USA > New York > Monroe County > Rochester > History of Rochester and Monroe county, New York, from the earliest historic times to the beginning of 1907, Vol. II > Part 3
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of public debate, and that enemies should rise up against him, in congress and out of it. It is very doubtful, however, if these enemies long cherished their resentment, and probably all enmities created amid political strife were forgotten long ago. It is certain that Mr. Van Voorhis was always ready to forget and forgive, and his last years were those of peace and content. While he was active in public affairs he made many friends, and these he clung to with hooks of steel, was fond of their companionship, and loved to serve them.
"He was a successful lawyer who permitted nothing to sway him from the interests of his clients. He believed in knock-down blows and delighted to give and take. If he lacked diplo- macy and suavity, he excelled in directness and loyalty. During the later years of his life he participated but rarely in legal battles, being con- tent to watch them from afar; but to his last days he was conspicuous as a friend of the Indians of Western New York, appeared frequently in court in their defense, joined heartily in the effort to protect them from the avaricious whites, visited Washington in their interest, made argu- ments before the senate and house committees, kept his old friends informed as to what was going on-men like Allison, Teller, Hale, Hoar, and Platt of Connecticut in the senate-and strove earnestly, without thought of compensa- tion or reward, to protect the innocent from out- rage and wrong. His ceaseless effort in their behalf was characteristic, for he loved justice, hated wrong, and never dodged a fight. One of the fine features of his character was that he never dealt a blow in malice or harbored the slightest animosity toward his opponents, either at the bar or in politics. He was rugged and leonine in appearance, but within beat a warm and loving heart."
Of him Charles E. Fitch, state regent, and for a long time editor of the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, wrote as follows:
"A stalwart form is smitten. A strong heart has ceased to beat. For fifty years he was a leader at the bar; from the birth of the republican party he was prominent in its councils, honored by it and honoring it; throughout he was associated with the activities of this community. If he may not be called great, he had the qualities that inhere in greatness ; he was direct in purpose, candid in speech, resourceful and resolute in act, unflinch- ing in courage and generous in success. If, in the heat of conflict in his profession or in politics, he, who hated meanness and abhorred hypocrisy, was severe in address, there lurked no malice in his thought, and he cherished few resentments. He caused no wound that he would not gladly heal. If he made foes, he would resolve them into friends, where no issue of principle was in- volved; and he attached friends to him as by
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hooks of steel. As he was self-reliant, he was also helpful. He was one upon whom others leaned. Many are they who will today note the kindly offices he rendered them.
"As a lawyer he was learned, skillful, assidu- ous and absolutely devoted to the interests of his clients. Confident in his case, and assured of its justice, apt in the trial thereof and specially gifted in the cross-examination of perverse or reluctant witnesses, he gained many triumphs at 'NISI PRIUS,' but it was in the appellate courts that he chiefly excelled, for he knew the law and its application, and seldom failed to turn victory into defeat in the last review.
"As a politician he believed in his party, because he believed in its principles. From devotion to its creed he never swerved, as loyal to it in its reverses as in its prosperities. For years he labored for it zealously and indefatigably and without reward. In the maturity of his years and the fulness of his power, he was commissioned to represent his district in the national congress, and no man ever represented it more ably or faith- fully than did he. In speech never elaborate, in debate he was potent and often crushing to his ad -. versary. He exalted his political faith and knew no compromise with wrong. He made a national reputation for terseness and vigor of utterance, and for integrity in civil administration in accord- ance with the leading of the party which redeemed the republic and accomplished its weal. And not less did he serve his immediate constituency than the country. Pensions for the veterans of the war, needed appropriations for public improvements, and the varied interests of his district testify to his diligence.
"In his retirement from public life, and in a measure from the arduous duties of his profession, as the advancing years admonished him to rest, he ripened into charming companionship with all who came within the circle of his acquaintance. In conversation he was fascinating, drawing not only upon reminiscence, but upon stores of liter- ature with a knowledge of which he was not gen- erally credited. All asperities had ceased and all contests had ended. His closing years were serene. He dies full of years and of honors, and it will be long before he will be forgotten by the profession he adorned, the country he served and the city in which he lived so long."
Rev. S. Banks Nelson, D. D., paid a beautiful tribute at the funeral exercises. It was in part reported by the press as follows :
"John Van Voorhis is dead, but we need not place a broken column on his grave. He was a man who put the cap on his own column, and then stepped off the superstructure into the glo- rious hereafter. His life in some senses was not even a broken arc. To him we may not apply
that old simile of a ship wrecked on the shoals of time, a decrepit body and a mind approaching senility. For he raised anchor, hoisted his pen- nant, and waving us adieu sailed away with his hand in that of his pilot."
Speaking of Mr. Van Voorhis' mentality, Mr. Nelson said :
"He was keen and he was witty, but his wit was so keen and polished that his blade never bore away a heart sting and his bon mots sent a ripple over the faces of his hearers. His very dumbness as he lies here is eloquent and bespeaks strength. No one ever thought of John Van Voorhis with- out associating him with strength.
"When Mahomet died one of his followers rushed out of the tent, and, drawing his sword, threatened to run it through any one who should declare that Mahomet was dead. The Jews could not believe that Elijah was dead; they thought it impossible that any one so brave and great could die. When Moses died they refused to believe that he had passed away, not deeming it possible that he could be dead for more than a day. This is a thought that runs throughout sacred history and a thought that runs through profane history from the beginning to the pres- ent day, and it is a natural thought that it is impossible for the great and good to die. This universal instinct itself declares man's immor- tality.
"Leave John Van Voorhis out of the affairs of the city of Rochester and what a different complexion they would have. We are thankful that he was sent as a representative of this dis- trict to the federal government at Washington, for we know that our affairs were looked after by a man of character and principle. In the church, too, his influence was felt. He believed in the necessity of the Christian pulpit and was an ardent friend of every faithful preacher of the gospel."
Dr. David J. Hill, United States minister to the Netherlands, on learning of his death, paid a beautiful tribute to his memory which reads in part as follows :
"""'Once a friend always a friend' was his motto so long as a man deserved his friendship. No lawyer ever more unreservedly committed his whole soul to the cause of his client, and it was one of the secrets of his success. In the unre- munerated good offices of private friendship it was the same way. He believed in his cause, he believed in his friends, he believed in the triumph of right, and did all in his power to promote it. In return, his friends believed in him, and they never misplaced their faith. Sincerity, loyalty, straightforwardness, unselfishness-these are the qualities that shone in the character of John Van Voorhis and made him seem noble as well as true
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HISTORY OF ROCHESTER AND MONROE COUNTY.
to those who really knew him. This is the tribute I would lay upon his grave: 'Here sleeps the soul of loyalty.'"
HIRAM SIBLEY.
Great leaders are few. The mass of men seem content to remain in the positions in which they are placed by birth, experience or environment. Laudable ambition, ready adaptability and a capacity for hard work are essential elements of success and in none of these requirements was Hiram Sibley ever found lacking. It is not a mat- ter of marvel, therefore, that he occupied a pre- eminent position among the builders of Rochester and the promoters of progress and development in various sections of the country. In fact his interests were so wide that he was a man not of one locality but of the nation. The emi- nence to which he attained was due also to the fact that he had the ability to recognize the op- portune moment and to correctly appraise the value of a situation and determine its possible out- come. It was these qualities that enabled him to enter upon his first great work in amalgamating and co-ordinating the forces that led to the es- tablishment of the Western Union Telegraph Com- pany. The history of the invention of the tele- graph is too well known to need reiteration here. The great majority of the members of congress and the men prominent in the country doubted the worth of the ideas which found birth in the fer- tile brain of Samuel F. S. Morse. Not so with Mr. Sibley, and with wonderful prescience he recognized what this might mean to the country and his executive ability was brought to play in the organization of what is now one of the most useful and powerful corporations of the world.
No special advantages aided him at the outset of his career. On the contrary he was deprived of many advantages which most boys enjoy. A native of North Adams, Massachusetts, he was born on the 6th of February, 1807, and was the second son of Benjamin and Zilpha (Davis) Sibley, who were representatives of old New England families that had been founded on American soil at an early epoch in our country's history. He had comparatively little hope of acquiring an educa- tion but nature endowed him with a strong mind and keen diseernment. He possessed, too, much mechanical genius, used every chance which he had for its development and before he had attained his majority was master of five trades. His me- chanical knowledge and his skill proved an im- portant factor in the substantial development of Monroe county. Years later, in an address made
to the students of Sibley College, on a visit to Ithaca, he gave utterance to words which were typical of his own life, saying: "There are two most valuable possessions, which no search war- rant can get at, which no execution can take away, and which no reverse of fortune can de- stroy ; they are what a man puts into his head- knowldge; and into his hands-skill."
Mr. Sibley used every opportunity to acquire both and therein lay the foundation of his won- derfully successful career. At the age of six- teen he became a resident of western New York, locating first in Livingston county, where for sev- eral years he carried on business as a wool carder, machinist and iron founder. In 1829 he came to Monroe county and the following year entered into partnership with D. A. Watson in the build- ing and operation of a sawmill and factory for the building of wool carding machines. They also began the manufacture of agricultural implements, having the first blast furnace and machine shop in Monroe county. Around the new enterprise there sprang up a flourishing village called Sib- leyville. In his business Mr. Sibley gave employ- ment to eighty men but later he and his partner were called elsewhere by more extensive business interests and the town gradually sank into decad- ence, so that only the mill and shop mark its site at the present time.
Having been elected sheriff of Monroe county in 1843, Mr. Siblev removed to Rochester, where lie afterward continued to reside. Previous to . this time he had become deeply interested in the experiments of Professor S. F. B. Morse and Stephen Vail in telegraphy, and in 1840 had gone to Washington with Professor Morse and Ezra Cornell to secure an appropriation of forty thou- sand dollars from congress to build a telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore. They were successful in their mission and the success of the line and the subsequent development of telegraphic communication is now a matter of history. Quick- ly following on the successful establishment of this pioneer line several telegraph companies were or- ganized but they met with financial disaster. With firm faith in the invention and with a keen fore- sight which recognized possibilities and the in- fluence it would have upon the world's progress, Mr. Sibley bought the house patents and with other Rochester capitalists organized the New York & Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company on April 1, 1851. The first hundred miles of the line were finished that year. Three years later the company leased the lines of the Lake Erie Telegraph Company. At this time Ezra Cornell was in possession of valuable grants under the Morse patent and controlled the Erie & Michigan Telegraph Company. Mr. Sibley then opened negotiations with Mr. Cornell and in 1856 the companies controlled by them were united by
HIRAM SIBLEY.
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HISTORY OF ROCHESTER AND MONROE COUNTY.
acts of the Wisconsin and New York legislatures under the name of the Western Union Telegraph Company. For ten years Mr. Sibley was president of the new company and for sixteen years a lead- ing member of its board of directors. During the first six years of his presidency the number of telegraph offices was increased from one hun- dred and thirty-two to four thousand and the property rose in value from two hundred and twenty thousand to forty-eight million dollars.
It was Hiram Sibley who projected the Atlantic and Pacific line to California and it was built un- der his. direction and control. His associates were unwilling to undertake the enterprise as a com- pany and Cyrus W. Field, Wilson G. Hunt, Peter Cooper and others, engaged in large undertak- ings at the time, whom he strove to interest in the matter, also deemed the project premature. With a persistence and confidence in the sound- ness of his judgment which were characteristic of the man, he then presented his project to con- gress and was heartily supported by Howell Cobb, secretary of the treasury. June 16, 1860, an act was passed encouraging the project and granting an annual subsidy of forty thousand dollars for ten years, and on the 22d of September his offer to construct the lines was officially accepted. The Overland Telegraph Company was organized in San Francisco and the two companies uniting their interests, the Pacific Telegraph Company came into existence. Five months later the line was open from ocean to ocean-ten years in advance of the completion of a transcontinental railroad ! A profitable investment from the start, this line on March 17, 1864, was merged into the Western Union Telegraph system. Before the success of the Atlantic cable was assured Mr. Sibley was interested in a project to unite the old and the new world electrically by way of Behring strait. In the furtherance of that enterprise he made a visit to Russia in 1864-5, and was received most cor- dially by the czar, who assigned to his American guest the second place of honor at state functions, the French ambassador alone taking precedence of him. The Russian government entered into hearty co-operation with the American projectors for the establishment of the line, which would have undoubtedly been built had not the Atlantic cable been put in successful operation about that time.
In addition to his labors for the introduction of the telegraph, Mr. Sibley was largely instrumen- tal in promoting other enterprises, for with won- derful foresight he believed in the rapid develop- ment of the western country. After the war, more bv the desire of restoring amicable rela- tions than by the prospect of gain, he made large and varied investments in railroads in the south and did much to promote renewed business activ- ity. He became extensively interested in lumber and salt manufacturing in the west and was the
owner of nearly three hundred and fifty farms in Ford and Livingston counties, Illinois. At one time he possessed forty-seven thousand acres in Ford county alone and on his land he made splen- did improvements of a substantial and extensive character. He also had a farm of three thou- sand acres near Port Byron, New York, and made it a model country seat, adding all the modern ac- cessories connected with the life of the agricul- turist. He also established a large seed-raising business in Rochester, with warehouses in this city and Chicago and undertook to supply seeds of his own importation and raising and other's growth, under a personal knowledge of their vital- ity and comparative value. He instituted many ex- periments for the improvement of plants, with reference to their seed-bearing qualities, and built up a business as unique in its character as it was unprecedented in amount. He was president of the Bank of Monroe and connected with many other Rochester institutions that led to the up- building of the city.
His broad humanitarian spirit, however, was manifest in many other ways. His deep apprecia- tion of the value of education and his desire for the mental improvement of America was substan- tially manifest in a most practical way. He en- dowed a number of institutions for the promotion of learning and established Sibley Hall for the use of the library of the University of Rochester, at a cost of one hundred thousand dollars. He gave to it many valuable volumes and provided for the free use of the library by the public. He was one of the trustees to incorporate the Reynolds Library. He also endowed Sibley College of Me- chanical Arts at Cornell University at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars and thus set in mo- tion a movement of intellectual advancement, the influence of which is incalculable.
Mr. Sibley was particularly happy in his home life. He married Elizabeth M. Tinker, a daughter of Giles and Zilphia (Knight) Tinker, who were natives of Connecticut. Her father was a cloth manufacturer and furrier at North Adams, Mas- sachusetts, and there he and his wife remained until called to their final home. Unto Mr. and Mrs. Sibley were born the following named : Louise, who became the wife of Hobart F. At- kinson, and died in 1868, at the age of thirty- four, leaving two children-Elizabeth, wife of Arthur Smith, and Marie L., who married Harry H. Perkins; Giles B., who died at the age of two years ; Hiram Watson, of Rochester; and Emily, the wife of James S. Watson. Like her husband, Mrs: Sibley delighted in doing good, and was long actively connected with the church home of Roches- ter, to which she was a most generous contributor. This is a denominational establishment conducted under the auspices of the Episcopal church and was founded in 1868. Destitute children are there
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HISTORY OF ROCHESTER AND MONROE COUNTY.
instructed and aged communicants have found an abiding place there. Mrs. Sibley also erected St. John's Episcopal church in North Adams, Massa- chusetts, her native village, at a cost of twenty- five thousand dollars, and a few years later she added a new chancel at a cost of twenty-five thou- sand dollars more. Her private charities and bene- factions were many, for her heart was most sym- pathetic, and the worthy poor never sought her aid in vain. She has passed away and Mr. Sibley died July 12, 1888, after reaching the eighty- first milestone on life's journey, but as long as the history of America and its progress shall be recorded his name will be closely interwoven there- with for what he did in the promotion of its tele- graphic and railroad interests and also by reason of his efforts for educational advancement. Of him a contemporary biographer has said: "He amassed wealth, but was most generous and help- ful in his use of it. His association with one of the most important inventions the world has ever known would of itself class him among the foremost men of the nineteenth century, but his nature was so broad, his resources so great and his mentality so strong that his efforts in that line were but the initial step in a most active and useful career, whereby the world has been en- riched materially, mentally and morally."
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ZACHARY P. TAYLOR.
Zachary P. Taylor, whose life work has been far-reaching, effective and beneficial in its influ- ences, in his labors as a teacher and publisher of law works, is now well known as an attorney at the Rochester bar. He has always directed his efforts in those channels demanding strong men- tality and close application.
A native of the Empire state, he was born in Rome, Oneida county, February 28, 1846, and in 1850 accompanied his parents on their removal to the town of Clarendon, the family home being established about two and a half miles from Hol- ley. Both his father and mother lived to a ripe old age, being in the eighties at the time of their demise, and the grandmother was in the nineties at her death. They were all thrifty farming peo- ple and well-to-do, and up to his sixteenth year Zachary P. Taylor assisted his father in the work of the fields, obtaining during that period such mental instruction and culture as the district schools afforded. He was ambitions for further educational opportunities, however, and at the age indicated he entered the Brockport Collegiate In- stitute, which subsequently became the Brockport
State Normal School, being there under the in- struction of Malcolm J. McVicar as principal. That the new pupil was ambitious and industrious may be inferred from the fact that in one year he succeeded in completing two years' work in Latin, beside the regular course in Greek.
Mr. Taylor entered upon active connection with the teacher's profession at Sweden Center about two miles south of the village of Brockport and after four months went to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he taught for three months in the high school. He had therefore had seven months' ex- perience as a teacher when he entered the Uni- versity of Rochester in the fall of 1865. During his college course he had an opportunity to teach Latin and Greek for two years at the Rochester Collegiate Institute. He was graduated in 1869 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts and his alma mater conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts three years later. Upon leaving college he went to Buffalo, New York, where, although but twenty-three years of age, he was made vice prin- cipal of the Central high school, teaching classics and having charge of about one hundred and twenty-five boys. Two and a half years later he was called to the Central high school of Cleveland, Ohio, to undertake the same work in a different form. There he continued for a year and a half, when he resigned, having previously made prep- arations for a legal career by reading law with the firm of Wadsworth & White of Buffalo and later with the firm of Bishop & Adams of Cleveland. He also attended law school and was admitted to practice after passing a most satisfactory examina- tion in 1872.
Mr. Taylor entered upon active connection with the legal profession as a member of the bar at Fort Wayne, Indiana, being associated with Judge Joseph Brackenridge, solicitor for Indiana of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. There he con- tinned for two years and met with excellent suc- cess, but owing to ill health caused by climatic conditions he gave up his practice and accepted the offer previously made him of returning to the Central high school of Cleveland, Ohio. He was afterward connected with the Cleveland schools for several years and became known as one of the most able and leading educators of the state. While in Rochester on a visit in July, 1883, he was besieged by the officers of the Rochester Free Academy to accept a position as principal of that institution, which he did, being forthwith elected to the position. Since severing his connection with the academy he has given his attention to the law and to the publication of works pertaining to the law.
Mr. Taylor, from 1883 until 1886, was principal of the Rochester Academy and since that year has been an active member of the bar. In 1890 he published Citations of Hun in fifty-three volumes
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ZACHARY P. TAYLOR.
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HISTORY OF ROCHESTER AND MONROE COUNTY.
of the supreme court; in 1900 he published Cita- tions of the New York Miscellaneous Reports; in 1901 published Citations of the New York Court of Appeals Reports; in 1902 published the New York Appellate Division Report; in 1904 pub- lished Analyzed Citations of New York Supple- ment Reports; in 1906 a new series of Analyzed Citations of the New York Court of Appeals, supreme court and miscellaneous reports in serial form. He is the author and publisher of all these works, which comprise over two hundred thousand citations. He is likewise a member of the State Bar Association and of the Rochester Bar Asso- ciation.
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