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 6
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3.4
MEN OF EARLY ROME.
HIRAM DENIO.
Some may say that those only should be called Romans, who were born in Rome. To satisfy such, I point out Hiram Denio. He was born in Wright Settlement, obtained all of his education in town except what he received at Fairfield Academy; read law at first with Wheeler Barnes, and afterwards with Storrs & White of Whitesboro; was admitted to the bar in 1821; opened a law office in Rome; was appointed in 1825 District Attorney of the county, to succeed Samuel Beardsley, and about that time moved to Utica. In 1834, he was appointed Circuit Judge, and after four years was compelled to resign by reason of ill health; held the office of Bank Commissioner from 1838 to 1841; was Clerk of the old Supreme Court from about 1840 to 1845; was Supreme Court Reporter from 1845 to 1847, as the five volumes of Denio's Reports attest ; in June, 1853, he was appointed by Governor Seymour to fill a vacancy in the Court of Appeals, and in the fall of that year was elected over Judge Mullin ; when his term run out, fourteen years later, he was re-nominated. I was in the Dem- ocrat State convention eleven years ago last fall at Syracuse, when Mayor Fernando Wood, a delegate, tried to defeat the re-nomina- tion of Judge Denio, because the latter had rendered an adverse decision in the Courts of Appeals on matters in New York City in which Mayor Wood was interested. He made a very ingenious and plausible argument against such re-nomination, and would have succeeded in defeating it, but for the eloquent and powerful speech of Governor Seymour, also a delegate. Governor Sey- mour's effort on that occasion was among the ablest and happiest of his life. Judge Denio was nominated and was elected over Timothy Jenkins.
It is a little singular, that as decided a democrat as Judge Denio was, and as intimate as he, Judge Beardsley, Judge Foster, Greene C. Bronson and other democrats were in politics, he
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never attended conventions,' nor mixed in politics like them, nor seemed to aspire to political offices.
That he was a lawyer and judge however second to none in the State, all concede. He died in Utica, in November, 1871, at the age of seventy-three.
REV. ALBERT BARNES. 1733039
There is another who was born in Rome, and although not coming within the line of these sketches, for he was neither a lawyer nor a politician, yet as he has arisen to greater note and prominence in the world than any who have been mentioned, he can not be passed by. Albert Barnes was born in Wright Settlement. He was of about the same age of Hiram Denio-they were play- mates in boyhood, companions in youth, and friends through life. They attended together the Fairfield Academy, and both were designed for the law. The conversion of Albert Barnes while attending Hamilton College, changed the whole current of his thoughts and the bent of his pursuits in another direction. He studied for and was admitted into the ministry, and in that sphere of usefulness, rose to greater eminence than he could ever have hoped to attain in any other. For thirty-seven years, he was pastor of the same church. His notes of the Gospels, translated into various languages on the continent of Europe, and reaching a sale of over one million of volumes, have made the name of Albert Barnes familiar to millions of Christian households in both hemi- spheres, and the memory of his good work will be revered so long as the Bible is taught in our Sabbath schools, or piety shall be reverenced upon earth.
JOHN B. JERVIS.
There is another Roman, although neither a lawyer nor a politician, who by the strict rules would be shut out of this paper, yet it would hardly be complete without him. John B. Jervis
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MEN OF EARLY ROME.
came with his parents to Rome, from Long Island, in the same year Oneida County was formed. In 1817, when the construction of the Erie Canal commenced, Benjamin Wright, the engineer, was in need of an axman, and young Jervis was temporarily engaged. He was ready with an ax and apt in learning, and soon after he was promoted to the position of rodman in the survey, for twelve dollars per month. He then turned his attention to the study and practice of surveying and engineering, and made such proficiency under Mr. Wright that in two years he was made resident engi- neer, at one dollar and a quarter a day, on seventeen miles of the canal, extending from Madison into Onondaga County. After remaining there two years he was made resident engineer for two years more, on a more difficult and important division near Amsterdam. In 1823 he was made superintendent of the work for fifty miles of the canal, employing and discharging all the subordinates. When the canal was completed in 1825, having been seven years on that work, he resigned to engage in higher duties, and he received from Henry Seymour, Canal Commissioner and the father of Governor Seymour, a kind and very commenda- tory letter. He received from Benjamin Wright, then chief engineer of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, the appointment of assistant engineer, and upon Mr. Jervis devolved the main duties. He examined the route, and on his recommendation the use of the river, for part of the way, as was first intended, was abandoned. He was engaged as engineer on a great many other works of internal improvement, among which may be mentioned the railroad between Albany and Schenectady, the Schenectady and Saratoga Railroad, the Chenango Canal, the eastern division of the Eric Canal on its enlargement in 1836, the Croton Water Works, sup- plying New York City with water, and which was considered the greatest piece of engineering skill in the world, and the success of which gave Mr. Jervis a world wide reputation. Ile was con- sulting engineer to supply Boston with water, and chief engineer of the Hudson River Railroad, &c., &c. The water works of Port Jervis (a place on the Erie Railroad named after him) were con-
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structed under his approval, and the water works of Rome were not undertaken until the plan had been subjected to the scrutiny of his engineering skill, and received the approval of his judgment.
In 1816 he united with the first and then the only church in Rome, and under its first installed pastor, and for over sixty-two years, he has been an honored member of a church. I think I am sale in saying there is no one who can show so long a membership, and that there is no living person whose coming to Rome ante- dates his, or who has made Rome for so many years a permanent residence. A few weeks ago he reached his eighty-third birthday; and those who heard or have read his lecture on "Industrial Economy," prepared a few weeks before he was cighty-three years old, need not be told that the mind and memory of John B. Jervis are as clear, fresh and vigorous as when in the full fhish of his carly manhood.
HENRY A. FOSTER.
In November, 1819, a young man, but a few months past nine- teen years of age, came from the office of Beach & Popple, attor- neys and counsellors at Oswego, to Rome, and entered the law office of James Sherman, to complete his law studies. At that time, to be an attorney and counsellor of the Supreme Court required a previous course of study of seven years. Two and a half years of that time had been passed by that student, com- mencing in 1815, in the law office at Cazenovia, of David B. Johnson, father of D. M. K. Johnson, of Rome. In 1818 he read law at Onondaga Hill, then the county seat of Onondaga County, in the office of B. Davis Noxon, who subsequently became an eminent lawyer in Central New York, and was father of Judge Noxon, of Syracuse.
When Henry A. Foster entered the law office of James Sher- man, as above stated, the Erie Canal between Rome and Utica
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MEN OF EARLY ROME.
was but just completed and brought into use. What is now the city of Syracuse was then unknown, being only a small collection of houses, and known by the name of "Corinth." The county of Oswego was formed but three years before, and what is now the city of Oswego was, at the time Mr. Foster read law there, an unincorporated village of about four hundred inhabitants. Rome was about the same size, and had been incorporated in the spring before Mr. Foster came to Rome. There were at that time six lawyers in Rome, viz .: Joshua Hatheway, Wheeler Barnes, James Sherman, Samuel Beardsley, S. B. Roberts and B. P. Johnson. Mr. Hatheway devoted most of his time to official duties, Mr. Roberts had charge of the Lynch estate, and Mr. Johnson had been admitted only a couple of years.
In those days the oldest as well as the foremost members of the bar practiced in Justice's Court whenever an opportunity offered, and tried causes therein with as much zeal and tenacity as in Courts of Record. For a law student to obtain a livelihood, when he had to compete in those courts with experienced and influential practitioners, it was requisite he should be one of more than ordinary pluck, industry and intelligence. It was only for a few years previous that anybody could practice in Justices' Courts, for, as the law stood prior to 1812, Justices of the Peace were prohibited by posi- tive law from allowing any one to appear in their courts as an advocate, or to try causes, except in cases of the sickness of the suitor. But in April, 1812, that law was repealed, and the pre- amble to the repealing clause reads so quaintly yet so truthfully, and withal sounds so oddly at the present day, that I have been tempted to copy it. It reads: " Whereas it often happens that suit- ors are wanting in ability to do justice to their own causes, or are deserted by that presence of mind which is the requisite to command or bring into use such abilities as they may actually possess ; and whereas it is a constitutional right which every person has, to employ assistance in all lawful business, therefore the above section is repealed." It is an acknowledgment of an old saying, that he
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who tries his own cause has a fool for a client. What would the young lawyers of the present day do, if the above repealing clause of 1812 had never been enacted ?
I have it from the lips of Numa Leonard, an early settler in Rome, and one of the Justices of the Peace fifty and more years ago, and I have also learned it from other old residents, since passed away, that it was well understood whenever Mr. Foster was in a law case, even when a law student, that in the vernacular of the present day, "it meant business." In 1822 he was admitted to the bar, and within three hours after his admission to the Common Pleas, he was assigned by the Court to defend a person who was indicted for petit larceny, second offense, the offense having been committed before the first conviction. In looking through the judicial records in Oneida County Clerk's office not long since, for materials for this paper, I came across a record of that trial, which took place that year at the General Sessions, before Judges Joshua Hatheway, Truman Enos and Samuel Jones. Samuel Beardsley was District Attorney. As the law now is, a person convicted for the first time of petit larceny, is liable to imprisonment only, in the county jail, and if convicted of a similar offense, after the first conviction, then the punishment is by imprisonment in the State prison.
The statute as it then read provided for the punishment, by im- prisonment in the State Prison, "of every person who should be a second time, or oftener, convicted of petit larceny," without say- ing (as the law now docs) that the second offense must be com- mitted, after a conviction for a former theft. The objection was taken by Mr. Foster, that this could not be a State Prison offense, as the indictment did not allege nor the proofs show, that the offense was committed after a previous conviction; but that in fact, the conviction was for the second offense; that the intent and spirit of the statute were to work a reformation of the offender, by increasing the punishment, for offences committed after
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MEN OF EARLY ROME.
a conviction; but if this was a State Prison offense, then the punishment was the greater for the first offense. The District At- torney relied upon the literal reading of the statute, and for two hours the respective counsel argued that question of law to the court. Two of the judges held with the District Attorney, and the other one with Mr. Foster, and so the case had to go to the jury. As jurors in those days were popularly considered judges of the law as well as of the fact in criminal trials, the prisoner's counsel sum- med up to the jury on that theory and on that question of law, and for two hours the counsel on both sides argued to the jury as to the construction which should be given to that statute, without either side hardly touching upon the merits of the case, as to the guilt or innocence of the accused. The jury took the law of the case into their own hands, construed the statute differently from the two judges, and on that question of law acquitted the prisoner! With such a " send off" at the commencement of a professional career and when but twenty-two years old, it can hardly be supposed Mr. Foster ever lacked for clients. A few years later, the same question came up again in this county, and was carried to the Supreme Court, and that court, (3d Cow. Rep., 347.) gave the construction to the law contended for by Mr. Fost ., and then the Legislature changed the statute, to make it conformable to that decision.
It was difficult in those days, if not impossible, for a person to remain neutral in, or for one of ambition and ability to keep out of politics during the exciting times growing out of the discussion relative to the convention and constitution of 1821, the elective franchise, the Presidential campaign between General Jackson and John Quincy Adams in 1824, and the still more exciting one of 1828. Mr. Foster, like Samuel Beardsley, Greene C. Bronson, Samuel A. Talcott, William II. Maynard, Henry R. Storrs, Joseph Kirkland, Ezekiel Bacon, Joshua A. Spencer, Timothy Jenkins, and other legal luminaries, drifte:l into politics, and at an carly age all of the above took as active a part in caucuses and conven-
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tions as in the trial of causes at the Circuit. In 1826, in the gubernatorial contest between De Witt Clinton and William B. Rochester, Mr. Foster was nominated for Assembly on the Rochester ticket; but the Clintonians and federalists were too strong in the county, and the Rochester Assembly ticket was defeated. In 1827 Mr. Foster made a bold push for the office of Surrogate, then held by Mr. Hatheway. It was a hazardous attempt for a young man, not then twenty-seven years of age, to try for the displacement of one who had been in political life as long as Mr. Hatheway, and who knew so well all the ins and outs of politics; and moreover, who had to back him his son-in-law, Mr. Samuel Beardsley, then an important factor in the politics of the county and State. The attempt seemed like demanding the crown from the reigning King, or the scepter from the Pope. Nevertheless, the effort was made. In March, 1827, Mr. Foster was appointed Mr. Hatheway's successor, Surrogate of Oneida County, by Governor De Witt Clinton, which office he held until 1831. In 1830 he was elected State Senator, over Nehemiah Huntington, an old lawyer of Madison County. Mr. Foster's majority in Oneidla County was fourteen hundred. Ephraim Hart, of Utica, ran on the workingmen's party, and received one vote in Rome, and four hundred and seventy-five votes in the court- So it seems that the party of last year by that name was not a new one, but that fifty years ago an organized workingmen's party was in existence, seeking at the polls a redress for political grievances. History repeats itself, sometimes in fifty years, and many times oftener.
Mr. Foster was Trustee of Rome village in 1826, 1827 and 1828, and Supervisor of the town in 1829 and 1830, and again in 1833 and 1834. In January, 1835, he was again appointed Surrogate of Oneida County, to succeed Allanson Bennett, and held the position until he resigned in August, 1837, as he was then soon to commence his Congressional labors at Washington. In 1836, he was elected to Congress, over Joshua A. Spencer, although Israel Stoddard
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MEN OF EARLY ROME.
ran as the "bolters" candidate, and carried off twelve hundred votes. It was the year' Martin Van Buren was elected President of the United States. In the Harrison campaign of 1840, Ex-Gov- ernor Seymour and Ward Hunt were competitors for the nomina- tion for the State Senate. As the Senatorial convention was about evenly divided between those two candidates, they finally compromised on the nomination of Mr. Foster, who was elected over Chester Buck of Lewis County. While in the Senate during this term, Mr. Foster introduced a resolution, and to him belongs the honor of procuring its passage through both Houses of the Legislature, favoring the modification of the franking privilege, and a reduction of the rate of postage (the cost of sending a sin- gle letter through the mails, then being from eighteen to twenty- five cents.) That was the first legislative action taken on that subject, and although it took the general government a long time to give heed to that request from the Empire State, yet it was eventually done, and Mr. Foster has lived to see that reform, initiated by him and so much needed by the people, become the law of the land. Near the close of his term he resigned, to accept the appointment of United States Senator, to fill a vacancy.
Hammond's Political History, in referring to the Senate of 1844, uses the following language: " Had we arranged the mem- bers of the Senate of 1844 according to their reputation for talents, Mr. Foster ought undoubtedly to have headed the list. In debate he is truly formidable. The rapid and effective action of his intellectual powers, his retentive memory, his ready recollection of facts and even dates, combined with his sharp and caustic style of speaking, made him respected and feared by his opponents, and the admired champion of his friends."
In April, 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed Mr. Foster to the office of United States District Attorney for the northern district of New York. The appointment was entirely unsolicited and unexpected; the first knowledge or intimation Mr. Foster
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
had of such intended appointment, was from the newspapers. He felt compelled to decline the proffered honor, and Samuel B. Garvin, then of Utica, was subsequently appointed.
In 1863 he was elected Judge of the Supreme Court from this Judicial District, for a term of eight years. Such then is a syn- opsis of the political and judicial life of Judge Foster, in addition to as large and important a law business as any other lawyer in Central New York, viz .: six and one-half years Surrogate; two years in Congress; eight years in the State Senate; and eight years on the bench of the Supreme Court-all of which positions he adorned, and discharged their various duties with an ability, fidelity and faithfulness that were never questioned. He now lacks but a few months of his seventy-ninth birthday, and with a mind unimpaired by increasing years, a memory unaffected by the accumulation and cares of an extensive law business, a vigor of intellect that seems to have suffered no diminution by use or age, and with an activity that is but very little lessened by the burdens of an unusually active and busy life. Rome is honored by the residence of such a one who has been a .".Roman Citizen" for nearly one-half a century, and has made a decided impress upon the times in which he has lived. I think I am safe in saying that no one is now living in this State, and that the personal knowl- edge of those who now hear me does not extend to any other person who has attained such an age, with such mental vigor, and capable of such physical endurance, With the exception of Alvin Bronson above named he is the oldest Ex-Senator in the State. And in running my eye over the names of the forty-two Congressmen from this State at the time Judge Foster was a member of that body, I find only three besides himself now alive, viz .: Judge Amasa J. Parker, of Albany; Arphaxad Loomis, of Little Falls; Judge Hiram Gray, of Elmira.
The present generation must not be unmindful that the political work and the political workers of to-day, are not by any means
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MEN OF EARLY ROME.
like those of the times of which I have been speaking. Those were the days of arduous political toil, of sleepless vigilance, and of untiring activity. Those were the times when the foremost members of the bar, and the most prominent men in county and State were in attendance at town caucuses, and delegates to dis- trict, county and State conventions, and among the hardest and most faithful workers at the election polls; when the note of prep- aration, on the eve of an election, like that on the eve of battle, sounded all along the lines, and no vigilance was relaxed, no work left undone until the last vote was in the ballot box. No one was idle, none slept at his post. Let me narrate an incident or two as to the way the warfare was waged and politicians worked forty, fifty and sixty years ago.
Those who knew Wheeler Barnes will remember that for the last thirty years of his life he was lame, and walked with difficulty, even with a cane. He was an active partisan in his day, and par- ticularly hostile and bitter in his opposition to General Jackson for the Presidency in 1828, as were all of the Adams men of that period. That was the year of the " coffin hand bills," distributed by the Adams men in every school district, and with wonderful effect against General Jackson. At the head of each hand bill were the pictures of six black looking coffins, and underneath was printed the story of the six militia men ordered by General Jack- son to be shot for desertion, and who were executed in 1815. The story was told with pathetic tenderness, and with the amplification and exaggeration usually attending electioneering documents. A few days before that election, Mr. Barnes started out from Rome on horseback, with a large roll of those hand bills, to distribute in Vienna, Camden and adjoining towns. A democratic politician of Rome in those times, and who is yet a Roman,* seeing Mr. Barnes start out, suspected the purport of his mission, followed on soon after with an antidote for that poison. A short distance west of the United States Arsenal, Mr. Barnes' horse was discoy- ered by the Jackson man riderless by the roadside, and on inquiry
* Ex-Judge Foster.
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
he learned that Mr. Barnes was in a neighboring house, having fallen or been thrown from his saddle, breaking his leg near the hip joint. The illness consequent thereon lasted him for months, and he was made a cripple for the rest of his life. Of course the Jackson men chose to construe that misfortune as a visitation upon Mr. Barnes for his activity and bitterness in that canvass.
Four years later, and when General Jackson ran the next time for the Presidency, a misfortune befel the Jackson party, and had it resulted as was at first feared, would have given the Jackson men more annoyance and pain than the breaking of a dozen legs. The Democratic County Convention was held that year (1832) at Floyd, and Squire Utley, of Western, David Wager, of Utica, John Dewey, of Boonville, and Othniel Williams (father of Hon. O. S. Williams) of Clinton, were nominated for the Assembly. It was in the time of three days' election, the first day commencing Monday, November 5th. Railroads and telegraph wires had not then penetrated Oneida County. On Sunday, November 4th, at six o'clock in the evening, Mr. Williams, one of the above nomi- nees, died suddenly at his home in Clinton! What was to be done, election commencing at nine o'clock the next morning ? A new set of Assembly tickets was at once printed, with the name of Levi Buckingham, of Marshall, in place of Mr. Williams, and a printed circular signed by the county corresponding committee, announcing the death, accompanied the ballots. About midnight that night a special messenger reached Rome with the news of the death, and with the votes for all of the northern towns. Thomas Dugan, then an active democrat, was at once started with the tickets for the towns of Floyd, Steuben, Remsen, Trenton and Boonville. Judge Foster started about one A. M. on horseback, with the tickets of Western, Lee, Annsville, Camden, Florence and Vienna, and left them in the hands of trusty persons, and was back by nine o'clock Monday morning at the polls in the " Fish Creek district " in Rome, where the first day's election was held, ready for a three days' battle for General Jackson and the demo- cratic cause. The whole county was supplied with the tickets, and
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MEN OF EARLY ROME.
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