History of Oneida County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 144

Author: Durant, Samuel W
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Fariss
Number of Pages: 920

USA > New York > Oneida County > History of Oneida County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 144

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" It was not poverty or mere adventure which brought Gerrit Boon through the wilderness to this place in 1793, but a great trust, which to day astonishes us by its magnitude. He was the agent of the Holland Land Company, which at one time owned over five millions of aeres of land in this country.

"This is not the time or place to speak of Herman Le Roy, William Beyard, James McEver, Paul Busti, Colonel Lineklaen, General Led- yard, David Evans, Joseph Ellicott, and others, trustees and agents of that great company. I must limit myself here to say that the title to all the twenty-three thousand acres in Servia' Patent, under which many of you hold your farma and homesteads, was at one time vested in Gerrit Boon as trustee,

" As that patent is in your own town it will interest you to know that it was granted in 1768 by Sir Henry Moore, then Governor of the colony, to Peter Servia and twenty-four other tenanta, really for Sir William Johnson. Jones states after the grant Sir William made a great feast, roasting an ox whole, and to this feast he invited Peter Servis and his twenty-four colleagues, and during the feast they con- veyed the land to him. It descended to his son, Sir John Johnson, who conveyed it to some parties in New York City, who, between 1790 and 1800, conveyed thia and other tracts of land to Gerrit Boon in trust for the Holland Land Company.

" Although there is no record of this conveyance from Servis to Sir William, his title has never been disputed save once, and then by Servis himself, who, after the Revolution hearing that Sir John had buried his title-deeda during the war to prevent their destruction, and thet they had thua become illegible, brought an action of ejeetment against Boon, but the court allowed verbal evidence to be given of his conveyance to Sir William, and Servis was defeated. The witness to prove the conveyauce from Servis and others to Sir William wes an old negro, who was employed to fiddle for the guests et the feast.

"Boon, after residing a few years in this country and discharging bis trust to the Holland Land Company with fidelity, returned to Hol- land and died there. He was a man of ability as well as integrity. He erected a frame dwelling-house upon the lot where we are now as- sembled. That house was subsequently moved, by the Rev. Mr. Sher- man, across the road, where it was enlarged and where it now standa, -the pleasant and hospitable residence of Mrs. Douglas. Mr. Boon, like many others from the old country, was compelled to undertakings in which he had no experience, and some of which would not work, like his stone grist-mill, the picturesque ruins of which are on the banks of the Cincinnati Creek, just above the railroad embankment. He could not make the dam stand, and so that mill was abandoned for another farther up stream, which I shell mention hereafter.

"Dr. Guiteau is my authority for stating that Mr. Boon was the veritable Dutchman who was so delighted when he first saw the manu- facture of maple-sugar from the sap of your maple-trees that he pro- posed to continue this business all the year round; and be actually eaused to be made a large number of grooved slats in which he pro- posed to conduct the sap from the hill-sides into a reservoir in this valley. These slats were afterwards used more profitably for the eides of a large corn-house, and the frame of thet corn-house is to-day doing service as e part of one of your dwelling-housee.

" Colonel Adam G. Mappa and his family followed Boon from Hol- land to this country, and Mr. Mappa became Mr. Boon's successor ag agent of the company at this place, and efter a year or so Francie Adrian Vanderkemp, of Holland, and his family came here to reside. These two men were inseparable in their lives and fortunes. Colonel Meppa was an accomplished gentlemen, less learned but more praeti- cal than Mr. Vanderkemp, and the latter in his autobiography speaks of him as an officer of acknowledged skill in the Old World, and during the short-lived but disastrous revolution in Holland of 1786, in which both were engaged, Colonel Mappe waa placed in charge of the army. Their cause seems to have been just, and on the side of humanity and liberty, but they were defeated through the treachery of the Dutch government. Colonel Mappa and his family escaped to this country. Mr. Vanderkemp was imprisoned, and only released by a ransom of $35,000 paid by his friend De Nys, and in 1788 he and his family came to this country, first settling at Esopus," on the Hudson River, then on an island in Oneida Lake, and then here. His son, John J. Vander- kemp, was first clerk in the office of the Holland Land Company at this place, under Colonel Mappa, then chief clerk and finally general agent of the immense business of that company, having hie head- quarters at Philadelphia. Judge Vanderkemp became acquainted with John Adams (afterwards President) in 1780, while he was in Hollend trying to negotiate a loan for our own country, in which be was seconded by Baron Van der Cappellan and by Mr. Vanderkemp.

" There is now in the historical library at Buffalo a very interesting autobiography of Judge Vanderkemp, placed there with valuable let- ters hy his granddaughter, Mrs. Henry, of Germantown, near Phila- delphia. In this biography he states that early in life, before completing his studies, he became a deist, but was brought into trouble with clergymen by the boldness with which he asserted hia views, and was unable to pursne his studies for want of money, and then it occurred to him (to use his own language) 'that the Bap- tists at Amsterdam were reputed to be of extensive liberal principles. . . . I resolved then to open my mind to Professor Osterbaen, ask him for support to promote my studies at Amsterdam, in their semi- nary, if I could be admitted without compromising myself in any manner, without constraint to any religious opinions I might foster or adopt in future, and with a full assurance that I should be decently supported, all of which was generously accepted, and Osterbaen actu- ally acted and proved himself to me a friend and benefactor, a guide and father.' These facts relating to the liberality of the Baptists of Amsterdam, and this tribute to the wise generosity of Professor Os-

# Afterwards Kingston,

LITH BY L. H EVERTS PHILA PA

RESIDENCE OF WILLIAM H. COMSTOCK, TRENTON, ONEIDA CO., N. Y.

537

HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

terbaen, should be repented in the presence of all the citizens of Tren- ton, that they may rightly value the good works of the Baptist Church. You doubtless desire to know the result of this generous compact with the youthful but deistieal Vanderkemp, and I can best tell you of that in his own words: "I remainod in my study, and continued my in- quiries night and day, taking no more rest than imperiously required, and was within a short time fully convinced of the historical truth of the Christian revelation. . . . But the grand question demanded, ' What is the Christian religion ?' . . . So I read the New Testament -I mean the Evangelists and Acts-again and again, till I was con- vineed that Jesus came into the world to bring life and immortality to light, which was indiscoverable by the light of reason; that a merci- ful God required from frail creatures sincerity of heart and genuine repentance; that to love Him and his neighbor was the summary of the doctrine of Jesus, the true characteristic of a genuine believer ; and that it was the will of our Ileavenly Father that all His children should be saved. . . . I explained myself faithfully and with candor to my friend, and deemed it a duty in my situation to make a public profession of my religious principles, and received on it baptism from the worthy Van Heiningen in November, 1773.' Mr. Vanderkemp was admitted to the ministry and acquired much distinction in the pulpit, but after he took up arins against his government he resigned his pastorate, and seems never to have resumed the ministerial office in the pulpit. In this country he was employed by Governor Clinton in the work of translating the ancient Dutch records of the State, and was nisa appointed a master in chancery and one of the assistant justices of the County Court, and hence his subsequent title of judge, by which he was generally addressed.

"I take from Judge Vanderkemp's journal the following account of his reception in this country :

" After stating that he received letters from General Lafayette, Jefferson, and other distinguished men to our citizens, and embarking on an American ship arrived at New York May 4, 1788, he adds : ' I delivered my letters of introduction to the French ambassador, the Count Montier,-introduced to him by Colonel A. IIamilton; so I did to General Knox, Governor Clinton, Melanctben Smith, and met with every kind of civility and hospitable receptions. It seemed a strife among many who should do the much. Never I can repay it; but never, I am coofident, it can be obliterated in my breast. No rela- tions, no parents, could do more ns Mr. and Mrs. Clinton,-the ven- crable Mrs. Tappen welcomed Mrs. Vanderkemp as a danghter, both ladies, and so Mrs. Hamilton conversed with your mother in Dutch. . . . Had we possessed, indeed, the first rank and worth then, yet we could not have desired a more cordial, a more distinguished reception than we were honored with day after day by the families of the Cliutons, Knox, and others. I send my other letters to Colonel Jeremiah Wads- worth, Governor W. Livingston, Benjamin Franklin, and General Washington, from whom I received ere long a courteous iovitation to visit Mount Vernon. Thither I went. I stopped at Elizabeth- towo, visited Governor Livingston, with whom I spent a few days in the most agreeable manner. From his sent I pursued my journey to Philadelphia, where I met the same hospitable reception by a mercan- tile house from Antwerp, by Benjamin Franklin, und which should make me blush could I pass it by in silence. . . . So I arrived at last at Mount Vernon, where simplicity and order, unadorned grandeur and dignity, had taken up their abode. That great man approved, as well as Clinton, my plan of an agricultural life, and made me a ten- der of his services.' Yet he also writes that there seemed to him in Washington somewhat of a repelling coldness under n courteous de- meanor. That Washington inspired others with awe was undoubtedly true. Whether it was his nature or the effect of the struggles through which he had passed, or of the great responsibility laid upon him, I do not know; but I was told by Mrs. Arthur Tappan, who was an adopted daughter of Alexander Hamilton, that she often saw General Washington at IIamilton's house, an l recollected on all occasions when General Washington entered the room there was a manifestation of such respect and care of manner towards him on the part of others as made a lasting impression upon her mind. I adopt the suggestion of Rev. Mr. Silsbee, that it was of great importance that the person of the first President of the infaut republic should be surrounded with all the dignity of an European king.

"Our Hollanders themselves were not wanting in serious formality, and it is said that when Baron Steuben announced a visit at Trenton, they met him as he appeared at the edge of the forest and escorted him in line to the house, where he was received at the front door by

the ladies with all the eourtesy and consideration which would have beeu proffered to him in the Old World; and no spot in the Old World could have shown more refinement or elegance of manner, or more enlture, than was to be found at Olden Barneveld at that day. It is from the letters of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and De Witt Clinton that we receive the strongest impression of the learning and character of Judge Vanderkemp, which attracted towards him the admiration and esteem of those great men.

"Through the kindness of the Buffalo Historical Society, I am per- mitted to have their original letters, and to present to you copies and extracts from some of them. First of all John Adams writes :

"' LONDON, Jan. 6, 1788.

"" Sia,-As I had suffered mich anxiety on your account during your im- priscument, your letter of the 29th of last month gave me some relief. I re- joiced to find that you way ut liberty and out of danger.

". Inclosed are two letters, which I hope may be of service to you. Living is now cheaper than it has been in America, and I doubt not you will succeed very well. Yon will be upon your guard among the Dutch peuple in New York respecting religious principles until you have prudently informed your- self of the state of parties there. If you should not find everything to your wish in New York, I think in Pennsylvania you can not fail. But New York is the best place to go to at first.

"' I wish you a pleasant voyage, and am, sir, your most

"" Obedient servant, ". JOHN ADAMS.

"' REV. MR. VANDERKEMP."

" De Witt Clinton writes to him as follows :

"'ALDANY, 20 April, 1822.

"' MY DEAR SIA,- . . . I shall go to the West carly in June to visit the whole line of the canal, and, if possible, I will make a diverging visit oo my return to the most learned mnan in America, When the opus basilicum is finishedl I shall consider this State as in a situation to be as prosperous as she plenses; but wealth and prosperity, my friend, are too often the parents of folly, and the more opulent the State the greater the temptation to the enter- prises of parties.

""" Mrs. C. joins me in kind regards to yun.

". I am yours most truly,

"DE WITT CLINTON. "'F. A. VANDERKEMP, ESQ.'

" Thomas Jefferson writes :

"' MONTICELLO, Jan. 11, '24.

"' DEAR SIR,-Your favor of December 28 is duly received. It gladdens me with the information that you continue to enjoy health. This is a principal mitigation of the evils of age. I wish that the situation of our friend, Mr. Adams, was equally comfortable; but what I learn of his physical condition is truly deplorable. His mind, however, continues strong and firm, his mem- ory sound, his hicaring perfect, and his spirits good ; but both he and myself are at that time of life when there is nothing before us to produce anxiety for its continuance. I am sorry for the occasion of expressing my condolence on the loss mentioned in your letter. The solitude in which we are left by the death of our friends is one of the great evils of protracted life. When I look back to the days of my youth it is like looking over a field of battle,-all, all dead! and ourselves left alone amidst a new generation whom we know not and who know not us.

"'I thank you beforehand for the book of your friend, P. Vreede, of which you have been so kind as to bespeak a copy for me. Ou the subject of my porte-feuille, be assured it contains nothing but copies of my letters ; in these I have sometimes Indulged myself in reflection on the things which have been passing,-some of them, like that to the Quaker to which your letter refers, may give a moment's amusement to a reader. And from this voluminous mass, when I am dead, a selection may perhaps be made of a few which may have interest enough to beur a single reading. Mine has been too much a l.fe of action to allow my mind to wandler from the occurrences pressing on it. "'TH. JEFFERSON.'

"' MONTICELLO, November 30, '25.

"'DEAR SIR,-Your favor of the 16th is just received, and your silence ou the subject of your health makes me hope it is good. A dozen years older than you are, I have no right to expect as good. I have now been confined to the house six months, but latterly get better, insomuch as for a few days past to ride a little on horselmek. Although my eyesight is so good na not to use glasses by day, either for realing or writing, yet constant occupation in the concerns of our university permits me to read very little, and that of commercial science was never a favorite reading with me. The classics are my first delight, and I unwillingly lay them by for the productions of the day. Our university, now the main business of my life, is going on with all the success I could expect. . . . Hoping you may continue to enjoy good health and a life of satisfaction, as long as you think life satisfactory at all, I pray you to be assured of my affectionate good wishes and great esteem and respect. ""TH. JEFFERSON.'

538

HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

" Again Clinton writes :

"'AL.DANY, 8 April, 1823.

"'MY DEAR Sin,-I have sent by mail a collection of Governor Clinton's speeches, printed by a bookseller in New York.

"'Dante I shall endeavor to procure for you. "Ecce Homo" is a book highly blasphemons. The Trinitarians believe io the divinity of the person as well as of the mission of Christ; the Unitarians only in the divinity of the mission. Both creeds ascribe the utmost purity to Jesus, and consider him with the highest veneration; but "Ecce Homo" assails his moral character, and treats him as ao impostor. This book is not for sale, and I cannot ask the author for a perusal; it would be indirect encouragement. Your letter to Colonel Mappa on the canal, written in 1792, is really n curiosity. It gives you the original invention of the Eria route, and I shall lay it by as a subject of momentous reference on some futurs occasion. I shall, as I shall soon have leisure, review your philosophical work with pleasure.'

" Mr. Clinton sent Mr. Vanderkemp his likeness, and writes about it as follows :

. "' I am glad you nre pleased with tho operations of the pencil and the graver in the representation yon have of your friend. Whatever their correctness may be, I can assure you that I give you a true delineation of his heart when I say That he will always be Imppy to hear from you, and annonnce to you by words and deeds the sincerity of his friendship and the entirety of hie respects. My regards to the family. Yours truly, "'DE WITT CLINTON.

"'Dn. VANOEDKEMP.'

" Judge Vanlerkemp was very neir-sighted; and one winter, having oesasion to go to a neighboring village, ho drove his horses some ways, when suddenly coming upon a settlement, he inquired what village that might be, and was informed it was Trenton. He re- plied, ' Ah, but that may not be, as I have just left there!' But it wns Trenton. Mrs. Ana Joncs tells me that when at Esopus he undertook to eut down a tree. Governor Clinton discovered the at- tempt, and slipping on a workman's dress, and taking a seythe in his hand, proceeded towards the judge as if mowing, and, when near enough, exclaimed, . Ah, mine Herr Vanderkemp, you can no more cut down that tree than if you were a woodpecker!' The judge de- teeted the Governor's voice and threw down his uxe, while the Gov- ernor abandoned his seythe as equally useless.

" When the judge wished to build a barn on his island in Oneida Loke, although surrounded by a dense forest of all kinds of timber, be had the fratne hewed on the banks of the IIudson River, and rafted all the way up that and the Mohawk River, and then into Wood Creek to the Oneida Lake, where his chicken-house, ns afterwards visited by others, provel to be a better building than his own dwell- ing. His forgetfulness brought him into much confusion at times, as when in Philadelphin he hired a horse and wagon, taking no note of name, or street, or oumber, and so on his return went driving through the streets inquiring of the people if they knew whose horse and wagon he was driving. He had mony theories upon agriculture, but was very much troubled when he discovered that the beans he planted had made a blunder and come up with the beans un top, and must all be turned over to grow right.

"Jadge Reeves, of Litchfield, Cono., had the same unaccountable difficulty with his beans, but that did not lessen the respect which all entertained for these lcaroed men.

"The portrait of De Witt Clinton, referred to in his last letter, is now in the possession of your esteemed fellow-citizen, Dr. Guitean. His father, Dr. Luther Guiteau, was born at Lanesboro', Muss., in 1778. Ile moved here in 1802, and practiced his profession until his death, in 1850, and during the forty-eight years of his professional life he was but ooce aside from it, and that was when, in 1819, he was cleeted to the State Assembly. Dr. Luther Guiteau, Sr., was succeeded in his profession and practies by his son of the same name, and so from 1802 to this hour there has not been a day in which there was not some one of that family to care for you,-nt the joyous dawn of life, or at its sad elose, or during intermediato hoors of siekness.

" Mr. Jones, in his Annals, twenty-five years ago, publishes these words of the elder Guiteau : 'Not a little remarkable in the history of his family was their connection with the medicul profession. For many generations it is well asecrtained that they bad in succession furnished one, at loast, who did credit to himself and bonor to the science of medicine. It is said of the Swiss that their mountains bc- come their men, and they become their mountains. With no less truth it may be said of the Gnitean family, the medieal profession becomes it, and it becomes the profession.' The quarter of a contury which bas elapsed since Mr. Jones made that statement has made no change

in the relation of the family to the medical profession. May the day never come when there shall not be found sonic one of that name and family engaged in this most humane of all professions! The elder Dr. Guitcau wns u firm Demoerat, and in a minority in this village of Federalists. Party spirit ran high, and it was determined to dis- pense with Dr. Guiteao's services, and so they hired two physicians, one after the other, whose medieines they hoped would not have a Demoerntie flavor. But, alas! when sickness enme, the people would eall in Dr. Guiteau, and so the last of the political doctors quit the place in disgust, declaring that he would not stay here and shake the bush for Dr. Guiteau to catch the bird. After this the doctor was master of the field of medicine, and no Democratic ingredients were found in his practice, although at one politieal struggle he was charged with having bled to denth a Mr. Culver, a patient of his. To this the doctor refused to make any reply until election day, when be produced the dead man in good health, and received from him a sound Democratic vote, Generally the Democrats were the sufferers by the bitterness of party feeling, but on one occasion it served them n good turo. During the war of 1812 a woolen-factory was started here, which made uncommonly good cloth, which, at that time, com- manded $10 a yard, and the Federalists would not permit any Demo- erat to take any stoek. But the war closed, cloth fell to $5 a yard, the factory failed, and the stockholders lost heavily, while the Demo- crats escaped. The old factory building still stands on the south side of the creek, and is used as a cooper- or machine-shop of some sort, driven by the water which flows to it through an arehed stone fume, dug some thirteen feet deep.

"STATE OF RELIGION.

" In 1802, Rev. John Taylor, a native of Westfield, Mass., a gradu- nte of Yale College, visited this part of the country, and made a report of the state of religion, which will he found in the third volume of the ' Documentary History of New York,' on page 673. August 3, he states that at Trenton, six miles east of Floyd, be put up with Rev. Mr. Fish, from New Jersey, who wns then employed part of the time by the people of that town, and the remainder rode as a missionary. Then again he writes, 'Treoton, August 4 .- 17 miles north of Utica. In this place there is no church formed. A majority of the people are Presbyterians ; the remainder are Baptists and persoos of no religion, and a few Methodists.' Ile adds : ' I visited a school of 50 children, who have a good instructor.'

" After the school-house was built, the people met there for public worship. Mr. Jones says that Mr. Fish was the first preacher who visited the town, aod that he is named as the first pastor of the church at Holland Patent, which was org inized in 1797, and it would seem that the Presbyterian Church must have been organized here about the same time; and yet Mr. Tuttle, of Holland Patent, informs me that the deserted stone Presbyterian Church was nut built until 1821, and Junes states that previous to 1822, Rev. Mr. Ilarover preached alternately at Trenton and Holland Patent.

" People from North Gago, South Trenton, and beyond Trenton, came to attend service in this stone ebureh. In 1805 or 1806, Rev. John Sherman, who was a grandson of Roger Sherman, of Conneeti- eut, the signer of the Declaration of Independence, which Mr. Silsbee has just read to us, became pastor of the Unitarian Church in this village, over which Mr. Silsbee is now settled, and this is said to be the first Uoitarian Church established in this State. Their church was not built uotil 1814, and soon after this Mr. Sherman resigned and Rev. Isaac B. Pierce, of Rhode Island, succeeded him.

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History of Oneida County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 144

Author: Durant, Samuel W Publication date: 1878 Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Fariss Number of Pages: 920

Author: Durant, Samuel W
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Fariss
Number of Pages: 920