865-67 ; postmaster at Canandaigua, 1890-94. Died in Canandaigua, November 26, 1902. agitation, on the basis of the so- called Missouri compromise, but Archibald Dixon, Henry Clay's successor in the Senate, appearing as the champion of the arrogant slave oligarchy of the South, in December, 1853, proposed that when the bill to organize the territory of Nebraska should come before that body he would move that "the Missouri compromise be repealed, and that the citizens of the several States shall be at liberty to take and hold their slaves within any of the territories."
The bill when reported from the committee, of which Senator Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, was chairman, proposed the organization of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. It specifi-
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POLITICAL REVOLUTION AT HAND.
cally declared the Missouri compromise inoperative and void and that "its true intent and meaning was not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State and not to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people perfectly free to regulate their domestic institutions in their own way."
This was a fire brand that aroused the people of the Free States.
To express the feeling of the people in Ontario county, a public meeting was held, the call for which appeared in The Times of February 23, 1854, and read as follows :
Freedom to the Territories.
The citizens of Ontario county, opposed to the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the extension of Slavery into the new territories of Nebraska and Kansas, as contemplated by the bill lately introduced in the United States Senate, by Mr. Douglas, are invited, irrespective of party, to meet at the Court House, in Canandaigua, on Tuesday, the 28th of Feb. instant, for the purpose of protesting against that proposed violation of plighted faith.
Hiram Metcalf,
Wm. Demming, Jas. S. Cooley,
L. B. Gaylord, Harry Ward,
J. B. Sands,
E. W. Gardner, Jr.,
J. P. Faurot,
Orson Benjamin,
Gideon Granger,
John J. Lyon,
N. J. Milliken,
John Reznor, John S. Bates,
S. V. R. Mallory,
Henry W. Taylor,
Wm. Hildreth,
T. J. McLouth,
Francis Mason,
Henry Howe,
Reuben Murray, Jr.,
Solomon Goodale, Jr.,
Geo. L. Whitney,
Harlow Munson,
A. N. Hudson, T. E. Hart,
Wm. F. Reed,
S. R. Wheeler,
A. G. Murray,
Wm. G. Lapham,
R. Simmons, 2d, P. P. Bates,
John P. Hudson,
Wilmouth Smith, Nelson Parmalee,
N. W. Randall,
Charles Coy,
E. G. Lapham,
Benj. Gauss,
W. Failing, .
Seth C. Hart,
John B. Cooley,
Edward Brunson,
Amos Jones,
H. N. Jarvis, David Picket,
S. Corson,
Waldo Curtiss.
Of the men whose names appear on the above roll of honor, only one, E. W. Gardner, Esq., of Canandaigua, survives at this writing, but they embraced representatives of both Whig and Democratic parties, were from all parts of the county, and for the most part were prominent in political movements of the succeeding months and in the organization of the new party.
This first Anti-Nebraska meeting must have been a notable gathering. It is recorded that it was attended by "a large number of the most influential and respectable citizens of the county." Hon.
D. A. Robinson, Jr.,
Owen Edmonston,
Wm. H. Lamport,
James M. Bull,
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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
Albert Lester, presided; and there were six vice presidents: Henry W. Taylor, of Canandaigua ; Amos Jones, Esq., of Hopewell; Amos A. Post, Esq., of Seneca; Hon. John Lapham, of Farmington; Z. Barton Stout, Esq., of Richmond; and Judge Lyman Clark, of Manchester. T. Hinckley and J. C. Shelton acted as secretaries.
A committee of five, consisting of E. G. Lapham, Gideon Granger, Orson Benjamin, M. A. Wilson, and Peter S. Bonesteel, offered the following resolution :
Resolved, That we, the citizens of Ontario county, standing upon all the compromises of the Constitution, and willing to abide by all the reserved rights of the States, have viewed with regret the proposition now pending before the American Congress to repeal the Missouri Compromise, and thus open the vast territories of Nebraska and Kansas to the incursions of slavery; and we enter our SOLEMN PROTEST against this violation of plighted faith.
The speeches which followed were evidently not couched in as moderate language as that of the resolution. Judge Taylor denounced the Douglas fraud; Hon. Alvah Worden appealed to the audience whether they would submit if the bill became a law, and was responded to in a spirit and manner the most emphatic and enthusiastic; E. G. Lapham spoke eloquently and most earnestly against the Nebraska bill and urged all parties of the North to unite and resist the further extension of slavery; M. O. Wilder urged the necessity of acting then, if the whole of the United States was not to be surrendered to slavery; Hon. Joshua A. Spencer, of Utica, present as a spectator, declared that Canandaigua was the place of all others where a meeting of this kind should be held. It being the former home of Stephen A. Douglas, he should know of this meeting, and know what his early friends and neighbors thought of "fraud, dishonesty, and falsehood." Ontario county should speak out in such tones as to cause his knees to knock together with fear. So the speeches were mentioned in the succeeding issue of the local Anti-Slavery organ. and the reporter added these comments :
"The meeting, composed as it was, of all parties, and nearly a third of it composed of gray-haired men who were voters and active citizens when the Missouri compromise was passed, was one of the most solemn and earnest protests against its repeal that there yet has been. If it has no influence at Washington, it will have a good effect here. In response to the earnest and powerful appeals of the speakers, the people will be aroused to act. They will hereafter
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POLITICAL REVOLUTION AT HAND.
prevent the election of 'Northern men with Southern principles,' and take the forsaken position of our forefathers that slavery, instead of being extended, shall be abolished wherever Congress has the power to do it. So mote it be."
Political revolution was in the air! The "domestic institution" of the South had overstepped the bounds of safety.
The meeting held in Canandaigua, February 23, 1854, was not a political convention in the usual sense of that term. Neither the men who called it nor those who participated in its proceedings had any clear conception of what was to result from the movement on which they had embarked. They assembled simply as citizens to protest against a threatened violation of what was considered throughout the North as the plighted faith of the Nation, but that the issue was recognized as a momentous one and as likely to lead to a serious division between the North and South is evidenced in the report we have of the speeches made at the meeting.
The events of the succeeding weeks in that pregnant year of 1854 intensified the feeling of the people. Upon the passage by Congress of the bill for the organization of the territories of Nebraska and Kansas, with the proviso that slavery might be extended to those territories, public indignation over the matter increased. The demand for organized action by the friends of liberty became more and more insistent, and finally it was deter- mined to call an "Anti-Nebraska" State convention, to be held in Saratoga, August 16.
This was really the first step taken in New York State toward the organization of the Republican party. Similar conventions were held in all the Free States. In Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, the coalitionists adopted the name "Republican." But in New York the call was not for a convention at which to organize a new party. It is true the National Whig party was practically dead, "died of an attempt to swallow the Fugitive Slave law" according to the popular verdict. It could neither speak nor keep silence on what had become the paramount issue, slavery extension. But under the inspiring leadership of William H. Seward, its dominant or "Woolly Head" faction in this State was holding its forces together and its leaders were reluctant to surrender its organization or confess it a wreck. They yet hoped to rally the opponents to slavery extension under the Whig banner and so unite the North.
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ONTARIO COUNTY HISTORY.
The call for a county mass meeting at which to elect delegates to this proposed State convention read as follows :
Mass Convention.
The undersigned respectfully invite the electors of the County of Ontario, without distinction of party, who disapprove of the late pro-slavery legislation of the present Congress, and who are in favor of the repeal or modification of the Nebraska and Kansas bill, and likewise of the fugitive slave law of 1850, the rejection of new States applying for admission to the Union with slavery tolerating constitutions, and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and in all the territories of the United States, to assemble in Convention at the Court House in Canandaigua on Saturday, the fifth day of August, at 12 o'clock M., for the purpose of appointing five delegates from each Assembly district to the great State convention, to be held at the village of Saratoga Springs, on Wednesday, the 16th day of August next, and for the purpose of expressing their views in relation to the growing assumptions and aggressions of the slave power.
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