USA > New York > Saratoga County > History of Saratoga County, New York : with historical notes on its various towns > Part 81
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87
Charles W. Keefer was reared in his native county and received his elementary education in the common and select schools of his neigh- borhood. He completed his academic studies and collegiate course at Oberlin college, Ober-
lin, Lorain county, Ohio. Leaving college, he read medicine, took his first course of lectures at the medical department of the University of Michigan, and afterward entered the college of surgeons and physicians, of Baltimore, from which well-known medical institution he was graduated with high standing on February 8, 1877. He then returned to Washington county, where he opened an office for the practice of medicine at Fort Miller. After a two years' residence and successful practice there, Dr. Keefer came to Mechanicville. Here he soon established a good practice, which has continually increased up to the present time, when his office patients, and vil- lage and country practice, keep him constantly engaged.
On January 8, 1882, Dr. Keefer wedded Gertrude Thomas, daugliter of William C. Thomas, of Mechanicville. To Dr. and Mrs. Keefer have been born one child, a daughter, named Janet T.
In political opinion Dr. Keefer has always been a republican, and has served continu- ously since 1886 as coroner of Saratoga county. Aside from the practice of medicine, he has taken considerable interest in the material prosperity and general welfare of his village, especially in educational affairs, and has served . since 1888 as a member of the board of ed- ucation. To his practice he gives close and constant attention, while his interest in the advancement of his profession has never abated with his increase of professional la- bors. He is a member of the Troy Medi- cal society and the New York State Medical association. Dr. Keefer is a good citizen, a true friend, and ranks high wherever he is known, both as a gentleman and a physician.
CAPTAIN PORTER J. SCHER- MERHORN, one of the active self-made business men of Saratoga county, New York, was born in Lexington, Greene county, New York, April 15, 1831. He traces his paternal
585
OF SARATOGA COUNTY.
ancestry back to Waterland, Holland, through Jacob D., his father, born in the town of Windham (now Lexington), Greene county, New York, November 3, 1799, and died Aug- ust 23, 1864, son of Derick L. Schermerhorn, born in Nassau, Rensselaer county, April 16, 1775, and died in 1855. Married Eva Van Valkenburg, who was born July, 16, 1778, died in 1818. His father was Lucas, born in 1751, son of Jacob C, who was a son of Cornelius, son of Jacob, son of Jacob Janse, who was born in Waterland, Holland, in 1622, came to Beverwick in 1640, and became a prosperous brewer and trader, and died in Schenectady in 1690, leaving.property amounting to 56,882 guilders, a large sum for those days. His son, Simon Jacobse, was born in 1658. At the burning of Schenectady, February 9, 1690, he rode to Albany by way of Niskayune to carry the news of the massacre by the Indians. Although shot through the thigh, his horse wounded, his daughter Johanna and three negroes killed, hè succeeded in reaching Al- bany and alarming the inhabitants, who armed themselves and hurried to the defense of their neighboring city.
On his maternal side, Captain Schermer- horn's mother was Ruth Butler, born in Kin- derhook, 1774, died in Lexington, 1871. Her father, William Butler, born in Kinderhook, 1766, died in Lexington in 1853, and her mother, Louisa Blakesly Butler, born in 1770, and died in 1813. Captain Schermerhorn traces his maternal ancestry through Judge Benjamin (not Benjamin F. ) Butler, and Gen- eral Medad Butler to Irish origin. His mother saw from Stuyvesant landing the first rude structure of a steamboat as it steamed up the Hudson in 1807, on its first trip, and often described it to her children. Captain Schermerhorn had three brothers: William (deceased), Philip, Derick L. (deceased), and three sisters : Asenath (Plank), Julia (Goes), Emeline (Sweet), deceased. His paternal uncles and aunts were : Lucas D., John D., Hiram D., Cornelins, Catharine (Wiley),
Nancy (Spears), and Polly (Schermerhorn), all deceased but the latter. His maternal uncles and aunts were : Nathaniel, William, Jonathan, James, Rebecca (Gorsline), Cyntha (Law), Sally A. (Ferio), and Clarisa (Blakes- ly), all deceased. Captain Schermerhorn was the youngest son and fifth child of his family, and on the day he first saw light his father lived on a small farm of about seventy acres, rough, hilly land among the lofty Catskills, which was incumbered by a lease from the Livingston's of twenty-one bushels of good, sweet, merchantable winter wheat per hun- dred acres. At the age of eleven years he was necessarily taken from the district school in summer to work with his father on the little side hill farm, his older brothers being em- ployed from home by their more wealthy neighbors, leaving for him only the benefits of school three months in the winter. His more fortunate classmates, who attended right on, summer and winter, were greatly surprised to find him fully prepared to take his place in line at the winter term, but it was done by studying nights by the light of a single tallow candle divided among several, or that of a rag, saturated with lard, protruding from a sancer, when the tallow was used up. He was found in the mountains in midwinter of 1848 by the trustees of his school district, drawing out hemlock bark and saw logs, and urged to take charge of their school, from which the teacher had been forced to retire by the dissatisfied parents and scholars in the middle of the term. Our farmer-lumberman was greatly surprised at their proposal, and it was only by long persuasion that he consented to leave the mountains for the rough-boarded, slab-seated school house in which he had received all the schooling he had then or has ever since re- ceived by instruction from teachers. Mr. Schermerhorn tells us that he bought all his school books with money he received from the sale of dried apples, which he manufactured at the halves, by picking up the apples, par- ing and coring them with a common jack knife,
586
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
and. drying them on shelf-boards set in the sun, except a Comstock Philosophy, for which he read a small, fine print Bible through for his father, in his eleventh year, nights, besides other studies he had to look after. He claims to have taught successfully for years algebra, astronomy, philosophy, higher grammar, and arithmetic, without ever receiving a lesson in either from a teacher. He taught fourteen winters. His first salary, eleven dollars per month and hunt his board through the district. His last was ten dollars per week, five dollars per week out for board. Ninety-four scholars, no assistant. Still he looks back upon those days of study, care, responsibility, hard work, and small pay with the most pleasurable emo- tions, feeling he has been the means, in the hands of an over-ruling providence, in direct- ing many wayward youths to paths of virtue and usefulness. The first money our school teacher ever called his own was paid him by Miss Harriet Rowley for building a fire in an old box-stove, for four months, in the old school house, one-half mile from home, with green wood, hunt kindlings for himself, for the enormous sum of fifty cents for the whole term. He says he cried many cold mornings while waiting to get warm, and once told his father he thought of throwing up his job; but he was told that he must stand by his con- tract, and he did.
Tiring of small pay as a teacher, he rented a small store in the village of Jonesville, Sara- toga county, in the spring of 1859. In the following year he removed to Stuyvesant Land- ing, Columbia county, where he continued in the mercantile business with much pleasure and success till August, 1862, at which time he left his store and went to the city of Hud- son alone, and enlisted as a private in the 128th regiment, then fully officered, but lacking men. This was under the three hundred thousand call of President Lincoln. Not a man having enlisted from his town, the quota of which was nineteen, our private soldier asked for recruiting papers, which were given
him by Colonel Cowles, and in a few days his papers contained the names of twenty-one as noble, brave and patriotic young men as ever faced an enemy in line of battle. So much for saying, "come, boys," instead of " go, boys." It should be remembered there were no high bounties at that time, and the men who went out under that three hundred thousand call proved the back-bone of our army, and largely the saviors of our country.
Our soldier had been induced to turn over his recruits to the captain of Co. G, which he did, but was offered a lieutenancy in an- other company for them and a captaincy in his old regiment, the 120th New York State militia, without any men. But as with the school "marm," he had made a bargain, though a poor one for himself, yet he stayed by it and the men he had enlisted. He was made first sergeant, or orderly, by the cap- tain, a position, as every soldier knows, of all work and small pay. He served in this capa- city six months, his regiment going first to Baltimore, then to New Orleans, encamping on the old Jackson battle-field, where he was appointed by the colonel, acting-lieutenant, having previously served as sergeant-major for a short time. At the end of a year, having been with his regiment in all its engagements and through the siege of Port Hudson, our acting-lieutenant was transferred to the gist Louisiana infantry regiment, and elected quar- termaster with rank and pay of first lieuten- ant. At the end of one year this regiment and another were so badly diminished by loss of men in killed and wounded, they were or- dered consolidated. The quartermaster of the other regiment remained, and Lieutenant Schermerhorn received the appointment of post-quartermaster at Carrollton, Louisiana, with the rank of captain. His father dying shortly after, leaving his widowed mother alone with the little farm and the unsettled business, he got a leave of absence to return north. Arriving at his old home after an ab- sence of nearly three years, he found he had
587
OF SARATOGA COUNTY.
been made executor of his father's will, and yielded to the earnest pleadings of the mother who had cared for him in his helpless infancy, he sent in his resignation of the easiest and most lucrative position he had ever held in his life, believing, as it proved, that the rebellion was in its last hours. After settling up his father's affairs, our captain sought about for a messmate, and in the winter of the same year, 1864, he found one in the person of Mrs. E. B. Schermerhorn (formerly Gillette), daughter of Peter Gillette, and widow of his warm personal friend and cousin, P. L. Schermerhorn, of Kinderhook. The widow had one lovely daugh- ter, Ida, about one year old, to whom the cap- tain tells us he became as much attached as to the three sons who were afterward born to him. She died at the age of fourteen years and three months, lovely and beloved by all who knew her.
Our soldier, in the spring of 1865, bought the farm of his father-in-law, one mile south of Jonesville, and went to housekeeping and farming, which he followed till December, when, finding that too poor paying business, like school teaching and soldiering, he bought the stock and rented the store at Jonesville, and set to work at his favorite business. Two years later he removed to Scotia, Schenectady county. This proved the greatest mistake so far in his life. Up to this time, except while in the army, our poor man's son had laid up from two hundred dollars to one thousand dol- lars per year. Though he had six thousand dollars in money when he went to Scotia, in less than two years he had lost it all and more through dishonest clerks, partner and debtors. Getting out of that bad scrape as soon as pos- sible and the best he could, he changed his Jonesville farm for a store in Clifton Park vil- lage, where he remained for fourteen years, and made money, selling more. goods and doing more business than had ever been done in that village before or since.
In 1884 the captain disposed of his store, farms, coal yard and residence at Clifton Park,
and removed to the village of Mechanicville, where he is doing a very satisfactory business, and built up a flattering trade, though he had the misfortune to lose heavily the first year through bad debts; most of his liabilities have been paid, and he is now engaged in trying to help others to avoid the shoals in which his bark has been twice so nearly wrecked through cleverness of heart, a desire to help others, and dishonest debtors.
Captain Schermerhorn had three sons : Frank P., born May, 1866; George D., born August, 1867; and Walter P., born December, 1869. On the morning of October 16, 1892, the entire village and community for miles around were shocked and mourned as the sad news passed from house to house that the peoples' friend, the model young man, the church, the Sabbath school, and Young Men's Christian association worker, Frank P. Scher- merhorn, had died at midnight before of ty- phoid fever, of which he had been sick but a few days and was supposed to be doing well. This was the most severe blow of all, and the subject of these memoirs will go with a heavy heart mourning to his grave.
In 1890 the captain was elected president of the Saratoga County Veteran association. He had not been long in office before he saw that there was not much life or activity in it, and that the old constitution and by-laws were very defective. He called a meeting of the executive committee, called their attention to its defects, etc., and asked for a committee on revision, which was granted, they making him chairman. With due respect for the other members, they left the matter largely with the chairman, and the new and unanimously adopted one is mostly the work of his head and hand. During his year of president he con- ceived the enjoyments and comforts that a permanent camp for the association would afford. He laid his plans and object before other members of the association and Round Lake association, and the result is that his conceptions have been warmly seconded by
.
588
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
all, and a suitable building purchased, large lawns donated, and soon the soldiers residing in Saratoga county will have this beautiful home that they are now in possession of free from debt.
The last public enterprise the captain is en- gaged in is the organization of a Business Men's Protective association for the business men of Mechanicville, and althugh but a few weeks have passed since he proposed the mat- ter to another merchant, the organization is complete, constitution and by-laws enacted and printed, an important measure asked and passed by the village officials, and business men are saying that it is the best thing that ever struck the town. The constitution, by-laws, and letters are all the work of Captain Scher- merhorn, who is president of the association.
The captain and his family have a fine farm of two hundred acres a few miles from the vil- lage, and greatly enjoy looking after its inter- ests. Has a comfortable home here, at which all needy and worthy veterans are invited to call when in town, and hopes and prays that his last days may be his best and most useful ones. S.
w ILLIAM CRONCH, a man of fine business ability, and a gentleman who has won financial success, is one of the most influential and useful citizens of the town of Galway. He is a son of John and Frances (Millin) Cronch, and was born in England, December 23, 1815. John Cronch (father) was a native of England, and in 1828 came to the town of Galway, where he purchased a farm, and was successfully engaged for a num- ber of years in farming and in lime burning. He was a man of strict morality and excellent character, politically a whig, and in religion a Baptist. He wedded Frances Millin, also a native of England, who accompanied him to the United States.
William Cronch came with his parents from England to the town of Galway, where he re- ceived his education principally in the com-
mon schools. Leaving school he was en- gaged quite successfully in farming until 1860, when he relinquished agricultural pursuits and embarked in the manufacture of paper at Greenfield, where he remained four years. At the end of that time he went to Lockport, in Niagara county, and commenced paper manufacturing upon a large scale, but a year later disposed of his establishment to engage in the grocery business, in which he continued up to 1868. He then removed to Little Falls, New York, and resumed the manufacture of paper, which he conducted successfully until 1870, when he made arrangements to engage in several other business enterprises, and after disposing of his paper plant, purchased a small and excellent farm in the town of Gal- way, on which he has resided ever since.
In 1840 Mr. Cronch married Clementina Pettit, a daughter of Jonathan Pettit. Politi- cally Mr. Cronch is a democrat, and has served two terms as supervisor, five years as asses- sor, and four years as justice of the peace, beside holding various other village and town offices. He is a careful business man, and in financial matters has shown excellent judg- ment in his investments. He is a stockholder in several banks, among which are the Mort- gage and Investment and the First National banks of Fargo, North Dakota. In that newly admitted State of the Union he also owns some choice real estate, and is largely interested in a successful sheep raising com- pany. Mr. Cronch has been a member of the Baptist church for over fifty years, and has held all of its offices from trustee to deacon. He has achieved honorable success, and as a man and a citizen he is highly respected in the community where he resides.
H ON. WILLIAM B. CONSOLAS, who was a successful wool dealer of New York city for many years, and who ably rep- resented the Second Assembly district of Sar- atoga county in the State legislature, is a son
*
589
OF SARATOGA COUNTY.
of Emanuel and Catharine (Worden) Conso- las, and was born at West Charlton, in the town of Charlton, Saratoga county, New York, September 24, 1844. He received his educa- tion in the public schools of Ballston Spa and Mechanicville, and then specially qualified himself for business pursuits by taking the full course of Eastman's Business college of Pough- keepsie, New York. Leaving school he en- gaged with his brothers in the wool business in Troy, this State, under the firm name of J. & D. A. Consolas. In a short time they sought for a more central point in their particular line of business, and removed to New York city, where Mr. Consolas, with his brothers and a Mr. Carpenter, formed a partnership, under the firm name of Consolas Brothers & Car- penter. This firm soon became well estab- lished, and had a prosperous career, extend- ing through a number of years. Retiring from the wool business in New York city, Mr. Con- solas returned to West Charlton, where he was engaged in farming and dealing in wool until 1890, when he retired from the wool trade. Since then he has devoted his time and atten- tion principally to farming. He owns a fine farm, which adjoins the village of West Charl- ton, where he now resides.
In politics Mr. Consolas has always been a republican. He served for several years as supervisor of his town, and was once elected to the legislature from the Second Assembly district of Saratoga county. His course as a member of the assembly was in political accord with the foundation principles of his party, while on local affairs he supported those meas- ures best calculated to promote the general welfare and business interests of the people of his own and other counties of the Empire State. In committee work he was enabled to offer val- uable suggestions from his many years of busi- ness experience and observation. While a member of no religious organization, yet he takes interest in the progress of all of them, and contributes liberally to the United Pres- byterian church.
In 1875 Mr. Consolas was united in marriage with Maggie D. DeGraff, daughter of Abra- ham DeGraff, and they have one child, a son, Victor E.
H ON. AUSTIN L. REYNOLDS, a
member of one of the old and worthy families of the county, is one of that class of self-made men who, without any extraordinary family or pecuniary advantages, have, by un- conquerable determination and indomitable industry and unwavering integrity, achieved both character and fortune. He is a son of Hon. George and Luthenia (Potter) Reynolds, and was born in the town of Moreau, Sara- toga county, New York, June 19, 1826. Among the old families of Rhode Island noted for in- telligence, integrity and high social standing, was the Reynolds family, which is of English lineage, and which was planted in the small- est of the New England States during the early years of the last century. George Reynolds (grandfather) was a member of this family, and after attaining manhood came from his native State to this county, where he settled two miles south of Glens Falls, at the Point, nearly opposite Ft. Edward on the Saratoga county side of the Hudson river. A man of sterling qualities, though unassuming in man- ner, Mr. Reynolds won recognition at the hands of his new neighbors, and lived to wield a strong influence in his community, where he resided continuously on his farm un- til his death, which occurred August 10, 1824, when in the seventy-second year of his age. He was a democrat and a farmer, and owned a tract of fine land. He wedded Elizabetlı Churchill, who lived to be seventy-three years of age, dying on August 10, 1824. Their children were: Elizabeth, Martha, John, Nancy Winchester, Mary, Hon. George and Elizabeth Martin. Hon. George Reynolds was born in Rhode Island, April 20. 1786, and in 1800 came to the town of Moreau, where he assisted his father for some time, and then engaged in farming, to which he soon added
.
590
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
merchandising and the hotel business, at Reynold's Corner, where he was very success- ful. Ambitious, industrious and energetic, he increased his sphere of labor with every suc- ceeding year of his active life. His early ed- ucation was very limited, and after marriage, like President Johnson, he received instruc- tions from his wife, under which he made rapid progress, becoming in a few years a man of large and varied information. Ener- getic, persevering and intelligent, his business success soon pointed him out to his party as a man possessing the qualities of leadership, and he was continuously employed in the in- terests of democracy. After serving his town for several years in different official positions, he was elected in 1833 as one of the represen- tatives of Saratoga to the assembly, in which honorable body he distinguished himself by his calm, cool and practical judgment upon all matters of public import, as well as meas- ures of local interest. In activity, firmness of purpose, economy, punctuality, foresight and general capacity for business, Mr. Rey- nolds had but few peers and no superiors in his section of the county. His life was emi- nently practical and useful, but its labors ceased when his sun had barely passed beyond the meridian line, as he died on July 11, 1839, when only in the fifty-third year of his age. Mr. Reynolds married Luthenia Potter, who was a daughter of Paulinus Potter, of Moreau, New York, and passed away May 31, 1878, at eighty-eight years of age. To their union were born four sons and four daughters: Maria Austin, Abigail Gallup, George P., Elizabeth Burnham, Hon. John H., Hon. Austin L., Adaline Bennett and James L., a member of the law firm of Wait & Reynolds, and who was one of the ablest lawyers of the State. Hon. John H., the second son, was born June 21, 1819, quit engineering for law, was a man of liberal education, and became a leading member of one of the great law firms of the State. John H. Reynolds ranked as the peer of Judge Porter and other great lawyers, was
postmaster at Albany, and in 1858 was elected as an anti-Lecompton democratic member of Congress, in which in 1860 he closed a speech with these famous words: "We are asked to make more laws. I answer there are too many already. Let present laws be enforced. Amend the constitution? Let the people do it in the regular way!" After his Congressional term he was appointed by Governor Dix as a judge of commission of appeals. He died suddenly at Kinderhook, Columbia county, New York, September 24, 1875, in the fifty- seventh year of his age.
Austin L. Reynolds received his education in Glens Falls and Kinderhook academies, read law with Hulsey R. Wing, and was admitted to the bar in 1852. He immediately entered upon the practice of his chosen profession, but on account of ill health, partly brought about by confinement, was compelled to aban- don the law and engage in outdoor and more healthful pursuits. Having had some experi- ence during his youthful years in agriculture and timber cutting, he turned his attention to farming and lumbering, in which he has been interested ever since. He received an excel- lent business training under his worthy father, to whose counsel and example he is to some extent indebted for his substantial commercial success. Remarkable for industry, enterprise, integrity and sobriety, Mr. Reynolds has so well managed and so carefully guarded, while energetically pushing his business, that he lias honorably acquired a comfortable indepen- dence. Through every financial crisis that has occurred, Mr. Reynolds has always had his paper honored, and his credit was never in the slightest degree impaired, while his course as a business man has been such as to command the respect of the public and win the confidence of all who know him.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.