USA > New York > Oneida County > Utica > Historical fallacies regarding colonial New York : an address delivered before the Oneida Historical Society, Utica, N.Y., at its second annual meeting, January 14, 1879 > Part 4
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nineteen votes were cast for Jedediah Sanger for Supervisor, and none for any one else, for that office, and so he was declared elected. Mr. Colbrath was therefore Supervisor for less than a day. The foregoing from Jones' " Annals of Oneida County," shows how queerly the electors did things in those days, and it is the first mention I find of Mr Colbrath. In the County Clerk's office of Oneida County, I find recorded a power of attorney, from Baron Steuben of New York City, bearing date, June 1, 1791, to Mr. William Colbrath, and describing the latter as yeomen of Whitestown, giving the latter full power and authority to bargain and sell lands of the former, and to prosecute for trespasses com- mitted upon the lands of the Baron in the County of Herkimer. This instrument is witnessed by the subscribing signatures of David Starr (after whom "Starr hill " in Steuben is named) and Benja- min Wright, a Roman, and from which it is inferred that Mr. Col- brath must then have resided near Fort Stanwix, as he certainly did a few years later, for in 1796 he had a deed of one hundred and sixty acres of land, just east of what is now "Factory Village " in Rome, and which land formerly belonged to Governor George Clinton, and which land Mr. Colbrath sold to Dominick Lynch, the year Oneida County was formed. Those who have the curiosity to examine the first book of mortgages in this county, will find a mortgage on record to Mr. Colbrath, covering a couple of acres of land in Coxe's patent, and also a large list of household articles, evidently mortgaged to Mr. Colbrath (who was also Sheriff at the time) to screen them from an execution sale of some unfeeling creditor, for the articles were (in part ) as follows: "three feather beds, three underbeds with cords, six linen sheets, five Indian blankets, three chiste, one pewter pot, one carthen tea pot, one earthen coffee pot, five yards of flannel, &c., &c.
Mr. Colbrath was the first Sheriff of Herkimer County, ap- pointed in February, 1791, and which county then also included what is now Oncida County. He held that office until 1795, when he was succeeded by Peter Smith, then of Utica, father of Gerrit Smith. It was while Mr. Colbrath was such Sheriff, that the first
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MEN OF EARLY ROME.
term of a Court of Record was held within the limits of what is now Oncida County. It was the Herkimer Common Pleas, and was held at what is now the village of New Hartford, in a barn, or in an unfinished meeting house, and was in January, 1794. The weather was bitterly cold, and the room where the court was held was illy prepared for the inclemency of the weather. Towards night, bench, bar and spectators were nearly frozen out; and to keep the lawyers warm, Sheriff Colbrath passed quietly among them, a jug of spirits. The Judge had told the crier to adjourn the court until next day, when Mr. Colbrath, hearing the order, and forgetting or else unmindful of the dignity of the court and the proprieties of the occasion, called out, "oli, no, no, no, don't adjourn yet, Judge, take some gin, it will keep you warm, Judge;" and suiting the action to the advice, passed the jug to the bench. There was not the romance to it that there was in Maud Muller's case; nevertheless the Court partook, and doubtless thought, if it did not say
" Thanks to you, for a sweeter draught From a kinder hand was never quaffed."
Oneida County was formed March 15, 1798, and four days thereafter, Mr. Colbrath was appointed its first Sheriff, and held the office until the close of the year. I have obtained nothing further relative to him, but he seems entitled to a place in this record, if for no other reason than that he was the first Sheriff of the two counties above named, and the additional fact that he was the only Roman who held that office (except. Israel S. Parker in 1843 and 1844) for the first seventy years after the organization of Oneida County.
BENJAMIN WRIGHT.
Benjamin Wright, who figured prominently in after years as a surveyor and engineer, came to Fort Stanwix in 1790, when twenty years old. His father's family came from Connecticut the
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previous year, and located in what is now familiarly known as "Wright Settlement." Benjamin had remained behind to attend school and study surveying, for which he had a natural taste and aptitude, and which profession promised to be useful and profitable in this then new country, but rapidly settling up. The various owners of the Patents and tracts in this section, were at that time, sub-dividing their lands into lots, laying them out into farms, for the accommodation of the settlers. From 1796 to 1800 Mr. Wright was engaged in surveying in what are now Franklin, Jefferson, Lewis, Oneida, Oswego and St. Lawrence counties, in- cluding Macomb's great purchase of near four million acres in the northern part of the State. In what was then Oneida County, he surveyed out into farms, over five hundred thousand acres, before he was twenty-six years of age; and when the above named counties were formed, he surveyed out their boundaries.
In 1804 occurred the gubernatorial contest in this State, between Morgan Lewis and Aaron Burr-both republicans. Mr. Lewis, at the time of his running, was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Aaron Burr was Vice President of the United States. There was no political principle involved in the election. Benjamin Wright ran for the Assembly in this county, on the Burr ticket ; on the other ticket was Gen. Walter Martin, of Martinsburgh, then a part of Oneida County. Without counting the vote of the town of Adams, then also in Oneida County, Mr. Wright and Mr. Martin had received in the county, an equal number of votes, making the vote between them a tie. The whole number of votes cast in the town of Adams was thirty-four, and all of those were for " Benj." Wright, and the question was, whether they should be counted for Benjamin Wright. The County Clerk returned the above facts to the Assembly, and that body, on the second day of its session, awarded the seat to Mr. Wright. At that time there was no newspaper office nearer Adams than Utica, and quite likely the ballots for that town were written, and hence the given name of Mr. Wright abbreviated as above. Mr. Wright was the
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MEN OF EARLY ROME.
first Roman elected to the Assembly after the organization of Oneida Connty. Mathew Brown, Jr., a Roman, had been elected, in 1796 and 1797, when Rome was a part of Herkimer County, and at a time when the Legislature met in New York City. Mr. Brown was the first postmaster of Rome. The election of 1804 resulted in favor of Morgan Lewis, by eight thousand five hundred majority. Rome gave Lewis ninety-six votes, and Burr thirty-three; it gave Walter Martin one hundred and fifty-four, and Mr. Wright one hun- dred and forty-one-which indicate about the number of freehold voters in Rome at that time. Out of that contest grew the duel be- tween Burr and Hamilton, which occurred within three months after that election, resulting in the killing of Hamilton and the consequent ostracism and ruination of Burr. In a few years thereafter he was a prisoner, on trial for treason to the United States Government, a political outcast and fugitive wanderer in strange lands and for- eign parts. The next contest for Governor, was in 1807, between Morgan Lewis and Daniel D. Tompkins-both republicans, and with no political principle involved. Tompkins was Judge of the Supreme Court, while running for the office of Governor, as Mor- gan Lewis was three years before. Benjamin Wright ran again for the Assembly this year, on the ticket with Morgan Lewis, and was elected in the county, although Mr. Lewis was defeated in the State by four thousand majority. In 1808 Mr. Wright was again elected to the Assembly. The Erie Canal question at that time was beginning to attract considerable attention. While in the Legis- lature, he seconded a resolution appropriating one thousand dollars for a survey of the Erie Canal route. The bill passed the Assem- bly, but the Senate cut the appropriation down to six hundred dollars. Think of it, six hundred dollars to pay the expense of a survey of a route of three hundred and sixty miles, and much of the way through a wilderness ! In these days it would hardly pay for a champagne supper that would be given in glorification of the passage of an appropriation bill. But legislators and the people were then economical and unaccustomed to lavish expend- itures ; and besides, the great mass and most intelligent of the
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people looked upon the scheme of a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson River as wild, visionary and impractical. The patriotic Governor Daniel D. Tompkins opposed it. A committee from this State, in January, 1809, called on President Jefferson, to influence him and his administration in behalf of the project, and after all the surveys, estimates and portrayal of the commercial prospects had been laid before the President, even he coolly answered, " It is a splendid project, and may be executed a century hence." "Why," said he, "here is a canal, of a few miles, projected by General Washington, which has languished, and yet you think of making a canal three hundred and fifty miles through a wilderness. It is little short of madness to think of it." The friends of the meas- ure did think of it nevertheless, and in 1810 the Legislature ap- pointed De Witt Clinton and others to cause the route to be explored, which they did, and reported favorably in 1812. Now came the question to get a competent engineer to lay out the canal, for it was considered that none competent could be found in the United States. William Weston, of England, had been to this country and laid out the Western Inland Canal. He surveyed the lands, while here, of Dominick Lynch, and made a map of Lynchville, now Rome, and laid out the village plot, as reference is made in all of Mr. Lynch's deeds and leases to that map of Mr. Weston. That gentleman was written to in England, to see if he would come, and seven thousand dollars a year salary was offered him, but as he could not then accept the offered engagement, Mr. Wright and Mr. Geddes held a consultation, and both went before the committee and offered their services. They were employed at fifteen hundred dollars per year. The war with England inter- rupted further proceedings until the termination of hostilities, and so the matter rested.
In 1813 Mr. Wright was appointed one of the Judges of the Common Pleas, probably through the influence of his political friend, Jonas Platt, of Whitesboro, that year a member of the Council of Appointment; but Mr. Wright did not ever give
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much attention to judicial duties. In 1816 the canal project was revived by the presentation to the Legislature of a memorial signed by one hundred thousand persons, asking legislative action. The Legislature took action, and Mr. Geddes made a survey of the western, and Mr. Wright of the eastern division; and the levels of the two, where they met, differed less than one inch and a half. The work of construction was commenced in 1817, and those two engineers remained in charge until the work was completed, in 1825.
In 1817 Mr. Wright ran for the Assembly, but was defeated by Henry Huntington, owing to the popularity at that time of De Witt Clinton and his friends. On the fourth of July that year, the imposing ceremonies of first breaking ground for the construc- tion of the canal took place in Rome, southwesterly of the United States Arsenal, on the old route of that canal. De Witt Clinton, elected Governor of the State the April before, was present, as were other State dignitaries, and a large concourse of people. Mr. Wright was partner in mercantile pursuits in Rome from 1804 to 1817, at first with Peter Colt, and later with his brother, the late William Wright. He was consulting engineer on a great many works of internal improvements, such as the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Illinois Canal, the Welland Canal, the Delaware and Hud- son Canal, the New York and Erie Railroad and the Harlem Rail- road. In 1835 he went to Cuba, to consult as an engineer of a railroad to be built on that island. About 1820 he built, and occupied for his residence until 1825, the first brick dwelling house in Rome west of the Willett House, and which was bought and used as a banking house in 1832, by the Bank of Rome, organized that year. Mr. Wright about 1825 moved to New York, and died in that city in August, 1842, at the age of seventy- two. No one in his day stood higher as an engineer than Benjamin Wright.
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GEORGE HUNTINGTON.
The first Rome merchant located at Fort Stanwix early in the spring of 1793, and, for want of other accommodations, opened his stock of goods in the bar room, or an adjoining room, of the tavern then kept by John Barnard, and standing a little north- easterly of the present site of the Court House. George Huntington, then an unmarried man of twenty-three years, was a native of Con- necticut, and while he had clerked it the previous year at Whites- boro, had visited the Fort for the purpose of "interviewing " the prospect. Settlers were coming in, the trade with the Indians, then here in great numbers, promised to be good, and so Mr. Huntington, with his brother Henry, then of New York City, as a partner, commenced trade in what is now Rome, at the time above statel. The next year Mr. Huntington erected a frame store and a frame dwelling on Dominick Street, near the corner now known as the "Merrill Block." In looking through the account books of that firm, as I have done from that date down, for many years thereafter, it is interesting and curious to note that many of its retail customers then resided in what are now Oswego, Onondaga, Cayuga, Jefferson and Lewis counties; and it is also worth while to mention, for it is in accordance with the fact, and is true of every other dry goods merchant or dealer fifty, sixty or seventy years ago, that the charges for rum and brandy upon the books of the merchants of those times against the cus- tomers, were about as frequent as that of any other commodity kept on hand for sale ; and the list of that kind of accounts against members, deacons and elders of churches was about as lengthy as . against any other class of customers. Such was the custom of the times half a century and more ago, and it affords a striking contrast with the present times. When Rome was organized as a town, in 1796, Mr. Huntington was elected its first Supervisor. When Oneida County was formed, two years later, he was appointed one of the side Judges of the Common Pleas for the new county, and re-
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appointed in 1801, and again in 1804-both times by a republican Council of Appointment. He was elected Supervisor of Rome in 1804, 1814, and in 1817. In 1810 an election of Governor took place ; and although it was two years before the war with England commenced, yet that subject was thus carly discussed, and the issues or the canses of that war entered largely into that State canvass. Jonas Platt, a federalist and a lawyer of note, and the first County Clerk of Oneida County, then resided at Whitesboro, in this county. The federalists felt confident of carrying the State, so they were carly in the field. The fore part of January, of that year, a meeting of the citizens of Albany was held (none but those citizens taking part therein) at which Mr. Platt was nominated for Governor. He had settled at Whitesboro in 1790; and it was calculated that, as he had settled in and grown up with the "great west," as all this part of the State was then called, he would poll a large vote in the western district, then a republican district. Mr. George Huntington was nomi- nated for the Assembly on the ticket with Mr. Platt. Henry Wager, Senior, of Western, ran for Assembly on the other ticket. Daniel D. Tompkins was re-nominated for Governor in February, by a legislative caucus of his friends, and the contest was sharp and bitter, and conducted with great zeal on both sides. In that contest, as in about every other that has ever taken place in this country, the " war party " was triumphant in the State. Tompkins was elected Governor by about ten thousand majority ; Mr. Hunt- ington and his Assembly ticket were elected by about three hundred and fifty majority in the county, but Rome gave fifty the other way.
In 1813 occurred another election for Governor. Daniel D. Tompkins, the "great war Governor" of New York, was renom- inated, and John Taylor for Lieutenant-Governor. At that time this country was in the midst of a war with England, and the northern frontier of New York was the scene of active military operations. The federalists nominated Stephen Van Rensselaer,
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"The Patroon," for Governor, and George Huntington for Lieu- tenant-Governor, and that party went into the canvass with high hopes of success; for both nominees were highly respectable and entirely unexceptionable in their characters, and there was then, as in the recent war, considerable dissatisfaction with the manage- ment of the war. The election was sharply contested, but the " war ticket " was successful in the State by nearly four thousand majority, to the bitter mortification of the federalists, and contrary to the shrewdest calculations of both parties.
Mr. Huntington was collector for the Western Inland Canal from its completion in 1797 to the completion of the Erie Canal from Rome to Utica in 1819.
In 1815 Mr. Huntington ran for the State Senate, in opposition to Henry Seymour, father of Ex-Governor Seymour, but was de- feated. He was elected to the Assembly in 1818, 1819, 1820 and 1821, being the years when there was the greatest excitement, growing out of the calling and holding of a convention for a new constitution-the framing of that instrument, and its submission to the people, involving the questions of the elective franchise, and an entire change in the political system in the State; and also dur- ing the years of the bitter and exciting gubernatorial contest between De Witt Clinton and Daniel D. Tompkins in 1820.
Under the new constitution of 1822 Mr. Huntington ran again for Senator, but he and his three associates were defeated by Samuel Beardsley and others. That seems to have been the last time he ran for a political office ; and as he had been nine times elected to the Assembly, and discharged the various duties incum- bent upon him with credit and honor, he might well be content to retire from the political arena. He was trustee of Rome village in 1820, 1821, 1822, 1826 and 1827. It was about 1816 that he and his brother Henry retired from mercantile business, and devoted the remainder of their lives to looking after a large landed property,
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much of it held by them in common, and to taking care of the large property which they had acquired by their prudence and careful industry. Mr. George Huntington died in Rome in Sep- tember, 1841, at the age of seventy-one years, universally respected and esteemed. Ile was the father of our worthy and honored towns- man, Mr. Edward Huntington.
JOSHUA HATHEWAY.
The Battle of Bennington, in August, 1777, was the first link in the chain of events which led to the flight of St. Leger before Fort Stanwix, the subsequent capture of Burgoyne on the fields of Saratoga, and the consequent frustration of the British plan of that campaign-to separate New York from the New England States. In that battle, under General Stark, was a father and seven of his sons from the State of Connecticut. One of those sons was Joshua Hatheway; he had reached his sixteenth birthday but three days before that battle was fought. Ten years later, and after further service in that war, Joshua Hatheway graduated at Yale College, studied law, was admitted to practice, and, in 1795, came to Fort Stanwix, then in the town of Steuben, Herkimer County, and was admitted to the bar of that county. After the organization of Oneida County, and at the first term of the Oneida Common Pleas, held at the school house in the southeast corner of the West Park, in Rome, he was admitted to that court. In 1798 he was commissioned for the new county, one of the Justices of the Peace, and he was also appointed by the Board of Supervisors the first County Treasurer, and held that office until 1802; and he held various town offices during the twenty-five years thereafter. About 1810 he was appointed by President Madison the second postmaster in Rome, and he held that office through successive administrations for twenty-six years, and until his death. In 1808 he was appointed Surrogate of Oneida, in place of Arthur Breese, a federalist. He was the
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first Rome Surrogate, and the second one appointed in the county. It was the same Council of Appointment which, a few days before, had appointed Martin Van Buren Surrogate of Columbia County, De Witt Clinton Mayor of New York, and Samuel Young Justice of the Peace of Saratoga County-men who, in after years, made their impress upon the history of the State and Nation. A pretty clean sweep was made that year of all the offices in the State, whose incumbents were unfriendly to Governor Tompkins.
In 1813 the federalists obtained the control of the Council of Appointment, and their broom in turn swept out the Tompkins office-holders. In February, of that year, Mr. Hatheway was turned out of the Surrogate's office to make room for Erastus Clark, of Utica. It was the same year and but ten days after, the same council turned out of the office of Attorney-General the eloquent and renowned lawyer, advocate, and Irish exile, Thomas Addis Emmett, and put in his place that able lawyer, Abraham Van Vechten, a dyed in the wool federalist. Mr. Hatheway, this year, went to Sacketts Harbor, as quartermaster in the " Rome Regiment."
In 1814 the Tompkins people carried the Assembly, secured the Council of Appointment, and adopted the most vigorous measures, not only to carry on the war with Great Britain, but to turn out the federal office holders in the State. In February, 1815, Martin Van Buren was appointed Attorney-General, in place of Mr. Van Vechten, and a month later, Erastus Clark was rotated out of the office of Surrogate of Oneida County, to make room for Mr. Hathe- way. Four years later in 1819, in a quarrel in the republican party, between the "Clintonians" and " Bucktails " (anti-Clintonians) Mr. Hlatheway was displaced to make room for Greene C. Bronson, then of Vernon, in this county. Although Mr. Clinton in 1820, was elected Governor by about fourteen hundred majority, yet the anti-Clintonians secured the Assembly and the Council of Appoint- ment, and the friends of the Governor had to walk the plank.
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MEN OF EARLY ROME.
In April, 1821, Mr. Bronson was turned out and Mr. Hatheway a third time appointed Surrogate, which position he held until 1827, when his political scalp was again demanded-this time by a Roman, and a young man of talent and promise, just then rising into notice and prominence in the republican ranks, as will be further and more fully noticed, when reference is made to Hon. Henry A. Foster. When Mr. Hatheway was restored to the office of Surrogate, in the spring of 1821, he was also appointed one of the side Judges of the Common Pleas; re appointed in 1823, and again in February, 1828 ; the last time through the aid and influ- ence of Hon. Henry A. Foster, then Surrogate of the county, and who, being in Albany at the time, with his own hands took the nomination of Mr. Hatheway from Governor De Witt Clinton to the Senate chamber for confirmation. That same evening Governor Clinton died suddenly in his chair. It was probably his last executive nomination. Mr. Hatheway held that office until 1833.
He was Postmaster twenty-six years, Surrogate thirteen years, Judge of the Common Pleas twelve years, besides holding the office of Justice of the Peace for many years, and all of those offices at the same time for a considerable period. Is it a wonder that the people desired a change, and that they gave nearly thirty-four thousand majority for the new constitution ? That he discharged the duties of those offices with exactness is not questioned. He studiously maintained the dignity of the court in which he acted, and exacted respect to the position he held, and the government he represented. It is narrated that whenever the mails arrived for distribution at the Rome post office, he com- manded silence on the part of all spectators then present, required them to be seated, and said : " Gentlemen, take off' your hats, for the United States mail is now to be opened and distributed." A church congregation was never more respectful, nor a court assem- blage more orderly than on such occasions in the Rome post office. Nor need this formality seem strange, for doubtless the memory of some who now hear me goes back to the time, for mine does, when
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