Landmarks of Albany County, New York, Part 61

Author: Parker, Amasa Junius, 1843-1938, ed
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1374

USA > New York > Albany County > Landmarks of Albany County, New York > Part 61

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Mr. Griffith is an enthusiast upon and deeply interested in all matters of History and Genealogy, and has done much to further their interests in his native City. , He is an active, working official of Philip Livingston Chapter, Sons of the Revolution, and to him is due in a great measure its success and prosperity. As its treasurer and secretary he has been one of the few who have by their efforts made it the successful, prosperous and conservative organization it has lately become. He is also identified as Registrar-General and Genealogist with the oldest, most conservative, hereditary order in the United States known as " The Ancient Heraldic and Chivalric Order of Knights of Albion." This order was instituted by Sir Edmund Plowden, of Delaware and Virginia, in 1643. It became dormant just before 1700, but has lately been revived, and is about to be legally incorporated. It already promises to be the most conservative hereditary male order of American origin. Mr. Griffith is con- stantly engaged in genealogical and historical work of some sort, being employed at present in compiling a Genealogy of the Knowlton and Griffith Families, besides many papers and articles which he contributes now and then to the various Historical, Hereditary and Literary Societies and Orders in which he enjoys active member- ship.

He is Secretary and Treasurer of the Knowlton Association in America, one of the largest and most powerful family organizations in the country; secretary of Philip Livingston Chapter, Sons of the Revolution ; is a resident and active member of the

Albany Historical and Art Society, The Albany Institute, and The New England Historie Genealogical Society of Boston; and a Corresponding Member of the Con- necticut Historical Society. He is also an hereditary member of nearly all the patriotic hereditary order .; , representing in each the following ancestors:

Order of the Cincinnati, Lieut. Daniel Knowlton.

Sons of the Revolutioon, and Sons of the American Revolution, Col. Rufus Herrick, Captain Israel Platt, Lieut. Daniel Knowlton, Major Robert Freeman, Sergt. John Freeman, Private Wm. Griffith.

Society of the War of 1812, Major Joshua Griffith.

Society of Colonial Wars, Capt. George Denison, Capt. John Denison, Capt. James Avery, Capt. John Stanton, Capt. Epenetus Platt, Sergeant Daniel Knowlton, Stephen Paine, Thomas Stanton, John Pinder, Joseph Ford, Bozoan Allen, Samuel Leonard and Stephen Herrick.

Order of the Old Guard of Chicago, New York Commandery, Colonel Herrick, Captain Denison, and Major Griffith.

Order of Founders and Patriots, John Knowlton, 1839; Lieut. Daniel Knowlton, 1776.

Mr. Griffith is also a member of the Masonic Fraternity, having been raised to the degree of Master Mason in Masters Lodge No. 5, Free and Accepted Masons, at Albany, 8 October, 1895. In religious belief he is a Protestant Episcopalian, being a communicant of All Saints' Cathedral, Albany, in charge of Rt. Rev. William Croswell Doane, D.D., S.T.D., Bishop of Albany.

Mr. Griffith was married, 3 February, 1892, to Miss Grace Elizabeth Clute, daugh- ter of Hon. Matthew Henry Robertson, Deputy Superintendent of Insurance of New York, and Elizabeth (Clute) Robertson, his wife. He has one child, a daughter, Margaret Frances Griffith, born 27 December, 1892.

JOSEPH LEWI, M. D.

JOSEPH LEWI, M. D., who has been in active practice in Albany since 1848 was born in Radnitz, Austria, August 17, 1820. His parents, Elias and Rosa (Resek), were born in the same place. He was one of a large family of children and while he attended the preparatory schools at Pilsen, helped to defray the expenses of his education by teaching. From the Gymnasium or High School in Pilsen he went to the academy at Prague where he took the higher classical course and began the study of medicine. In order to be near and have the advantages of the larger clinics, laboratories and medical museums and of the more thorough school, he went to the Vienna University where he continued his studies under the guidance of the great men of that time, among whom were: Rokitanski, Hebra, Schuh, Hyrtl, Op- polzer, Skoda, Rosas, and other authorities. He was an industrious and conscien- tious student and a hard worker in the calling of his choice, but not to the exclusion of literature, music and the classics towards which he always had a leaning, and in the company of Solomon Mosenthal, Leopold Kompert and Moritz Hartmann, who were his intimate friends and who all became famous in the world of letters, he found ample opportunity to cultivate and to develop his literary tastes. After being

graduated he returned to his native town where he practiced his profession about one year, and then at the outbreak of the March revolution with which he was in sympathy, but the success of which he doubted, he came to America hoping to find in the great republic of the West a better and more congenial field for his knowl- edge, and knowing that in the republic he would not be brought face to face continu- ally with the despotlsm and intolerance which were characteristic of the Austria of that day.

Dr. Lewi came to Albany at once on his arrival in America and has been a resi- dent of the city ever since. He soon acquired a large practice, a high standing in the medical profession and the respect of the community, and while his knowledge as a physician secured for him his large practice and place among his professional brethren, his literary merits made him a delightful companion and his patriotism a model citizen. Coming from a country in which prejudice and intolerance reigned and where a spirit of darkness precluded a better state of affairs, he, like all the bet- ter class of immigrants of that day, was naturally appreciative of the democratic institutions of the United States. He looked upon slavery as the national shame and even before he became a citizen he raised his voice in opposition to the institu- tion. Hejoined the forces which were led by Greeley, Beecher and Garrison, helped to rock the cradle of the Republican party and cast his first vote in a general elec- tion for the Fremont and Dayton electors, and he takes much pride now in saying that he has voted for every Republican candidate from Fremont to Mckinley.

When the Civil war broke out the surgeon-general appointed a commission consist- ing of Drs. Thomas Hun, Alden March and Mason F. Cogswell to examine physicians for the volunteer service, to which commission Dr. Lewi was made an adjunct mem- ber, and when in the dark days of the Rebellion the armed enemies in the field ex- pected aid and assistance from their sympathizers in the North he became one of the organizers of the United League.

Dr. Lewi is an ex-president of the Albany County Medical Society and the senior member of the Board of Censors of the State Medical Society. He has devoted much time to the Albany Hospital on the staff of which he is still consulting physician. He never aspired to public office but accepted the position of member of the Board of Public Instructions for a term of three years. He served in the position with characteristic conscientiousness and was returned as his own successor three times, and after a service of twelve years declined a nomination.

He was married in New York city in 1849 to Miss Bertha Schwarz of Hesse Cassel, the daughter of Josepeh Emanuel Schwarz, a theologian and composer of sacred music. Mrs. Lewi is an ideal woman, a model wife and mother. Fourteen children blessed the union of Dr. and Mrs. Lewi, of whom nine are married. Of the six sons, two have followed their father's profession. One, Dr. Maurice J., practices in New York and is the secretary of the State Board of Medical Examiners, and the youngest, Dr. William G., is in practice in Albany where he is a member of the Albany Hospital staff and a lecturer in the Medical College. One son, Theodore J., is a pharmacist ; Isidor is a writer on the staff of The New York Tribune, and Edward J. and Franklin L. are in business. Of the eight daughters the oldest, Wil- helmine, married Dr. Herman Bendell, who was a student in Dr. Lewi's office, and Martha Washington married Dr. Alois Donhauser, who was a graduate of the

Albany Medical College and died in Albany while in charge of the United States Signal Service in that city.

GEN. FREDERICK TOWNSEND.

GEN. FREDERICK TOWNSEND, son of Isaiah and Hannah (Townsend) Townsend, was born in Albany on the 21st of September, 1825. The original ancestor of this branch of the family in America was Henry Townsend, who, with his wife, Annie Coles, and two brothers, John and Richard, came from Norfolk, England, to Massachusetts about 1640. Soon afterward they were among the earliest settlers of Flushing, Long Island, where a patent was granted to John Townsend and others by Governor Kieft in 1645. Political and religious difficulties with the old Dutch governor, Peter Stuyvesant, soon forced the Townsends to remove to Warwick, R. I., where they all held municipal office and became members of the provincial assembly. In 1656 they obtained, with others, the patent of Rustdorp, now Jamaica, and once more attempted a settlement on Long Island, but in the following year Henry, a leading spirit in the colony, was arrested, imprisoned and fined " one hundred pounds Flanders" for harboring Quakers in his house-an act which illustrates the persecution borne in those days by the denomination of Friends. This unjust treatment caused Henry Townsend and his brothers to remove in 1657 to Oyster Bay, L. I., then only par- tially in the jurisdiction of New Amsterdam. Here Henry died in 1695. General Townsend's maternal great-great-great-grandfather, James Townsend, was deputy surveyor-general of the province. His great-grandfather, Samuel Townsend, was actively engaged in the English and West India trade until the war of the Revolu- tion, and had also served in the Provincial Congress in 1775. At the close of the war he resumed his seat and continued in public life until his death in 1790. He was also a State senator and a member of the first Council of Appointment under the con- stitution of 1789. In 1776 he was one of fourteen members of the Fourth Provincial Congress appointed " to prepare a form of government for the State." This com- mittee reported March 12, 1777, and on April 20, the first constitution of the State of New York was adopted. General Townsend's maternal grandfather, Solomon Town- send, conducted a large iron business in New York city, having extensive iron works at Chester, Orange county, and Peconic River, Suffolk county. He served several terms in the State Legislature, being a member thereof at the time of his death in 1811. The general's paternal grandfather was Henry Townsend of Cornwall, N. Y., who married Mary Bennet, and died in 1815. Isaiah Townsend, son of Henry, was a prominent merchant of Albany, where he died in 1838, aged sixty-one. He married his cousin, Hannah Townsend, of New York city.

Gen. Frederick Townsend first attended a private infant school in Albany and afterward the Boys' Academy. Later he was sent to Bartlett's Collegiate School at Poughkeepsie for two years, and at the early age of fifteen entered Union College, from which he was graduated in 1844. He then read law in the office of John V. L. Pruyn and Henry H. Martin (Pruyn & Martin) in Albany, and was admitted to the bar at the general term of the Supreme Court in this city in 1849. After completing his studies he spent several years in travel, visiting first the gold fields of California

and other places in this country and then going to Europe. In 1854 he returned home and in 1856 began the practice of his profession as a member of the firm of Townsend, Jackson & Strong. He also turned his attention toward another sphere of usefulness. He had long manifested a strong attchment for military science, for which he had a natural taste. Mastering the general details he became an author- ity on military tactics. He was made captain of Co. B, Washington Continentals. He also organized and became colonel of the 76th Regiment of Militia, and later was captain of the Albany Zouave Cadets (Co. A, 10th Battalion, N. G.). With consum- mate skill he successfully placed these organizations upon a high plane of efficiency and discipline, and no man was more respected or esteemed. In the year 1857 he was appointed by Gov. John A. King adjutant-general of the State of New York. At this time the old militia system of the State had, with few exceptions become wholly disorganized and useless. General Townsend immediately set about its re- organization, infused new life and vigor in the regiments, and successfully raised the system to a degree of efficiency worthy of the Empire State. In his first annual report, the first one prepared in many years, he made recommendations to the com- mander-in-chief which were speedily put into practice. In 1859 he was reappointed by Gov. Edwin D. Morgan, and continued to give his undivided attention to the great work he had so faithfully inaugurated. In 1861 he promptly tendered his ser- vices to his country, and in May was commissioned colonel of the 3d N. Y. Vols., which he organized, and which he gallantly commanded on the battlefield of Big Bethel on June 10. On August 19 he was appointed by President Lincoln a major of the 8th U. S. Inf., one of three new battalion regiments of the regular army, and was assigned to duty in the West, where he joined the forces under General Buell and later, those under General Rosencrans. He commanded his troops in the recon- noissance at Lick Creek (or Pea Ridge), Miss., April 26, 1862, at the siege of Corinth on April 30, and in the occupation thereof on May 30. On October 6 he was in the advance of the Third Corps, Army of the Ohio, driving the rebel rear guard from Springfield to near Texas, Ky. He also participated in the battle of Perryville or Chaplin Hill, Ky., October 8. After the first day of the battle at Stone River, Tenn., from December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863, he was placed in command of the left wing of the regular brigade, all his senior officers having been shot except his brigade commander. He was also in the affair of Eagleville, Tenn., March 2, 1863. In all these various engagements he displayed great bravery and heroism, and was suc- cessively brevetted lieutenant colonel, colonel, and brigadier-general in the regular army. In May, 1863, he was detailed as acting assistant provost marshal-general at Albany, where he remained until the close of the war, being promoted in 1864 lieu- tenant-colonel of the 9th U. S. Inf. Obtaining a leave of absence he again visited Europe, and returning in 1867 was ordered to California and placed on the staff of General McDowell as acting assistant inspector general of the department, in which capacity he inspected all the government posts in Arizona. In 1868 he resigned his commission and returned to Albany, where he has since resided.

General Townsend has been a director of the New York State National Bank and of the Albany and Bethlehem Turnpike Company since 1864; a trustee of the Albany Orphan Asylum since 1879; a trustee of the Dudley Observatory since April 22, 1880 : and a trustee of the Albany Academy since May 11, 1886. He was a trustee of Vas- sar College from June 27, 1876, until November 28, 1892, and of Union College from

July 17, 1876, to July, 1887, resigning each position on account of a pressure of other duties. In all these capacities his services have been of great value, not only in the line of business management, but in the equally important sphere of progress and moral elevation.

In 1878 he was elected brigadier-general of the 9th Brigade N. Y. S. N. G., which post he resigned to accept the appointment by Governor Cornell of adjutant-general of the State of New York, an office he had formerly filled with such remarkable ability and efficiency. Again turning his attention to the development of the State military system he inaugurated and successfully established a number of improve- ments which to this day are in active use. Among the important measures which he organized and perfected was the " camp of instruction " at Peekskill, N. Y. This worthy enterprise was originated, inaugurated, developed, established, and organized in detail by him, and to him is due the sole honor of its present existence. He formu- lated and carried out the idea, personally directed and supervised the movement from its incipiency to its actual and final establishment, and was the chief guardian and de- veloper of its earlier welfare. He also provided the present service dress uniform for all the troops in the State. These and other innovations in the militia were car- ried out and perfected by him against strong opposition and in the face of many difficulties, but the wisdom of his judgment and foresight has often been vindicated in the efficiency of the National Guard on occasions of riot and disorder. The prin- ciples inaugurated and laid down by him are now the mainstay of the various militia organizations of the Empire State.

General Townsend is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Society of the Army of the Cumberland, and the military order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, and Society of the Sons of the Revolution. In 1880 he was nominated by the Republicans and elected presidential elector, and as a member of the Electoral College cast his vote for James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur for president and vice-president. He has never taken an active part in politics, though often urged to do so, but he has been distinctively a military man, imbued with the highest sense of patriotism and the loftiest principles of a soldier.

November 19, 1863, he was married to Miss Sarah, only daughter of the late Joel Rathbone, a prominent merchant and banker of Albany. They have two children: Sarah Rathbone Townsend, the wife of Gerrit Y. Lansing, of Albany, and Frederick Townsend, jr., who was graduated from Harvard College in 1893 and is now a stu- dent at the Cambridge Law School, class of 1897.

GEORGE L. STEDMAN.

GEORGE LAVATER STEDMAN descends on his father's side from Thomas Stedman, who settled in New London, Conn., in 1649. One of his ancestors, while command- ing a company of dragoons, was killed in the Pequot war. His father, John Porter Stedman, who married Thais Hooker, was a prominent manufacturer and banker of Southbridge, Mass., where he served as assessor, selectman, etc. The Hookers de- scended from Thomas Hooker of Hartford, Conn., and one of the line, Amos Hooker, grandfather of Mr. Stedman's mother, died in the Revolutionary army in the siege

M. Le Stedman

around Boston. Mr. Stedman's mother was a direct descerdant of Kenelm Winslow of the Plymouth Colony. George L. Stedman, born in Southbridge, Mass., Novem- ber 3, 1831, was graduated from Brown University in 1856, came to Albany the same year, attended the Albany Law School and was admitted to the bar in 1857. He read law with Shepard & Bancroft, and after the dissolution of the firm was asso- ciated with S. O. Shepard many years. . He was later a partner with Osgood HI. Shepard until January, 1885, and then with David A. Thompson and Arthur L. Andrews till January 1, 1896, his son George W. also becoming a member of the latter firm in December, 1887. January 1, 1896, Mr. Stedman and his son formed the present firm of Stedman & Stedman. Mr. Stedman was the nominee on the Republican ticket for State senator and in 1893 for delegate to the State Constitu- tional Convention, but was defeated by small majorities. He has taken a very active interest in the affairs of the town of Colonie, where he has lived many years and drafted the law by which the town was separated from Watervliet and has since been its legal adviser. Upon the separation the committee in charge of the matter suggested several names for the new town, but finally left it to the pleasure of Mr. Stedman to name the new town, which he did, giving it the present name of Colonie. He is president of the New York Baptist Union for Ministerial Education (the legal body of the Rochester Theological Seminary) and the Hudson River Baptist Asso- ciation north, a trustee of Colgate University and Emmanuel Baptist church of Al- bany, and prominent in Baptist circles. In 1863 he married Adda, daughter of the late George A. Woolverton, of Albany, and they have four sons: George Woolver- ton, Frank White (see sketch elesewhere in this volume), John Porter and Charles Summer. George W. Stedman, born in Albany, September 9, 1864, was graduated from the Albany Academy in 1882 and from Rochester University in 1885 (is presi- dent of his class), read law with Stedman, Thompson & Andrews, and was graduated from the Albany Law School with first honors and admitted to the bar in 1887. Since December 1887, he has been associated in practice with his father. On the formation of the town of Colonie (June 7, 1895), he became a justice of the peace and a member of the town board. He is a trustee of Colgate University and was the first president of the Alumni of the Albany Academy, an office he has held since its formation in 1895. John Porter Stedman, born in Watervliet (now Colonie) April 7. 1872, was graduated from the Albany Academy in 1890, and has since been interested with his brother, Frank W., in the coal business. Charles S. Stedman was born in Colonie, November 6, 1874, was graduated from the Albany Academy in 1892 and from Brown University in 1896, and is now a law student with his father and brother. While at Brown University he was editor-in-chief of the Brown Daily Herald and a correspondent of the Boston Globe and Albany Journal. These sons have a peculiar relation to the war of the Revolution, for while Silvanus Wilcox, the great-great-grandfather of these four brothers, was participating in the battle of Saratoga, his son, afterward known as General Wilcox, their great-grand- father, was in the battle of Oriskany.

GEORGE ROGERS HOWELL.

GEORGE ROGERS HOWELL, State archivist, was born in the town of Southampton, Long Island, N. Y., June 15, 1833, and is a son of Charles and Mary (Rogers) Howell, highly respected citizens of that place. The first American ancestor of the family was Edward Howell, of Marsh Gibbon, Buckinghamshire, England, who came to Boston with his family in 1639 and soon afterward became one of the earliest settlers of Southampton, the first town settled by the English in the State of New York. The old stone manor house of Edward Howell is still standing at Marsh Gibbon and inhabited as a residence.

Professor Howell first attended the district school and the Southampton Academy. and very early manifested a great love for books and a strong desire to master vari- ous languages. In 1851 he entered the sophmore class of Yale College, then under the presidency of Theodore Woolsey, D. D .. and was graduated from that institution with honor in 1854. He then spent several years in teaching in academies, but con- tinued in private those studies which proved most congenial, especially the sciences and languages. Deciding finally upon the ministry he matriculated in September, 1861, at Princeton Theological Seminary, from which he was graduated in 1864. For about two years he was engaged in ministerial work in Western New York. An incident now occurred which turned his attention to more purely literary pursuits.

The 225th anniversary of the settlement of Southampton was to celebrate in 1865, and Mr. Howell, who had already gained a high scholarly reputation, was invited by his townsmen to deliver the address on that occasion, to which he consented. This effort was so well received that in 1866 it was enlarged and printed under the title of "The Early History of Southampton, Long Island, with Genealogies." A second edition, of 473 pages, was published at Albany in 1887. In 1865, on the recommendation of Dr. Macauley, of Philadelphia, Mr. Howell was offered a profes- sorship of Latin or Greek in a college in Iowa, but his engagements compelled him to decline. As a further inducement to obtain his scholarship in the West the presi- dency of the same college was offered and declined for the same reason. In 1872, on the suggestion of Dr. S. B. Woolworth, he was engaged, on account of his lin- guistic attainments, as assistant librarian in the New York State Library at Albany, and during the illness and on the death of Dr. Homes in November, 1887, he was acting librarian of the general library. His connection with this immense collection of books embraces a period of nearly twenty-five years. He possesses acknowledged ability in classification, cataloguing, and arrangement, a most intimate knowledge of books in all departments, and a rare discrimination in selecting suitable or desira- ble volumes. He has been also for several years secretary of the Albany Institute, before which he has read many able papers on scientific subjects, some of which have been published in the "Transactions."

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Landmarks of Albany County, New York, Part 61

Author: Parker, Amasa Junius, 1843-1938, ed Publication date: 1897 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason Number of Pages: 1374

Author: Parker, Amasa Junius, 1843-1938, ed
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1374