Landmarks of Oswego County, New York, Part 92

Author: Churchill, John Charles, 1821-1905; Smith, H. P. (Henry Perry), 1839-1925; Child, W. Stanley
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1410

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TIMOTHY W. SKINNER.

TIMOTHY W. SKINNER was born at Union Square, Oswego county, N. Y., on the 24th day of April, 1827. His ancestors were of old and highly respected New Eng- land stock. His grandfather; Timothy Skinner, was a Revolutionary soldier and a participant in the battle of Bunker Hill. His father, the Hon. Avery Skinner, was one of the pioneers of the northern section of this State, having come to Watertown from New Hampshire in 1816. He afterwards moved to Union Square in this county

BIOGRAPHICAL.

in 1824, and from that time until his death in 1876 was prominently identified with the best interests of this section. Judge Skinner was a man of powerful intellect, combined with a vigorous and athletic frame, admirably fitted by nature to take part · in the settlement and progressive movements of a new country. For fifty years he filled a most important part in the history of Oswego county and the northern section of the State of New York. In politics he was a Democrat of the Jeffersonian school, a personal friend of Horatio Seymour, Silas Wright and other prominent Democrats, and responsible political honors were repeatedly conferred upon him. For twelve years he was judge and county treasurer of Oswego county. In 1831 he was elected member of assembly from his district, and re-elected to the same office in 1832, serv- ing two terms thereafter; and in 1836-41 was chosen State senator from the district then comprising the counties of Oswego, Jefferson, Lewis, Onondaga, Otsego and Madison. While in the Senate Judge Skinner was a member of the Court for the Correction of Errors, which under the old constitution was the highest court in the State and analogous to the present Court of Appeals. He was also interested in business and educational matters, having been the first presiding officer and a director of the Syracuse Northern Railway Company. He was also one of the founders of the Mexico Academy in 1826, and in 1876, a few months before his death, he attended its semi-centennial as the only survivor of its original board of trustees.

The grandfather of Hon. Timothy W. Skinner on his mother's side was Solomon Huntington, who settled in the town of Mexico in 1804, and who was a near relative of Samuel Huntington, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and president of the Continental Congress.

Timothy W. Skinner, the subject of this sketch, spent the first twenty five years of his life on his father's farm, teaching school in the winter and having charge of the farm in summer. In 1852 he was elected justice of the peace and served for two terms. In 1853 he moved to the village of Mexico, where he has since resided. In 1857 Mr. Skinner was admitted to the bar, and in November of the same year joined with Judge Cyrus Whitney in the organization of the law and banking firm of Whitney & Skinner. After this firm was dissolved in 1870 by the removal of Judge Whitney to Oswego, Mr. Skinner took his brother-in-law, Maurice L. Wright, now justice of the Supreme Court, as his partner, under the firm name of Skinner & Wright, and the partnership continued until 1880. Since then Mr. Skinner has con- tinued alone in the active duties of his profession, and is to-day one of the oldest and most widely known and respected members of the legal fraternity in active practice. Though reared amid Democratic surroundings Mr. Skinner has been an unswerving Republican for many years, identifying himself with that party in its early days, and has had a prominent and influential part in its county, judical and State conventions. No one has been longer connected with the active politics of the county than Mr. Skinner. He was elected surrogate in 1863, again in 1870, and re-elected in 1876, thus serving as surrogate three terms-the longest time that any who have filled that office have held it in the county. He has always taken the deepest interest in the affairs of the village of Mexico; has served as its president, and' is one of the best known and most highly esteemed of its citizens. He has been for many years a member of the board of trustees of the old historic Mexico Academy, and a trustee of the First M. E Church of that village, He is also prominent in Masonic circles, and has been High Priest of the Mexico Chapter for a long term of years. There

LANDMARKS OF OSWEGO COUNTY.

are but few men living in this county whose history will show a longer or more hon- orable career in public life, and all his public acts have been marked by the strictest integrity and moral rectitude. He is a man of great force of character, with a stalwart and vigorous physical development, and his assistance in all matters pertaining to the welfare of the county has always been highly valued. Aside from the arduous duties of his profession, Mr. Skinner has large landed interests in the county, and in the past has been connected with extensive business enterprises.

Mr. Skinner is the oldest of a family of nine; his sister Eliza, now deceased, mar- ried Charles Richardson, of Colosse; his brother, Albert T. Skinner, also deceased, was superintendent of the Walter A. Wood Mowing Machine Co. of Little Falls. Of the brothers and sisters now living the Hon. Charles R. Skinner, of Albany, is Superintendent of Public Instruction of this State; the Rev. James A. Skinner is an Episcopal clergyman near Rochester, and Mrs. Maurice L. Wright is the wife of the Hon. M. L. Wright of the Supreme Court of the Fifth Judicial District.

In 1856 Mr Skinner married Elizabeth Calkins, who died in 1861, leaving one daughter, now Mrs. J. B. Stone, of Auburn, N. Y. In 1862 he married Sarah L. Rose, and their children are Anna Grace Skinner, died December 24, 1894, and Avery Warner Skinner.

JOHN ALBRO PLACE.

THE history of a county like Oswego would be incomplete without suitable refer- ence to those who have contributed to its intellectual, moral and political develop- ment as well as to its material growth. Of this number few have labored longer and more assiduously in all these directions, or wielded a larger or more wholesomely shaping influence upon passing events than has the subject of this sketch, the Hon. John Albro Place. Mr. Place is descended from a long line of New England ances- try and possesses in a marked degree the rugged qualities of integrity and industry so strongly characteristic of that well known people. He was born in the town of Foster, Providence county, R. I., February 25, 1822. While yet a mere child his family removed to Manchester, Hartford county, Conn., where he attended the vil- lage school until he was ten years of age, 1832, when the family again removed, this time to Oswego county, taking up its residence in the town of Oswego on the Rice farm, near the mouth of Rice or Three-Mile Creek, which was the first place in this locality to be settled after the Revolution. After a residence here of about a year, and the two or three following years in the village of Oswego, Mr. Samuel Place, the father, having purchased a tract of wild land on what is known as Heald's Hill in the town of Oswego, distant about four miles west of the river, removed thither with his family. This was about 1836. Here, young Place, by this time a sturdy youth of fourteen, attended the district school during those portions of the winter months that he could be spared from the farm work, making the most of such advantages as were thus offered him, till he was sixteen, when he entered the office of the Oswego Weekly Palladium (this was in the spring of 1838), to learn the print- ing business. Finding, after four years of this kind of employment, that the business

BIOGRAPHICAL.

offered no immediate encouragement for remaining in it, Mr. Place, then twenty years of age, engaged in teaching in the schools of the, as yet, village of Oswego, and continued successfully to do so for several years. Mr. Place was a student as well as teacher. From early childhood he had shown a marked interest in current events, especially those relating to politics, both in their local and national bearings. Early, too, he had shown decided aptitude for writing, and his spare hours, while teaching, were naturally devoted to the preparation of various articles for such papers of the county as were open to the propagation of his sentiments, with occasional contributions to other papers outside of his immediate locality and supposedly wield- ing a larger influence. In these years of teaching and desultory newspaper writing, Mr. Place was a Democrat of the Silas Wright school, Silas Wright then being the leading U. S. senator from the State of New York and an outspoken and masterful opponent of the further extension of slavery by the South. Mr. Place's earliest formed convictions were opposed to this system of human chattelhood,-convictions that grew with his growth, and strengthened with his years. It was an interesting period in the history of slavery and its relations to the Democratic party. For sev- eral years the slaveholders had had their way and been duly though reluctantly yielded to. A protest, however, against this exhibition of subserviency came with the result of the Democratic national convention of 1844, when Van Buren, also an opponent of the further extension of slavery into the free territory of the country, was defeated and James K. Polk nominated and elected to conciliate the slavehold- ers. This divided the Democratic party of the country into two factions, one of which, in 1848, nominated Lewis Cass for the presidency; the other, at a convention held in Buffalo, nominating Martin Van Buren on a "no more slave territory " plat- form. The Whig candidate, General Taylor, was almost necessarily elected. The Democratic party of Oswego county also naturally divided on the issue thus created. The Oswego Weekly Palladium, then published by the late Beman Brockway, after- ward of the Watertown Times, took strong ground in support of Mr. Van Buren. The Fulton Patriot, established in 1846 by Merrick C. Hough, had taken equally strong ground for the election of Cass, the pro-slavery extension candidate. Mr. Place was still teaching in Oswego. It occurring to him that the Patriot could, per- haps, be purchased, without consulting anyone, he quietly went to Fulton, made Mr. Hough an offer for his paper and returned with a bill of sale of it in his pocket. In its very next issue the Fulton Patriot flung to the breeze the banner of Martin Van Buren, with the motto, " Free Speech, Free Soil and Free Men!" inscribed upon it. The files of that paper testify with what earnestness and ability Mr. Place con- tributed to the defeat of the pro-slavery extension candidate, Lewis Cass. A union was patched up subsequently between the two sections of the Democratic party, but the Patriot, notwithstanding, continued loyal, under Mr. Place's control, to those principles and measures of freedom which, a few years later, were so successfully in- corporated into the doctrines of the Republican party and in whose support that party has achieved its most signal triumphs. Mr. Place remained in sole control of the Patriot for six years, when he sold it to accept the office of school commissioner of the first district of Oswego county, which he ably filled for several years, but he continued to write the editorials of the Patriot so long as his successor retained connec tion with it. In February, 1864, the Oswego Daily Commercial Advertiser, with a weekly edition, was established, and Mr. Place became its editor-in-chief. In Febru-

LANDMARKS OF OSWEGO COUNTY

ary, 1873, the Commercial Advertiser and the Oswego Press were consolidated, the new publication being called the Oswego Times and Mr. Place being continued as its editor. This position he has held substantially till quite recently, when he volun- tarily resigned the charge of its columns to Mr. John B. Alexander, the two having been associated together in the management of the paper for a number of years past. Mr. Place, however, holds his experience and ready pen-an invaluable aid-at all times at the service of his successor. And here we may say that whatever of respect and influence the Oswego Times, through its daily and semi-weekly editions, has won in the community and with the press of the State is cheerfully and in the larg- est measure accorded to the able and conscientious labors and wise guidance of Mr. Place. Mr. Place, from the organization of the Republican party, has neither wav- ered in his fidelity to its principles nor remitted his exertions to promote its success. He was a member of the convention in 1856 at which the party in Oswego county was organized and was selected to call this convention to order. This he did, and took an active part in all of its deliberations. From that time forward Mr. Place has shown a most earnest interest in the success of the organization, receiving, meantime, many marks of the trust imposed in him by the Republican party. He has fre- quently represented it in county, district and State conventions, besides being a member of the State committee and serving in that relation on some of the most im- portant sub-committees. In 1868 he was member of assembly from the first dis- trict of Oswego county, which included the city of Oswego, serving the interests of his constituents with rare fidelity and conceded ability. In 1873 he was appointed postmaster of the city of Oswego by President Grant. During this term, under much discouragement, he succeeded in securing the free delivery system, Oswego then being the smallest city in the State to receive the benefits of a system now so

general and everywhere so popular. He also introduced various other improvements into the local service of essential benefit to the business men of the city. Mr. Place's services o'n the State committee secured the friendship of many of the most promi- nent Republicans of the State. Thus it resulted that when Alonzo B. Cornell be- came governor in 1880 Mr. Place was tendered the responsible position of auditor of the canal department. which he filled for a term of three years. The appointment carried with it that of commissioner for the construction of the new capitol building. His associates on the commission were Lieutenant-Governor George G. Hoskins and Attorney-General Hamilton Ward. Mr. Place was elected treasurer, filling the posi- tion for the term to the entire satisfaction of the commission and the public. He is remembered to this day as one of the most faithful and painstaking officials ever ap- pointed to a capitol commissionership. One and a quarter million dollars were annu- ally expended during the life of this commission, and so carefully was every feature of the business attended to that neither complaint of the quality of the work nor hint of scandal of any kind has ever followed. Mr. Place's appointment by President Harrison in April, 1890, as postmaster once again of the city of Oswego marks his last official service. His retirement from it within the year past by reason of the ex- piration of his term was accompanied by so many expressions of appreciative regard that he is justified in feeling that his administration of the office this time was no less popular and satisfactory to its patrons than was the case on the former occasion un- der President Grant. Relieved practically from the arduous labors of the editorial chair and gifted with an unusually vigorous constitution, there is foundation for the

Chanu

r. Bulgur

BIOGRAPHICAL.

warm wishes of his numerous relatives and friends that many more years of enjoy- ment and usefulness are yet to be the portion of one whose whole life so far has been a singularly busy one and filled with interesting incidents beyond the experiences of lives in general.

MAURICE LAUCHLIN WRIGHT.

BORN November 27, 1845, in Scriba, Oswego county. Came from New England ancestry. Received an academic education at Mexico Academy and Falley Seminary. Enlisted in the navy in the summer of 1864; was appointed yeoman of the U. S. Steamer Valley City of the North Atlantic squadron under Admiral Porter, and served until July, 1865; was under fire in several engagements. After the war he taught school. In 1867 began the study of law in the office of Hon. John C. Churchill at Oswego. In 1868 entered the Columbian College Law School at Washington, D. C., and graduated in the class of 1870. In the following year formed a law partnership with the Hon. T. W. Skinner at Mexico.

In 1883 was elected county judge and in 1889 was re-elected. In 1890 was ap- pointed by the governor with the confirmation of the Senate, a member of the Con- stitutional Commission to revise the judiciary article of the Constitution. In 1891 re- signed the county judgeship, and in the same year was elected justice of the Supreme Court. In 1893 removed to Oswego. In 1869 was married to Miss Mary Grace Skinner, daughter of Hon. Avery Skinner, late of Union Square, N. Y. Has one child, Avery Skinner Wright. Always been a Republican in politics.

CHARLES N. BULGER

WAS born in school district No. 16, of the town of Volney, Oswego county, N. Y., on the 19th day of August, 1851. He is a son of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Bulger, notice of whose lives is given in a sketch of Dr. W. J. Bulger herein. Charles N. Bulger was fortunate in his opportunities to obtain a liberal education, studying first in the district schools of his native town and later in that at Gilbert's Mills, in the town of Schroeppel. He then entered Falley Seminary, in Fulton, which was at that time an educational institution of considerable note, where he remained until 1870. It was his determination to adopt the law as a profession, but previous to beginning his legal studies he taught school one year in the town of Granby, Oswego county, at the close of which he entered the law office of Stephens & Pardee, in Fulton, where he continued eight months.

At this time he was enabled, through his own efforts and those of his sympathetic parents, to gratify his early ambition to obtain a classical education. For this pur- pose he entered St. John's College, Fordham, New York city, and after a year of pre- paratory study, passed through the classical course of four years and graduated with credit in June, 1875. He then settled in Oswego city and resumed the study of law in the office of Hon. Albertus Perry, at that time one of the foremost lawyers of this part

LANDMARKS OF OSWEGO COUNTY.

of the State. His offices in the Grant block were the same now in use by Mr. Bulger. An ardent student and an omnivorous reader, Mr. Bulger was admitted to the bar in June, 1879, immediately began practice and has continued since, meeting with a large measure of success.

A Democrat in politics and possessing the qualifications necessary to success in the political field, Mr. Bulger soon became prominently identified with his party. He was early chosen a delegate to the county conventions, where he was able to practi- cally advance the interests of his party and his friends. His first nomination to pub- lic office was to the school commissionership of the first district, which followed closely upon his return from college. In March, 1882, he was appointed attorney for the city of Oswego, and in the fall of the same year, while still incumbent of the office of city attorney, he was nominated for the office of recorder of the city and elected for the term of four years. He resigned the first named office, but the Common Council declined to accept his resignation until the close of the year. His administration of the office of recorder was eminently satisfactory to the community, as indicated by the fact of his re-election in 1886, followed by two subsequent re-elections in 1890, and 1894, leaving him still in the office after thirteen years of service. In 1892 he was chosen a delegate to the National Democratic convention in Chicago.

To the foregoing brief sketch it is proper to add that as a lawyer Mr. Bulger is recognized among the leaders of the Oswego county bar. By continued study and reading he has kept abreast of the times in legal knowledge, while the interests of his clients are always efficiently protected by careful preparation of their cases and their able presentation before court and jury. In the office of Recorder, which he has held so long, he has shown the possession of excellent judicial qualifications and capacity for discrimination in dealing with offenders against the law. But the prime source of Mr. Bulger's efficiency at the bar and of his strength and popularity in the political arena must be sought in another direction-in his power as an orator. He is a natural as well as an educated speaker. His public addresses are logical, argu- mentative, convincing, and marked by courage, beauty of thought and brilliancy of diction. With a broad knowledge of general affairs, a retentive memory and a large share of that personal magnetism which enables one man to sway and influence thousands, he is often found upon the platform, where he never fails to distinguish himself and where he is always listened to with satisfaction.

Mr. Bulger was married on June 5, 1883, to Caroline Adelaide Dunn, daughter of John Dunn, a former large mill operator and merchant of Oswego.

DON A. KING.

THE ancestry of the subject of this sketch is directly traceable back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when John King, father of the original settler in this country, was secretary for Ireland to that famous ruler of England. A son of John, named Ed- ward, was a classmate of John Milton, was drowned later in the Irish Sea, and is commemorated by Milton in the poem of Lycidas. John, the ancestor of the family in this country, came from England and settled in Northampton, Mass., in 1645. He was from Northamptonshire, England.

Ainsworth

BIOGRAPHICAL.

Don A. King, son of Henry and Betsey (Allen) King, was born in Ellisburgh, Jef- ferson county, on March 27, 1820. His mother was a daughter of Joseph Allen, esq., the first settler at Bear Creek (now Pierrepont Manor). His father, Henry King, came from Southampton, Mass., in 1806. Don A. King graduated with honor from Union College in 1844, in the same class with Professor Joy, of Columbia College, Gov. A. H. Rice, William H. H. Moore, James C. Duane, U. S. A., and Generals Frederick and Howard Townsend, of Albany. After graduating he began the study of law with a Mr. Blake, at Cold Spring, on the Hudson River, opposite West Point, and finished with Hon. A. Z. McCarty, of Pulaski, in 1847. On September 22, of that year, he was admitted to the bar at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. In 1848 he formed a co- partnership with Mr. McCarty, which continued until 1855, in which year he was appointed a director of Pulaski Bank, an office which he filled until the dissolution of the institution. Upon the organization of R. L. Ingersoll & Co.'s Bank, he be- came a partner and acted as attorney for the institution until 1876.

Mr. King is a man of large intellectual capacity, and of broad and progressive im- pulses, which have impelled him to take a deep interest in educational matters and public affairs generally. In the founding of the Pulaski Academy he was one of the first energetic actors, was one of the incorporators of the institution, and has con- tributed largely towards its prosperity.

In 1848 Mr. King married Mary, daughter of Thomas C. Baker of Pulaski, and they have four children, viz. : Ella M., widow of the late Rev. J. H. Wright; Katha- rine D., wife of J. L. Hutchens; Charles B., and Sarah F., now preceptress of Pu- laski Academy. Charles B. is a graduate of Union College, is an attorney, and now resides in Peoria, Il1.

DANFORTH E. AINSWORTH.

MR. AINSWORTH was born in Clayton, Jefferson county, N. Y., November 29, 1848. was educated at Pulaski Academy and Falley Seminary, and is an attorney and counselor-at-law, having been admitted to the bar in 1873. In 1874 he married the daughter of Nelson B. Porter, of Pulaski, N. Y. He was a trustee of the village of Sandy Creek in 1881, 1882 and 1883, and has been a member of the Board of Edu- cation of that village.

Mr. Ainsworth is a Republican in politics and always has been, but prior to 1885, when he was first elected to the Assembly, had never been a candidate for public office. He served in the Assembly in 1886, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1893, 1834 and 1895, and during his service was regarded as one of the most ready and forceful debaters in the House. His ability as a public speaker has rendered his services to the State very valuable, and during campaigns he has done effective work for the party throughout the State.

In 1894 Mr. Ainsworth was chairman of the leading Assembly committee, that on Ways and Means, and by virtue of that position was the Republican leader in the Assembly and the manager of nearly all of its political interests. He paid very close attention to his legislative duties, and in _894 introduced upwards of ninety bills, nearly all of which became laws, and during that year was exceedingly economical

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Landmarks of Oswego County, New York, Part 92

Author: Churchill, John Charles, 1821-1905; Smith, H. P. (Henry Perry), 1839-1925; Child, W. Stanley Publication date: 1895 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason Number of Pages: 1410

Author: Churchill, John Charles, 1821-1905; Smith, H. P. (Henry Perry), 1839-1925; Child, W. Stanley
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1410