USA > New York > Oneida County > Utica > Memorial history of Utica, N.Y. : from its settlement to the present time > Part 11
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73
The ordinance likewise forbade driving upon the sidewalks unless it were to leave or take away loading, the making of fires to heat wagon wheels, or the fastening of a horse or leaving of a wagon thereupon. In September additional sidewalks ten feet wide, but of optional material, were ordered to be constructed on the north side of Liberty street from the office of Joseph Kirkland as far as the Presbyterian meeting-house, and on the south side of Broad street from the corner of James Van Rensselaer's store to the Episcopal Church. The trustees in October proceeded to order at the public expense the laying of crosswalks at all the principal intersections. The work, thus ordered by the trustees, involved an expense not anticipated by their constituents and for which
1
120
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
no funds had been provided, and it was the first instance in which the board had overrun their estimates. But at the special meeting of inhab- itants which occurred shortly afterward the latter sanctioned the act, requested the trustees to procure the stone that would be needed, and agreed to pay for the same.
One further proceeding of this board of 1814 is worthy of mention, suggestive as it is of the war and the scarcity of currency which this entailed. Having first obtained a promise from the officers of the Man- hattan Branch Bank that in case of the issue of notes by the board the bank would redeem them they passed in February, 1815, the following resolution :
"Resolved, That corporation bills, not to exceed $5,000, be issued, signed by the president, and made payable at the Manhattan Branch Bank."
The bills were all of fractional currency and of six different denom- inations, ranging from three to seventy-five cents. Specimens are still preserved, which were issued during this and the two succeeding years, bearing the name of the president of the year.
John H. Ostrom in February, 1816, opened an office and about the same time was made village attorney. In 1820 he became a partner of Judge Morris S. Miller. A partnership of a later date and which lasted until his death he had with his brother-in-law, Thomas R. Walker. But he was not so much to attain eminence in the law as by . his popular manners and personal influence to impress himself upon his fellows, to manage and direct the affairs of town and county, and to serve with credit in numerous public offices. Within his own munici- pality he filled successively the posts of clerk, trustee, and assessor of the village, and after its incorporation as a city those of member of the common council and mayor, besides discharging for several years the duties of chief engineer of the fire department. He rose through the various grades of military preferment to that of major-general, and was likewise clerk of the county from 1826 to 1832. He was an orig- inal director in the Oneida Bank and was of service in the concerns of the Presbyterian Church. . His life was one of constant activity and the duties of his several offices were performed with unvarying fidelity. As a lawyer his standing was respectable, but he was chiefly distin-
Phalad"
agrand by Sam annuel Suriam
The Noppen
121
NICHOLAS DEVEREUX.
guished as a political leader. His success in this regard was largely due to the enticement of his manners, which were elevated, graceful, and insinuating.
A merchant who filled a tolerably large place in the concerns of Utica, mercantile, social, ecclesiastical, and charitable, was Nicholas Devereux. Received into the store of his brother John he served him for a time as his clerk, and next in turn after Luke became a member of the firm. He prosecuted with ardor his chosen calling, a calling beset for him with few reverses, and crowned in time with an ample fortune. As a merchant Mr. Devereux's course was marked by industry, accuracy, and economy. It was not until he had in part retired, and when the management of matters was entrusted to his partner, that such pecuniary stress was en- countered as obliged him to again resume the reins. At this time, the fall of 1827, the firm was called on to pay $90,000 within ninety days. But Mr. Devereux was now owner and occupant of the handsome grounds that had once been the home of Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, and which had cost the purchaser only about $7,000. Dividing it into lots and intersecting it by streets he sold it for a sum which added largely to his revenues, while there was developed thereby that spirit of enter- prise inherent in the man and which he soon afterward manifested on a still larger scale. In the interest of the New York Life and Trust Com- pany he spent a portion of a winter at Albany, and while there took an active part in the organization of the Utica and Schenectady Railroad. Not long afterward, while still in the employ of the same company, he traveled extensively through the State and had his attention attracted to the profitable nature of transactions in the uncultivated and fast set- tling lands of its western part. In company with a few gentlemen of New York he bought of the Holland Land Company the residue of their lands in Allegany and Cattaraugus Counties, amounting to 400,000 acres. The general care and disposal of this land engaged much of its owner's time during the remainder of his life, its immediate sale being committed to his son, John C. Devereux. But his vigorous and wide- embracing mind was not absorbed in his mercantile duties or his personal investments. Intelligently busied in works of general improvement throughout the State he was, too, deeply interested in improvements for the good of his own home community, while as an ardent Roman Cath-
16
,
122
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
olic, consistent and faithful in every requirement of his faith, he was a very pillar of the church and a zealous forwarder of its interests here and abroad. He was mainly instrumental in procuring the establishment at Utica of the first branch of the United States Bank that was located west of Albany. He was also a director of the Utica Savings Bank,- already initiated and conducted by him and his brother before a charter was obtained,-a director of the New York Life and Trust Company, a director of the steam woolen-mills, and a manager of the New York State Asylum for the Insane.
Briggs W. Thomas experienced his share of the variations of com- mercial life. He had once achieved a competence, but did not enjoy it long, unfortunate endorsements sweeping away all that he had made. When nc longer a young man he was glad to accept of a clerkship in the Oneida Bank, where he again acquired the means to live without employment. At an early period he was active in the affairs of the Presbyterian Church, but in July, 1844, he was one of those who sep- arated themselves from the First Presbyterian and united to form the Westminster Society. From the inception of the Utica Sunday School he took a leading part therein, was its third superintendent, and many years a teacher. The interest he felt in Sabbath schools in the early part of his life did not abate with his years, for in 1860, at the age of seventy-five, being convinced of the need of such a school in the upper part of the city, he purchased a lot on Francis street, erected a building thereon, placed in it a library of 100 volumes, and gave it free of charge to the Westminster Church to be used so long as they should maintain a Sunday school in that part of the city. In proportion to his means he co-operated in many of the public enterprises designed to develop and advance the town and its neighborhood.
The inhabitants, at the annual meeting held on the 2d of May, 1815, ordered that $1,000 should be raised by tax for the current expenses of the year, and they elected the following persons to serve as trustees : Abraham Van Santvoort, Augustus Hickox, Gurdon Burchard, Jason Parker, and William Geere. Mr. Van Santvoort was subsequently chosen president. Mr. Parker neglected to qualify and the board fined him $25 for his neglect. Little was done throughout the year that de- serves mention. Additional sidewalks were ordered on both sides of
123
PROCEEDINGS OF 1815 - EZEKIEL BACON.
Whitesboro street as far west as Washington and on both sides of the latter ; on both sides of Division ; of Main as far as First; a like dis- tance on the northern side of Broad; and on both sides of First between Main and Broad. The market was leased to Henry Sherman and John Roberts. And before the expiration of their term the board resolved to discontinue the issuing of small bills and appointed Henry Camp to redeem those already issued.
In August, 1814, Judge Morris S. Miller, joint owner of the Bleecker estate and who looked after the family interest in Utica, addressed a letter to John R. Bleecker, of Albany, with reference to the extension of John street, which had been opened from Main to Broad some four or five years before. The improvements he proposed were probably en- tered upon the following year, and were completed in the course of the season, for in the fall of 1816, when the first village directory was pre- pared, John street had about half a dozen residents and Chancellor Square and Jay street each half as many.
Already before his history becomes connected with that of Utica Ezekiel Bacon had been some years in public life and had attained high honor and exalted position. He was a member of the Massachusetts legislature in 1806-07 and represented his county in Congress from 1807 to 1813, serving on the Committee of Ways and Means and for one year as its chairman. He was then appointed chief justice of the Circuit Court of Common Pleas for the Western District of his State, and im- mediately after his assuming this office was made first comptroller of the Treasury by Mr. Madison. Within two years he was obliged to resign by reason of ill health, when he removed to the State of New York and settled in Utica. His first interest here was in merchandise, for he be- came 'a partner in the firm of Alexander Seymour & Co. In 1818 he was appointed associate judge of the Court of Common Pleas; in the following year he went as a representative to the Assembly; and in 1821 he was one of the honorable men of Oneida who had seats in the Second Constitutional Convention and he took an earnest part in its deliberations. About the year 1824 he was nominated for Congress in opposition to Henry R. Storrs, but was defeated by a small majority. In October of the following year he was selected by his fellow citizens to do honor to Gov. De Witt Clinton, and in a forcible and eloquent
4
I24
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
manner he tendered him their congratulations on the completing of the Erie Canal. As chief of a packet boat company he already had in this canal an interest more personal and profound than that which was shared by other liberal and enterprising men of his party. From that time on- ward he lived a retired life, and during a large portion of it suffered from protracted ill health and manifold bodily infirmities. At times he wrote largely for the public press and wrote with force and pungency. For a period he was the main editorial writer, and for a longer one a regular contributor, of the Oneida Whig and the Utica Daily Gazette.
Of the position he occupied when in public life, and the influence he exerted when in the vigor of health, we obtain some idea when we learn that with Mr. Madison he was on terms of great confidence and intimacy, and not with him alone but also with many other leading men of that era. With Judge Story his intercourse was, from an early period, one of unbroken friendship and warm mutual regard, and the appointment of the latter to the position he so highly adorned is due to the personal effort and solicitation of Judge Bacon. During this most active portion of his career he was a Democrat ; after coming to this State hie ranged himself with the Whigs; but when the Free Soil movement arose in 1848 his sympathies with the oppressed among his fellow creatures led him to take sides with that party. At the time of his death he was the oldest living graduate of Yale College, the eldest surviving member of Congress, and the last representative of the administration of Mr. Madison.
Henry Green was born in New York about 1793 and graduated at Columbia College. Coming with the family to Oneida County he studied law with Judge Platt and set up an office in Utica. Not long afterward the Utica Insurance Company, closed by its originators, was resumed by some of the directors, and Mr. Green was made secretary and attorney of the corporation. Pursuits so alien to the law as those of banking and insurance drew him aside and in a measure disqualified him for practice in a profession in which he had been ably fitted. And thus it happened that after the concerns of the company had been closed he found employment in the care of property in trust, and still later became the financial manager of a large estate. Herein he was regarded .as a man of intelligence and accurate habits, neat and precise, and irre-
I25
DR. THOMAS GOODSELL.
proachably honest. He died on the 9th of March, 1869, in his seventy- seventh year.
Dr. Thomas Goodsell had been already some years in the county and when he fixed his residence at Utica he was not altogether a stranger. He was born in Washington, Litchfield County, Conn., in June, 1775, engaged in the study of medicine with Dr. Sheldon, of Litchfield, and settled in Woodbridge, New Haven County. After some years of prac- tice he repaired to Philadelphia, attended a course of lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, and received there his licentiate in 1809. On his return he passed a brief period in New Haven and in 1810 re- moved to Whitesboro, where he engaged in practice with Dr. Seth Cap- ron. It was not long before he became satisfied that Utica would give him a better field, and he removed thither, making it his home so long as he lived. He soon acquired an extensive business. Affable and courteous, guided by high and honorable motives, with fair intellectual endowments, and a degree of medical education which was not usually attained by his brethren of the time, he was not long in acquiring the confidence of many of the best families of the place. For one year (1827) he was professor of materia medica in the Medical College of Pittsfield and was at a later period a fellow of that of Albany. He re- ceived the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine from the Medical De- partment of Yale College and was a permanent member of the State Medical Society. For some years he was much interested in agricult- ural pursuits and was secretary of the earlier society of the county devised to foster such pursuits, and had himself a farm in Clinton. It is said that Dr. Goodsell was first to introduce Merino sheep west of the Hudson River. By his brethren he will be remembered for his uniformly kind and gentlemanly bearing, and for his appreciation of the dignity and usefulness of their vocation, by all for his pure and upright life, and his intelligent interest in matters that concerned the general welfare. He lived until his eighty-ninth year and died January II, 1864. His wife was a Miss Livingston, niece of Mrs. Jonas Platt. She survived him but a few weeks. He had three sons and two daughters.
William Clarke was a lieutenant in the army of 1812 and was wounded and taken prisoner at the battle of Queenstown, subsequently taking rank as captain. At the time he came to Utica lotteries enjoyed
I26
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
a fair reputation and were extensively employed throughout the country for many important and beneficial purposes. Colleges were founded, roads made, bridges built, ferries improved, and hospitals erected by their aid. The lottery business which he established in connection with Yates & McIntyre, of Albany, he continued to prosecute so long as it was a business that was countenanced by the State. He was a man of much stir and enterprise, and kept the community fully acquainted with him and his dealings. He was president of the village, was one of the State's directors in the Bank of Utica, and by State authority was ap- pointed in 1837 one of the commissioners who planned the building of the State Asylum for the Insane. As with the town and with the State so with the church-he was always responsive to its claims, and as un- selfish and vigilant a trustee as he was while head of the village or pur- veyor to a noble State charity. During the memorable visit of the Rev. Charles G. Finney to Utica, in 1826, Captain Clarke made a profession of his faith in Christ and carried into the church the same useful qual- ities that distinguished him in concerns of secular interest. Although of New England origin for the sake of greater usefulness in a new organ- ization he united with others in the formation of the Reformed Dutch Church, and soon after was elected a member of its consistory. Not without cause did his townsmen value him and take just pride in his open, benevolent, and impressive face, his stout, manly frame, and the venerable gray hair that covered so much of capacity and disposition to do for them. Captain Clarke likewise superintended, in behalf of the owners, the erection of the Bleecker House, afterward a part of Bagg's Hotel. And for himself he erected the brick buildings Nos. 42 and 44 Genesee street, which he designed and for some time kept as a hotel.
A merchant who was a marked one among his fellows was Ephraim Hart-shrewd, self- reliant, and diligent, original, out-spoken, and witty, capital in the management of his own affairs and much trusted in those of others. Succeeding his father in business in 1810 he carried it on for some years in Clinton. His success and the wise conduct of affairs he evinced were generally recognized, and he was already a director of the Bank of Utica and of the Mount Vernon Glass Company and a trustee of Hamilton College when he moved to Utica in 1815 ; he was engaged in iron manufacture, being joined therein by Andrew S. Pond
I27
EPHRAIM HART AND OTHERS.
and afterward by his son, Henry R. Hart, and gained a handsome property.
The personal influence and the superior business qualifications of Mr. Hart were not suffered to go unimproved by the community among which he lived, and in 1815 he was elected State senator from the West ern District. This office he continued to fill during the last five sessions held under the first State constitution, 1816-22, and during a part of this time he was also a member of the council of appointment. An ar- dent friend of De Witt Clinton he gave a determined support to the Erie Canal. Against the Federalists his prejudices were deep and bit- ter. Though not specially skilled in debate and without training as a speaker his opinion carried weight, but "as a party man he was want ing in tact, caution, and system." 1 In his comments on men and meas- ures he was, as has been said, free, pointed, and unsparing.
A few more of the people of this date require at least a word of men- tion. In 1815 John H. Handy sold cotton goods. Purchasing prop- erty opposite Liberty street he had put up for himselt a store and after a time a tavern beside it. This was a good way removed from the rest of the merchants of the place, but ere his death in 1823 he saw them jostling him on either side and crowding past to reach the neighbor- hood of the newly opened canal. The tavern became the National, a much-needed hotel. Robert Shearman was a merchant associated with his brother, William P., at No. 64, an association that was contin- ued after the latter opened his branch in Rochester. Edward Vernon at No. 66 (" don't forget the number") dealt first in dry goods and then kept a depository for the sale of religious tracts and papers. Andrew Merrell published books and the weekly journal known as the Western Recorder. Zenas Wright, William Geere, and Collings Locke were all dealers in leather, but independently, the former being likewise a just- ice of the peace for the last dozen years of his life. Flavel Gaylord made looking- glasses until 1835, which his brother Edwin continued to do for some time longer. William Blackwood was a brass founder; Nathan Stevens a carpenter; and Elisha Lovett a grocer, who illustrated in his death a characteristic of the past which seems strange enough at present, for death itself did not absolve the body of this debtor, and so
1 Hammond's Political History.
I28
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
his corpse could not be carried out for burial until the claim of the creditor was satisfied, such then being the law of New York. It was Dr. Hull who advanced the money and comforted the afflicted widow.
The freeholders met as usual in May, 1816, and at the usual place, a school house on Genesee street, which was at this time occupied by Rev. Mr. Townshend. As before the sum of $1,000 was voted to be raised by taxation to defray the annual expenses. It was voted like- wise to continue to issue small bills, but not to exceed the amount of those already issued. For trustees they chose Rudolph Snyder, Ezra S. Cozier, Augustus Hickox, Gurdon Burchard, and William Geere, of whom Mr. Snyder was afterward by action of the board made the presi- dent. The trustees in the course of the year ordered that the buildings on Genesee street should be numbered and that the names of the streets should be affixed to the corners. They likewise indulged in further legislation about the market and the vending of meat-selling six stalls of the former at auction and forbidding the sale of meat out- side of the market before 9 o'clock A. M. in quantities less than a quarter of the animal. And this is all the record of the year. Indeed it com- pletes the record of proceedings had under the then existing charter, for in November we read of a call for a public meeting of the inhabit- ants at the school house of Mr. Bliss to receive the new charter.
The first directory of Utica was published in the year 1817 and is a thin duodecimo pamphlet of twenty- four pages. It contains, besides a list of the inhabitants with their occupations and residence, which occu- pies eighteen pages, a census of the population. This census, the com- piler informs us, was taken in the fall of 1816. No further directory of Utica appeared until 1828.
As we are about to enter upon a fresh chapter of the village history, and to consider the proceedings had under the third charter of this now independent town, it may be well to again survey the place as a whole and seek to picture to ourselves the Utica of seventy-five years ago. In order to form some conception of it and its surroundings let us approach it from the north. Standing on the Deerfield Hill, four or five miles away, the country below you seems like a level swamp covered with for- est, the clearings being scarcely discenible. Beyond the river you perceive the houses on the hill at Utica and an extensive opening in the
J29
PICTURE OF THE VILLAGE IN 1816.
vicinity. Directly south and west nearly one-third of the country is denuded of wood. To the southeast there are only small patches of clearing. Coming down toward the plain you discern the more con- spicuous features of the village. Two church steeples enliven the scene, the Presbyterian and the Episcopal, which stand like sentinels guarding the approaches on the west and the east, the latter rejoicing in a pointed spire, the former equally happy in its rounded cupola. As you cross the dyke you see plainly before you and towering above their fellows the imposing York House on the right and its closely contesting rival, Bagg's Hotel, directly in front. Having passed over the bridge you are at once within the heart of the settlement, the very focus of the town. For the limits of Utica at the time I treat of were mostly con- fined between the river and the Liberty street road to Whitesboro ; from the square as a center they spread westward along Whitesboro street to Potter's bridge and eastward along Main and Broad to Third street. The course of Genesee street was pretty thickly lined with stores-a few residences only being here and there interspersed-as far upward as Catharine street, beyond which private houses predominated over business places, and these were scattered in a straggling way even to Cottage street. The roadway was guiltless of pavement and the mud at times profound. The sidewalks were paved, if such it might be called, but the pavement - of flagging, of cobble, of gravel, or of tan bark, as suited the convenience or the taste of the householder-bore little re- semblance to the modern conventional sandstone. "Stately but grace- less poplars stood in unbroken row from Bleecker street to the hill-top." On the west Genesee had no outlet higher than Liberty street, and on the east none above Catharine, for though Bleecker was known by au- thority it was neither fenced nor housed and was only a path to past- ures beyond. The buildings on its business part were mostly wooden and of moderate size and pretension. A few were of brick. On the hill were the spacious grounds and beautiful houses of Jeremiah Van Rens- selaer, Arthur Breese, and Alexander B. Johnson. In Whitesboro street were the Bank of Utica, the Manhattan Branch Bank, and the York House as well as the inns of Burchard and Bellinger. This was the Wall street of the village ; it harbored several stores and was more populous than any other except Main, containing probably nearly as many in-
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.