USA > New York > Onondaga County > Syracuse > Memorial history of Syracuse, N.Y. : from its settlement to the present time > Part 36
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8
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF SYRACUSE.
pany was reorganized for another like period, Mr. Gleason still retaining his interest in it. Besides this he had established in connection with the mercantile business in which he succeeded Aiken & Sons, a large cooperage industry, which was very successful ; and he was also largely interested in the lumber trade. In 1863, he became interested with the late James P. Haskins in a coal mining enterprise at Blossburg, l'a. ; this developed so extensively that Mr. Gleason sold out his store in 1864 and gave his attention to the mining enterprise for one year.
In 1863, upon the organization of the Third National Bank of Syracuse, Mr. Gleason was elected a member of the Board of Directors. This staunch financial institution began business on the Ist of January, 1864, with a capital of $150,000, which was increased before the end of that year to $300,000. The first President of the bank was James Munroe. He was succeeded by Allen Munroe, and in January, 1871, Mr. Gleason was elected President. The bank then had a surplus of $43,000. In the panic of 1873, it suffered some heavy losses, but under the wise and prudent man- agement of Mr. Gleason it quickly recovered and has become one of the most prosperous and suc- cessful institutions in the city of Syracuse, as it is also the largest, and now has a surplus of $60,000. It was formerly located in the White Memorial Building, but with its accumulated resources it built the splendid structure on the corner of North Salina and James streets in the year 1587 and now oc- cupies the whole of the first floor.
Although giving much of his time to the welfare of the bank, Mr. Gleason still retains an inter- est in salt manufacturing, and during the present season, (1Sgu) when that business has become un- profitable to many, he has operated five blocks. He is also the owner of a farm of two-hundred and fifty acres in the town of Salina and another of seven-hundred and fifty acres in the town of Clay. A large portion of both of these farms is devoted to the cultivation of willows for baskets, the manufac- ture of which constitutes a large industry in that vicinity.
Mr. Gleason has resisted all temptations to remove to Syracuse, and still elings to the village where almost his entire life has been passed. There he occupies a handsome residence in his declin- ing years. Mr. Gleason's career presents a bright example of what a man possessed of perseverance, industry and sobriety, with at least a fair share of business ability, natural or acquired, may accom- plish. He is a man of capacity and broad views, sound judgment and good common sense. These several excellent qualities are what have carried him from the smallest beginning to his present hon- orable station ; qualities that have been severely tested on various occasions, notably in the terrible financial revulsion of 1857, which swept away the entire fortune he had so laboriously accumulated. But instead of acknowledging defeat, he turned his face to the front and by his determination and bus- iness ability, soon recovered his losses and was on the high road to renewed success. In 1873, also, his prudent foresight and business sagacity were sufficient to carry the banking institution of which he was the head safely through a period of great stringency which swept away many fortunes. Since that time, under his thorough management, the bank has steadily progressed to its present high sta- tion. Such an institution is an honorable monument to any man who can take to himself a large share of the eredit for its success.
Mr. Gleason holds a high place in the general esteem of the community in which he has lived so long. He has always been identified with the growth and prosperity of the city of Syracuse and in all public enterprises has distinguished himself by the many valuable qualities we have noted. So- cially Mr. Gleason is a man whom it is a pleasure to meet. Courtesy, forbearance, kindliness and gentlemanly demeanor are awarded alike to the highest and the humblest who enjoy intercourse with him.
Mr. Gleason's claim to that honorable title, a self-made man, is indisputable ; and his rise from the obscure and humble position of a canal boatman, to the high station he now occupies as a pre- siding officer of a representative banking institution and an honored member of the business com- munity of Syracuse, extensively engaged in various large enterprises, and the possessor of wealth. social prestige and influence, affords an example which should serve to encourage struggling Ameri- can manhood everywhere.
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BIOGRAPHICAL.
HARLES PARSONS CLARK, President of the Syracuse Savings Bank, was born at West C Hampton, Hampshire county, Mass., on the 26th day of November, 1822. Ilis ancestors were of the sturdy New England stock, his father being Luther Clark and his mother Sarah Parsons. both natives of Massachusetts, where they followed the hard but honorable occupation of tilling the soil. In this toil the boy Charles shared from the time when he was first able to make himself of any use, especially in the summer time, while he attended the district school winters. This is a disci- pline so often repeated as to become a worn-out story among the sons of New England who have become conspicuous in some direction in after years. When twelve years old the lad was sent from home to live with his maternal uncle, Chester Parsons, at Skaneateles, where he was to remain until he reached his majority. Mr. Parsons was a farmer and the boy was' to work for him, going to school in the winter, for which he was to be boarded , clothed, and when he reached twenty-one - years of age receive $100. The prospect thus confronting the twelve-year-old boy when he reached his new home. was nine years of arduous labor, with little to lighten its dull routine except the goal at the end ; and that was not so splendid as falls to the lot of many, and neither was it so gloomy a prospect as often loomed up before boys of that period. The boy did his best. Ile worked faith_ fuby, studied persistently in school (getting one year in the Academy at Skaneateles), and bent his energies to fitting. himself for the active and honorable career which he had marked out for him- self. When the young man's time was up he grasped the first opportunity that opened and hired out on a neighboring farm for eight months at $to a month, and in the succeeding winter chopped sixty cords of wood for three shillings a cord. thus adding a little to his small capital. In the follow- ing summer (when he had reached the age of twenty-three) he resolved to seek the broader field which had always formed a part of his plans, and located at Syracuse, where he found employment with Philo M. Kust, the well known landlord. Ilis chief duty was caring for Mr. Rust's garden, which was situated near the corner of South Onondaga and West Onondaga streets. Mr. Clark's wages during the three years of his service for Mr. Rust were $15 a month and board. The end of this term of work brings the record down to 1547, when Mr. Clark found a better situation. He en- gaged himself to the Auburn and Syracuse Railroad Company to work in their freight house, hand- ling freight, at a salary of $28 a month. So well did he do his duty in this capacity that at the end of the first year he was given a clerkship in the freight office. This station he filled two years, working with the unflinching determination and loyalty to his employers that has characterized his whole life, and to make himself a master of the business. Of course he succeeded, and when the grand railroad consolidation was effected, in 1853, Mr. Clark was given the control of the freighting department of Syracuse. From that time to the year 1889, a period of forty years. Mr. Clark faith- fully, successfully, and honorably directed the rapidly growing freight business of his department of the great railroad. He saw the insignificant roads growing into a part of one of the greatest systems of the country, and the work under his own control increased from what could be done by three or four men to a volume demanding the labor of sixty or more. Such a persistent, straightforward business career as that needs very little comment.
In IS48 Mr. Clark married Miss Aurelia L. Nolton, daughter of Robert W. Nolton, then of Syracuse, and occupied the substantial home he purchased in the following year in South Salina street, where he has ever since lived.
Although Mr. Clark's chosen calling drew him almost wholly from public view, and demanded his incessant and unremitting attention, yet his fellow citizens found him out and called on him for the exercise of his unusual executive ability in the management of public affairs. He was elected by the Republicans Alderman of the Sixth ward, under the Mayoraity of E. W. Leavenworth, in 1859: he was re-elected in 1960, under Amos Westcott, and was again elected under Charles Andrews in 1862. In 1369 he was brought forward as candidate for Mayor and was elected to that high office, and re-elected for a second term in the following year. In 1871 he was elected Police Commissioner and served as President of the Board from 187t to 1874 inclusive. In these various public positions Mr. Clark has always been found on the side of straightforward, prudent, honest, and conservative government. On few questions of public importance has his judgment and foresight been at fault. Many other positions of honor and responsibility have been tendered to Mr. Clark outside of the political field. Ile was elected a trustee of the Syracuse Savings Bank in 1872, and filled the vacancy
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IO
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF SYRACUSE.
caused by the death of E. B. Wicks; was elected director of the Bank of Syracuse at its organiza- tion and is still in that office; and in the year 1899 was elected a director of the Syracuse Electric Light and Power Company ; trustee of Oakwood Cemetery ; trustee of the Onondaga County Orphan Asylum ; and finally, on the 14th of January, of the same year, was made President of the Syracuse Savings Bank, one of the most honorable and responsible financial positions in the city.
Mr. Clark has been a member of the First Presbyterian church since the year 1886, and since 1887 he has been and now is a trustee of that church. In the business community of Syracuse no man bears a clearer and more honorable reputation than Mr. Clark. He has earned it. He has attained his conspicnous station from the lowest step of the ladder and may properly cherish a degree of pride in this fact. A man prompt of speech and action in business, he is yet one of the readiest to meet the approach of either the common laborer or the millionaire. His hand is often given to aid in Tifting the struggling toiler on his hard road, and charity finds him a willing giver to the best of his ability. Mr. and Mrs. Clark have one son, Dr. Gaylord P. Clark, a rising young physician of Syracuse.
IJENRY DARWIN DIDAMA, M.D., LL. D., was born in Perryville, Madison county, N. Y., June 11 17, 1823. Ilis father, John Didama, and grandfather, Simon Didama, were both physicians. They came with the Holland Company from Delft in the latter part of the last century, when John was but thirteen years of age, and located at Trenton, N. Y. His mother, Lucinda, was of the New England Gaylord stock, so that the subject of this sketch is fortunate enough to have the best ances- tral combination possible: Holland Dutch and Connecticut Yankee. He does not remember, as he himself has stated, any exhibitions of remarkable precocity, although he has been assured that he was an excellent silent listener in early life, speaking only two words till he reached the mature age of four years. He declares that, as at that time there were no State hospitals for feeble-minded children, he was tenderly but despairingly eared for under the parental roof. Ile was sent to the village district school, where the kind mental ministrations and physical administrations of patient teachers enabled him to master the English alphabet at seven, and to make "straight marks" (most woeful and wabbling) in his writing book at nine. In the common and select schools, and at the ex- cellent Cazenovia Seminary (which he attended for three years), he became somewhat acquainted with the rudiments of an ordinary education. That these rudiments were fixed in a fairly retentive memory was due, he thinks, to his two winters' experience as a school teacher in the years of 1840 and 1841.
Young Didama entered the office of his accomplished friend, Dr. David A. Moore, now residing in Syracuse, as a medical student in 1842, finishing his studies with Dr. Nelson C. Powers (of whom a biographical sketch is printed elsewhere in this volume), attending in the meantime one course of lectures at the Geneva Medical College and two courses at Albany, at which latter place he was graduated in 1346. Locating at Romulus, Seneca county, he had abundant leisure during his five years' residence there to continue his medical studies, as the large majority of the good people in that quiet and healthful locality enjoyed almost uninterrupted immunity from illness, while the sick mi- nority chose the attentions of a venerable and experienced professional neighbor, whose friends actu- ally boasted that he had not looked into a medical book in thirty years.
Before leaving Romulus and coming to Syracuse, Dr. Didama married Sarah, daughter of Hon. Sherman Miller, of Tompkins county, N. Y. To her good judgment and faithful devotion he attrib- utes in no small measure whatever of success in practice he may have achieved. She has been the mother of three children, one of whom, Mrs. Amelia D. Niven, M. D., with her husband, William H. Niven, still remains the joy and consolation of the united home.
During his forty years' residence in Syracuse Dr. Didama has had a fairly extensive medical practice. He has been or is at present a member of several medical societies and associations. Among these are the Syracuse Medical Association, Onondaga Medical Society, New York Central Medical Assura-
11
BIOGRAPHICAL.
tion, New York State Medical Society, New York State Medical Association (in each one of which he has served as President), American Medical Association, American Academy of Medicine, Amer- ican Climatological Association, and British Medical Association. Ile has been one of the physicians of St. Joseph's Hospital in Syracuse since its institution, and is at present chief of its staff. He has been Professor of the Science and Art of Medicine in the College of Medicine of Syracuse Uni- versity since its organization in 1872, and he is now its Dean. Two years ago he received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Syracuse University. He is an officer in the First Presbyterian church of Syracuse. In politics he has been a Republican ever since the organization of that party.
Dr. Didama has been earnestly in favor of a high standard of medical education. In his address at Albany, while President of the State Medical Society, in 1830, he urged that without delay an en- trance examination should be required by each medical college in the State; that this examination should be equal to that exacted by the best universities; and that after four years from the new de- parture each candidate for admission must possess the degree of A.B. In the same address he ad- vocated the substitution of a sensible, prolonged three years' graded course of instruction for the prevailing, unnatural, short two winters' course, the second winter being but a repetition of the first. In his address in New York, as President of the New York State Medical Association, in ISS4, he reaffirmed his convictions and amplified his arguments regarding entrance examinations and a graded course. Two years ago the Legislature of the State enacted that all candidates for admission to a medical college should be subjected to a specified mild and elementary examination, and also to a final examin- ation for license to practice by an independent board to be appointed by the Regents of the State University. It is remembered with some pleasure that the College of Medicine of the Syracuse Uni- versity had in full force sixteen years prior to the compulsory legislative enactment, and still has, all and more than all the requirements of the new law.
Dr. Didama is the author of medical essays which, in addition to public addresses, have been published in medical journals at home and reviewed abroad. Over the signature of "Amos Cottle" he has also for many years written for the daily press articles of current interest and letters of travel in foreign lands. [Eis skill and research are dedicated to his fellow men; and he still finds his highest pleasure in the profession to which his long and active life has assiduously been devoted.
LJAAMILTON WIHTE was born in the town of Homer, Cortland county, N. V., on the 6th day of May, 1807, and died at Syracuse on the 22d day of September, 1865. His parents, Asa and Clarissa Keep White, had settled in llomer in 1798. His education was confined to the common schools of the place, but he improved these advantages so well and was so diligent in reading that he was able, at the age of sixteen, to take charge of a school on the terms then usual of nine dollars a month and board. Deciding on mercantile pursuits as the occupation of his life he entered into the employment of the Messrs. Randall, merchants of Cortlandville, and by his industry and fidelity made his services of great value to his principals. He continued in clerkship for about ten years, in which, by his frugal habits and close study of the details of business, he laid the foundation of his success in life. At the age of twenty-nine years, having accumulated sufficient means from his earn- ings to conduct business on his own account, he took up his residence at Lockport, in Niagara county. Here, during the next three years, he largely increased his capital by various investments, small at first, but fostered by wise and careful attention. In 1539 he removed to Syracuse, where his elder brother, Ilorace White, had preceded him the year before, and was appointed cashier of the Onondaga County Bank, of which Captain Oliver Teall was the President. The two were associ- ated in the same office, and as stockholders and directors in this as well as other institutions until the expiration of the charter in 1864. It was a period in which banking capital could be employed both profitably and to the great advantage of the public. Both of the executive officers were men of high morals and conscientiously endeavored to aid the deserving. It was a period free from com- mercial revulsions, and almost every year of it marked by new and substantial enterprises. At its
12
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF SYRACUSE.
commencement. the effects of the panic of 1837 had nearly passed away. The Auburn and Syracuse and the Syracuse and Utica Railroads had just been completed. New firms and individuals were bringing capital into the production of the great staple, salt. The duties levied by the State, which had been reduced from twelve and one-half cents to six cents a bushel in the year 1834, were still further reduced in the year 1846 to one cent a bushel, imparting a strong stimulant to the production. Other manufactures were added or grew up from previous beginnings, including machinery, steam engines, farin implements, stoves, woolen goods, leather, etc. The residences and business structures were vastly improved and increased, and many capacious and well known mercantile edifices for immediate and prospective use were erected. The population of the place increased from 6,500 in 1840 to 25,000 in 1855, counting the village of Salina, which came into the city with its incorporation in 1843. Hamilton White promoted this general prosperity, and shared in its benefits. The field of his action and of his investments was gradually extended. In 1849 he was one of the incorporators, with Oliver Teall and three others, of the Syracuse City Water Works Company. Captain Teall had been the originator of the first water works many years before, but more extensive and complete arrangements were now necessary. Plans were made for the new water supply and carried out in a manner to give satisfaction to the community, as detailed elsewhere in these pages. With his brother Ilorace, and Robert Gere, Ilamilton White engaged in the formation of the Geddes Coarse Salt Company and in other industries. He took a large share in the develop- ment of the railway interests centering in Syracuse. While unobtrusive in his demeanor, and sel- dom volunteering advice, his counsel was sought by his associates as that of a man who deliberately formed his own opinions, though carefully weighing the opinions of others. In his conscientious- ness he was careful not to mislead by any advice dictated by mere self-interest or given crudely on the spur of the moment. His judgment was, therefore, always respected and generally confirmed by experience. His railroad connections extended until he was a director in all the companies on the line between Albany and Chicago, except the Cleveland and Toledo. On the closing of the Onon- daga County Bank, in 1854, Mr. White was its natural successor. continuing business as a private banker, ever ready to encourage public enterprise and aid deserving merit. The local institutions of the city and county received the benefit of his means and counsel. Through the exertions and pecuniary aid ot himself and his associates in donating the grounds to the New York State Asylum for Idiots that institution, founded at Albany in 1851, was removed to Syracuse in 1855. Mr. White continued to take a deep interest in the success of the asylum, the design of which is to furnish means of education or training to the idiots of the State of a teachable age and condition. For many years his services as treasurer were given to the Onondaga County Orphan Asylum, and the Home for Old Ladies received his sympathy and aid, and both of these institutions were remembered in his will Flis own church and the churches of other denominations in Syracuse and elsewhere shared his liber- ality. Unostentatious, he never proclaimed his charitable acts and often gave with an unseen hand. In 1856 he assisted in the foundation of the Onondaga County Agricultural Society, and 1859 in that of the Association of Oakwood Cemetery, of which he was made treasurer. After the breaking out of the Rebellion Mr. White was active in measures for raising troops for the Union armies, and freely contributed both time and money. In 1862 he was called to the presidency of the Syracuse National Bank, made vacant by the death of John Wilkinson, but his health was impaired and the next year he was obliged to resign and seek recuperation in foreign travel. lle visited the princip .; countries of Europe and the East and returned with a fund of information and anecdote, pleasant and profitable to his friends, but without permanent restoration to health, and the following year his wife and eldest son accompanied him on a visit to the West Indies, returning in June, 1865. All rene . dies were unavailing, and he died on-the zed of September of that year. Besides the beautiful moat- ment that marks his resting place in the cemetery which he did so much to create his children .ind! those of his brother Horace have erected a magnificent Memorial Building on the spot where ther fathers did business so many years. But the most desirable monument is seared to the two brothe:> in the gratitude and esteem of the many hearts whose cares were alleviated or removed by the som- pithy, the charity, and the business aid of these Christian bankers and philanthropists.
Hamilton White was married in iS41 to Sarah Randolph Kich, daughter of Gains B. Rich, of Baflado, N. Y. She survived him but a short time and died on the 29th of March, 1867. The Syta-
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BIOGRAPHICAL.
euse Journal very fairly represented the public estimate of her worth: "For years her home was the center of elegant hospitality. She was quoted as an example, she was studied as a model. More than this, she was a Christian lady. If her hospitality to her equals was marked her kindness to infe- riors was still more signally exhibited. The many poor never went from her door empty handed or without encouraging words. Suffering ever found in her a sympathetic friend, a ready helper. She early became prominently identified with the charity work and the charitable institutions of the city. Fer charities were as unostentatious as they were free, for they sprang from genuine benevolence ; a benevolence which vaunted not itself, but found its noblest reward in its own impulses. Few women have ever departed from our midst whose loss was so generally deplored. Her memory is, however, a beautiful one, and its fragrance will long linger in many hearts both of high and low degree."
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