USA > New York > Columbia County > History of Columbia County, New York. With illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 21
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* The list of supervisors from 1821 to 1876 has been omitted on account of its extreme length.
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HISTORY OF COLUMBIA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
MARTIN VAN BUREN.
Martin Van Buren, the eighth President of the United States, the son of Abraham Van Buren, a farmer of Kin- derhook, was born in that town on the 5th of December, 1782.
His early education, which was rather limited, was ac- quired at the Kinderhook Academy, which he left at the age of fourteen to engage in the study of the law, which he commeneed in the office of Francis Silvester, in his native village, but completed in the city of New York, in the office of William P. Van Ness.
It is said that the first public office held by Mr. Van Buren was nearly, if not quite, the lowest possible, that of fence-viewer, in Kinderhook ; but from that he ascended, with a rapidity which is seldom equaled, from one position to another, until he reached the summit of possible am- bition,-the presidency.
In November, 1803, he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court, and returned to commence practice in Kin- derhook.
In 1808 he was appointed surrogate of Columbia county. In 1812 he was elected to the Senate of the State, and in that body voted for electors pledged to support De Witt Clinton for President of the United States. From 1815 to 1819 he was attorney-general of the State, and in 1816 was again a member of the Senate, the two offices being held together. In 1818, Mr. Van Buren set on foot a new organization of the Democratie party in this State, and became the ruling spirit in a coterie of politicians known as the Albany Regency, among whom B. F. Butler, Wm. L. Marcy, and Edwin Croswell were afterwards prominent, who held the political control of the State uninterruptedly for more than twenty years. In 1821 he was elected to the United States Senate, and was also a member of the conven- tion to revise the State constitution. In the latter body he advocated an extension of the elective franchise, but opposed universal suffrage, as also the plan of appointing justices of the peace by popular election.
On the 6th of February, 1827, he was re-elected United States senator, but resigned the office in the following year to accept that of governor of New York, to which he had been elected. One of the first measures recom- mended by him as governor was the safety fund banking system, which was adopted in 1829. He resigned the office of governor to accept the sceretaryship of state, which was tendered him by President Jackson immediately after his inauguration, in 1829.
In April, 1831, Mr. Van Buren resigned the office of secretary, aud was appointed minister to England, arriving in that country in September ; but his nomination, sub- mitted to the Senate in December, was rejected on the ground that while secretary of state he had instructed the United States minister to England to beg of that country certain concessions in regard to trade with her colonies in the West Indies, which he should have demanded as a right, and that he had carried our domestic party contests and their results into foreign diplomatic negotiations.
This rejection was followed, on May 22, 1832, by the nomination of Mr. Van Buren for the vice-presidency, on the ticket with General Jackson; and in the subsequent
election Mr. Van Buren received the electoral votes of all the States which voted for General Jackson, with the ex- ception of Pennsylvania,
On the 20th of May, 1835, the Democratic convention at Baltimore unanimously nominated Mr. Van Buren for the presidency, and in the following November he was elected to the office, receiving one hundred and seventy electoral votes, or twenty-eight more than the number necessary to a choice.
His inauguration in 1837 was immediately followed by the memorable financial panic of that year, and suspension of specie payments by the banks. Commerce and manu- factures were prostrate, hundreds of mercantile houses in every part of the country became bankrupt, and during his entire administration the business of the country re- mained in a very depressed condition as a consequence of that great revulsion.
In the great presidential campaign of 1840, in which Mr. Van Buren was nominated for re-election, these dis- asters were by his political opponents attributed to the measures of his administration ; and such was the effect of these allegations upon the voters of the country, that in the election which followed Mr. Van Buren secured only sixty electoral votes, against two hundred and thirty-four cast for his opponent, General Harrison.
Upon his retirement from the presidency, March 4, 1841, he returned to his residence in Kinderhook, to live once more among the friends and neighbors who delighted to do him honor. In the year 1844 he was again urged as a presidential candidate by northern Democrats, but was re- jected by the southern wing of the party on account of his opposition to the annexation of Texas, as expressed by him in a letter to a citizen of Mississippi, who had called for his opinion on that question; and by the two-thirds rule adopted in the convention his nomination was defeated. In 1848, when the Democrats had nominated General Cass, and avowed their readiness to tolerate slavery in the terri- tories lately acquired from Mexico, Mr. Van Buren and his adherents, adopting the name of " Free-Soil Democracy," at once began to discuss in public that new aspect of the slavery question. They held a convention at Utica, June 22, which nominated Mr. Van Buren for President, and Henry Dodge, of Wisconsin, for Vice-President. Mr. Dodge declined the nomination, and at a general " Free- Soil" convention in Buffalo on August 9, Charles Francis Adams was substituted. The convention declared that "Congress has no more power to make a slave than to make a king," and that it is the duty of the Federal gov- ernment to relieve itself of all responsibility for the ex- istence or continuance of slavery wherever the government possesses constitutional power to legislate on the subject, and is thus responsible for its existence. In accepting the nomination of this new party Mr. Van Buren declared his full assent to its anti-slavery principles. The result was that in New York he received the suffrages of more than half of those who had been hitherto attached to the Demo- cratie party, and that General Taylor, the candidate of the Whigs, was elected.
After that time Mr. Van Buren remained in private life on his estate at Kinderhook, with the exception of a prolonged
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HISTORY OF COLUMBIA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
tour in Europe in 1853-55. On the outbreak of the civil war, he declared himself warmly and decidedly in favor of maintaining the republic in its integrity. In July, 1862, at a time when all looked gloomy enough for the northern armies and for the cause of the Union, the venerable ex-President lay dying at Lindenwald. "Previous to the wandering of his mind," wrote a correspondent of the Boston Journal from Kinderhook, " and once or twice since, when reason returned, Mr. Van Buren has evinced the most lively-und patriotic interest in the affairs of the country. He inquired of Dr. Pruyn how the good work of crushing the rebellion was going on, and was very par- ticular to learn if the public confidence in the President was yet firm and unshaken, as he thought it should be, and appeared much gratified when answered in the affirma- tive. He has all faith in the ultimate triumph of our arms and cause." He died a day or two later,-July 24, 1862.
Mr. Van Buren was an active, laborious, and successful politician, possessing a deep and intuitive knowedge of human nature, and remarkable powers of argument and per- suasion. His private character was without a blemish, his manners exceedingly pleasing, and his feelings the most kind and generous, with never a touch of malice or hatred even towards his most bitter opponents.
On the occasion of the death of his uncompromising political antagonist, De Witt Clinton, in 1828, Mr. Van Buren pronounced a most eloquent eulogy, from which we extract the following admirable passage: "The triumph of his talents and patriotism cannot fail to become monuments of high and enduring fame. We cannot, indeed, but re- member that in our public career collisions of opinions and action, at once extensive, earnest, and enduring, have arisen between the deceased and many of us. For myself, it gives me a deep-felt though melancholy satisfaction to know, and more so to be conscious, that the deceased also felt and ac- knowledged that our political differences have been wholly free from that most venomous and corroding of all poisons, personal hatred. But in other respect it is now immateria! what was the character of those collisions. They have been turned to nothing, and less than nothing, by the event we deplore, and I doubt not that we will, with one voice and one heart, yield to his memory the well-deserved tribute of our respect for his name, and our warmest gratitude for his great and signal services. For myself, so strong, so sincere, so engrossing is that feeling, that I, who whilst living never, no never, envied him anything, now that he has fallen, am greatly tempted to envy him his grave with its honors."
Truly, the personal attainments and virtues of Martin Van Buren, as well as the pre-eminent station to which he rose, shed much of lustre on the county that was his birthplace and his home.
ELISHA WILLIAMS.
" Now and then," says Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his " Poet at the Breakfast Table," " one saves a reminiscence that means a great deal by means of a casual question. I asked the first of these old New Yorkers* the following
question, ' Who, on the whole, seemed to you the most considerable person you ever met ?' Now it must be remembered that this was a man who had lived in a city called the metropolis ; one who had been a member of the State and National Legislatures ; who had come in contact
EWilleany
with men of letters and men of business, with politicians and members of all the professions, during a long and dis- tinguished public carcer. I paused for his answer with no little curiosity. Would it be one of the great ex-Presidents whose names were known to all the world ? Would it be the silver-tongued orator of Kentucky, or the godlike champion of the constitution, our own New England Ju- piter Capitoliuus ? Who would it be ?
"' Take it altogether,' he answered, very deliberately, ' I should say that Colonel Elisha Williams was the most notable personage that I have ever met with.'
"' Colonel Elisha Williams! And who might he be, for- sooth ?'
" A gentleman of singular distinction, you may be well assured, even though you are not familiar with his name ; but, as I am not writing a biographical dictionary, I shall leave it to my reader to find out who and what he was."
We believe Dr. Holmes was at fault in bestowing a military title on the Hon. Elisha Williams, but we will endeavor to tell, in a very brief sketch, " who and what he was."
He was, for a period embracing more than the first quarter of the present century, the bright particular star in that shining constellation of legal talent which formed the bar of the county of Columbia. Ile was an orator
# The gentleman of whom Dr. Holmes made this inquiry was the Hon. Gulian C. Verplanck.
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HISTORY OF COLUMBIA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
who had few peers ; one who by the charm and power of his marvelous eloquence could captivate the minds of his auditors and sway them at his will. He was an advocate who, as such, seldom found an equal and never a superior ; whose renown was so great and so widely extended that his services were sought in important cases, not only through this and neighboring counties and in the cities of Albany and New York, but also in the adjoining States; and of whom it was said by so competent a critie and so eminent a barrister as Thomas Addis Emmett, " I have listened to the great men of Europe and America, but never to one who could enchain the attention and captivate the judg- ment like Elisha Williams."
This brilliant man, the son of Colonel Ebenezer Wil- liams, and grandson of the Rev. Ebenezer Williams, of Pomfret, Conn., was born in that town on the 29th of August, 1773,* and, losing his father by death while he w as yet but a youth, was placed under the guardianship of Captain Seth Grosvenor, of Pomfret, who attended to his early education, which, however, was not very complete.
At a date which we are unable to give, he was placed in the law-office of Judge Reeves, of Litchfield, Conn., where he completed his preparation for the profession in which he afterwards became so eminent. In June, 1793, when less than twenty years of age, he was admitted to the bar, and then started out to seek a location, having with him his entire personal property, consisting of a horse, a port- mantean, and less than twenty dollars in money. He decided on Spencertown, in Columbia county, and there settled, and two years later he was united in marriage with the daughter of his former guardian, Miss Lucia Grosvenor, by whom he had five children.
In 1799 he removed to the city of Hudson, and from that removal may be dated the commencement of his famous career. He first took his seat in the Assembly in 1801, and from that time became one of the principal leaders of the Federal party in the State as well as in Co- lumbia county. He always declined to accept higher office, although frequently importuned to do so, and although himself exerting a controlling influence and almost dic- tating the nominations so long as his party remained in power.
He was president of the Bank of Columbia at Hudson for a number of years, and a large owner in the institution. Through some of his transactions he became possessed of a traet of land embracing all or a large portion of the present site of the village of Waterloo, in Seneca county. From these lands he realized large returns ; so that by this means and through his very lucrative professional business he be- came what was at that time considered a wealthy man. Some of the last years of his life were passed upon his property in Seneca county. The weary days of his last sickness were spent principally at Hudson, the city of his preference, as it had been the scene of most of his pro- fessional triumphs. During a deceptive rally from the prostration of his illness he visited the city of New York for a temporary stay, but while there was stricken with
apoplexy; and died at the residence of Mr. Grosvenor, on the 29th of June, 1833.
A few days after the sad event (July 2, 1833), at a meeting of gentlemen of the New York city bar, held at the city hall, for the purpose of giving expression to their grief at the death of the great lawyer, and their respect for his character and talents, Mr. George Griffin, in second- ing the proposed resolutions, gave utterance to the following truthful and appropriate words of eulogium :
" It is not my design to enter upon a detailed panegyric of the deceased ; that will form a noble subject for the biographer. It is my purpose simply to allude to a few of the most prominent features that distinguished him. A stranger would scarcely have been in company with Elisha Williams without being aware that he stood in the presence of an extraordinary man. To be convinced of this, he. need not have witnessed the flashes of his wit, sparkling from its own intrinsic brilliancy, nor his soul-subduing pathos, nor the displays of his deep knowledge of human nature. There belonged to the deceased an eye, a voice, a majesty of person and of mien, that marked him for superiority. With these advantages, it is not surprising that his eloquence should have commanded the universal admiration of his contemporaries. It was peculiar, it was spontaneous, it was variegated, it was overwhelming,-now triumphing over the convinced and subdued understanding, now bearing away in willing captivity the rapt imagination, and now knocking with resistless energy at the doors of the heart.
" I have alluded to his knowledge of human nature. It was indeed more varied and profound than I have ever wit- nessed in any other advocate. It seemed to have been his by intuition. 'He needed not,' as Dryden said of Shak- speare, ' the spectacle of books to read nature: he looked inward, and found her there.' By a kind of untaught anatomy he was capable of dissecting our intellectual and moral frame. It was this quality which gave him his transcendent power in the examination and cross-examina- tion of witnesses, enabling him to drag forth the truth in triumph from the inmost recesses of its hiding-place. He owed little to early education. Like Shakspcare, whom he resembled in wit, in imagination, in brillianey, in knowl- edge of the human heart, in creative powers, he was the architect of himself. Nor was he, even in after-life, distin- guished for laborious study. His communion was with his own mighty mind. Like Prometheus, he borrowed his fire from heaven alone; and without underrating professional attainments, or the profound and patient research necessary for their acquisition, perhaps it may be said that in the peenliar case of Mr. Williams it was well for him and for the public that he poised himself so exclusively on his own resources. If by this means he imparted less of the thoughts of others, he imparted more of his own; if he displayed less of the lore of other times, he displayed more of the treasures of his own rich intellect.
" At the outset of his career he attained distinction, and he remained in the first rank of his profession until near the age of sixty, when ill health induced him to retire with undiminished powers. I was associated with him in his last professional effort in this hall; when, like the clear
* These facts are taken from "The Genealogy and History of the Williams Family," by S. W. Williams.
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HISTORY OF COLUMBIA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
setting sun, he shed upon the horizon that he was about to leave forever the full and gladdening radiance of his match- Jess eloquence.
" Nor was his heart inferior to his head. He was the most dutiful of sons, the kindest of husbands, the most affectionate of fathers, the best of neighbors, and the most faithful of friends. He had ever 'an eye for pity, and a hand open to melting charity.' He was the poor man's gratuitous adviser and liberal benefactor. His charities were more muniticent than his means, and the blessings of many a one who was ready to perish have ascended before him to the throne of God."
A meeting of members of the Oneida county bar, held at Utica, July 2, 1833, adopted resolutions in reference to the death of Mr. Williams, from which resolutions we ex- tract as follows :
" The committee of the bar attending the July term of the Supreme Court have received, with most profound grief, the intelligence of the death of their honored and heloved associate, Elisha Williams, Esq. Of the splendid talents, which placed Mr. Williams among the very first of their profession, their testimony can add no new evidence. During a professional career of nearly forty years, every part of our State has had an opportunity of witnessing the wonderful efforts of his intelleet, and of feeling the power of his surpassing eloquence. Although distinguished amongst the ablest debaters in our publie councils, yet we feel it to he our right and our duty to claim him as one of the most illustrious ornaments of that profession to which hia life was devoted, and in which his greatest triumphs were achieved. To us, and to our successors, his example has furnished a lesson of incalculable value. Literally the maker of his own fortune and fame, his path to greatness is everywhere strewed with relies of difficulties overcome and obstacles subdued.
" But great as were his intellectual efforts, and splendid as was his professional course, he is more strongly endeared to his associates and brethren by ties ot a different kind, and which even death can- not sever. The frankness and generosity of his noble nature, which so irresistihly won the confidence and esteem of those who knew him, furnished nnerring indications of that excellent and full heart which was constantly overflowing in acts of the purest benevolence, and which made him love his friend more than himself."
Elisha Williams was a distant relative of General Otho Holland Williams, who was at one time a member of the staff of General Washington, and of whom the commander- in-chief is reported to have said that he was the most noble- looking officer in the Revolutionary army. Perhaps this physical perfection was a family characteristic, for all accounts, both oral and published, of the great advocate of Hudson, agree that it was possessed by him in an emi- nent degree. His proportions are said to have been most striking in their stateliness and symmetry. His eye was large, clear, and searching ; his countenance open, fearless, and expressive ; and all his features, and his general mien, were so distinguished as to enchain the attention even of the casual observer or stranger.
But it was not until his clear, melodious voice was heard that his marvelous powers were revealed. When- ever it was known that he was to be present and engaged in a trial, whether at his home in Hudson or in other places, to which he was so frequently called, the court- house was invariably crowded to the extreme of its ca- pacity; and when he spoke, the court, and the jury, and the auditory gave close and undivided attention to his utter- ances, and often during the finer passages would seem to
hold their breath, lest a single silver word or intouation might be lost to the ear.
Colonel William L. Stone, once a resident of Hudson, and afterwards editor of the New York Commercial Adver- tiser, used, in early years, to report the speeches made by Mr. Williams in the Assembly ; and in mentioning that circumstance, the widow of Colonel Stone, in a letter writ- ten several years after the death of Mr. Williams, said, in reference to it :*
" llowever, Mr. Stone always said it was impossible for any re- porter to do him justice, for unless one could have before him his imposing figure, his beautiful countenance, heaming with high intel- leeloal effort, and resplendent often with flashes of wit, which seemed to light up all the faces around him ; unless the inimitable grace of his manners, as unconstrained as those of beautiful infancy, together with all the simplicity and earnestness of a true heart, it would be impossible to convey one-half of the charm by which he seemed to hold all his audience, and sway all the minds before him, as by one mighty impulse, till they saw with his eyes, heard with his ears, and laid their hearts as offerings at his feet."
Such was Elisha Williams ; a man of transcendent gifts and powers of mind, who is shown, by a concurrence of all available testimony, to have occupied one of the highest places among the distinguished men of the State of New York. During all the years of his professional life he was a resident of Columbia county. He was her idol and her boast, and his fame is her rightful inheritance.
JUDGE ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.t
Judge Robert R. Livingston, the son of the first propri- etor of Clermont, was born in 1719. In 1742 he married Margaret Beekman, daughter of Colonel Henry Beekman, and granddaughter, on her mother's side, of Robert, nephew of the first proprietor of Livingston manor, and Margaret Schuyler. The children of Judge Livingston were four sons and six daughters. One daughter died in infancy. The names of the children were as follows :
Janet, born 1743, married to the celebrated Richard Montgomery, who fell at Quebec ; Robert R., first chancel- lor of the State of New York, born 1746; Margaret, born 1748, married Dr. Tillotson, of Rhinebeck, who was one of the early secretaries of the State of New York ; Henry B., born 1750, a colonel in the army of the Revolution ; Cath- arine, born 1752, married Rev. Freeborn Garrettson, one of the early pioneers of the Methodist church in the United States ; John R., born 1755; Gertrude, born 1757, mar- ried the politician, general, and governor, Morgan Lewis ; Joanna, born 1759, married the great politician, Peter R. Livingston ; Alida, born 1761, married General John Arm- strong, of the Revolution; Edward, born 1764, one of America's most distinguished men.
Judge Livingston filled as important a part in the advent stages of the Revolution as his sons and daughters bore in and through the great war for freedom. He was chairman of the committee appointed by the General Assembly of New York to correspond with other Assemblies in relation
# The letter was written to Mr. Mckinstry, of Hudson, and the extraet is from the " Genealogy and History of the Williams Family." Further mention of the distinguished family of Livingston will be found iu the history of the town of Clermont.
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HISTORY OF COLUMBIA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
to the grievances of the colonies. He was admitted, in the absence of delegates regularly appointed by New York, to the stamp-act Congress of 1765. He was the author of the address to the king, adopted by that body, praying for the invaluable rights of taxing ourselves, and of trials by our peers. On account of his sympathy with the popular side in the incipiency of the Revolution he lost his position as judge of the king's bench. As the conflict with the mother-country advanced towards a crisis he saw the neces- sity of united and open resistance on the part of the colo- nies, and in the famous postscript to his letter to his son, Robert R., the chancellor, at the Congress in Philadelphia, in 1775, made inquiry about saltpetre for the purpose of manufacturing powder. He was at that time engaged in the erection of a powder-mill, in which his son, John R. Liv- ingston, manufactured powder during the Revolution.
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