USA > New York > Wayne County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 26
USA > New York > Cayuga County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 26
USA > New York > Seneca County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 26
USA > New York > Ontario County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 26
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Benton-Army: Valentine P. Allen, pneumonia.
Branchport-Army: Roy E. Bassage, pneumonia.
Barnes-Army: John H. Bradley, killed.
Rock Stream-Army: Foster F. Jessop, killed.
Rushville-Army: James H. Savage, pneumonia.
Dresden-Army: Orlo Horace Scott, pneumonia; Sidney C. Vermilyea, wounds.
Dundee-Army: Harold Sproul, pneumonia.
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AMERICAN LEGION.
In the eleven counties covered in this history, there are sixty American Legion Posts whose membership totaled 3,914 in 1931 and, largely due to business depression, shrunk to 3,137 in 1932. Though the Legion boasts the largest membership of any war veterans' organization in the region, its membership is but a frac- tion of the number of men who went to war.
Cayuga County has five Posts with a present membership of 347 as against 507 in 1931. Posts and commanders are: Clar- ence Clark Post, 568, E. R. Scott, Weedsport, nineteen members; George C. Ingersoll Post, 658, Leland Demarest, Sterling Sta- tion, eight members; John Cool Post, 257, Allen Ames, Port Byron, seventeen members; Rowe-Churchill Post, 710, George Warn, Moravia, twelve members; W. Mynderse Rice Post, 97, Ronnell Ranf, Auburn, 291 members.
Cortland County has five posts which had 244 members last year and 215 this year. Posts are: Burns- McAuliffe, 465, A. E. Goodwin, Homer, forty-eight members; Cortland City Post, 489, Francis Torr, Cortland, 107 members; Kingsley-Turner Post, 963, Stanley L. Hathaway, DeRuyter, sixteen members; Milo C. Nealy Post, 775, P. E. A. More, McGraw, seventeen mem- bers; Osco Robinson Post, 617, Darrell H. Miller, Marathon, twenty-seven members.
The three posts in Tompkins County have fifty-nine members as against 124 in 1931. They are: Carrington-Fuller Post, 800, James G. Simmons, Groton, sixteen members; Arthur E. Bolton Post, 770, Oscar Manning, Trumansburg, four members; Ithaca Post, 221, Carl Vail, Ithaca, forty-three members.
Tioga County's five posts had 200 members in 1931 and 164 in 1932, as follows: Betowski-Van DeMark Post, 492, Francis Clohessy, Waverly, forty-three members; Arden-Kelsey Post, 907, Carl Baker, Candon, six members; Newark Valley Post, 897, Walter Westfall, Newark Valley, eight members; Tioga Post, 401, Bernard Wood, Owego, eighty-two members; Max O. VanAtta Post, 843, Clarence Vanderpool, Spencer, twenty-five members.
The three Seneca County posts have a roster of 113 as against 220 in 1931. The posts: Benjamin Franklin, Jr., Post, 463,
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Elmer B. Burnham, Ovid, ten members; Kirk-Casey Post, 366, Joseph J. Rafferty, Seneca Falls, eight-two members; Warner- VanRiper Post, 435, Carl Heller, Waterloo, thirty-one members.
Wayne County, with a dozen posts, has the largest number of Legionnaires of any of the eleven counties. Total enrollment in 1931 was 555 and in 1932 it is 548. The posts: George Aden Brown Post, 226, John Walsh, Clyde, forty-four members; Bert G. Collins Post, 227, Augustus C. Nelson, Lyons, 103 members; James R. Hickey Post, 120, Gerald A. Thompson, Palmyra, twen- ty-eight members; August Mauer Post, 286, Clifford A. Newton, Newark, 124 members; John McMillin Post, 986, Morris Butts, Sodus Point, sixteen members; Marine M. Myers Post, 428, Reno Muhoff, Ontario, twenty members; Miner-Young Post, 582, Lloyd Gowers, Rose, sixteen members; Carl O. Peterson Post, 436, Hobert Bartholomew, Martville, thirty members; Sodus Post, 910, Harry R. Proseus, Sodus, forty-one members; Philip Steiger Post, 494, Clayton T. Bridges, Macedon, sixteen members; Wil- liamson Post, 394, Roland W. Henry, Williamson, sixty-eight members; Wolcott Post, 881, Harlow Dunton, Wolcott, forty-two members.
Ontario County is a close second to Wayne, having eight posts with 484 members, as against 574 members in 1931, when the county boasted the second largest Legion membership in the dis- trict. The posts: Bloomfield-Savage Post, 970, Irving Fitzmor- ris, East Bloomfield, ten members; Canandaigua Post, 256, John R. Peck, Canandaigua, 155 members; James Cooke Post, 931, Roger C. Johnson, Victor, twenty-seven members; J. J. Driscoll Post, 809, Frank Graves, Clifton Springs, twenty-one members; Seeley B. Parish Post, 457, J. F. Cuddebac, Phelps, six members; Jacob Schaeffer Post, 810, Robert McCarthy, Naples, twenty- four members; Turner-Schrader Post, 34, Arthur J. LeFevre, Shortsville, seventy-three members; Winnek Post, 396, George A. Wilson, Geneva, 168 members.
Schuyler County's three posts have eighty-six members as against 131 last year. The posts: Cole-Hensenberger-Deland Post, 676, Louis Dean, Alpine, fifteen members; Montour Post, 882, Edward Hoercher, Montour Falls, nineteen members; Se-
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neca Post, 555, Charles H. Taylor, Watkins Glen, fifty-two members.
Steuben County, with ten posts, in 1931 boasted 795 members, a regional record, but the total for 1932 has dropped to 457. The Steuben Posts are: Addison Post, 730, H. E. Auringer, Addi- son, twenty-six members; Canisteo Post, 846, E. P. Bessell, Canisteo, twenty-one members; A. J. Carlton Post, 922, Delbert O. Fuller, Painted Post, fifty-one members; Arthur H. Cunning- ham Post, 440, Byron J. Schmodt, Hornell, eighty-five members; John P. Easton Post, 746, L. J. Cushing, Corning, ninety-two members; Hyatt-Clair-Hatch Post, 766, H. R. Vanda, Atlanta, nineteen members; Roswell McDaniels Post, 407, Orin Cornish, Hammondsport, twenty-eight members; Nelson R. Ouderkirk Post, 805, Orrin Craig, Cohocton, eighteen members; Theodore R. Vantassel Post, 402, Harry Proechell, Wayland, twenty-eight members; Charles E. Wescott Post, 173, Raymond V. Jones, Bath, eighty-nine members.
Yates County is the only one in the region showing a marked membership increase this year. The three posts there grew from an enrollment of 125 in 1931 to 239 in 1932. These posts are: Jessop-Bradley Post, 660, Earl Carpenter Dundee, twenty-five members; Johnson-Costello Post, 355, Frew Hopkins, Penn Yan, 171 members; Robson-Savage Post, 546, Charles Snyder, Rush- ville, forty-three members.
Three Chemung County posts had a membership of 539 in 1931 and 425 in 1932, as follows: Harry B. Bentley Post, 443, Herschel B. King, Elmira, 346 members; Richard E. Bentley Post, 442, Charles A. Roche, Horseheads, forty-two members; Capt. Clarence R. Oliver Post, 154, Louis J. Price, Elmira, thirty- seven members.
CHAPTER XXV PUBLIC OFFICIALS AND OUTSTANDING CITIZENS.
GOVERNORS-LIEUTENANT GOVERNORS-OTHER STATE OFFICERS-STATESMEN- DIPLOMATS-EDUCATORS-WHITMAN, THE PIONEER-PRESIDENT FILLMORE- WOMAN'S EQUAL SUFFRAGE-FINANCIERS AND CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY.
Central New York has produced one President of the United States, seven governors of the Empire State, some of the greatest statesmen, inventors, financiers, philanthropists and famous per- sonages in America. To enumerate all the industrialists, writ- ers, educators and other notables who claim New York as their native heath would too greatly tax space limitations of this vol- ume. But there are herewith included some of the outstanding leaders who have helped make America great.
John D. Rockefeller, Henry Wells and William G. Fargo are typical of the great business men of the region; they have left their names immortalized in the giant Standard Oil Company and in the far-flung international express business of today.
The mighty sweep of the nation's possessions today is due largely to the vision of three sons of Central New York-Presi- dent Millard Fillmore, in whose administration California was admitted to the Union and Japan united with the family of na- tions ; Dr. Marcus Whitman, who opened the far west and secured it for Uncle Sam, and William H. Seward, purchaser of Alaska.
The eleven Central New York counties have sent five gover- nors to Albany, who resided within the counties at the time of their election, as follows: Enos T. Throop, lieutenant-governor (Cayuga), March 12, 1829; William H. Seward (Cayuga), No- vember 7, 1838; Myron H. Clark (Ontario), November 7, 1854; Lucius Robinson (Chemung), November 7, 1876; David B. Hill (Chemung), lieutenant-governor, January 6, 1885, elected No- vember, 1885, and re-elected November, 1888.
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Two other governors were born in the region. Alonzo B. Cor- nell, governor from 1880 to 1883, was born in Ithaca in 1832 and died there in 1904. Nathan L. Miller, governor 1921 to 1923, was born in Solon, Cortland County, in 1868.
Central New York has been represented by the following United States senators in Washington : William H. Seward, Au- burn, Whig, elected February 6, 1849, re-elected February 6, 1855; Elbridge C. Lapham, Republican, Canandaigua, elected July 22, 1881; David B. Hill, Democrat, Elmira, elected January 21, 1891; Thomas C. Platt, Republican, Owego, elected January 20, 1897, re-elected January 18, 1903.
Six lieutenant-governors have come from Central New York as follows: Enos T. Throop, Auburn, elected November, 1828; William M. Oliver, Penn Yan, elected January 5, 1830; Robert Campbell, Bath, November, 1858; David B. Hill, Elmira, elected November, 1882; Charles T. Saxton, Clyde, elected November 6, 1894; Seymour Lowman, Elmira (now assistant United States Secretary of the Treasury), elected November 4, 1924.
In the state division of military and naval affairs, the region has been represented by five state adjutant-generals, as follows: Levi Hubbell, Canandaigua, appointed 1833; Thomas Farrington, Owego, appointed 1845; Thomas Hillhouse, Geneva, appointed August 19, 1861; William Irvine, Corning, appointed January 2, 1865; Edward M. Hoffman, Elmira, appointed January 1, 1900.
Seven state comptrollers have been sent to Albany from Cen- tral New York. They were: Lucius Robinson, Elmira, ap- pointed November 5, 1861; Thomas Hillhouse, Geneva, appointed November 7, 1865; Lucius Robinson, Elmira, appointed Novem- ber 2, 1875; Ira Davenport, Bath, appointed November 8, 1881; Frank Campbell, Bath, appointed November 3, 1891; Nathan L. Miller, Cortland, appointed December 30, 1901; William J. Maier, Seneca Falls, appointed May 22, 1922.
Three state atorney-generals have come from the region: Stephen B. Cushing, Ithaca, elected November 7, 1855; Thomas Carmody, Penn Yan, elected November 8, 1910; James A. Par- sons, Hornell, elected September 2, 1914.
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The district has sent six secretaries of state to Albany : John C. Spencer, Canandaigua, appointed April 4, 1839; Christopher Morgan, Auburn, appointed November 2, 1847; Henry S. Ran- dall, Cortland village, appointed November 4, 1851; Horatio Bal- lard, Cortland village, appointed November 5, 1861; Diedrich Willers, Jr., Varick, Seneca County, appointed November 4, 1873; Frank Rice, Canandaigua, appointed November 5, 1889.
Charles E. Treman, of Ithaca, was appointed state superin- tendent of public works January 4, 1911, the only resident of the region ever to hold that office.
Three state superintendents of prisons have come from the area: Austin Lathrop, Corning, appointed May 11, 1887; Jo- seph F. Scott, Elmira, appointed May 24, 1911, and Charles F. Rattigan, Auburn, appointed January 29, 1919.
The district has produced two state superintendents of bank- ing: George W. Schuyler, Ithaca, appointed January 3, 1866, and Daniel C. Howell, Bath, appointed February 3, 1870.
The three state superintendents of insurance named from the region were: William Smyth, Owego, appointed February 1, 1876; Charles G. Fairman, Elmira, appointed April 15, 1880, and Jesse S. Phillips, Hornell, appointed April 23, 1915.
Another statesman and legislator of prominence from Cen- tral New York was Sereno Elisha Payne, who served in the House of Representatives for nearly thirty years and was largely re- sponsible for the Payne-Aldrich Act of 1909. Mr. Payne was born in Hamilton, New York, in 1843, studied at the University of Rochester and was admitted to the bar in 1866. He became first city clerk in Auburn, then Cayuga County supervisor, dis- trict attorney and head of the Auburn School Board. In 1882 he was elected congressman, holding the office until his death in 1914. In Auburn he was a law partner of Paul R. Clark, for a long time Auburn postmaster. In Congress he was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and majority floor leader.
The private secretary to President Abraham Lincoln was William O. Stoddard, born September 24, 1835, in Homer, Cort- land County. While editor of the Central Illinois Gazette of Champaign, Illinois, he wrote a two-column editorial urging nomi-
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nation of Lincoln. It was the first newspaper article in behalf of the Emancipator's candidacy and was widely copied. Stoddard served in the army and was author of numerous historical works.
Andrew D. White, American diplomat and educator, whose impress upon Central New York was noteworthy, was born in Homer, Cortland County, November 7, 1832. He was graduated from Yale in 1853; traveled in Europe, studied at Sorbonne and College de France, 1853-54; was attache to American legation at St. Petersburg, 1854-55; studied in University of Berlin, 1855-56; was professor of history and English literature in University of Michigan, 1857-63. Then he returned to Syracuse, New York, and was elected state senator, 1863-67, in which capacity he in- troduced reports and bills codifying school laws, creating a new system of normal schools and incorporating Cornell University. He was chosen as first president of Cornell in 1866. He also filled the chair of modern history and visited Europe to purchase books and apparatus for Cornell and to make a special study of European educational methods.
Doctor White was appointed by President Grant as commis- sioner to Santo Domingo to study and report on question of annex- ation, 1871; by New York State as commissioner to Paris Expo- sition, 1878; by President Hayes as minister to Berlin, 1879-81; by President Harrison as minister to St. Petersburg and con- tinued under President Cleveland, 1892-94; appointed by Presi- dent Cleveland a member of the commission to Venezuela, 1895- 96; was ambassador to Berlin under President Mckinley, 1897; was president of the American delegation to the International Peace Conference at The Hague in 1899. He was a regent of the Smithsonian Institution and an officer of the Legion of Honor of France. He died in 1918.
Two Cayuga County diplomats are among those recently con- tributing to the international relations of the nation. William Miller Collier, born in Lodi, Seneca County, in 1867, but later a resident of Auburn, was minister to Spain from 1905 to 1909, after which he was president of George Washington University from 1918 to 1921, when he was made ambassador to Chile, a post he held until retiring in 1928. He has represented the United
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States on numerous missions and at international conferences in connection with the World War and other matters. He has been a member of the State Civil Service Commission and as a lawyer, a distinguished writer on legal subjects.
Edwin Vernon Morgan, born in Aurora, Cayuga County, in 1863, is United States ambassador to Brazil, after having held the office of United States minister to Korea, 1905; Cuba, 1905- 10; Uruguay-Paraguay, 1910-11; Portugal, 1911-12; Brazil, 1913 to date.
Ontario County has been particularly prolific in the number of men it has sent into high places. Myron H. Clark, born in Naples, October 23, 1806, was elected governor of the state on the Whig-Free-Soil-Temperance ticket in 1854 and served as United States collector of internal revenue under Lincoln. He died in Canandaigua in 1892.
Another Canandaiguan, Francis Granger, after being elected to Congress in 1835 and after having been candidate for gover- nor and vice president, was appointed postmaster-general by President Harrison. He died in Canandaigua in 1868.
Stephen A. Douglas, known as "The Little Giant" in the po- litical battles before the Civil War, was a student at the old Canandaigua Academy 1831-33.
In the early days of the Republic, Gen. Peter B. Porter of Canandaigua was secretary of war in the cabinet of the younger Adams. He settled in Canandaigua in 1795 and represented the county in the Assembly. He was a major-general in the War of 1812, directing the defense of Black Rock, now Buffalo. He was offered the full command of the United States Army by Presi- dent Madison and declined.
Another secretary of war came from Canandaigua in the per- son of John C. Spencer, who in 1815 was assistant postmaster- general and in 1826 special prosecutor in the Morgan abduction case. He was Governor Seward's secretary of state and two years later was Regent of the State University. He became war sec- retary in 1841 and two years later was transferred to the post of secretary of the treasury.
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Still another Canandaiguan who became postmaster-general was Gideon Granger, who served in that capacity throughout the term of Jefferson and most of Madison's.
Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University and a pioneer in railroad development in the lake country, began life as a mechanic and miller at Ithaca and subsequently became a contractor for the erection of telegraph lines. He was a member of the State Assembly in 1862-63 and of the State Senate in 1864-67, this service being at the trying time of the Civil War. He died in Ithaca in 1874.
It was one of Elmira's daughters, Miss Olivia Langdon, who captured the affection of Samuel Clemens Mark Twain, just re- turned from his European trip immortalized in "Innocents Abroad." The couple were married at the Langdon home in the presence of a hundred guests. In those Langdon parlors later Mark Twain saw much of joy and sorrow and there he and his wife and children returned in death, to be buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Elmira. The world owes much to Mark Twain's wife, who from the very beginning inspired him to give only his worthiest to the world. Possessed of both literary perception and refined tastes, she became his editor and they enjoyed reading his works together until death.
In Charles J. Folger, a prominent Central New York figure a century ago, the area gave to America a legal authority who became secretary of the federal treasury and who was defeated for governor in 1882 by Grover Cleveland. Folger moved from Massachusetts in 1831 to Geneva, was graduated from Hobart College there in 1831, studied law in Canandaigua, practiced in Lyons and settled in Geneva in 1840.
He became a judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Ontario County. He was a Democrat until 1854 when he joined the newly formed Republican party. He was state senator 1861-69; a member of the New York Constitutional Convention of 1867 and chairman of its judiciary committee. By appointment of Presi- dent Grant United States Assistant Treasurer in New York City in 1869-70.
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Folger was elected associate judge of the State Court of Ap- peals in 1871 and in 1880 was re-elected. He resigned in 1881 when appointed by President Arthur as secretary of the treas- ury, a position he held until death.
The vision and daring and fortitude of Dr. Marcus Whitman, native of Central New York, and other men and women of the district, won the great Oregon country for the United States. Whitman, hero of the Oregon trail, was born in Rushville, On- tario County, on September 4, 1802. The tiny settlement was then known as Federal Hollow and sometimes as Burning Spring, because of natural gas springs one mile southwest of the hamlet.
In 1836 Whitman emigrated with others to act as a mission- ary among the Indians of the Upper Columbia. Accompanied by his young wife, he crossed the plains by wagon, an ancient vehicle made at Prattsburgh, Steuben County, and was the first person to reach the Pacific by this means. It was at Prattsburgh that Narcissa Prentiss, Whitman's bride, was born in a house still standing. She attended Franklin Academy, Prattsburgh, and was active in the Prattsburgh Presbyterian Church, now over 135 years old. For several years Doctor Whitman practiced medicine at Wheeler, a hamlet eight miles from Prattsburgh on the road to Bath. His office still stands and is used as a barn.
When the couple started, they were accompanied by Rev. Henry Harmon Spaulding, who was born at Wheeler and attended the academy in Prattsburgh. He became a missionary to the Nez Perces and converted a thousand Indians, among whom he died at Lapwai, Idaho, in 1874. When the young enthusiasts, setting out from the frontiers of civilization to the wilderness of the West as the first cross-continent pioneers, they little dreamed that Doctor and Mrs. Whitman would save Oregon to the Union and then be massacred in 1847 by the red men.
The little party in the West was soon joined by other emi- grants who settled in what was then known as Oregon and which now forms the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. At this time the Hudson Bay Company was using every possible means to secure this territory for the British. When this plan became evident to Doctor Whitman, he made plans to forestall it.
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The Ashburton-Webster treaty was then before Congress and was expected to settle the Oregon question. Knowing that the government should have full knowledge as to the true state of affairs in the far West, Whitman rode over 3,000 miles on horse- back, enduring all the hardships of a western winter in the Rockies. He reached Washington on March 3, 1843, only to find that the treaty had been signed. Fortunately the Oregon ques- tion had not been included. Doctor Whitman at once tackled the laborious task of convincing the government of the value of the land it had deemed worthless and demonstrated to the people the fertility of the land of Oregon and the fact that it could be reached by wagon. He then returned at the head of 1,000 emigrants.
By his zeal and his daring ride, Doctor Whitman won this great section for the United States and the results were secured by the treaty of 1846. A year later the Whitmans and others were slain by the Cayuse Indians.
A beautiful tablet on a boulder was erected at Rushville in 1931 by the Gu-Ya-No-Ga-Chapter, Daughters of American Rev- olution, and by citizens' contributions, to mark the birthplace of Whitman.
In 1928 the Franklin Academy Alumni Association and the State of New York erected two tablets in Prattsburgh commemo- rating the lives of Whitman pioneers, one to Rev. Henry Harmon Spaulding and the other to Narcissa Prentiss, Whitman's wife.
The whole of Whitman's background had been emblematic of the sturdy blood of pioneers to Central New York. His family migrated from Windsor, Massachusetts, locating somewhere in what is now the town of Hopewell, Ontario County. After a few months they moved to what is now Rushville, where the father, Beza Whitman, became proprietor of the first "open house" in the section. It was located on the main street, a few rods north of the Yates County line on the corner of the first street to the right after crossing the railroad track on entering Rushville from the north.
To another son of Central New York goes the credit for add- ing Alaska to the possession of the nation. America has produced few greater statesmen than William H. Seward, President Lin-
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coln's secretary of state and the man who acquired Alaska. Seward came to Auburn, Cayuga County, as a young man of twenty-one and made that city his residence until his death in 1872. In 1838 and 1840 he was elected governor and in 1849 United States senator. He was the friend and adviser of Presi- dent Taylor and was always a staunch abolitionist. In 1860 he was defeated for Republican nomination for president by Abra- ham Lincoln, but in the election campaign vigorously supported Lincoln.
Seward then became secretary of state under the martyred president and was dangerously wounded in April, 1865, by a would-be assassin. As secretary of state, a post he held under Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, he displayed notable tact in dealing with Great Britain in the "Trent Affair." He was the chief advocate of the purchase of Alaska, then known as "Seward's Folly." But his determination and eloquence won. He negotiated the acquisition of that great territory from Rus- sia in 1867, at a purchase price of $7,200,000, only a fraction of the amount the exports of that territory bring in yearly.
Today the ancient Seward mansion still stands in Auburn, occupied by descendants of the statesman. And adjoining is Se- ward Park and a great monument to Seward, pointing to "the Higher Law."
On February 7, 1800, in a cabin in Summerhill, southern Cayuga County, was born Millard Fillmore, who rose from an apprentice wood carver to the position of the thirteenth president of the United States, and during whose administration Califor- nia was taken into the Union. With Daniel Webster as his secre- tary of state, Fillmore's ideals were always for expansion of the Republic. It was he who sent Admiral Perry to the Orient with the United States fleet and opened the door of Japan, then a her- mit kingdom, to the family of nations.
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