USA > New York > Ulster County > History of Ulster County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers. Vol. I > Part 25
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After the year 1817 the counties were divided into dis- tricts.
Somion of ISIS .- George A. Gay, First District; John G. Elmore, Second District. 1519 .- Peter Crispel, 11., First District : James G. Graham, Second llistrict.
1$50 .- Milton She! Jou, First District; John P. Davis, Second Dis- triet.
:- >1 .- William J. I.v.seil, First District; John P. Davis, Recond Distriet.
1.2 .- Jacob S. Freut, First ffistrict ; Jacob Westbrook, Jr., Second District.
1. 3 .-- John Loun bery, First District ; 14 liarrison Smith, Second District.
J-34 .- Meeker Gorbain, First District: Jobu B. Howell, Seeand Dis- trict.
1.55 .- Theodore R. Gates, First District; Asa S. Wygant, Second District.
1.16 .- George A. Dullry, First District ; Daniel Schoonmaker, Sec- ond District. 1-35 .- Martin Schutt, First District ; Albert Carpenter, Second Dis- triet.
1-,5 .- Fordlyce L. Lailin, First District : Isane Becker, Secund Dis- triet ; Nathan W. Watson, Third District.
1-3 .- Elmuud Sudain, First District; Albert Carpenter, Second District ; Abram D. Ladew, Third District. 1.% .- Humphrey Jewell, First District ; Jeremiah Clark, Second Dis- triet; John Il. Kortright, Third Distriet.
1-41 .--- Robert Loughran, First District; George T. Pierce, Second District : Benjamin Turuer, Jr., Third District.
1.62 .- Jesse F. Boukstaver, First District ; George T. Pierce. Second District ; Ebenezer Westbrook, Third District.
J863 .- Jesse F. Bookstaver, First District ; Jacob Lefever, Second District : Ebenezer Westbrook, Third District.
1864 .- Jesse F. Bookstaver, First District ; Jacob Lefever, Second District : Thomas Hill, Third District.
J865 .- Jesse F. Bookstaver, First. District: Jacob Lefever, Second District ; Andrew S. Weller, Third District.
1866 .- Frederick Stephan. First District ; James G. Graham, Second District ; Andrew S. Weller, Third District.
1867 .- John Maxwell, First District ; Jacob Lefever, Second District; John G. Baker, Third District.
1868 .- William Loun bery, First District; Abram E. Hasbrouck, Secon.1 District ; Theodore Guigan, Third Distriet.
1869 .- Patrick J. Flynn, First District ; Abram K. Hashronek, See- oud District; James O. Schoouunker, Third Distriel. 1570 .- Patrick J. Flyun, First District ; Abram E. Hasbrouck, See- und District; Charles 11. Krack, Sr., Third District.
1871 .- Cyrus Burhans, First District ; C. Mecch Woolsey, Second District ; Charles 11. Krack, Sr., Third District.
1872 .- Robert Longhran, First District : C. Meech Woolsey, Second District : Allen A. Whittaker, Third District.
1873 .- Michael A. Cummins, First District : James II. Browu, Sce- oud District ; Daniel T. Ilting, Third District.
1874 .- Robert .1. Snyder, First District; Hector Abcel, Second Dis- triet : John D. Winfield. Third District.
1875, -- John Fream, First District ; Jacob D. Wurtz, Second District ; Charles Il. Krach, Third District. 1576 .-- Thomas Hamilton, First District ; Jacob I. Wurts, Second District : Davis Winne, Third District.
1877 .- Thomas Hamilton. First District : Nathan Keator, Fecond District : Isaac W. Longyear, Third District.
ISTS .-- Seaman Q. Searing, First District : Nathan Keator, Secont District; Isaac Hamilton, Third District.
Js79 .- George H. Sharpe, First District ; Theodore Millspangh, Sec- oud District; Leonard Davis, Third District.
1850,-fleury; Il. Sharpe, First District ; Peter Lefever, Second Itis- triet ; T. I. Beuediet, Thirl District.
CHAPTER XX.
THE BENCH AND BAR.
THE carly bar of Ulster County, covering the years from 1773 to 1840, shows a brilliant record, a strong array of talent, and a galaxy of commanding spirits in the ranks of jurisprudence, many of its individual members having a far-reaching influence throughout the State, and not a few of them having a national reputation.
Prominent among the earlier members during the last quarter of the eighteenth century were Anthony Dumoud, George Clinton, John Addison, Lucas Elmendorf, Coonradt Euundus Elmendorf, and Barendt Gardinier. Other meu of mark who figured later (principally between 1800 and 1840) were John Tappen, William Cockburn, John Sudam, Henry Tappen, Charles H. Ruggles, Daniel Brodhead, Zachariah Schoonmaker, Severyn Bruyn, Samuel Haw- kins, Christopher Tappen, Jr., Willet Linderman, Abrain Bruyn Hasbrouck, Marius Schoonmaker, John Van Buren, Charles G. De Witt, Herman M. Romeyn, John Cole, Nicholas Sickles, James O. Linderman, John T. Romeyn, James C. Forsyth, Abram Myer, John J. Ferris, Abram D. Soper, William Wigram, Jonathan D. Ostrander, Henry Vanderlyn, Henry Brodhead, Jr., Jonathan HI. Hasbrouck, and Johannes Bruyn.
JUDGE DIRCK WYNKOOP was a noted and most active personage of the Revolutionary period. While a member
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HISTORY OF ULSTER COUNTY, NEW YORK.
of the Committee of Safety he was sent to the Provincial Congress of 1775; served in the Assembly of 1780-81; was a member of the State Convention in 1788; was ap- pointed, in 1777, an associate with Levi Pawling, named First Judge; and from 1783 to 1793 hell the office of First Judge of the county. He died Dec. 9, 1796, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and was buried in the church- yard of the First Dutch Church in Kingston.
CONRAD EDMUND ELMENDORF, counselor-at-law, born Sept. 12, 1763; died March 1, 1817. He was a son of Conrad Jacob Elmendorf, one of the leading members of the bar of Kingston after the close of the Revolution. We find him a member of Assembly in 1794, 1800, and 1505 ; attorney-general for the district of Ulster, Dutchess, and Orange in 1798; and district attorney for Elster, Del- aware, and Orange in 1801. In 1802 he was an uusuc- cessful candidate for Congress, and was a Presidenti:d elector in 1804. Hle married Catharine Tremper, born 1784. died 1817.
COL. LEVI PAWLING, of Marbletown, was a judge of the Connnou Pleas Court in 1778, and was the first State senator from Ulster County, 1777. He figured largely, in connection with Col. Snyder and Governor Clinton, in the military operations of the Revolution.
GEORGE CLINTON, an American soldier and statesman, youngest son of Charles Clinton, born in Veter Co., N. Y., July 26, 1739, died at Washington, April 20. 1812. He received a careful education, directed chichy by his father, aud by a Scottish clergyman who was a graduate of the University of Aberdeen, mot he early si, nalized his euter- prising character by sailing in a privatees in the French war. He soon after joined a militia company as lieutenant, and took part in the expedition against Fort Frontenac, now Kingston, Canada. Choosing the legal profession, he practiced with distinction in his native county till. in 1768, he was elected to the Colonial Assembly, where he soon became the head of a Whiz minority. He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1775 ; voted for the Declara- tion of Independence; was appointed briga bergenend of the United States in 1777 ; and in the same year, at the first election under the constitution of New York, was chosen both governor and Li us want Governor of the State He accepted the governoship and by six stressive elections held that office for eighteen years. Both in bis civil and military capacity he exhibited great euergy, and rendered important services throughout the war ; and though his efforts to save Forts Montgomery and Clinton in the Ihuid- son highlands, in 1777, were nosuccessful, it was yet due in a large measure to his counsels that communication was prevented between the British in Canada and the city of New York. The politics of New York were in a distracted state by reason of the numerous Tories residing within its Invits, which made the chief magistracy nusurpassed in difficulty by any office in the country, except that of com- minder-in-chief of the army. In 1758 he presided over the convention at Poughkeepsie to consider the federal constitution, the adoption of which he opposed, not deen- ing it sufficiently decided in favor of the sovereignty of euch State. When, in 1792, Washington was elected to the Presidency for the second time, Clinton received finy
electoral votes for Vice-President. After an interval in his official life he was again elected, in 1801, Governor of New York, and in 1804 was elected Vice-President of the I'nited States, receiving the same number of votes as Jef- ferson received for the Presidency. He was one of the prominent candidates for nomination to the Presidency in 1808, and received six electoral votes in opposition to Madison, but he was continued in the chair of Vice- President by one hundred and thirteen electoral votes. He was acting in discharge of the duties of his office at the time of his death. By his casting vote in the Senate, Jan. 24, 1811, the recharter of the National Bank was refused, he thinking it inexpedient rather than unconstitutional .*
CHARLES DE WITT, after Governor Clinton, was the most prominent man of Hister County during the Revolu- tionary period. " Before the separation from Great Britain he represented the county in the Colonial Assembly from 1768 to 1775, and as a member of the last legislative body which sat under royal authority was one of the nine reso- lute and patriotic men who voted to approve of the pro- ceedings of the Continental Congress, then recently organ- ized at Philadelphia. . . . We next find him at the head of the county Committee of Safety, taking measures to secure the liberty which was now to be fought for in the open field. Ilis leading position at once places him in the Provincial Convention of April, 1775, and his name fre- quently ocems in the journals of the subsequent Congresses. Ile was appointed colonel of a regiment of minute-men, Dec. 21, 1775, but does not appear to have devoted his at- tention to the particular duties of his military command. On the appointment of the important committee of Congress ' for detecting and defeating conspiracies, etc.,' De Witt is placed upon it, with William Duer, Zeph. Platt, Col. Vau Courtlandt, John Jay, etc., and he continued to serve for a considerable time. When it was resolved to take the neces- sary steps to form a State government, the convention elected Col. De Witt a member of the committee to prepare a draft of the constitution. In 1784 he was chosen a del- egate to the Continental Congress. After the close of the war, from 1781 to 1785, he sat in the Assembly of the State. He died April 27. 1787."f Hon. Charles G. De Witt was his son ..
ANTHONY DEMOND was a man of considerable ability and prominence.
EGBERT DUMOND, " sheriff of Ulster County under the crown, from 1771 to 1773, was a deputy in the Provincial Congress which met in May, 1775. In the same month an ordinance of the Convention appointed him sheriff, which he held until 1781, and again frotu 1785 to 1789. He was much engaged in public affairs during the Revolution, and seems to have been greatly relied upon by the executive authority of those times."}
JOHN ADDISON, a prominent and successful lawyer, fig- ured in the courts of Ulster prior to (and for some time after ) the year 1800. He was one of the original trustees of the Kingston Academy.
LA CAS ELMENDORF was a man of brilhant intellect and
# Appleton's Cyclopedia.
i Ulster Historical Collections.
* ibid., p. 162.
.
** رِئَات
٠١١٠٠
Quesinton
103
THE BENCH AND BAR.
au indefatigable worker. Especially was he well read and prominent in matters affecting real estate and titles Ile held many loent offices, was judge of Flster County for many years, and a member of the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Con- gresses, 1797 to 1803. He was an associate and a great admirer of Jefferson. He died in 1843.
Among other personages prominent in legal matters during this period, or intimately associated with the courts, its officials, and lawyers, we may mention CORNELIUS C. SCHOONMAKER, who was a member of Assembly nearly every year from 1777 to 1795, who represented the dis- triet in the Second Congress, 1791-93, and was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1778. Although a surveyor by profession, he often tried his own real-estate cases in the Supreme Court. He died in 1796.
PETER EDMUNDUS ELMENDORF, boru Aug. 27, 1715; died July 13, 1765, aged fifty years. Son of Conrad El- meudorf and Blandina Kiersted; for many years was sheriff of Ulster, and at the time of his death was sur- rogate, George Clinton being his immediate successor. He married May, daughter of John Crook, Esq. (county clerk ), and had five children, the sons being named John and Peter Edmundus.
CHRISTOPHER TAPPEN was father-in-law of Governor George Clinton. He figured as a civil magistrate, and rep- resented Ulster in the First, Third, and Fourth Provincial Congresses. He was a major during the Revolution, and after the war sat in the Assembly from 1588 to 1790, and was elected senator in 1797. He was deputy clerk of Ulster for many years under Clinton, and in 1812 was ap- pointed clerk of the country, which he held until 1821, when he resigned. He died Aug. 3, 1826, and was buried at Kingston. Father of George, John, and Christopher Tappen, Jr.
ARTHUR PARKS, a member for Ulster in the Third and Fourth Provincial Congresses, a major of minute-men, and Senator from 1777 to ITSS. He appears to have been ap- pointed surrogate in 1755, but probably diJ not qualify, and in 1801 was chosen a member of the Constitutional Con- vention. He died Aug. 11, 1506, aged seventy years .*
JOHANNES BRUYN, of Shawangunk, was member of Assembly for four years prior to 1800, a member of the State Senate, and also a member of the Court of Errors and of the Council of Appointment. For a long time he was one of the Associate Judges of Ulster County, and was a man of sound judgment and sterling integrity. Ile died in 1814.
HENRY WISNER, JR .. appointed surrogate in 1785, mem- ber of the Second, Third, and Fourth Provincial Congresses, and member of Assembly, 1777-78, and 1788-89.
BARENDT GARDINIER was a man of marked ability as an advocate, and prominent as a politician. Was a member "F the Tenth aud Eleventh Congresses (1807-11 ), and had a warin controversy with John Armstrong. Secretary of War. Ile subsequently removed to New York City, where lit: died.
MOSES CANTINE Was a member of Assembly in 1800, and our of the judges of Common Pleas. He died at Mar- bleton in July, 1827, aged seventy-four years.
$ Eager's History of Orange County.
JOHN TAPPEN figured quite carly and prominently as a lawyer in Ulster County. In 1814 he purchased the Plebeian, which he conducted nntil his death, April 20, 1831, aged sixty-five. He was a Republican, and a warm partisan ; bnt new movements and radical changes did not accord with the " old-school" politics of Mr. Tappen. Yet when the party became divided into the Bucktail and Clin- tonian factions, he supported the latter. He was a ripe scholar and an able writer.
WILLIAM COCKBURN, a good lawyer and safe counselor ; the trial of causes, however, was generally attended to by N. Sickles, his partner. His name figures in connection with the Ulster bar from about the year 1820. He was a Whig in politics. Died in 183S.
CHRISTOPHER TAPPEN, JR., was district attorney for a number of years.
HENRY TAPPEN commenced practice about 1820.
WILLST LINDERMAN was admitted to the bar about 1820, and commenced the practice of his profession in the village of Tuthill, in New Paltz, now Gardiner. He was district attorney for many years. He was eccentric as a man. but an able kuryer.
ABRAHAM BRUYN HASBROUCK .- No more eminent name than that of the Hon. Abraham Bruyn Hasbrouck, LL D., adorns the annals of Ulster County. None has a higher place in the regard, veneration, and affection of the people of the county. A simple sketch of the career, services, and character which gave him this position is quite inadequate to do such justice to the subject as it deserves But the limits to which this paper is necessarily restricted will not permit a fuller and more particular survey.
Mr. Hasbronek was born in Kingston on the 29th of November, 1791. His paternal ancestors were French Huguenots. Abraham Hasbrouck removed from Calais into the Palatinate, in Germany, about the middle of the seventeenth century, belonging to the body of French Protestants whom religious persecution forced from their native land. From Germany the family went to Eng. land in 1675, and the same year proceeded to this country, where, after sojourning in several places, they finally settled at New Paltz, where a large tract of land had been obtained from the proper authorities. A descend- ant of this family, Abraham Hasbrouck, was a colonel in the Revolutionary war, and commanded one of the regi- ments from this county. His son. Jonathan Hasbrouck, the father of the subject of this sketch, had his residence in Kingston, where he died in 1846, at the age of eighty- three. Ile was a man of decided character aud a promi- nent citizen, having held for a number of years the office of first judge of the county. He is described by one who knew him best as " a noble specimen of a generation and class now ahnost extinct,-the generation which links the present with the era of the Revolution; he was its befit- ting representative." Jonathan Hasbrouck's wife was Catharine, a daughter of Cornelius Wynkoop, a lady of great sweetness of disposition, of unassuming piety, and of many excellences that attracted. both love and respect. Her death, which occurred on the 11th of February. 1846, in her eighty-third year, preceded by ouly a few months that of her husband.
104
HISTORY OF ULSTER COUNTY, NEW YORK.
The preparatory education of Edward Bruyn Hasbrouck was obtained in the Kingston Academy, which at that time stood foremost among similar institutions in the State. A number of students were trained here, some of them classmates of Mr. Hasbrouck, who attained high eminenee afterwards in Church and State. Among them were the Rev. Drs. Thomas De Witt, Brodhead, and Westbrook-names honored in the Reformed Dutch Church, -- and Edward and Robert R. Livingston, Stephen Van Rensselaer, Abraham Van Vechten, John C. Spencer, Judge Oakley, and others hardly less distinguished, the meution of whose names is associated with the positions they held and the work they respectively performed. Mr. Hasbronek left the academy for Yale College in 1806, grad- unting with high honors from the latter institution in 1810. He entered, shortly afterwards, ou his preparatory studies with the legal profession in view, pursuing them first at the Litehfield (Coun.) law-school, in charg . of Judge Gould, and completing his course under the celebrated Elisha Williams, of Hudson, N. Y.
Being duly licensed as an attorney, he conneneed the practice of the law at Kingston in 1814, forming a co- partnership with Charles H. Ruggles, afterwards judge of the Supreme Court. This firm enjoyed a wide reputation for ability and integrity, and a large amount of the practice of the county was transacted through their office. Mr. Ruggles was elected judge in 1831, and in 1833 Mr. Has- bronek took into partnership Mr. Marius Schoonmaker, then recently licensed, and whose preparatory studies had been pursued in this office. This partnership continued till 1840, when Mr. Hasbrouck was elected president of Rut- gers College, at New Brunswick, N. J. His eouncetion with this institution continued tou years, the Hon. Theo- dore Frelinghuysen succeeding him as president of the college. On his removal from New Brunswick, in 1850, he settled in New York City, but preferring the greater quietness of a country life, and strongly attracted to the early scenes amid which his childhood was passed, he re- turned, after a few years' residence in the city, to his native county, where he purposed to pass the remnant of his days. He came accordingly to Kingston, orenpying the old home- stend where his parents had died, alternating, however, his winter residence here with a summer residence at St. Remy, a country-seat, situated about four miles from Kingston, on the Rondout Creek, in a beautiful and picturesque locality. In this retirement, unbroken by the holling of any publie office, or by engaging in any business activities, his remain- ing years, amounting to more than a score since leaving New York, were tranquilly passed. His long life closed, iu the old house where his father had lived and died, on the 24th of February, 1879, in the eighty-eighth year of his age.
As a lawyer Mr. Hasbrouck held a high rank at the Ulster County bar, with a reputation for ability, learning, and successful management of causes which reached far beyond the confines of his county. He was a diligent student, was familiar with the principles of legal science, of the civil and common law, and with their application to the varied cases constantly occurring in his practice; was a pleasing and impressive speaker, and had a character for
manliness and probity which won the confidence of elieu's. of juries, and of all who knew him, enhancing the force of his arguments, and thus promoting the success of his efforts as an advocate. The quarter of a century which he devoted to the labors of his profession developed a skill, strength. and excellence which showed how high he might hav .. risen therein, had not circumstances withdrawn him into another field of labor before his meridian was fairly passed. Before this period he had taken an active part iu politics. belonging to the old Whig party, as he belonged in after- years to the Republican. He represented, in 1825. the counties of Ulster and Sullivan in Congress, rendering creditable service to the country, and enjoying the high estimation of his associates in the body for his intelligence. promptness, and fidelity to the trusts committed to him, a- well as for his high-bred courtesy and the rare social quali- ties which were sure to charm all who came within the reach of their influence.
In assuming the duties of president of Rutgers Colles .. -the first lay president the college ever had-he entered on a new and untried field, but one for which his literary tastes and acquisitions, his love for education, his interest in the welfare of young men, his genial and warm sympa- thies, and his high moral aud religious character gave him a special fitness. The expectations of his friends and those of the college were amply fulfilled in his mild and paternal. yet judicious and firm, administration of its affairs. He was popular with students, and with townspeople as well. winning the favor of the former by his frank, affable ad- dress and evident deep interest in their welfare, and of the latter by the courtesy, the respectful and kindly attentions which uniformly marked his intercourse with them. He left New Brunswick with the warmest regards and best wishes for his happiness of the citizens of the town, white the many students who had enjoyed his tuition and counsels during his ten years' presidency regarded him with unusus! honor and affection, became life-long friends, and loved t visit him in after-years and speak to him of the bright days when they had found so much to stimulate and cheer and benefit them under his instructions.
In the community where most of his active life was spent he was held in high honor, and exerted always a potent influence. His fellow-citizens trusted him becan- they knew him, confiding as well in the soundness of li- judgment, in his intelligence and sagacity iu conduetit .: affairs, as in his loyalty to truth and conscientious convie- tion. He was president of the first bank established in Kingston, the duties of which office he performed with signal ability. He was a warm friend and vigorous pro- moter of the cause of education, both in the commea schools and in the higher seminaries of learning. He was the founder and president of the Ulster County Historica. Society, taking a deep interest in its successful maintenance. and by eloquent addresses, by correspondence, by frequen: personal appeals on its behalf, striving to awaken and keep alive in the public mind an interest kindred to his own. He was also among the foremost and firmest supporters of the Bible Society in this county, which, with the late Dr. Gosman and other associates, he helped to organize; aul. regarding the circulation of the Scriptures among the mia: se.
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THE BENCH AND BAR.
as imimately connected with the existence of virtue, in- tegrity, social order, and the health and safety of the body politie, he spared no pains to have the Divine teaching brought in contact with the publie mind in every com- munity. His interest in this eanse never abated, and his Labors for it were often exerted on wider fields, where au- diences of thousands in the larger eities were sometimes gathered and impressed by his earnest and stirring appeals. At the time of his death he was the oldest vice-president of the American Bible Society. Other benevolent institutions found in him a ready and strong advocate, and whatever good to his fellow-men and to society his hand found to do he did with his might, without wishing other reward than the satisfaction arising from the consciousness of duty per- formed.
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