USA > New York > Lewis County > History of Lewis County, New York; with...biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 13
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5,303.60
20,899.07
1,748.07
22,647. 14
1876
5,780.93
21,472.97
1,621.88
23,094.85
1877
7,918.19
22, 107.11
1.562.21
23,669.32
1878
9,112.81
22,946.69
1,547.42
24 494. 1 I
1879
8,186.06
21,423.70
1,525.68
22,949.38
1880
8,385.15
21,437.68
1,526.09
22.963.77
1881
8,335.14
21,466.52
1,515.44
22,981.96
1882
8,764.07
21,328. 13
1,460.28
22,788.41
TEACHERS' INSTITUTES.
These annual gatherings of teachers for instruction, and a review of studies began to be held in the State in 1843, although they did not begin to be re- cognized by the Legislature until 1847. In that year a law was passed allowing the sum of $60 to be expended in each county, whenever a majority of the town Superintendents united in a call, and since then we believe no year has passed without one being held. The reports of the State School Administration do not separately show the details of attend- ance in the early years ;* and we cannot give a connected statement excepting since 1862. The Teachers' Institute in Lewis county was reported in that year
as held in Lowville, and continued six weeks. In 1864 it was held in Turin for three weeks, and in 1865 at the same place for two weeks. They have been held annually since, at Martinsburgh, generally in the month of September. In 1866, 1867, 1868, 1869, they continued three weeks, from 1870, to 1876, two weeks, and since then about one week. The attendance has been as follows :---
Years.
Male.
Female.
Total Days.
Attendance.
1863
75
1,672
1864
76
1,031
1865
65
802
1866
92
1, 169
1867
18
92
EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY OF LEWIS COUNTY.
This was formed November 14, 1845, with David P. Mayhew, as President ; Sidney Sylvester, First Vice-President ; Alpheus D. Pease, Second Vice-Presi- dent ; Harrison . Barnes, Corresponding Secretary ; A. S. Easton, Recording Secretary ; and John P. Clark, Treas- urer. It kept up an organization for several years, but died out about 1850.
At the close of a very successful meeting of the Teachers' Institute held at Copenhagen, in 1854, the teachers present organized the Lewis County Teachers' Association.
* In 1854, the Institute was held at Copenhagen under Truman H. Bowen and David H. Cruttendeu.
87
PERSONS DISTINGUISHED FOR EDUCATIONAL LABORS.
THE LEWIS COUNTY TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION.
The committee appointed for drafting a constitution, consisted of R. K. Shaw, (chairman), Ezra W. Stanford, Asahel F. Dickinson, Anson F. Thompson, Harriet Sylvester, Harriet Carpenter, and Fran- ces Stanford. Their first meeting was held at West Martinsburgh, December 30, 1854. It has we believe since held meetings semi-annually in June and De- cember in different parts of the county, and at its meeting, addresses and essays are read, and subjects are discussed upon education in its various forms and methods. The subjects were originally assigned to committees, but after a few meetings this was discontinued and since then they have been prepared by in- dividual members. A new constitution was adopted in 1882.
PERSONS DISTINGUISHED FOR THEIR EDUCATIONAL LABORS.
In noticing the educational agencies of the county, besides the associated efforts already mentioned, and those connected with the official management of schools and academies, there should be some- thing said of the special labors of indi- viduals in this field of useful labor. It would appear invidious to name some, without mentioning others, who have made the teacher's calling a profession for life, and who have spent many years in the faithful discharge of these duties in the school room.
Of those who have made the theory and methods of education a special study and a business of life, we may mention Mr. Henry C. Northam, a native of Ley- den, and a resident of Lowville, who besides his long service as a School Com- missioner, has for many years been regu- larly employed in conducting Teachers' Institutes, in various places in this and
other States. He is also an author of excellent reputation among educators.
Prof. James Cruikshank, for several recent years a summer resident of Turin, but a citizen of Brooklyn, was for many years editor of the official Journal of Edu- cation published under State patronage, and more recently has prepared a Geo- graphical work for public schools.
In the line of higher educational au- thorship, the Lowville Academy claims as a former student, one who in the line of chemistry, has achieved a reputation as an author that has few equals, and but few superiors in the world. We refer to Prof. Samuel W. Johnson, of the Shef- field school of science in Yale College, and author of various chemical works of great value and wide reputation. He is the son of the late Abner A. Johnson, of Deer River, and a native of Kingsboro, Fulton county, N. Y., from which place he removed with his parents, when about twelve years of age. He became a stu- dent in the Lowville Academy, under D. P. Mayhew, who had fitted up a work- ing laboratory, in the basement, which gave him the first opportunity for the study of chemistry. He subsequently had a very serviceable laboratory of his own, in a building upon his father's premises at Deer River. Later he be- came a pupil of Liebig at Munich, and a translator of some of his publications in Agricultural Chemistry, which is the par- ticular division of that science, in which he has been chiefly engaged.
Of Principals of the Lowville Academy we may mention, Stephen W. Taylor, Cyrus M. Fay, Henry Bannister, Erastus Wentworth, David P. Mayhew, Frank- lin Moore, Charles W. Bennett, and A. Barton Wood ; of the Collinsville Insti- tute, A. W. Cummings, and of the Den- mark Private Academy, John P. Clark, as having elsewhere acquired a wider and some of them a distinguished reputation as teachers after leaving the county.
88
HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY.
Several natives, or early residents of the county, have held professorships in colleges, among whom may be men- tioned Henry C. Sheldon, son of Ira Sheldon, of Martinsburgh, who has been for several years a Professor of Histori- cal Theology in the Theological Depart- ment of the Boston University ; William X. Nynde, who holds a Professorship in the Garrett Biblical Institute at Evans- ton, Ill .; Henry P. Mott, for some years Professor of Political Science, in the University of the city of New York, and for a time, principal of the Martin Insti- tute; Augustus C. Merriam, son of Ela Merriam, of Leyden, who is Assistant Professor of Greek in Columbia College; Dr. Charles A. Foster, son of the late Alburn Foster, of Lowville, formerly pro- fessor in St. Stephen's College, at Annan- dale, and Frederick L. Harvey, son of Daniel Harvey, of Leyden, now Profes- sor of Botany in the State Agricultural College of Arkansas.
The Hon. Henry E. Turner, of Low- ville, is a member of the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, and is the only person who has held this office in the county.
OTHER NATIVES OR FORMER CITIZENS OF THE COUNTY, WHO HAVE AC- QUIRED PROMINENCE ELSEWHERE.
In the military line, may be mentioned Major-General William H. Halleck, commander-in-chief during a part of the late war, who lived for a year or two when a lad, in Leyden; General Daniel Ullman, a former student of Lowville Academy, who was commander of col- ored troops of the Lower Mississippi, in the late war, and Colonel Guilford D. Bailey,* son of Daniel S. Bailey, who was
killed at Fair Oaks, Va., as chief of ar- tillery, in General Casey's Division ; Captain William Clark, from Denmark, is now in the cavalry service, in the Western country, and Melville R.Loucks, from West Martinsburgh, who graduated from West Point, and entered the regu- lar service, but died in early manhood.
Bishop Cheeney, of the Reformed Protestant Episcopal Church, is a son of Dr. Warren Cheeney, formerly of Mar- tinsburgh. The Rev. Thomas Brainerd, D. D., from Leyden, became an eminent clergyman of the Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. The Rev. Leicester A. Sawyer, translator of the New and portions of the Old Testament, was for some years pastor of the Presbyterian church in Martinsburgh.
Of those who have acquired political distinction, may be mentioned James D. Doty, former Governor of Wisconsin and of Utah ; Samuel A. Talcott, after- wards Attorney-General of the State, and a lawyer of brilliant tallent ;- the sons of Daniel Kelley, (Alfred and Datus) in Ohio; A. J. Edgerton, once a student of Lowville Academy, for a time United States Senator from Minnesota, and now Chief Justice of Dakota ; Daniel Buck, State Senator in Minnesota ; Henry E. Tedmon, State Senator in Colorado; Caleb Lyon of Lyonsdale, first Gov- ernor of Idaho, and several who became Members of Congress and influential Leg- islators in several of the Western States.
The sons of Stephen W. Taylor, of Low- ville Academy, [Alfred and Benjamin F.) have acquired favorable reputations as lecturers and writers. Two of the sons of Judge Silas Stow, of Lowville, be- came eminent as lawyers. Of these, Alexander W. Stow, was Chief Justice of Wisconsin, at the time of his death, and Horatio J. Stow, was a lawyer in Buffalo and Lewiston,-for a term in the State Senate, and a member of the Con- stitutional Convention of 1846.
* Colonel Bailey was a graduate of West Point, and was in the army that was disbanded in Texas, by the rebel General Twiggs, at the beginning of the war. He was Colonel of the Ist N. Y. Artillery, and would un- doubtedly have risen to a high rank in the army had he lived. He was buried at Elizabethtown, N. J., where his wife's family resided.
89
EMINENT PERSONS FROM LEWIS COUNTY.
Eliam E. Barncy, once a principal of the Lowville Academy, became an ex- tensive manufacturer of railroad cars at Dayton, Ohio. Among those natives of the county, who attained great success in business after leaving it, may be men- tioned Royal Phelps, a shipping mer- chant in New York; Jason C. Easton, from Lowville, a banker and financier in Minnesota ; John H. Easton, of De- corah, Iowa ; Charles B. Collins, of West Turin, lately deceased in Leyden, a suc- cessful merchant in New York ; Leon- ard C. Kilham, from Turin, in Colorado ; Horace Kilham, a banker, in California ; Ralph E. Woolworth, son of George Woolworth, of West Turin, president of the gold bank of California; Foster Dewey, son of Cadwell Dewey, of Tu- rin, in New York, and others.
The sons of Rev. J. D. Pickands, for- merly of Lowville, have become prom- inent men in the iron business in Michi- gan; those of Edward Bancroft, of Martinsburgh, became extensive for- warders at Detroit ; those of William King, late of Martinsburgh, are prom- inent merchants in Chicago; those of Ela Merriam, late of Leyden, in New York and elsewhere ; those of Paul Ab- bot, of Lowville, and others, have in various lines of business, gained honor- able and influential positions in the com- munities where they went to reside. The three sons of Ela Collins, of Lowville, became eminent lawyers in Ohio, where they all died.
Mr. Harry H. Ragan, of Dubuque, Iowa, son of the late Harry Ragan, of Turin, is a distinguished lecturer and elocutionist.
We have had occasion to mention the name of Mr. Benjamin F. Taylor, L. L. D., as a native of the county. It cannot fail to interest our readers, if we present a brief notice of his works and speci- mens of his style. He is the author of several volumes of short political and
prose sketches, among which may be mentioned the following :-
" January and June," N. Y., 1864, pp. 281.
" The World on Wheels, and other Sketches." Chicago, 1874, pp. 258.
" Old-Time Pictures, and Sheaves of Rhyme." Chicago, 1874, pp. 194.
" Songs of Yesterday," Chicago.
" Summer Savory, Gleaned from Rural Nooks in Pleasant Weather." Chicago, 1879, pp. 212.
" Between the Gates."
" In Camp and Field." 1875, 12 mo.
" Life and Scenes in the Army."
" Mission Ridge and Lookout Mountain,
with Pictures of Life in Camp and Field," .12 mo.
In many of Mr. Taylor's sketches, both in prose and verse, we find allusions to the home of his childhood, as in " The Psalm Book in the Garret ;" "How the Brook Went to Mill; " " The Old State Road ; " "The Old Barn ; " " The "Spin- ning Wheel ;" " Mowing ;" "The North Woods;" " The North Woods Meeting- House ; " "Funeral Extravagance ;" "The Concord Coach ;" "My Starry Days," etc., etc. In fact, these first im- pressions of life, appear to have left an impression that he has carried ever since, and in his occasional visits, he sel- dom fails to re-call these incidents, in a manner that excites an interest in his conversation.
In presenting examples of Mr. Tay- lor's style, we select from his prose writ- ings, an extract from his article "Mine Inn," wherein he describes his recollec- tions of the hotel as kept by Jared House in Lowville, which was a fair example of the kind in the early period to which he refers :-
"The first landlord I ever saw is but just dead, and he was an old man in the begin- ing - my beginning. He kept a stage house on the old State Road as far north as the Black River country. It was an old-time inn, with a long, low, hospitable stoop, pulled down over the lower row of front windows like a broad-brimmed
90
HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY.
hat, a world too big, fallen over on ur- chins eyebrows. Along the wall be- neath this stoop was a hospitable bench, within the wide door was a bar-room with a great hospitable Franklin and chuckle headed andirons with slender crooked necks craning away from the maple logs as it they were afraid of burn- ing their brains out. Across the room from the firey irons was "the bunk " a seat by day and a bed by night, above it hung a stage driver's whip, with an open- mouthed tin horn in the act of swallow- ing the handle, and the stock coiled about like the hopeless Laocoon by a long and snaky lash with a pink silk tail. Beside the whip a shaggy overcoat, a long red muffler, a buffalo robe, and a tin lantern tattooed like a Polynesian. Upon the wall the tatters of an old menagerie show bill, where a spotted leopard partly loosened from the plaster, wagged his tail in a strangely familiar way in the lit- tle breaths of air from the ever opening door. But the marvel of the place was the bar - a cage of tall sharp pickets and within it " black spirits and white, blue spirits and gray;" in the fence was a wicket window that lifted like a port- cullis; and upon a little ledge beneath it a half grown tumbler of green glass was set forth, as a portly decanter of some amber liquid, wherein rolled lazy lemons or cherries, or sprigs of tansy a little pale from drowning -or a blood- red port that came across the sea, or something blueish from the Indies, " cru- saders " were not yet. In the dining- room were no sable waiters, and no bills of fare with impossible combinations of letters naming improbable things, but good and abundant food-sugar that looked as if it had been quarried, and white as Parian marble; pure coffee fit for Turks, and tea for Mandarins; and with all a hearty welcome. When bed- ward bound, a pair of sheepskin slippers were produced from a closet in the bar, and "the brief candle " that Shakspeare mentions, and you are shown to a bed fat as Falstaff, to which whole flocks of geese paid featherly tribute-mattresses were not yet.
" The first landlord was a hero to me. He linked the small village to the big world. He was to strangers what the mayor is now. He extended them the
freedom of the city for two shillings a meal. There were shillings as well as " giants in these days." By the way ; when an American tradesman tells you an article is a shilling and a delusion, he is joking at your expense, and lacks but very little of being an honest man, for he comes within half a cent of it."-Summer Savory, p. 95.
As an example of Mr. Taylor's poetry, we quote his description of a village choir in Lowville, when he was a boy :-
THE OLD VILLAGE CHOIR.
I have fancied sometimes the Bethel-bent beam, That trembled to earth in the Patriarch's dream, Was a ladder of song in that wilderness rest, From the pillow of stone to the blue of the Blest, And the angels descending to dwell with us here, "Old Hundred" and "Corinth," and "China," and " Mear."
All the hearts are not dead nor under the sod, That those breaths can blow open to Heaven and God.
Ah! "Silver Street" flows by a bright shining road,-
Oh ! not to the hymns that in harmony flowed, But the sweet human psalms of the old-fash- ioned choir,
To the girl that sang alto, the girl that sang air.
"Let us sing to God's praise !" the minister said : All the psalm-books at once fluttered open at " York,"
Sunned their long dotted wings in the words that he read,
While the leader leaped into the tune just ahead,
And politely picked up the key-note with a fork, And the vicious old viol went growling along At the heels of the girls in the rear of the song. Oh, I need not a wing :- bid no genii come, With a wonderful web from Arabian loom, To bear me again up the river of Time,
When the world was in rhythm and life was in rhyme,
And the stream of the years flowed so noiseless and narrow,
That across it there floated the song of a spar- row :
For a sprig of green caraway carries me there,
To the old village church and the old village choir,
Where clear of the floor my feet slowly swung,
And timed the sweet pulse of the praise that they sung,
Till the glory aslant from the afternoon sun,
91
LITERARY SELECTIONS.
Seemed the rafters of gold in God's temple begun !
You may smile at the nasal of old Deacon Brown, Who followed by scent till he run the tune down,
And dear Sister Green, with more goodness than grace,
Rose and fell on the tunes as she stood in her place,
And where "Coronation" exultingly flows, Tried to reach the high notes on the tip of her toes !
To the land of the leal they have gone with their song,
Where the choir and the chorus together belong. Oh ! be lifted, ye gates! Let me hear them again,
Blessed song ! Blessed Singers ! Forever, Amen.
Mr. Rodney K. Shaw, a native of Den- mark, now of Marietta, Ohio, has writ- ten some pieces in verse that have been well received. His " Battle of Corinth," (October 4, 1862,) describes a scene in which he participated as Captain in the 63d Ohio Vols., but its length prevents its insertion. We give below, the poeti- cal portion of a response made by him at a re-union of the Ohio Brigade, entitled,
THE UNION SOLDIER'S OATH.
There is no towering mountain range, No sullen ocean deep and wide, That bids us freedom's fealty change, That can our fatherland divide. The God of nations made us ONE, The God of nations made us FREE ; He made the land of Washington The dwelling-place of LIBERTY.
As God has made us one As God has made us free, We swear we will be one, We swear we will be free. Will own one common country, Columbia, will own but thee, Our God-our flag-and LIBERTY.
There is no line divides the clay That holds a race of loyal dead ; Between the men at Eutaw slain, And those the gallant Putnam led There is no shade that makes us two, Onc common language we have learned, One common cause our fathers knew. Their offerings on one altar burned.
As God has made us one, As God has made us free, We swear we will be one, We swear we will be free. Will own one common country, Columbia, will own but thee, Our God-our flag-and LIBERTY.
The North, the South, the East, the West, The teeming millions say are mine ; We own the land that God has blest, One people own the palm and pine. When human hands divide the seas, Their mountain waters roll aside, Then we would lose our liberties, Our faithless hands God's gift divide.
No, God has made us one, And God has made us free, We swear we will be one, We swear we will be free. Will own one common country, Columbia, will own but thee, Our God-our flag-and LIBERTY.
In speaking of writers natives of Lewis county, who have displayed a tal- ent for beautiful description and ele- gance of style, we should not fail to men- tion Mr. Nathaniel B. Sylvester, now residing at Saratoga Springs, and doing business in Troy. Mr. Sylvester was born in Denmark, and resided several years at Lowville, as a lawyer.
We take as an example the first part of his chapter entitled " The Two Water- Wheels,"* in which after noticing the twentieth anniversary of his leaving home to settle in Lowville, he says :-
" The village of Lowville is situated upon a little stream at the foot of the terraced hills which skirt the western limits of the valley of the Black River in Northern New York. The village is surrounded on every side save that which faces the river, with high hills, and nestles in groves of sugar maples and stately elms, which serve, when clothed with the exuberance of June, or decked in the more brilliant hues of October, to render it one of the earth's fairest bowers of
* Cited, from a volume entitled " Historical Sketches of Northern New York, and the Adirondack Wilder- ness, including Traditions of the Indians, Early Ex- plorers, Frontier settlers, Hermits, Hunters, etc." By Nathaniel Bartlett Sylvester, of the Troy Bar, Troy, 1877, 800 pp. 316.
92
HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY.
beauty. In this quiet unpretending love- ly village, thus situated about midway between the rush of traffic and travel that surges along the valley of the Mo- hawk on the one hand, and the St. Law- rence upon the other ; yet far removed from the influence of either, I took up my abode.
" But twenty years have wrought great changes in the village of Lowville. Its elms have grown taller, and its maples cast a wider breadth of shade. Stately blocks of stores and elegant mansions now adorn its streets, taking the places of the more humble structures of earlier days.
" But more than this. The telegraph and railroad have recently invaded the se- cluded valley of the Black River, bring- ing in their train the spirit of modern progress. The quiet village of twenty years ago, has become a busy mart of trade, and now rivals in importance its more favored sisters upon the Mohawk and the St. Lawrence.
" The little stream above mentioned is formed by the junction of three branches near the village. These three branches come tumbling down the terraced slope of the plateau of the Lesser Wilderness from the westward, in a series of beautiful rapids and cascades, and have worn deep gorges for their beds through the soft limestone rock that forms the founda- tion of the lower terraces of the hills.
" One day shortly after my arrival in the village, and while the Indian sum- mer was pouring its glories over the land, I wandered up one of these gorges to the foot of a splendid cascade, there known as the Silvermine Falls, and sat down upon a rock under the shade of an elm, to enjoy the scene before me.
"The water came rushing over the jagged limestone ledge in a beautiful shower of spray and foam. It had noth- ing to do there but to spatter and foam, and laugh and dance along as wild and free as any mountain stream is wont to be before the hand of man turns it into the channels of labor.
" While I sat thus engaged, an old man came walking slowly up the gorge, aiding his uncertain steps with a huge hickory cane. He was tall, with stooping shoul- ders. His nose and his cheek bones were prominent; his forehead protruding, his
chin somewhat receding ; his hair was long and scanty and as white as the driv- en snow. His garments were tattered and torn, and had been often patched with cloth of different colors.
"As he came along, he was muttering incoherently to himself, and was so intent upon his thoughts that he did not see me as he passed the spot where I sat. He proceeded a few paces farther and sat down upon a log of drift-wood. Re- moving his hat, which had long before seen better days, he wiped the beaded drops of sweat from his brow, and then gazed at the waterfall.
"' They say it can't be done,' said he, ' but I say it can. I say there is water enough running over these falls to turn an overshot wheel of sixty feet in diam- eter. I say it will run the machinery for the whole village. I will build it some day, too, and it will be my water-wheel. They say I never can, but I will. Eunice, too, says I'll never do it, but I shall. She has been a good wife to me. She never complains much, but I think she ought to have more faith in my water- wheel. She says I'm always going to do it, but never get about it. She says she hates people that are always going to do something but never do it. She thinks it is about time, too, that she should have the new silk dress I prom- ised her better than twenty years ago, when she signed the mortgage on the old farm. But I can't get it for her till my water-wheel is done. Little Alice- Oh! how I wish she had lived to see my water-wheel ! There! there! see, see Alice! It is going now; see how it works! See how the water drips and dashes about it ! There is power in it ! I tell you there is power in it !'
" As the old man began to see the vision of the wheel before him, seeming to him so like something real, he arose from his seat, extended his arms con- vulsively upward, and raised his voice into a shrill tenor. Then, as the vision vanished and the blank reality came back, he sank down exhausted to the earth.
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