USA > New York > Oneida County > Utica > Memorial history of Utica, N.Y. : from its settlement to the present time > Part 12
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
habitants as it now does. Hotel, in proportion to its length, was quite as thickly peopled. Seneca, Washington, and Broadway reached only to the Liberty street road, Broadway bringing up at the elegant stone mansion of James S. Kip, while Washington conducted passengers no farther than the Presbyterian meeting-house.
The public square contained the town pump and the market-house. Main street was lined with the comely residences of prosperous citizens, and was terminated by the Methodist chapel and the pleasant home and grounds of Judge Miller. Broad street was occupied as far as the line of Third street, but contained only a small fraction of its present num- ber of buildings. Between it Whitesboro and upper Genesee the best dwelling houses of the village were unequally distributed. John street had here and there a residence, which in all reached a little higher than Jay, while beyond were the rising walls of the academy and in the rear of this two tenements on Chancellor Square. The faint attempts of Catharine to rival its fellow below were effectually crushed when stakes were planted along side of it to mark the course of the future canal. This settled its fate and consigned it the rank it has held ever since. Water street, now robbed of its former importance, was nearest of all to the then channel of commerce, and besides its houses for storage and forwarding was also the home of a few well-to-do folks.
Thus as it appears from the directory, while the buildings of Genesee were in number 157, of Whitesboro 84, of Main 67, of Broad 59, of Hotel 34, of Catharine 20, and Water as many, Seneca had 15, no other street more than 10, and the rest but half or less than half of that num- ber. Of those running eastward not one is named above Catharine. " Cornhill was a forest from South street to the New Hartford line. Another forest skirted the gardens on the west side of Genesee, came down the slope to the present Fayette, and extended west to the Asylum Hill." When the commissioners in the following year ran the line be- tween Whitesboro and Utica, from Jewett's farm to the county line on the east, and to the river on the north they were obliged to fell trees so as to see their flag.
Such was the "pent up Utica" of 1816, with its 420 dwellings and stores, with its churches, banks, taverns, printing offices, and other appendages of a flourishing country town, and which, according to the enumeration made by the compiler of its directory, contained 2,861 inhabitants.
13I
THE THIRD VILLAGE CHARTER.
CHAPTER IV!
THE THIRD VILLAGE CHARTER.
Its Principal Provisions - The Proceedings of the Successive Boards of Aldermen to 1824 - The Progress of the Erie Canal - The Visit of General Lafayette - New Comers of the Period.
NEW charter of Utica was enacted April 7, 1817. By its terms Utica was set off from Whitestown and erected into a separate town, its boundaries remaining the same as before. It was divided into three wards, as follows: The First ward included that portion of terri- tory lying east of a line running from the river bridge through the mid- dle of lower Genesee, parts of John, Broad, and First streets, to the southern boundary ; the Second Ward, next west of the First, was limited by a line traversing Hotel and upper Genesee streets; and the Third embraced all west of the preceding. The president of the village was to be appointed annually by the Governor and Council of the State. Besides presiding at the meetings of the Board of Trustees he, by and with their advice, granted permits to retailers, tavern-keepers, and butchers, and was ex-officio a justice of the peace. As a compensation for his services he received fees for the permits that were given or in lieu of them a salary amounting to $250. At the annual meeting held on the second Monday of May there were to be chosen by bal - lot six trustees, two from each ward, a supervisor, three assessors, and two constables. The trustees appointed a clerk, a treasurer, col- Jectors, an overseer of the poor, and several other subordinate officers. They were empowered to levy a tax not exceeding in amount $1,500 to defray the expense of lighting the streets, supporting a night watch, the making of local improvements, and for contingent expenses; and likewise a tax not exceeding $100 to keep in repair the building erected for a free school-house, and to purchase fuel and other appendages for such school. They were made commissioners of highways; could open, alter, pave, or improve streets, and cause the construction of sewers as they might deem the public good required ; and after the expense of
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
the same had been estimated by five disinterested persons, appointed by them, they could enforce its collection from the parties chiefly benefited. They had, moreover, full authority "to make all such rules and regu- lations, by laws and ordinances for the good government and order of the village as they might deem expedient, not repugnant to the consti- tution and laws of this State," and to enforce the due observance of them by fine or imprisonment. In this authority are enumerated many particulars, though all are included in the general terms above quoted. The share of the school moneys appropriated to the county which these trustees received from the county treasurer they were obliged to devote to the maintenance of a free school for the education of such poor children residing in the village as they might think entitled to gra- tuitous instruction. Such is a very brief summary of the thirty-one sections of the charter. The annual meeting of freeholders was done away with, the government of affairs became wholly representative, and to the trustees was entrusted much more power than they had before exercised.
The first president appointed under this charter was Nathan Williams, and at the first election held under it there were chosen as trustees Ezra S. Cozier and William Williams from the First ward, Jeremiah Van Rensselaer and Abraham Van Santvoort from the Second ward, and Erastus Clark and John C. Hoyt from the Third ward. The assessors elected were Moses Bagg, David P. Hoyt, and Thomas Walker. Benja- min Walker was chosen supervisor and Ezra S. Barnum and Joshua Ostrom constables. The first business of the Board of Trustees was to enact rules for their own guidance, to employ a surveyor to ascertain the bounds of the village and designate them by boundary stones, to adopt a corporate seal, and to elect additional officers. These officers were the following: John H. Ostrom, clerk; E. S. Barnum and Benja- min Ballou, collectors; Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, overseer of the poor ; Judah Williams, treasurer; Frederick W. Potter, poundmaster ; Benja- min Hinman, Aaron Eggleston, and Jason Parker, fence viewers ; James Hooker, gauger; Benjamin Ballou, superintendent of highways. The ordinances passed by the board in the course of the year were the fol- lowing : A law concerning officers of the village and town; an act for the regulation of groceries and victualling houses ; an act to prevent the
I33
ORDINANCES PASSED IN 1817.
digging of earth or stones in the streets and highways; a law to pre- vent nuisances and to regulate the streets ; a law relative to fences and for the establishment of a pound; a law for the establishment of the assize and regulating the inspection of bread ; a law for preventing and extinguishing fires; an additional act for regulating groceries and victu- alling houses ; a law for the appointment of a village superintendent (of streets) and prescribing his duties ; an ordinance in relation to a watch ; a law regulating the streets and sidewalks. Some few of the provisions contained in these several ordinances it may be of interest to note, for the sake of their relation to the state of things which had preceded them as well as to that which has followed, as showing both the advance made and the shortcomings in view of the present.
The act to regulate groceries and victualling houses which was passed in May required those keeping such establishments to acknowl- edge a recognizance to the trustees in the penalty of $125, conditioned that they would not sell spirituous liquors to be drank on the premises, nor to an apprentice, servant, or slave without permit from the master, nor harbor noisy persons or gamblers, nor keep open on Sunday or after 10 o'clock at night. But the additional act passed in Decem- ber allowed petty grocers who had obtained a license to retail liquors to be drank on the premises, restricting them only from selling to appren- tices, servants, and slaves, and for this license they were to pay $5 and also a fee of $2 to the president. The law to prevent nuisances and regulate the streets, while forbidding the deposit of rubbish, filth, or nuisances of any kind in the streets, or heaps of manure within 100 feet of the principal streets, required the owners or occupants of houses and stores on Genesee street from the bridge to Liberty street, and on Main and Whitesboro from Second street to Broadway, to clean the street in front of their premises and remove the dirt every Saturday forenoon. It allowed the deposit of building ma- terial on certain defined streets only on the written permission of the president and for a term not exceeding six months, which permission might be revoked or prolonged by the trustees. It granted another permission which has since been a source of much detriment to the general good, viz .: The right to build open stoops six feet into the street ; on the other hand it forbade billiard tables, shuffle boards, E. O.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
tables, faro banks, and all other implements of gaming ; it restrained cows, oxen, sheep, and swine from running at large under penalty of being impounded-whence there was no release but by the payment, besides the pound-keeper's fee of a fine, one-half of which was to go to the benefit of the poor of the town and the other to the person delivering the animal to the pound-keeper, but it made exceptions in the case of cows belonging to any inhabitant of the village, and also in the case of working horses the property of any such inhabitant who had first ob- tained the consent of the president. The law relating to the assize and inspection of bread was much fuller in detail than the one that had been before in force. Bakers were to have a license; they were to mark their loaves with their initials and in addition with the letters S. or C. in order to indicate whether these loaves were made of superfine or common flour ; they were required under penalty to keep on hand a sufficient supply ; there was to be appointed an inspector of bread, who at least once a month was to examine the bread baked and on sale in the vil- lage, with power to enter any bakery or stop and examine any baker's cart and to seize such bread as was not conformable to law, which if fit for use was to go to the overseer of the poor ; none was to be forfeited for want of weight only, unless the weight had been ascertained within eight hours after baking, and if more than eight hours had elapsed the inspector was to "make just allowance." The law prescribed also how the assize of bread should be regulated, and contained a mathematical formula to be used in determining what should be the weight of a shill- ing or a sixpenny loaf that it might accord with the varying price of flour. But as this whole ordinance was so inconvenient and difficult of execution as to be almost completely nugatory we will not further en- large upon its provisions. With respect to the law for the prevention and extinguishing of fires the following is new : A fire warden and a fire engineer were to be appointed for each ward. The wardens were to examine at least once a month chimneys, hearths, stoves, stovepipes, ash-houses, etc., and if these were found insufficient or insecure they were to order their repair or alteration, or cause the same to be done at the expense of the owner ; they were to examine into the sufficiency of fire buckets in the possession of individuals and report monthly to the trustees ; to report also what chimneys take fire, to remove or abate
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ORDINANCES PASSED IN 1817.
anything which might be dangerous; to attend all fires, bearing staves as badges of office, and there, under the direction of the engineers, to pursue such measures and give such orders to the citizens as they might judge necessary and proper. The fire engineers were to attend all fires with the crown of their hats covered with white for purpose of distinc- tion, and there to have control of the fire companies and engines, and to have power also to pull down buildings if necessary to arrest the fire. Three conservators of property were likewise appointed who were to attend fires with pieces of cloth around the left arm, and they were to exercise such functions as are intimated by their appellation, viz., to take the charge of goods and furniture, to direct their removal and the place of deposit, and secure them from theft. Citizens with their buck- ets were to go to all fires and there be subject to the orders of the three above mentioned classes of officials ; and if the fire occurred in the night- time they were to place a lighted candle in the front door or front win- dow of their houses and keep it burning through the night or until the fire was extinguished. From the fire companies there were set off ten men to act as a hook and ladder company. Chimneys blazing out at the top at any other time than on the forenoon of a day when the roof was wet or covered with snow subjected the owner to a fine of $3. Every person was to have a scuttle on his roof with stairs leading thereto, or a ladder standing against or near his house; other pro- visions related to the burning of combustibles, to the use of uncov- ered candles in barns and stables, to the firing of squibs and crackers, and to the keeping of gunpowder in quantity in any other place than Van Santvoort's warehouse. Four watchmen were to be appointed by the trustees in obedience to the ordinance relating thereto, of whom two were to patrol the streets by night in the compact part of the village while their companions remained in the watch house; they were to cry the hour once at least in every hour; were to look after and arrest sus- picious persons ; in case of fire were to give the alarm to the inhab- itants and more particularly to the trustees and the bellman; at the fire were to co-operate with the conservators in the protection of ex- posed property, and after its extinguishment were to collect the buck- ets that had been in use and remove them to the market-house. One law which was substantially a repetition of one passed in 1814 de-
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
clared the streets on which owners of property should make sidewalks and how the same should be constructed, and another created a village superintendent whose duty it was to see that this ordinance and that relating to nuisances were faithfully executed, and to report all viola- tions thereof to the Board of Trustees. To each of the foregoing there were affixed fines and penalties sufficient, as it would seem, to secure a proper observance.
The Board of Trustees resolved to raise by tax $1,000 for the ex- penses of the year and $50 additional for the repair and fuel of the free school. The meetings of the trustees in the course of the year were numerous, well attended, and apparently harmonious. The board organized two companies of firemen of fifteen and of twenty-five mem- bers respectively ; they granted several licenses to grocers and retail liquor dealers, and a few to keepers of taverns, refusing also some ap- plicants for the latter.
Much financial embarrassment existed throughout the country at this time and for two years longer, and in this distress the inhabitants of Utica suffered likewise. In June money was so scarce that the banks were drawing in their discounts and many merchants failed. By December money commanded three per cent. a month. Provisions of all kinds were dear. The summer of 1816 had been unusually cold, frost having occurred during every month of the year. The spring of 1817 was backward, and on the first of June there came a severe frost which destroyed all tender vegetables. Hay was selling for $20 a ton, wheat at eighteen shillings and it rose in July to twenty-four shillings, and corn the same, at which time flour was worth $12 a barrel. By Octo- ber hay had fallen to $8 per ton and other commodities also diminished in price. But the scarcity of money prevailed some time longer and the failures continued.
On the 25th of July in this year occurred the first capital execution that had taken place in the village and the second one in the county. The criminal was an Indian of the Brotherton tribe named John Tuhi, who was tried at Rome in the previous month and convicted of having killed his cousin, Joseph Tuhi, in a quarrel when intoxicated. The ex- ecution took place a little east of the present intersection of John and Rutger streets, then a lone and distant suburb. The prisoner was at-
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FIRST CAPITAL EXECUTION.
tended in the wagon and at the gallows by two Baptist clergymen, who addressed the crowd. He seemed passive and insensible and stood like a statue till he fell, after which there was one slight struggle. The sheriff was Apollos Cooper, assisted by the under sheriff, John B. Pease, of Whitesboro. The sheriff's duties were fitly performed and with an amount of feeling that greatly exceeded that of the criminal. He wore on the occasion a military chapeau and a short, heavy sword, with which he struck twice the rope that suspended the trap, when it fell and he wheeled his horse and rode off the ground. The spec- tators were careless and unfeeling. Men, women, and children seemed to make a frolic of the occurrence, and there was laughing and swear- ing under the gallows, but not much drunkenness except among the Indians, of whom a number got intoxicated. The execution formed a memorable day in the calendars of the men of that generation, an epoch not easily forgotten, and people dated events as happening before or after the Indian was hung.
Among the accessions to the happily associated society of Utica during the year 1817 were James and Walter L. Cochrane, sons of John Cochrane, director-general of the army hospitals during the war of the Revolution. These brothers were types of an order of gentlemen born and educated in the later colonial period of the State, with the polish of manner that resulted from aristocratic associations and not a few of the accompanying prejudices. They had lived in several different places and did not long remain here, nor had they while here any espe- cial vocation.
Thomas Hastings was of a deeply sensitive nature with a peculiar and imperfect vision, and manifested an early predilection for music. This predilection was soon developed into a pursuit, which he followed through an unusually long life, and in church psalmody, to which he especially devoted himself, he became the most proficient of any in the country. " Whatever true reforms were made in the spirit of praise during the first half of the present century were largely accomplished by and through him." He began his career as a teacher of it in 1805, giving instruction in some of the neighboring parishes, and continued it in the winter of 1806-07. His course of instruction was thorough and a great improvement on that which had preceded it. In 1816,
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
after having spent one year in business and four in managing his father's farm, he became again a teacher. His lessons were given at New Hart- ford, to the choir of Trinity Church, Utica, in 1817, to that of the Presbyterian Church in 1819, and in several other places. There had been a county musical society in operation. To furnish music for it he and Professor Norton, of Clinton, became composers This was the origin of the collection known as the Musica Sacra, which consisted at first of two numbers of pamphlet size and was afterward enlarged to a considerable volume and subsequently united with Warriner's Spring- field collection. Several successive editions were published at Utica. From this vicinity Mr. Hastings went to Troy to teach and thence to Albany, where he sang in the church of Rev. Dr. Chester. In 1823 he was invited to come to Utica to take charge of a religious paper about to be established, and in January of the following year there was issued the first number of this semi-monthly paper known as the Western Re- corder. His editorial labors extended to the ninth volume. He never lost sight of the interests of religious music and his articles on the sub - ject were widely copied. In addition to his conduct of the paper he taught singing in the Sunday school and elsewhere, and by the establishment of societies for the purpose contributed much to encourage an interest in sacred song. He held that every one could learn to sing, and that it was a duty to learn and to join audibly in divine praise in the house of God, that " religion has substantially the same claim in song as in speech." He composed hymns and tunes and made collections of mu- sic, adapting tunes to words and words to tunes, and thus impressed his own tastes upon the church and the school and inspired them with his own zeal in the cause of reform and progress. For many years he was the chorister of the Presbyterian Church, where his presence and his voice seemed as essential to the ministrations of the sanctuary as were those of any occupant of its pulpit. In 1832, on the invitation of sev- eral churches, he repaired to New York and entered upon the specific work of elevating the standard of congregational singing. He taught large schools, gathered assemblies and trained them, infusing into the people interest and spirit on his favorite subject. He continued his efforts as a composer and wrote much. No man in the United States has been so long and so intimately associated with our church music ;
139
THE BROTHERS HASTINGS- F. E. WARNER.
none has produced more of the hymns and tunes which are now a part of public worship. Between the years 1819 and 1865 he published up- wards of twenty collections of sacred music besides editing seven or eight others. Of the 600 hymns and versions of the psalms which he composed 200 are current in this country and Great Britain. He re- ceived the degree of Doctor of Music from the New York University.
Charles Hastings and Andrew Merrell began a new book store in May, 1817, to which they soon added a circulating library. They were at the sign of the Bible, No. 40 Genesee street, one door west of the post - office. They published a few books, among which was one with the singular title " The Missionary Arithmetic," prepared by Rev. Will- iam R. Weeks, D.D., and containing problems based on missionary or religious topics. From the year 1824 they published also the Western Recorder. As agent of the Sunday School Union Mr. Hastings supplied its auxiliaries with books, and he acted also as secretary of the Western Domestic Missionary Society. In 1826, having lost his partner, he found a new one in Gardiner Tracy.
By the present generation the house of Jared E. Warner has been as familiarly known as were those of the Wolcotts, Hitchcocks, or Williamses by the earlier one. An heirloom it holds direct from the earliest drug- gists of Utica is a large show bottle in the front window of the store, which contains the identical colored fluid that was poured into it in 1812. Articles in which Mr. Warner once dealt largely besides his ordinary trade were the essential oils of peppermint, spearmint, etc., which were distilled for him in the northern part of the county and which he exported. Mr. Warner was closely attentive to his concerns and content with the steady acquisitions of his calling. Being treasu- rer of the County Bible Society, agent of the American Board of For- eign Missions, of the American Tract Society, etc., his store was made the place of deposit and distribution of numerous relegious publications. For many years he was an elder in the First Presbyterian Church and also president of the Utica City National Bank.
Party spirit seems for the first to have been in exercise at the village election in the year 1818. As a consequence some changes were ef- fected in the constituent members of the Board of Trustees ; some of the older citizens and larger property holders of the Federal party, as
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
John C. Devereux and Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, who had been held up as candidates, were rejected and new men elected in their stead. This new board was composed as follows, the president remaining the same ; The trustees elected from the First ward were Ezra S. Cozier and John E. Hinman ; from the Second, Abraham Van Santvoort and Enos Brown ; from the Third, Rudolph Snyder and Marcus Hitchcock. The assessors were Benjamin Ballou, jr., Stalham Williams, and Thomas Walker. The board re- appointed John H. Ostrom clerk and made Judah Williams treasurer. The only noticeable fact in the proceedings of the year was the appropriation of $300 to aid the trustees of the academy in the com - pletion of the court room in the academy building, which room they would appear to have taken from this time under their control. The amount levied upon the citizens for the annual expenses was $1,422.25 and that for the school expenses $50.60. It was also voted that $800 be raised by direction of the supervisors for the support of the poor. The public school was continued under the direction of Ignatius Thompson.
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