USA > New York > Hudson-Mohawk genealogical and family memoirs, Volume II > Part 7
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her removal from her home that she might receive constant and unremitting care. She was possessed of an estate in her own right, consisting of both real and personal property, which was kept intact for her during her life- time, and which fell to her two surviving sons. She died January 1, 1893. To Colonel and Mrs. McCulloch were born three sons- William Hathorn, Aiken, and Walter Bu- chanan.
(III) William Hathorn McCulloch, eldest son of William Alexander and Caroline Ma- tilda (Akin) McCulloch, was born Septem- ber 15, 1842, at the Cantonment, the house of his parents at Hathornden not being ready for occupancy at the time of his birth. He attended several primary schools in Green- bush and Albany, also taking a course at the Albany Boys' Academy, from there going to the celebrated Philips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts. Deciding upon the law as a profession, he took up its study at Yale uni- versity, ultimately finishing at the Albany Law School. After his admission to the bar, he supplemented the legal instruction already received by a course of reading in the law office of Cagger & Porter, who were noted practitioners in their day. While so engaged he joined a crack military company in Al- bany, known as the Albany Zouave Cadets, organized 1860, in which year the subject of this sketch joined it. This company became famous as a preparatory school for the train- ing . of its members to become officers com- petent to take commands in the volunteer regiments soon to be raised in the near im- pending civil war, and after the war had commenced it continued to so send its well equipped members as officers where their services could be of value through their train- ing. It celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its organization June 7, 1910. While Mr. McCulloch was in the ranks of this company it was twice called into active service by the state to do guard duty at the Albany bar- racks, where raw levies of volunteers were stationed preparatory to their proper organ- ization and equipment for duty at the front in the war which had broken out early in 1861.
In the following year, 1862, he received a commission as second lieutenant, and was assigned to Company H, One Hundred and Seventy-seventh Regiment, New York S. V. This regiment was composed largely in per- sonnel both as to officers and enlisted men, of members of the Tenth. Regiment, N. G. S. N. Y., of which the Albany Zouave Ca- dets was Company A. William H. McCul- loch's was the eighty-second name on the ros- ter of cadets of those of that company to be
commissioned, and in the volunteer service he was one among its very youngest officers to be selected from civil life, having not yet attained the age of twenty years when com- missioned. His regiment left Albany early in the following year (1863) and went from New York by ship to New Orleans, where it joined the army commanded by General Banks. While doing picket duty with his company shortly after his arrival at the front, Lieutenant McCulloch received, for one of his rank, quite an extended notice in the pa- pers for his clever capture of a Confederate spy, who naturally would have suffered exe- cution had he not escaped from the careless hands of one of higher rank to whom the cap- tor gave him in custody.
The lieutenant participated in all the vari- ous skirmishes. (some of which might be called engagements) and in the two pitched battles in which his regiment took a promi- nent part. Much of the time he was the actual commander of his company, his cap- tain having been killed in the first battle, and the first lieutenant being assigned to staff duty. At the first battle of Port Hudson, May 27, 1863, his regiment, with most of the army, charged the earthworks, strongly de- fended by the infantry and artillery of the enemy, and strewn in front with felled tim- ber and other entanglements, disarranging the proper alignment of the attacking forces. In the charge he was in front of his company and close to his captain, who was encouraging on his men, when this officer turned to his subaltern and told him that he should return to his proper place in the immediate rear of the company to push on the wavering rather than to lead, which was his (the captain's) place. This rebuke to the lieutenant was the captain's last duty performed ; he had hardly uttered the last word when a bullet from the. ' enemy laid him low with a mortal wound. Shortly after this the recall was sounded, and defeat with heavy loss was the result of the action. The second battle, June 14, over about the same ground, had a similar ending -defeat and heavy loss. Both actions were said to have been military blunders in their inception, as the enemy were soon after starved into submission and surrender by the regular process of siege interrupted by these two actions. On the return of the regiment from the war, Lieutenant McCulloch was mustered out with the rest and returned to civil life.
During the last year of the war, in asso- ciation with a former college chum, he con- tracted with and furnished the government large quantities of hay from the vicinity of
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Whitehall, New York. Though the enterprise was extensive, but little profit accrued there- from. This was the only commercial ven- ture in which he ever engaged.
He was on the point of forming a law part- nership in the city of Albany, when he con- cluded that the west promised a better field for the young practitioner, and acting on this impulse, he went to St. Louis, commenc- ing the practice of law there. After several years in that city a case in which he was en- gaged took him to the near-by town of Wash- ington, in Franklin county, Missouri. Liking the place, he removed to that town and con- tinued his successful practice there for a number of years. His somewhat restless dis- position chafed under the slow rewards of his professional life, so wlien gold was discovered in the Black Hills, he, with several other professional men of his town, went there with the view of bettering their fortunes. Not succeeding there, he returned to Washington, and shortly thereafter went to the territory of New Mexico, prospecting and mining again being the object. After several years there, he attained a degree of success which would have satisfied many, but which was not com- mensurate with liis expectations and ambi- tion. With the purpose of further advance- ment, in the year 1883 he, with two associ- ates, one of whom was Colonel Prescott (who gave tlie name to the city or town of Pres- cott, Arizona), equipped themselves with a very elaborate outfit, including pack animals, mounts, and the necessary paraphernalia, with ready funds incident to conducting a prospect for paying mineral. This expensive outfit contributed to their undoing, as will be seen. They started out into an unexplored region and never returned. Diligent search was made for them by organized parties, in one of which was Mr. McCulloch's brother, but 110 trace of them living could be found. It was not until several years had elapsed that the remains of this party were found and recognized by papers and relics found with them, the discoverer being a single prospector with an attendant Indian boy. It was after- wards learned that the value of the outfit had aroused the cupidity of a roving band of rob- bers (perhaps organized for the purpose) of renegade whites and Mexicans, who am- buslied and slew the party and made off with their plunder. It was impossible to properly distinguish the separate individuality of the remains found. Mr. McCullochi's father caused the sheriff of the county to inter the remains and erect a monument with suitable inscription where the unfortunate men fell. The precise date of Mr. McCulloch's death
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will never be known, but it probably occurred in the early months of the year 1884, when he was aged about forty-one years.
William Hathorn McCulloch was nearly six feet in height, and of sturdy build; his features were almost classic in outline, and his general appearance impressive. In aptitude for acquiring knowledge and infor- mation, he had more than the usual allot- ment, and he availed himself of it. Besides the knowledge acquired, necessary to the pur- suit of his profession, he was remarkably well informed in history, both ancient and modern, and well read in the current litera- ture of his day, besides being a fluent writer and ready speaker. Unlike his father and grandfather, his tastes did not lead him in the direction of scientific or technical knowledge. He was genial and impulsive in manner, everywhere popular, and a leader among his fellows. He never married.
(III) Aiken, second son of William Alex- ander and Caroline M. (Akin) McCulloch, the existing head of the family, was born June 19, 1847, at Hathornden, his present home and possession. In boyhood he attended schools in the vicinity of his home, including the Albany Boys' Academy. Early in life it seeming that it would one day be his lot to be the proprietor of Hathornden, his edu- cation was shaped to that end, in that his scholastic course was finished at the State Ag- ricultural College of Pennsylvania.
In the brief sketch of his father's life it will be noted that he (his father) at varying periods personally operated his own farm. On these occasions his son Aiken was his right hand or executive officer, who relieved him of much detail for which he was un- adapted, and made success when failure with- out his assistance might have resulted. For a number of years Aiken McCulloch, either under a lease from his father or through a sharing of profits, conducted the farm him- self, and always with satisfactory results, but it eventually became evident to him that the actual farmer can only win out by undergoing a drudgery which he did not feel called upon to endure, which resulted finally in his leasing the farm to a tenant, as his father had done before him, and for which the place was always adapted by being equipped with a commodious house built purposely to accom- modate employed labor by the proprietor, or a tenant farmer and his own family and force. Such were the conditions when in the year 1900, through the death of his father, he be- came the owner of the estate, together with other property devised to him by will, and this is the present status, except that the pro-
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prietor reserves sufficient land to furnish hay to his horses and other stock required by a country family.
Being relieved from the exactions incident to farming and other active business, Mr. Mc- Culloch has had and has much leisure time on his hands, but takes little enjoyment in anything unshared with him by his family. The social life made possible by a commodi- ous and attractive home and an extended and agreeable acquaintance has been and is his and their lot to enjoy, which in the past has been diversified by travel, both in their own country and abroad.
Aiken McCulloch is a lover of all legiti- mate sports. A pastime much enjoyed by him is riding, as he is an excellent horseman, and ever in his stable he has a ready mount. Like his progenitors, he has read much on a diversity of subjects, and is a mentally well equipped and well informed man. He is of moderate height and build, erect, and en- joys good health. He has ever been held in high esteem in the community in which he has always lived. Unlike his brothers, he has never joined the Masonic fraternity, nor the patriotic societies of comparatively recent or- igin, to which his ancestry would make him eligible. He is a Republican, though never active in politics. He and his family are all members of the Presbyterian church.
Aiken McCulloch and Lottie L. Ham were married October II, 1883. Mrs. McCulloch is a daughter of the late Chester Griswold and Charlotte (Lyon) Ham, and was born in the village of Greenbush. Her father was of the original Dutch stock which settled in New York state early in the seventeenth cen- tury. Mr. Ham was long an official of the Boston & Albany railway, but in the last years of his life was engaged in business in Bath, a corporate village of which he was for several terms the president. Here he built a fine residence, with spacious grounds sur- rounding same, commanding a view of rarely surpassed excellence, which includes in its range the Hudson river, the city of Albany, and adjacent country. His widow now owns and occupies this home. Bath is now part of the city of Rensselaer.
Mrs. McCulloch's mother is of the Lyon family, which early settled in New England. General Nathaniel Lyon, who fell in the bat- tle of Wilson's Creek, Missouri, during the civil war, was a near relative. A great- grandfather was Waitstal Avery. The Averys were a distinguished family, and figured prominently both in New England and the South during the Colonial and Revolutionary period of our country.
Upon entering the home of her husband as a bride, Mrs. McCulloch found herself at once its mistress. Her father-in-law, upon her marriage with his son, in effect abdicated as head of his establishment and was there- after more like an honored guest of his son and young wife than the actual head of the house. Notwithstanding this he was always deferred to in matters of importance and his wishes ever regarded. Hathornden had for years been without a real mistress, and in the new incumbent it found one of rare grace, charm, and ability in management. Besides her own pervading personality she brought to her new home the joy of music, she having been (and is) skillful in that accomplishment both through her rich voice in song and as a pianist. She has ever presided over her home with the same charm as inaugurated in her early married life. She delights in enter- taining the large circle of the family acquain- tance, who find in her and her husband host- ess and host whom it is a pleasure and a privilege to meet. Mr. and Mrs. McCulloch have a son, William Alexander, and a daugh- ter, Anne Charlotte.
(IV) William Alexander McCulloch, named for his grandfather of revered memory, is now a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, representing the twenty-second congressional district of New York state. The fact that he is at that world famous school for the preparing of young men for commissions in the army, with its rigid requirements both as to mental and phy- sical qualifications, is, for one so young, al- most enough of record for him. The future is his concern, and it is to be hoped, with such a propitious start, that he will make a name and fame for himself in his country's service. His boyhood days at home before go- ing to West Point were about as those of the boys of the period, except that for one so young he had traveled not a little. He is of an amiable disposition, regular in features, tall of stature, and as a result of his present train- ing, of very erect figure and of soldierly bear- ing.
(IV) Anne Charlotte McCulloch, generally known as Charlotte McCulloch, only recently finished as to education, is a young woman of charm both as to person and manner. She is the idol in the household of her parents, which she helps largely to adorn. She is very popular in a large circle which embraces her near relatives and an extended acquaintance. She has many accomplishments, enhanced by her experiences in an extended tour through Great Britain and Continental Europe with her parents a few years since. She inherits
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from both her parents a fondness for horses, and is both an equestrienne and a whip of courage and skill.
(III) Walter Buchanan McCulloch, third and youngest son of William Alexander and Caroline M. A. McCulloch, was born at Ha- thornden, December 2, 1849. In his early education a course in the classics was com- menced and pursued to some length, but it was decided that this should be dropped and a technical course substituted. In early boy- hood he attended, among other schools of more or less merit, the Albany Boys' Acad- emy, as had his father and brothers, and he finally finished at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy. A few months after leav- ing that famous technical institute of learn- ing an opening offered and he went to Iowa, and as a civil engineer in the department of maintenance of way on a railroad operated in that state, acted as assistant to the chief en- gineer. In this position his duties were much of an executive character, he frequently act- ing as head of an important department dur- ing the absence of his chief. Thereafter most of his work had to do with railroad construction ; generally with the title of divi- sion engineer, many divisious of various rail- roads were built under his direct charge and supervision. In this particular field of opera- tions he was in his element. Commencing in Iowa in 1871 and ending in Virginia in 1894, the practice of his profession as a civil en- gineer took him to many states of the Union. From 1894 to 1900 his activities were con- fined to operations of minor importance and near his home.
An interruption to his duties incident to the pursuit of his profession occurred in the year 1884, when the disappearance of his eld- est brother (as noted in biographical sketch of William Hathorn McCulloch) caused him to leave Missouri, where he was actively en- gaged, and at the behest of his father, pro- ceed to New Mexico in search of his lost brother, whose fate was then unknown. Though with ample funds at his command and armed with credentials from the governor of New York state which obtained for him rare consideration from officials, both civil and military, his search through not only New Mexico but the adjacent territory of Arizona, by every means of conveyance ex- cept afoot, was without result. Hardly had he finished this search and left its scene when that rapacious and murderous savage, Gero- nimo, the Indians broke out and plundered and killed over much of the country passed over by him. Had he from any cause de- layed his expedition only by three weeks at
most, the tragic fate of his brother might easily have been his.
Some of his operations other than as per- tained to railroad work may be noted briefly as follows: For the United States govern- ment as manager for a contractor he built part of the Panther forest levee on the Mis- sissippi river, in Arkansas; opened up and started in operation a coal mine in Iowa; was inspector of river improvement for the state of New York, in operations on the Hud- son river, and was one of a timber explora- tion party on the north shore of the Great Lakes in the British possessions. This last- named enterprise, undertaken in the winter time, had to him, at least, some of the char- acteristics of an Arctic expedition.
In the year 1900, on the death of his father, Walter B. McCulloch found himself pos- sessed of a property, the income derived from which he deemed sufficient for his wants, in- asmuch as he has no one dependent upon him. Except that he is interested in and a director of the Rensselaer County bank, he is now in no active business or occupation. In the decade just closing (1910) he has trav- eled considerably, and as his duties previ- ously had taken him extensively over his own country, his recreation tours have been al- most exclusively in foreign countries. He has crossed the Atlantic and returned three times, touring through much of Great Brit- ain and Continental Europe, and visiting parts of Asia and Africa contiguous to the Mediter- ranean sea. He is a Free Mason of the thirty-second degree, a member of the D. K. E. college fraternity, also the Society of Co- lonial Wars, Sons of the Revolution, and the Albany Club. These various affiliations, to- gether with his family connection, have given him a large acquaintance. In politics he re- serves the right to be independent, but of late years has been found with the Republi- cans on national questions. In religious faith he is a Presbyterian, and a member of that church. He is of medium height, inclined to stoutness in figure, of vigorous constitu- tion, and generally enjoys the best of health. His home is with his brother and family at Hathornden. He is unmarried.
The Hathornden Estate .- The country estate known as Hathornden, comprising in area about two hundred acres, was formerly a part of the Cantonment or military reserva- tion purchased by Hathorn McCulloch, the grandfather of Aiken McCulloch, the present proprietor, and was detached therefrom as noted in the biographical sketch of William Alexander McCulloch.
It is largely a farm under cultivation, ex-
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cept that occupying the southeast corner is a tract of woodland about fifteen acres in ex- tent, and certain reservations of land com- prising the roadway leading from the state road to the homestead, and the lawns, gar- dens, and surroundings of homestead and ad- jacent outbuildings, exclusively used by the proprietor, and distinct and isolated by well- defined boundaries from the farm proper. Pertaining to the farm is a house for the ten- ant farmer, a large barn and outbuildings, and other features necessary to its operation. On its westerly side it is bounded by the Co- lumbia turnpike (now a state road) ; north- erly mostly by the Cantonment estate, and elsewhere by the lands of adjacent neighbors. Entering from the south and for a distance of about two thousand feet nearly paralleling the state road, it is crossed by the Albany & Southern railroad, the land comprising this right of way was donated to the railroad by the late William A. McCulloch. The rail- road leaves the farm as it crosses the state road. Here are situated a small railway sta- tion, a country wayside inn, a school house, and several houses. This small settlement is the nucleus of the community known as Clinton Heights, taking in a larger area, dis- tant about one and one-half miles from Rensse- laer and Albany. Very near this railroad sta- tion, and opposite the inn, a gateway flanked by tall brick pillars is the entrance to the pri- vate roadway leading to the home on the es- tate. This road is four rods in width, prop- erly arched and graveled, and is shaded most of the way by elms on each side, except as it approaches entrance to lawn, where maples are found. All the trees are of good size and of generous foliage. At another gate, although not passing through the same, the road, narrower in width, diverts toward the north towards and through the Cantonment estate. This last-named gate is flanked by massive masonry pillars adorned by capitals, and through it by a graveled roadway the lawn surrounding the house is entered upon. It is spacious in extent, is traversed by grav- eled roadways and walks, interspersed by trees of abundant foliage, and shrubbery. On a terrace is the house, in a commanding posi- tion. It is built of brick, in pure Italian style of architecture. The walls are very thick, and the structure is in as good con- dition as when erected about seventy years ago. The house is not so great in extent as the cunning of the designer in its construc- tion would lead the external observer to infer. Viewed from a favorable position on the lawn or approaching roadway where the western front with its imposing porch, and
south side with vine-entwined veranda both in range, it has in connection with its surround- ings, in appearance the stateliness and dignity of a country mansion, which it really is.
In its interior are many antiques in the way of furniture. Among silver, china and cut glass ware, are heirlooms of the McCulloch and Akin families of preceding generations.
At convenient distance and to rear of house, are stable, carriage house and other outbuildings, and on the north and south of lawn towards rear are gardens, the one to the south being a rare flower garden.
A view of the city of Albany is obtained from the terrace surrounding the house, but on a rise of ground a short distance in the rear, is one of much greater extent, embrac- ing in its range the Hudson river. This in bare outline is a description of Hathornden. It is really entitled to one of greater scope and comprehensiveness than is here set forth.
Mrs. George Clinton Genet is GENET the owner of the estate known as the Cantonment, distant about one and one-half miles from the city of Rens- selaer, which is situated on the east bank of the Hudson river, opposite the city of Al- bany. Though spending much of her time in New York City, during the winter months, she regards the Cantonment as her home.
Augusta Georgia Kirtland Genet, only daughter and youngest child of Benjamin Bostwick and Mary A. (McCulloch) Kirt- land, was born in Augusta, Georgia, where her father was engaged in business at the time of her birth. Benjamin Bostwick Kirt- land, born 1806, died 1859, was of a promi- nent New England family of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and was a son of Samuel Cook and Harriet (Bostwick) Kirtland. Mary A. (McCulloch) Kirtland, born 1813, died 1873, was the only daughter of Hathorn and Chris- tina M. McCulloch. Hathorn McCulloch purchased the Cantonment property from the United States government about the year 1830, and established his home there.
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