USA > New York > Cayuga County > History of Cayuga County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 44
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The assassin made repeated thrusts with his knife at the throat and heart of Mr. Seward, but the latter instinctively rolled himself in the bed clothing which shielded his body from the effect of the thrusts, and the wire-netting used to sup- port the broken jaw warded off the blows directed to his throat, the Secretary rolling himself from the bed to the floor. His daughter, Fanny, had now entered the room and it was her agonized cries, as the assassin himself afterwards admitted, which caused him to desist. He fled, but was subsequently arrested and executed. Though Mr. Seward was severely cut in the face and bled profusely, he recovered as did all the parties who were wounded in this terrible struggle.
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CITY OF AUBURN.
Mr. Seward continued to discharge his official duties to the close of President Johnson's admin- istration when he cast off his official robes, never after to assume them. It was believed by his friends that after a life of such incessant toil, and having reached nearly the allotted limit of hu- man life of " three score and ten years," worn, wounded and scarred, he would retire to his own beautiful and quiet home, there to enjoy that rest which he had so richly earned, and the pleas- ant society of his warm and faithful friends. But this was not his purpose. His mind was yet clear, and his spirits elastic. His life had been one in- cessant round of activities, and he had constantly borne a heavy load of cares and responsibilities, which he knew it would not be best for him to suddenly cast off. " Rest," he said, for him, " was rust," and he preferred, while he lived, to keep himself bright by the attrition of action.
His reputation was international. He was favorably known both to the Occident and the Orient, the West and the East. He therefore proposed to make a " journey around the world," to visit the most noted nations of the globe and renew or make the acquaintance of eminent men in both hemispheres. He arranged to record and fully illustrate the observations and scenes made and observed on his route and did so, publishing the result in one of the most beautiful, interesting and really instructive books of travel which has ever emanated from the American press .*
He left Auburn August 9th, 1870, with his adopted daughter, Olive Risley Seward, and her sister, Mr. Alexander W. Randall, Mrs. Randall and Mr. George F. Seward and Mrs. Seward. They proceeded to California, thence to Japan, China and Cochin China, the Eastern Archipel- ago, British India, Egypt, Palestine, and the prin- cipal nations of Europe, returning after an ab- sence of about fourteen months.
It would now seem that the purposes of his life were so far fulfilled that he could and would seek repose, but he still found his highest en- joyment in mental work, to which, soon after his return, he applied himself in the preparation of an autobiography addressed to his children. The completion of this work ; was arrested by his death, which occurred quietly and peacefully at his home in Auburn, on October 10th, 1872. His ashes repose in Fort Hill Cemetery among his kindred and friends. His monument bears the expressive words :
" HE WAS FAITHFUL,"
words, which, in the famous trial of Freeman, while standing between the friendless prisoner and the gallows, he said he hoped might be said of him. His wish has been gratified and affec-
tion and truth alike bear witness to the fidelity of the inscription.
JOSIAH LETCHWORTH.
No history of Cayuga County would be deemed complete without brief mention of JOSIAH LETCH- WORTH, a man who, neither renowned as states- man, logician, lawyer or priest, nevertheless might be said to have filled to a limited degree the place of each in the prescribed circle of his ac- quaintance. Eminent alike for his private vir- tues, and the native force of a clear and vigorous intellect, his influence was not the result of wealth, but perhaps the more potent, because the outcome of a pure and nobly spent life, superior to selfish impulses, or low ambitions.
Mr. Letchworth was a native of Philadelphia, Pa., where he was born November 22d, 1791, and in the neighborhood of which city he resided until after his marriage to Ann Hause, Oct. 12th, 1815, when he settled at Burlington, New Jer- sey, and there established himself in the business with which he had become familiar by apprentice- ship, that of a saddler. It was at this time, when, desiring to know by personal observation something of the Great West of which he heard so much, that, in company with a friend, he trav- eled, much of the way on foot, to the city of Pitts- burgh; there purchasing a small row-boat, the two proceeded by the Ohio river as far as Cincinnati, at night pulling their boat to land and encamp- ing on the shore. Arriving at the last named city they disposed of their boat and repaired to their hotel- this being a not uncommon proced- ure on the part of travelers at that time. His journal kept during this tour is possessed of much interest, describing as it does these then embryo cities, and the impressions made upon his mind. Contrasting with the present, it seems more like the vagaries of a fitful dream, than the realities of a life whose span might reasonably have extended to the present moment. Inspired, perhaps, somewhat by the new world of thought and enterprise which this journey had awakened, he the more readily became imbued with that spirit of emigration which continues unabated even to our time.
About the year 1819, with his little family of wife and two children, heentered upon the then long and wearisome journey, by private convey- ance, to the newly settled district known as Black River, in our own State. After a residence there of several years, during which he held important and responsible positions in connection with ex- tensive manufacturing interests, he removed to
* William H. Seward's Travels Around the World. One vol- ume octavo pp. 778 : D. Appleton & Co.
+ This work was completed by his son Frederick W. Seward, the scholarly and accomplished present Assistant Secretary of State, in
the form of a memoir, containing full and very interesting extracts from his private letters, in which is contained a pretty full histury of the times in which he lived.
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this County and settled first at Moravia, and sub- sequently at Sherwood, where he resided for a period of twenty years, during which time he identified himself with many of the popular re- form movements of the day. He was vigilant in the temperance reform, which then was a new movement, and to this cause he continued faith- ful and devoted through the various stages of the Washingtonian movement, Sons of Temperance, Good Templars, &c., often lecturing upon the subject, arousing the latent sentiment of the County, and strengthening the convictions of the wavering or indifferent.
He was a strong anti-slavery man at a time when those sentiments were not so popular as they became at a later period, when to be known as holding such views well nigh amounted to ostracism from the friendship and good will of a considerable and very respectable portion of com- munity.
He at one time, without solicitation and indeed without previous knowledge to himself, received the nomination of the Whig party, of which he was an enthusiastic supporter, for the State As- sembly. This nomination, however, he after- wards declined to accept, though had he done so his friends thought, in view of his general popu- larity and well known reputation for honesty and sincere desire for the best interests of the com- munity, he would have proven a successful can- didate ; but his tastes were of a domestic rather than public character, and the greatest pleasure of his life he found in those simple joys that cen- ter in the domestic circle. There surrounded by those most dear, he labored to give such direc- tions to the impressible minds of his children as would most directly serve to fit them for the act- ive arena of life. For this work his fine literary attainments and capabilities eminently fitted him. With his mind well stored with the most elevating sentiments of poets and standard authors, he had an ever perennial fund of entertainment and in- struction at hand.
In the year 1852, Mr. Letchworth closed his business at Sherwood, and removed with his family to Auburn, purchasing the homestead on Fulton street, where he continued to reside dur- ing the remainder of his active and useful life. Relieved from all business cares and anxieties, in the daily intercourse with more than one of his children, who had now grown to man and woman-hood, he found additional time for the exercise of those benevolent impulses of his na- ture in which he took delight.
.
Mr. Letchworth was a warm personal friend of many of the prominent men of this County, and the beautiful tribute paid to his memory by the beloved and lamented Hon. Wm. H. Seward, in a speech made November 2d. 1857, upon the occa- sion of his return to Auburn, shortly after the decease of Mr. Letchworth, is a striking evidence
of the warm place he held in the hearts of all who knew him. To repeat these words here renders all other eulogy unnecessary and puerile. Mr. Seward spoke as follows :
" Fellow Citizens-I spoke to you ten years ago to night in this place on questions identical with those I am now to discuss. I had then recently left the cause of human rights prostrate in the Halls of Congress. I came home expecting that here, at least, I should witness a speedy and gen- erous and effective rally for its restoration. I found, however, to my inexpressible mortification, no such effort, but, on the contrary, the whole body of this community bewildered and delirious- ly excited about the relative virtue, intelligence and patriotism of Catholic and Protestant. Not even the questions of the day, much less the mighty and absorbing question of the age, seem- ed at stake. Prejudices intense, and passions strong, ruled the hour. I spoke, as you may perhaps remember, with sorrow aggravated to the verge of impatience. When I descended from the platform, a fellow citizen, venerable in years, and beloved by us all, gently asked me whether I was not becoming disheartened and despondent. He added that there was no occa- sion for dejection, and what I had scen was but the caprice of a day. 'Go on and do your duty, and we, your neighbors, will come around you again right soon, and sustain you throughout.' Do you ask who it was that administered that just, though mild rebuke ? Who else could it be but Josiah Letchworth, a man whose patience was equal to his enthusiastic zeal in every good cause, and to his benevolence in every good work ? His prediction is fulfilled, and I am here to speak with more boldness and confidence among you than ever before. But my faithful monitor no longer has a place in our assemblies. Josiah Letchworth, the founder of our charities, the defender of truth and justice, is no more. You deplore his loss as I do, for he was not more my friend than a public benefactor. I do in- justice, however, cqually to my own faith and to that which was the inspiration of his life, when I say that I miss his benevolent smile, and the cordial pressure of his hand to-night. No-he yet lives, and his shade is not far from us when- ever we assemble in places where he was once familiar, to carry on a good work in which he was accustomed to labor. He has, indeed, passed the inevitable change. But we all know as he knew, that that
* * eternal change,
But grasps humanity with a quicker range, And they who fall, but fall as worlds will fall, To rise if just, a spirit o'er them all.' "
The interest Mr. Letchworth manifested in the Cayuga Orphan Asylum when in its infancy, as also in the public schools, and the affection which he inspired in the children, will be remem-
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CITY OF AUBURN.
bered by hundreds who have years since entered upon active life. His death, which took place at his home on Fulton street, in the city of Au- burn, April 14th, 1857, was peaceful, and a fitting close to his sweet and beautiful life. There, sur- rounded by his family and his friends, his spirit calmly passed into the great unknown, sustained by these comforting words which it was his delight to repeat, contained in the 23d Psalm, commenc- ing, "The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want." The children flocked to visit his remains, and shed their honest tears about his pall, and af- terward that they might have his cheering face, with its tender smiles of sympathy, in more en- during form than that of memory, employed the celebrated artist, Mr. Buttre, to execute in his best style a fine steel engraving of him, prints of which are to be seen in hundreds of homes to- day, and the same which accompanies this notice of him in the present volume. It will be recol- lected with interest by those who engaged in this pleasant tribute, that the money remaining after the expense of engraving was paid was employed by the children in the purchase of the marble tablet at the asylum, which bears the name of the institution and date of its erection, commem- orating both the affectionate interest of the chil- dren, and the sympathy of one who was the or- phans' friend.
Perhaps no more satisfactory close could be made to this brief biography than extracts from the obituary notice which appeared in the Au- burn Daily Advertiser upon the occasion of the decease of Mr. Letchworth, as follows :
"It is our painful duty to record the death of this estimable and highly respected citizen, who died at his residence on Fulton street at 9 o'clock this morning.
" The intelligence will be received by his friends and fellow citizens with profound grief, for Mr. Letchworth was a man both respected and beloved. He had only resided in this city about five years ; but had been a resident of the Coun- * ty for a quarter of a century, having lived in Scipio some twenty years, where he had a large circle of friends, and had been long known to our principal citizens in this city.
" He was a Friend by birth-right, and enter- tained the general views held by that class of Christians ; though in matters of religion he al- ways refused to be restricted by creeds or sec- tarian shackles, claiming for himself and accord- ing to others the largest liberty in all matters of conscience. One of the marked traits in his character was his profound deference to the right of private judgment, with which he believed God had invested every man.
" Mr. Letchworth had long been known as a genuine reformer and philanthropist, and was ac- counted among the staunch friends of freedom, temperance and education. The oppressed had
in him a true friend, and the fugitive slave was never refused aid and comfort at his hand. The rum traffic was his especial abhorrence, and at an early day he engaged in the temperance re- form, to which he continued firmly devoted. He was deeply interested in the cause of education ; he loved the young, and had a happy faculty of talking to them. He had been for several years trustee of his district, and was but recently re- elected.
" In former times Mr. Letchworth was well known in the political affairs of our County. He was a devoted friend of Henry Clay, and during the presidential contests of those days was a somewhat voluminous correspondent of the Fournal and Advertiser, over the signature of ' Old Cayuga,' which our older citizens will re- member.
" He was not, however, a man ambitious of po- litical honors, and was quite satisfied to render service to his country and to his fellow men in the sphere of a plain citizen. A man of a high order of native intellect, but of unassuming char- acter, he secured universal respect without pro- voking envy. He had a family of four sons and four daughters.
" Mr. Letchworth had not been in health since last July, when he had a severe illness. The sickness of which he died, however, was only of a week's continuance, and he was not considered so near his end until last evening. Yesterday he was dressed and was up most of the day ; about II o'clock last evening, after being con- ducted to his room and assisted to bed, he said to his family, ' I shall not be with you much longer, I feel that my decease is near. I want you to bury me without parade, let all be quiet, and in- vite my friends of all denominations to the funeral.' He added, 'I have endeavored to bring up my children as Christians, and I am now quite willing to die, and as to my property you will find what I wish to say on that subject, in my drawer.' All this was said in a calm and intelligent manner, though previously he had seemed quite bewildered at times.
" He appeared anxious to have his family keep near him, which they did, though, he soon be- came insensible, and never recovered conscious- ness up to 9 o'clock this morning, when he quietly breathed his last."
LANSINGH BRIGGS, M. D.
LANSINGH BRIGGS, M. D., the son of Gilbert Briggs, was born in Washington county, N. Y., December 5th, 1807. In December, 1808, his father removed to Scipio in this county, locating on a farm on lot No. 16, purchased of Amos Rath- bun, father of the late George Rathbun, Esq., of Auburn.
proved by dr.
hansingh Dig.
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Scipio, though the earliest settled of any of the townships in the County, was still, in that part of it where Mr. Briggs located, comparatively in a state of nature, the only improvements or " betterments," consisting of a small clearing and a log-house and barn, made by a previous occu- pant. The subject of this sketch was then an infant, and he received his early impressions beneath the shadows of the primeval forest,
" The dark umbragious woods,"
in removing which, and in planting and reaping grain for sustenance, and in preparing flax and wool for raiment, his family, and the settlers gen- erally, both old and young, were for many years, employed. In due time young Briggs was dis- ciplined and cultured in the same earnest and wholesome lessons, supplemented, at the proper age, by instruction in the common schools of the period during the winter. Farm work occupied his summers, and in autumn he assisted his father in his cooper shop.
In the winter of 1823, when but sixteen years of age, he was examined by the school inspectors of the town, the late Doctor John Thompson of Sherwood, and the Rev. W. Johnston, still liv- ing in Owasco, and was by them duly certified to be, in respect both to his literary attainments and moral character, fully competent to teach a common school, and he immediately engaged therein in Deacon Daniels' district in Scipio.
This occupation he continued during the win- ters, working on the farm in summer ; and in the spring of 1825, he became a student in the " Auburn Associated Academy," Rev. Noble D. Strong, principal. This was a private unchar- tered institution, but under the care of a very competent teacher. It occupied the ground floor of the old Theological Seminary building, and was a rival of the regularly chartered "Auburn Academy," which was at the same time, in suc- cessful operation, in a building on the corner of North and Academy streets, afterwards long known as the " stone bottom." Among Doctor Briggs' associate students, at this time, were Deacon Henry Willard, of Cayuga ; Doctor H. P. Peterson, of Union Springs ; Charles Loring Elliott, the eminent artist ; Matthew La Rue Perrine Thompson and the Rev. Wm. Wyckoff, late professor of the New York University.
He continued his vocation of teaching during the winters, and at the same time studied medi- cine under the direction of Doctor Phineas Hurd, late of Scipio.
In the spring of 1829, he entered the office of Doctor Joseph T. Pitney, late of Auburn, who had a large general practice, and was the prin- cipal surgeon of the County. In the succeeding autumn he attended his first course of lectures in the Berkshire Medical Institution, at Pittsfield, Mass., and graduated from the same school the year following.
In June, 1831, forty-eight years ago, he com- menced the practice of his profession with Dr. John G. Morgan in an office at No. 1, North St. Among their students was Dr. Frank II. Han- ilton, since a distinguished professor of surgery, and the author of several deservedly popular sur- gical works, that are authorities on both sides of the Atlantic. The same year he was made a member of the Cayuga County Medical Society, an association organized in 1806, and continued uninterruptedly to the present time. One gen- eration of members has already passed away, and very few only of his then associates now re- main.
Medicine is an inexact, a progressive science, with the progress of which Doctor Briggs has kept fully abreast. Of the two modes of practice, which have prevailed from time im- memorial and now prevail, the active and the expectant, the one relying on the potency of drugs in the treatment of the sick and the other more on the recuperative powers of nature, Doc- tor Briggs inclined to the latter ; and within the last fifty years, it has become a largely prevailing view with the medical profession generally. Very many of the most potent medicines, though still in use, are rarely resorted to, and bleeding has become a nearly " lost art." Among the causes of the great change in medical practice, are the varying character of diseases ; a more thorough knowledge of the means of preventing them ; in- creased facilities for dissections and vivisections ; improvements in the microscope and its practi- cal use ; progress in chemical science ; discov- eries of new and valuable remedies ; and a much more general interchange and diffusion of knowl- edge by means of periodicals, books and public lectures.
Doctor Briggs was a diligent and carnest stu- dent in his profession and kept himself fully in- formed of the improvements in it, and as a medi- cal expert has been much consulted in difficult cases.
In the summer of 1832, on the advent of the Asiatic cholera in America, he was commissioned by the Board of Health of Auburn, to visit Roch- ester and other places wherein the disease was then prevailing, in order that he might, by per- sonal observation, learn something of its peculi- arities, and assist in keeping the scourge at a dis- tance, or in alleviating its horrors should it appear in our midst. We were then spared that afflic- tion ; but, in the summer of 1850, it invaded the city, and claimed for its first victim a resident and prominent physician, Doctor L. B. Bigelow, fol- lowed by Anson Vanderheyden, - Parsons, and a few others.
In June, 1834, he formed a partnership with Ira H. Smith, which continued until the death of the latter in 1839. Their office was on the site of the residence of C. S. Burtis, Esq. In the lat-
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CITY OF AUBURN.
ter year he married Miss Angelina Warden, daughter of Capt. Allen Warden, of Auburn. She died in 1841, leaving one child which survived her only five years. On December 30th, 1836, he contracted a second marriage with Miss Ma- tilda C. Lillie.
In 1848 he went to Europe with a view to im- provement in his profession, and for the general advantages to be derived from foreign travel. Visiting foreign countries thirty years ago, a practice now " more honored in the breach than in the observance," was then supposed to afford peculiar and exclusive advantages to physicians and surgeons in the practice of their profession. Doctor Pitney had up to this time, monopolized the surgery practice of all this region of country ; but his health was failing, and that practice gradually fell into the hands of Doctor Briggs, where most of it still remains. The latter, with less practice, proved himself a more expert and successful operator than his predecessor.
About this time anæesthetics were introduced, and their use in Auburn, in painful operations, was inaugurated by Doctor Briggs. Their use was universally regarded as the most important improvement that had been made in operative surgery, and tended, in no small degree, to en- hance the reputation and extend the practice of Doctor Briggs. He also introduced here the practice of Ovariotomy, by a successful operation, which he has often repeated, and generally with success.
The subject of this sketch, though no politician, in the common acceptation of the word, nor a seeker of public office, is still thoroughly in- formed in political affairs, and was elected mayor of the city of Auburn for three successive terms, 1857-'8-'9, and discharged its duties with signal acceptance. As ex-officio President of the Board of Education, he manifested equal zeal and intel- ligence in behalf of popular education.
Doctor Briggs, it will have been noticed, prac- ticed medicine twenty years before he made sur- gery a specialty, and was unusually trustworthy and successful in that capacity. For the past twenty-eight years he has made surgery a promi- nent feature of his practice, fully supplying him- self with all the improvements in the art as ex- perience has developed them. Of these the most important is conservative surgery, aiding the pro- cesses of nature, and, whenever practicable, sav- ing the wounded or diseased organism ; but when operations must be performed, he renders them comparatively painless by the use of improved modes and instruments, and especially of anas- thetics, which his large experience enables him to safely and successfully employ.
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