USA > New York > Oneida County > Utica > Memorial history of Utica, N.Y. : from its settlement to the present time > Part 31
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326
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
1866 .- At the council meeting of January 12th a report was offered by a committee previously appointed to examine as to what charter amendments were necessary to enable the council to carry on the city government and to appropriate the money received from the State for reimbursement of bounties paid. Amendments proposed were to in- crease the fund for general expenses from $16,000 to $25,000 ; to raise $15,000 for the fire department, of which $7,250 was for two new steamers and $6,000 for 3,000 feet of hose. Also to appropriate the $68,400 received from the State, first, to pay outstanding bonds of the city ($48,500 and interest) and to pay commutation or relief bonds outstanding ($11,700 and interest), and balance to be used as the coun- cil might direct. These amendments and appropriations were adopted and the legislature was requested to enact them.
A special election was held March 7th on the question of bonding in aid of the Utica, Chenango, and Susquehanna Valley Railroad, result- ing 1,055 in favor and 339 against. The city was accordingly bonded for $500,000 and about $200,000 was subscribed to the stock by citi- zens. Work was begun in June.
Officers elected at the charter election : Mayor, James McQuade; clerk, Thomas S. McIncrow ; aldermen, Holland Yates, Joseph Faas, T. S. Sayre, Thomas B. Howell, John Johnson, James Merriman, Homer Townsend; surveyor, Egbert Bagg.
The new mayor said in the past year the receipts were $34,022. 12 and the expenditures $33,878.45, while the average for the preceding three years was $28,807.32. This state of things presented a great financial problem. A part of Cooper street was closed in September in order to give the Steam Cotton-Mills a site for their new mill.
On the 3Ist of August President Andrew Johnson, his cabinet, and General Grant passed through Utica. They were given a reception on Bagg's Square and an address was delivered by Charles H. Doolittle, to which the President replied. On the 17th of September a company of Southern Unionists visited the city and were given a generous welcome by a large committee and citizens generally, which took the form of a meeting at the city hall. The city received a strong impetus in growth and activity in building at this time, probably on account of the pleni- tude of money disbursed for the war and the general feeling of pros-
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PROCEEDINGS OF 1867.
perity engendered by the reign of peace. The Butterfield House and the new Free Academy building were begun. (See 1868.) Railroad operations were also active ; the extension of the Black River road, the opening of the Utica and Whitesboro street school in June, and the Utica and Clinton road in September being features of this era of ad- vancement. There was some fear of cholera which worked for the good of the community through careful sanitary precautions. Incendiary fires prevailed and led during this and the succeeding year to the re- organization and strengthening of the fire department.
1867 .- In January a bill was pending in the legislature providing for the organization of a police commission to have control of the police of Utica and Rome. The act creating the Utica Police Commission was passed April 17, 1866, and on the 23d of April, 1867, a special elec- tion was held for police commissioners, resulting in the selection of Hawley E. Heath and Joseph Shearman, who received the highest num- ber of votes, and William N. Weaver and William W. Long, who re- ceived the next highest number.' These two highest of each party were to constitute the board by the law. There was some political feeling engendered over this election, and a meeting of " those who will not be made subservient to any such interest as that which has controlled the nominations so far " was held just before the election; but the feeling soon disappeared. This re-organization of the police force was the out- come of agitation which had been continued through most of the year ; but it was a movement for the better undoubtedly. Commissions were devised originally to save important interests from the absolute control of political parties in common councils and for a time worked fairly well, but as soon as they naturally became composed of or adopted the methods of graduated aldermen, as in the Tweed era, the remedy proved worse than the evil.
As a result of the charter election there were chosen : Mayor, Charles S. Wilson ; clerk, Thomas S. McIncrow; treasurer, Le Roy Midlam ; attorney, Thomas E. Kinney; aldermen, W. A. Evarts, Jacob Ehres- man, Charles C. Kellogg, Isaac J. Hunt, John Myers, Henry Lux, John Howarth. The mayor said in his inaugural that he could not congrat ulate the council on the state of the finances. The total receipts for the year were $129,783.14 ; total expenditures, $127,887.92.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
On the 14th of June a contract was made with James Benton for the erection of a hose depot for $5,725. In the same month appeared the subject of a better paving of Genesee street, a subject that was not to be finally disposed of for several years. On the 18th of July the coun- cil empowered a committee to contract for the Nicholson pavement in front of the city hall and the clerk's office. This pavement was put down, but was serviceable for only a few years.
A public meeting was held on February 5th to take action for the relief of the South through the Southern Relief Commission of New York. Committees were appointed, and during the spring a consider- able sum was raised in the city and county and forwarded. This year Theodore S. Faxton built Faxton Hall in West Utica (Union Hall), chiefly for the use of the workingmen of that district. It cost $15,000. It was dedicated December 3Ist. The Utica, Chenango, and Susque- hanna Valley road was opened to Waterville on the 14th of November with an excursion there and a dinner from the Watervillians.
1868 .- On the IIth of January a petition to the legislature was pre- sented to the council by the committee on charter amendments, accom- panied by an act for the repeal of the recently passed police act. The petition set forth that the force under the new regulations cost much more than under the old, and that after paying the force out of the reg- ular fund of $25,000 other departments of the city government must suffer; that the city was uniformly peaceable and quiet and did not need a large and costly force under control of a police commission. The petition was signed by all of the aldermen but one, and by the mayor. But nothing was done further in the matter during the year. A communication from the commissioners was published denying that the force was very much more costly than before, etc. A resolution to divide the Fifth and Seventh wards was carried in the council pending the requisite legislation. As an evidence of the growth and prosperity of the city a statement was published of the money that had been ex- pended in the several wards during the year 1867 for building, as follows: First ward, $134,500; Second, $52,300; Third, $795,600; Fourth, $538,300 ; Fifth, $147,500; Sixth, $65,400; Seventh, $222,450. To- tal, $1,956,050. This led to a large increase in the assessed valuation of the city by the county supervisors.
329
PROCEEDINGS OF 1868-69.
Officers for 1868 : Mayor, J. Thomas Spriggs; clerk, Thomas McIn- crow ; aldermen, Holland Yates, William N. Weaver, T. S. Sayre, George Pearson, John Johnson, James Merriman, Philip Edmunds, John Howarth; treasurer, Samuel Y. Lane; attorney, Thomas E. Kinney. The city finances were stated by the incoming mayor as in about the same condition that they had been, some $15,000 behind. Steps were taken to remedy this trouble in the usual manner, and an act to borrow $25,000 was obtained from the legislature.
The need of better water supply had become a pressing one and in April an agreement was reached between the city and the company by which the latter was to lay twelve miles of new mains and build a reser- voir of about 50,000,000 gallons capacity, and the city should pay the company $10,000 annually for an adequate supply. The new reservoir was commenced in June. In July action was taken by which parts of Water, First, and Second streets were abandoned for the use of the Central Railroad as a depot site. Eagle street was extended to East street. The sewer systems were considerably extended.
The entirely unexpected nomination of Horatio Seymour for Presi- dent by the Democratic National Convention in New York city, over which he had been presiding for many days, caused the greatest excite- ment throughout the city. In addition to the customary salute of can- non the city hall bell rang a joyous and protracted peal and many vol . unteers pulled the rope. It was the first time that the distinguished honor of candidacy for the highest office had fallen upon a citizen of Utica.
1869 .- The new Free Academy was dedicated on the 3Ist of Janu- ary, President Brown, of Hamilton College, and James Watson Will- iams delivering the addresses. The Butterfield House was finished and opened with considerable ceremony on the 10th of June. The principal fire of this year was the burning of two stores at 44 Genesee street on February 10th, with a loss of about $40,000. On the 19th of August the Utica, Chenango, and Susquehanna Valley Railroad was opened to Sherburne and the event was properly celebrated. The several exten- sions of the Black River road were also rapidly pushed during the year.
It was an era of rapid growth and extensive public improvements in the line of paving, sewers, etc. In the Herald of January was given a
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
list of buildings just completed or in course of erection, and the total value of those begun and not yet finished was stated as $754, 100. Whitesboro, Broad, and Fayette streets were among the prominent ones that were extensively improved ; but in the council there was much quarreling, and charges of mismanagement of the city's financial affairs were frequent. The Utica Driving Park Association was incorporated on the Ist of February with James P. Brown, president; G. G. Williams, vice-president ; Mortimer G. Thomson, treasurer ; and L. H. Babcock, secretary. The salary of the recorder was increased in February to $1,800. The Mohawk Street Railroad was opened September 16th. Among the prominent blocks erected were the Crouse block and the Yates block. The census of the year was given at 28,845.
The council had much trouble with the street railroad company on account of the banks of snow which the company persisted in piling up on each side of its tracks on Genesee street, rendering the street almost impassable. It was even threatened at one time that if the company did not at once remedy the difficulty the authorities would fill up the ravine on the tracks with snow. The chief public work of the year was the pro- jected pavement of Genesee street. The discussion began early in May, when a number of leading citizens who were interested in the subject appeared before the council and advocated the work. After some dis- cussion in council a resolution was passed on the 14th of May that the customary regular notice be given that bids would be received for pav- ing the street with Nicholson (wooden) pavement for fifteen feet on each side of the car tracks, and with cobblestone from that point to the gut- ters. This action raised a storm of discussion in and out of the council. It had at that time become apparent to men of good judgment that the Nicholson pavement as then laid in various cities was practically worth- less, and after a committee of the council had been sent to New York to examine the pavements there, and reported strongly in favor of a wooden pavement of some kind, the owners of property on the street with few exceptions objected to laying such pavement, which was to cost almost twice as much as stone. A public meeting was called for July 20th which was numerously attended, and there the wooden pavement received the strongest condemnation; and the idea that the council could with impunity order a pavement which those who must pay for
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GENESEE STREET PAVEMENT.
it did not want was strongly denounced. A period of delay was secured and meanwhile a committee was sent to Rochester and Buffalo and other western cities to examine the Nicholson pavements there. The committee learned very little in its favor and reported at a public meeting held July 29th in favor of a Medina sandstone pavement. It was followed by the publication of a petition signed by nearly all of the property owners on the street asking that the council order the sand- stone pavement. Nevertheless the council ordered the Nicholson pave- ment. An injunction was obtained against the council on the ground that the Nicholson pavement was patented and thus shut off competi- tion. This injunction was dissolved by the court after argument, and the contract for the pavement was awarded to the Nicholson Pavement Com- pany. By a provision of the city charter any one liable to be assessed for pavement and other work might offer to do it for fifteen per cent. less than it had been contracted for, at the next meeting of the council after that which awarded it. A few persons thus liable prepared to make such an offer. To avoid this the council for several weeks would not hold any meeting. When at length it met the proposal of those liable to be assessed was offered and summarily rejected on the ground that it was " unreasonable." Soon after work was begun on the upper end of the section to be paved by plowing up the old pavement. Before it had proceeded far another injunction stopped the work and a writ of mandamus was applied for against the council to compel it to accept the bid made by persons liable to be assessed. The mandamus was ordered by the court after much and costly opposition from the council, which paid for it out of the general fund. The Nicholson Company then bought out the right to the contract, which the court had adjudged to the few property owners who had offered to take it. Meanwhile, however, the council had concluded to let the property owners have the pavement they desired, the Medina stone. The contract for it was let to James Finnegan, of Syracuse. The last that was heard of the Nicholson Com- pany in Utica it was trying to buy out Finnegan. They failed to come to terms and the Medina pavement was begun and completed in 1870, the memorable year of culmination of the gigantic frauds in the New York city government, which brought the participants unenviable renown, prison, and exile.
332
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
The district west of the Chenango Canal and south of the asylum was made more accessible from the center of the city by the building of a bridge on Hickory street. Building was active, the principal structures now commenced being the old Savings Bank of Utica building and the Opera House, undertaken by the Mechanics Association. Early in the year an editorial in a local paper, headed " Utica Enterprise," said that those words a few years earlier were seldom used either by citizens of the place or others abroad ; that the city then seemed to have set- tled into a " slough of despond." The article then drew a strong con- trast between conditions of that stagnant period and those of the present and attributed the improvement to the northern and southern railroads which the city had aided.
The Utica, Clinton, and Binghamton Railroad was opened to Oris- kany Falls in February with becoming ceremonies, and a special tax- payers' election was held on the 29th of June upon the question of an appropriation in aid of the Utica and Mohawk Railroad. But the ma- jority against the proposition was over 500. Early in the year the sub- ject of the proper observance of the Sabbath commanded the attention of many good citizens, who believed that the police force was not doing its duty in this direction. A resolution was adopted upon the report of a committee that the council had no power to enforce the ordinances, that the police commissioners be called upon to do their duty and en- force the legal observance of the Sabbath.
The velocipede mania attacked the city this year and for a few months schools of riding and racing exhibitions were given in Concert Hall and the city hall, which attracted crowds of young men and some older ones. Three months later the excitement declined as rapidly as it sprang up.
Officers chosen this year: Mayor, Ephraim Chamberlain ; clerk, Thomas McIncrow ; aldermen, William A. Evarts, Joseph Faas, John Ross, Henry Ney, John Platter, Henry Lux, Luke Hill; treasurer, Charles K. Grannis ; attorney, Thomas E. Kinney ; surveyor, Egbert Bagg ; street commissioner, Lawrence Conrad. In his inaugural ad- dress the new mayor strongly disapproved of the existing organization of the police force aad hoped it would soon be changed. He also com- mented upon the unsatisfactory condition of the city finances and
'Lambadano
333
PROCEEDINGS OF 1870.
showed how utterly inadequate the sum of $25,000 was for the annual expenses, expressing himself strongly in favor of increasing the amount to $40,000, and advised the most rigid economy in the city govern- ment.
On the 5th of March a report of a committee on charter amendment reported in favor of increasing the city fund to $40,000 and giving the council power to raise the salary of the city attorney to $1,000 and that of the treasurer to $1,200. The report was agreed to in the council, but five members opposed it.
1870 .- The officers of the city for this year were: Mayor, James Mc- Quade ; clerk, Thomas S. McIncrow ; aldermen, Holland Yates, W. N. Weaver, Theodore S. Sayre, George Pearson, Joseph E. West, George T. Hollingsworth, Peter Clogher, John Johnson ; treasurer, Charles K. Grannis ; attorney, H. D. Talcott; street commissioner, Patrick Mc- Gough; surveyor, John R. Baxter.
The council on the 15th of January reported, through a committee previously appointed, in favor of forming the Eighth ward from those parts of the Fifth and Seventh lying east of the gulf ; and on the 28th of the same month the Sixth ward was divided on the line of the division into election districts, thus creating two new wards which were numbered Eighth and Ninth. The year was a somewhat memorable one on account of the increase in the number of wards, active efforts to re-organize the fire department on a paid basis, important charter amendments, and a continuous and bitter struggle among the aldermen. Proceedings be- gan in the council on the 7th of January, when a resolution was offered that the mayor request the taxpayers to name a committee of seven (one from each ward) to confer with a committee of the council to recommend such amendments to the charter as should be thought best for the good of the city. This was temporarily laid on the table. On the 21st of January a committee was appointed to inspect the proposed charter amendments before their submission to the council, consisting of Francis Kernan, A. S. Johnson, P. V. Kellogg, De Witt C. Grove, E. H. Roberts, T. J. Spriggs, William J. Bacon, and D. P. White. The proposed amendments were reported at a special meeting held Febru- ary Ist, of which the following is a brief digest : To give the recorder power to try violations of the city ordinances; providing that only a
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
synopsis of the reports of city treasurers be published in the news- papers ; giving the council power to appoint the city attorney and the overseer of the poor, and making the term of the city clerk three years ; (only the last of these provisions was adopted ;) organizing a new Board of Health with the mayor as president ; raising the amount of the city fund to $40,000; providing for more prompt payments of funds by the collectors to the treasurer ; giving the council power to appoint police- men, making the strength of the force twenty, and giving the mayor power to dismiss members for cause ; compelling the street railroad companies to do certain paving along their lines; giving the council power to open new streets without reference to the location of buildings on the line; giving the council power to enforce the proper connection to be made with sewers and gas and water pipes; divesting the council of power to order a pavement to which two-thirds of the property owners along its line object (which is still the law); ordering the council to raise annually not less than $15,000 nor more than $25,000 with which to redeem the bonds in aid of the Utica and Black River Railroad Company ; and a few other minor changes. These were, in many re- spects, radical alterations, and generally served a good purpose in the government of the city.
Another effort was made to get rid of the police commission in Janu- ary by the offer of a resolution providing that the council should peti- tion the legislature for an act repealing the existing police law in that respect, and expressing the opinion that such action would please a large majority of the taxpayers. This raised a storm in the Board of Aldermen, and at the next meeting, March 23d (a special meeting), twenty policemen were appointed, with John Baxter as chief, John R. Healey as assistant, and their salaries fixed. The date of the succeed- ing regular meeting was March 25th and no quorum was present. The mayor and the city attorney decided that the proceedings of the late special meeting were illegal, it having been called without giving the requisite notice to members of the board; and that therefore the police appointments were void. While this action was being taken a major- ity of the aldermen had gathered in a room in the Mansion House. The mayor and the minority, learning where the delinquents were, sent first messengers and then officers after them and commanded them to
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THE POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENTS.
attend the meeting. This command was not heeded. The chief of police was then ordered to station himself in the Mansion House and place the room containing the aldermen in a state of siege. At II o'clock the proprietor of the house sent for the sheriff to aid in the pro- tection of his guests in the room. The recorder soon appeared on the scene and ordered the besiegers to disperse. The mayor and others were then in the hotel and they refused to obey the command of the recorder, who thereupon left to procure a warrant for their arrest. At half past twelve the sheriff arrested the chief of police, Messenger Sup- ple, and Officers G. W. Miller, G. W. Keating, and Thomas Higginson, and the party proceeded to the recorder's office. The ground was taken by the majority of the aldermen who refused to meet with the minority that the latter could compel the majority to act, and this opinion was shared by the recorder. As a sequel to that night's operations the majority did go over to the council room, where they promptly put a motion to adjourn, and of course carried it. At the next meeting on the Ist of April, when all of the aldermen but one were present, the records of the proceedings of the minority meeting were expunged. The former action making the police appointments was then re-affirmed and the number of the force raised to twenty-four.
A similar contest soon sprang up in regard to the fire department, growing out of efforts on the part of Mayor McQuade and his friends to establish the department on a paid basis. Early in May nearly the whole fire department disbanded and made a pretentious farewell pa- rade, because of the previous action depriving them of the election of the chief of the department. At the meeting of May 20th a special committee was appointed to report on a new organization of the de- partment ; the report was made, but was not acted upon nor made pub- lic until later in the year. In June another committee reported in favor of reducing the number of firemen with each steamer to ten men and that No. 4 Company be disbanded, fixed the salaries of the engi- neers and firemen, and recommended the provision of an office for the chief. This report was tabled and the committee charged with shirl .- ing their duty in re-organizing the department. Meanwhile the depart- ment existed in a peculiar condition that did not inspire much confi- dence in its efficiency. A special meeting on re- organization gathered
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
at the clerk's office on the 15th of July. The policy of establishing a paid department was discussed and the discussion continued at the next regular meeting of the council July 22d. On the 5th of August noth- ing had been accomplished and the mayor published a communication recommending the immediate organization of a paid department. On the 16th of September another special committee was appointed to re- port plans for a paid department ; but on the 21st of October a report on organization previously made, and substantially on a volunteer basis, was adopted.
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