USA > New York > Oneida County > Utica > Memorial history of Utica, N.Y. : from its settlement to the present time > Part 37
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With the fate of the Black River in mind it was recommended besides that the road should be paid for as built, and go forward no faster than funds were on hand, so that when finished it would be left without debt. After sufficient discussion the resolves of the committee were passed and the company organized with the directors they named, and the cor- porate title "Utica, Chenango, and Susquehanna Valley Railway."
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The directors were Lewis Lawrence, Daniel Crouse, A. J. Williams, James F. Mann, James K. Hitchcock, John Butterfield, Thomas Foster, and John Thorn, of Utica; George W. Chadwick, of New Hartford ; N. W. Moore, of Sauquoit; D. B. Goodwin, of Waterville ; and Devillo White, of Sherburne. Mr. Lawrence was made the executive head and gave to the work the same earnest purpose and vigilant care, the same surrender of self and control over others, which had marked his conduct in private affairs. Other directors rendered useful assistance by their money and labors. Mr. Lawrence assumed most of the load and was unremitted in his duty through storm and through cold. The $200,000 required by private subscription was raised in our midst, and $17,000 besides. Opposition was fruitless, and when in March, 1866, on days determined by law, the question of bonding came up at the polls, it re- ceived the assent of above two out of three of the voters. Our bond- ing accomplished other towns followed suit. Ere long enough was se- cured to warrant commencement and ground was broken on the Ist of July. Thenceforward work never flagged and the enterprise fast as- sumed a tangible form. On the 14th of November its coaches con- veyed a large and joyous assembly to Waterville. Like diligent energy on the part of the company, like credit from the towns on the line, to that which had conducted the road thus far, conducted it later to Sher- burne. Four additional miles were constructed the next spring, and there at Sherburne Four Corners the work for the present was stayed ; for now by the aid of the Midland passage was accomplished to Nor- wich. The branch that turned eastward from Cassville was taken in hand in October, 1868. Traversing Bridgewater, Plainfield, and Win- field this work, of something harder construction, was successfully car- ried to Richfield, which it reached near the close of 1870. Of the road as projected sixty-seven miles were finished, with about seven of siding at a cost to the owners of about $28,000 per mile. It was pretty well stocked with rolling material and equipped with the requisite buildings. On both of its branches two or more trains ran daily forward and back. Its receipts for passage and freights contented the most sanguine ex- pectants.
And now, just before its completion to Richfield, the whole of the road, including this part yet unfinished, was leased for the remaining
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UTICA, CLINTON, AND BINGHAMTON RAILROAD.
term of its charter to another more opulent company owning $15,000,- 000 of capital, having control of the coal mines at Scranton, and enormous producers and consumers of the fuel. By the terms of agree- ment with the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railway the lessors were to finish to Richfield, to increase the amount of their cars and loco- motives, and to make their issue of stock not to exceed $1,800,000. In return the lessees would extend the first branch thirty-seven miles farther, and thus by means of roads of their own would reach down to the mines ; besides they would pay a six per cent. annual dividend to all holders of stock in the road they now leased. The arrangement took effect on the first day of May, but by a later arrangement the ex- tension was really made by the Utica, Chenango, and Syracuse. Their stock was augmented from $2,500,000 to $4,000,000, and with this en- largement of capital the company carried its road to Greene on the borders of Broome. Here it touched the Binghamton and Syracuse and established the wished-for relations with Scranton.
Let us now notice another road to the south which was projected and partly constructed in advance of the preceding, then enlarged in de- sign, made to run a somewhat parallel course, and like the preceding leased when completed to a long established and opulent company well known as importers of coal. The Utica, Clinton, and Binghamton Com- pany was organized in August, 1862, to construct a horse or steam road " from the village of Clinton through the town of New Hartford and city of Utica into the town of Whitestown, to the village of Whitesboro, or New York Mills, or both." Its capital stock was $23,000, and of its thirteen directors these six were of Utica, viz .: John Butterfield, Alrick Hubbell, John Thorn, Lewis Lawrence, Hugh Crocker, O. B. Matteson. With them were joined Daniel C. Mason, of New Hartford, and six others from the east, Mr. Butterfield being the prime mover and head. By the fall of 1863 the rails were in place and carriage by horse was accomplished from New Hartford to Utica. Conceiving designs more ambitious the company changed its name the next year by legislat- ive permission, and planned an extension to Waterville. Pushing for- , ward the work first undertaken they had built by the summer of 1866 a horse road to Whitesboro and a road for steam-power from New Hart- ford to Clinton, which was worked by a dummy that ran in connection
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
with the horse cars from Utica. In December, 1867, being now opened to Deansville, they organized anew with a capital raised to $1,000,000. Of its board the Utica members nearly all retained their places in di- rection. Their aim was now directed to Sherburne. Difference of sentiment as to the best route to this spot was now prevailing, and so strong was the strife that the movers in behalf of both routes were hampered in getting the means they required to effect their respective designs. With an increase of resources derived from the bonding of Hamilton for $60,000, of Madison for $100,000, and of Augusta and Kirkland for $40,000 each the company continued to move forward their road. Henceforth they were known as the Utica, Clinton, and Binghamton. Their track, which was laid to Oriskany Falls in 1868, they carried to Hamilton in 1870, and by a three miles farther exten- sion they joined, at Smith's Valley, the line of the Midland, and thus were assured of the terminus sought.
But though the road was opened thus far, and was much in use by the public, the line to New Hartford was still unfitted for steam, and for luggage and freight as well as for passengers the horse road was the only means of conveyance. The delay and inconvenience of transfer, the obstruc- tion of the street by the passage of lumbering cars, and their unsightly presence in our principal avenue were felt as an evil by townsmen and traveler and yet more by the company. Room must be found for an additional road and likewise the funds essential to build it. Failing in efforts to obtain from their rival permission to use this end of its line by means of connection made at New Hartford they next appealed to the city for aid. The city furnished its bond for $200,000. At a cost of nearly $400,000 the new road was built in 1871. The steam road was leased the year after its completion to the New York and Oswego Midland. In September, 1873, this company went into the hands of receivers, who continued to operate the part that was leased until No- vember, 1875, when they failed in their rent and abandoned the charge. A new lease was effected with a corporation more free of embarrass- ment and which has stood as a guarantee of the former. This was the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, widely known for its wealth and connections as one of the great purveyors of coal.
The constructions we have had under survey-these roads to the
NEW YORK, WEST SHORE, AND BUFFALO RAILROAD. 395
south and the one to the north, thus intersecting the Central-have made an important center of Utica and immensely increased its con- venience for transportation and trade. Its compass of business is again what it was when the country was new and there were few towns about us to compete for a share. And as the outlying population is denser by far than it was then, and its wants in proportion augmented, we make up in absolute increase for all that is lost of the trade to rivals more re- cently started.
The New York, West Shore, and Buffalo Railroad Company was chartered on the 14th of June, 1881, and the New York, Buffalo, and West Shore Railway Company was afterward formed under the laws of New York and New Jersey by consolidation of the original company with the North River Construction Company. The original capital stock was $40,000,000, and the first officers were Horace Porter, pres- ident ; Charles Hurd, vice-president ; Theodore Houston, second vice- president ; Alexander Taylor, secretary and treasurer ; Charles Paine, general manager. The road was opened from Weehawken to Syracuse on the Ist of October, 1883, and to Buffalo on January 1, 1884. On the 2d of October, 1885, judgment of foreclosure and sale of the road was entered in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The property was sold at auction, and on the 5th of December was trans- ferred to the purchasers, J. Pierpont Morgan, Chauncey M. Depew, and Ashbel Green, as joint tenants. The road was then at once leased to the New York Central Company.
In July, 1884, D. B. McCoy was appointed superintendent of the Buffalo division of the line, relieving Superintendent Merrill. This di- vision then extended from Buffalo to Syracuse, with headquarters at the former city. H. W. Gardner was superintendent of the Mohawk di- vision, from Syracuse to Coeyman's Junction on the Hudson River, from 1884 to April, 1885, when the Mohawk division was absorbed in the Hudson River and Buffalo division, which terminated at Frankfort, with Superintendent McCoy's office at Newark. In April, 1888, his office was removed to Syracuse and his authority extended to Coey- man's. J. P. Bradfield was made superintendent from there to Wee- hawken. This road has never exerted a great influence on the city of Utica, as it passes nearly two miles to the southward of the central part of the city,
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHURCHES OF THE SEVERAL DENOMINATIONS.
Presbyterian Societies -- Congregational Organizations -- The Reformed Church -- The Episcopal Denomination -- The Methodists -- The Baptists -- The Lutherans -- The Moravian Church -- Roman Catholics -- The Hebrews and their Synagogues -- Welsh Churches -- Sketches of some of the Clergymen who have preached in Utica.
T is a conspicuous fact, and one pleasant to contemplate in the civiliza- tion that progressed westward with the settlement of America, that very few if any communities located and remained for any considerable time in the wilderness without founding there an altar, however humble and however few the number that could be gathered around it for the worship of the Creator. His presence and His power were needed and felt in the wilderness as much and more, perhaps, than in the busy scenes of later and larger communities.
Up to the year 1801 the only existing and continuous religious soci- ety here was that which had been organized at Whitesboro in 1793 under the title of the "United Society of Whitestown and Old Fort Schuyler." Of this church and its first pastor a brief account has been given on pages 55 and 56.
Trinity Church dates its origin from the year 1798. Its actual be- ginning we have in the words of its founder, Rev. Philander Chase, af- terward bishop of Illinois. In 1798 Mr. Chase was occupied in mis- sionary labors in this State, and while thus engaged arrived in Utica. " This now flourishing city was then," he says, " but a small hamlet. The stumps of the forest trees were yet standing thick and sturdy in the streets, if streets they may be termed, where scarcely two of them were fenced out. Even Colonel Walker's house, for some time the best in the place, was not then built. That worthy Christian gentleman re- ceived the writer in a small tenement which he then occupied, and it was by his encouragement that the writer succeeded in organizing a parish according to an act of the legislature passed two or three winters before. The parish was named ' The Rector, Wardens, and Vestry-
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men of Trinity Church, Utica.'" Mr. Chase, having thus formed the few Episcopalians of the place into a society, persuaded them to meet together every Sabbath and read the prayers of the church and ser- mons. This the records inform us was for some time done. "But the people of other persuasions increasing fast, and having engaged the Presbyterian minister of Whitesboro to attend regularly, the meetings of the Episcopalians was discontinued." Thus the society appears to have slumbered until 1803, when a re-organization was effected and measures were taken to erect a church building as will be described a little further on.
Of the United Society of Whitestown and Old Fort Schuyler, which was the first Presbyterian society of Oneida County, I here resume the narrative. In 1803 the number of members of the united church living in Utica had increased to twenty, that of the congregation being probably still greater. It was therefore recommended by the session that one deacon and two elders be chosen from that part of the congregation living in Utica. On the 2d of the following month, at a meeting held in the school-house, Capt. Stephen Potter was elected deacon and Capt. Stephen Potter and Ebenezer Dodd were elected elders. The congregation was incorporated as a distinct society on the 1.5th of No- vember, 1805, and Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, Erastus Clark, Talcott Camp, Apollos Cooper, Benjamin Ballou, jr., Benjamin Plant, John C. Hoyt, Nathaniel Butler, and Solomon P. Goodrich were chosen the first trustees. In October of the year of Rev. Mr. Dodd's death (1804) Rev. James Carnahan came to take the charge, though it was not until the following January that he was ordained and installed. If the former is remembered with gratitude for his earnest piety and his faithful dis- charge of the pastoral office the latter is held in deeper and more gen- eral respect, because to these high merits he added also a natural vigor of intellect and a ripeness of scholarship which gave him rank among the foremost of his calling, and in after years gained him distinction as president of Princeton College.
James Carnahan was born in Cumberland County, Pa., November 15, 1775,and having been trained by one who was an exceptionally fine class- ical scholar he entered the College of New Jersey and was graduated therefrom in 1800, serving it next as tutor. He was licensed in 1804,
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and after brief periods of service in New Jersey and Pennsylvania he accepted a call from the United Society with a salary of $700, at the same time declining a salary of $1,500 from the Dutch Church of Albany. On the 5th of January, 1805, he was ordained and installed pastor of the United Churches. Preaching alternately in Whitesboro and in Utica his place of worship in the latter village was at first in the school-house on Main street, then in the new edifice of Trinity until the congregation provided a building of their own. Measures for this pur- pose were taken early in his pastorate, a lot being given by John Bel- linger on the sole condition that he should have a pew in the church. This lot was situated on the corner of Washington and Liberty streets. The building was begun at once and finished in the summer of 1807. Up to the year 1807 the whole number of persons received into com- munion with the church was one hundred and twenty-one, of whom only eighty-eight were then in actual fellowship, and of these not more than one-half, and probably not more than one-third, were residents of Utica. It is not forgotten that Dr. Carnahan was foremost in the organization of the Oneida Bible Society, that powerful agent for the spiritual good of this newly- settled region. In 1821, two years before he was chosen president of Princeton, he received from Hamilton Col- lege, of which he was already a trustee, the degree of Doctor of Divin- ity. His dismission from this charge took place November 4, 1812.
On the 3d of February, 1813, the United Church was divided ; fifty- seven of its members, with two elders, were by act of the Presbytery constituted a church, which took the title of the First Utica Presbyterian Society. On the following day, February 4th, Rev. Henry Dwight, who had temporarily supplied the two pulpits, was ordained and in- stalled their minister. Mr. Dwight-by turns merchant, minister, and banker, a devout, humble, and most useful man, and a prince of pastors -served the church about as long as Mr. Carnahan and was then dis- abled from the same cause. He was born in Springfield, Mass., June 25, 1783. He graduated from Yale in 1801 and began his professional studies in New Haven with Rev. Dr. Dwight, finishing at Princeton Theological Seminary. About six weeks after the settlement of Mr. Dwight Rev. John Frost was ordained over the church at Whitesboro, and thus the independence of the two societies was established, though
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FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
by vote of their respective trustees the ministers continued to exchange pulpits for a considerable period. Almost immediately Mr. Dwight began to reap from the sowing of his predecessor, and ere long his own faithful labors were crowned with yet happier results. No communion season passed without some accessions, and in one year more than 100 were added to the previously small number of communicants under his care. It was not long before the modest church edifice was insufficient for the congregation and in 1815 it was elongated by the addition of about one-quarter to its length, and this, with a porch at the end, some- what marred its architectural proportions. Within it was still more unique, for its sentry box of a pulpit was perched against the wall in the middle of the north side and had a canopy or sounding-board above, while the pews were for the most part so placed as to look one-half westward and one-half eastward, a few square ones being immediately in front of the pulpit and a few long ones under the chorister's gallery on the south side.
The ministry was Dr. Dwight's delight, but after less than five years exercise of it, and when the number of his church members had in- creased from 57 to 222, the failure of his voice compelled his reluct- ant return to secular pursuits. Upon the departure of Mr. Dwight the congregation extended a call to Rev. Samuel C. Aikin. He was born in Windham, Vt., was graduated at Middlebury College, and entering Andover Seminary completed his theological course in 1817. After his graduation he was employed a few months in mission- ary work in the city of New York and came thence to Utica. His or- dination and installation took place on the 4th of February, 1818. As a preacher Mr. Aikin at once became popular. He was in person com- manding and dignified, his voice was sonorous and pleasing, and, like his gesticulation, had been skillfully cultivated ; to these qualities he added clearness and finish of diction, an engaging address, and an earnestness which arose at times to eloquence. That his ministrations were fraught with good we may judge by the fact that within a little more than a year after they were begun the church was blessed with a fruitful revival and 113 persons were added to its communion. In 182I a session or conference room for the use of the society was erected on Hotel street, which was also used by the Sunday school.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
It was enlarged four years later by the addition of a second story at the expense of the Sunday school. The church was not supplied with an organ until 1824, when one was placed in the south gallery. In the latter part of the year 1823, the congregation having become so large that all the seats below and many in the gallery were taken up, and the cares of the minister being deemed too onerous for him to bear alone, it was determined to appoint him an assistant, who, if thought advisable, should organize a new society. Rev. S. W. Brace, then settled in Phelps, Ontario County, was called and arrived in February, 1824. For a time he preached alternately with the regular pastor and next in the session room of the church on Hotel street. Here a new society was formed May 6, 1824, as related further on. A few months later it was proposed by Mr. Aikin's congregation that a new edifice be erected. The proposal to build, and to build a large and handsome church, re- ceived general concurrence. Liberal subscriptions were made and a large number of pews were sold while the building was yet in contem- plation, the amount of $2,000 being assessed on these pews. In the summer of 1826 the plans of Philip Hooker, of Albany, were accepted and the foundations of the new edifice laid twelve feet north of the old one. On the 8th of November, 1827, the new building was formally dedicated. It was a substantial brick structure surmounting a basement of stone; it was 72 feet by 106 with a steeple 208 feet high. The basement contained a session room and two large rooms for the male and female departments of the Sunday school. The auditorium was roomy and well lighted, and over the pulpit was an organ fifteen by ten feet in dimensions and having twelve stops. For many years this fine Ionic edifice surpassed in magnitude and convenience any church structure in Central and Western New York. The old church was neither torn down nor burned up; it was dismembered and some of its parts still stand.
The most notable event in this era of the history of the Presby- terian Church was a great revival which occurred in the year 1826, chiefly through the evangelical labors of the Rev. Charles G. Finney. Crowds attended his administrations and the effects of his work were felt throughout the county. The probable number of converts in Utica was about 500 ; in the county at large they were reckoned at more than
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FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
3,000. Differences of opinion respecting the character of Mr. Finney and the influences of his labor tended to mar the harmony of the con- gregation, and to this source of disagreement between the pastor and his people were added the questions of Sunday mails and anti-slavery, on both of which Mr. Aikin was in advance of the sentiment then gen- erally prevailing ; but none of these questions caused anything like an open rupture, and when, therefore, he decided to accept a call to the Presbyterian Church of Cleveland, O., his decision was received with profound regret by his congregation. He left them in May, 1835. Mr. Aikin was succeeded by Rev. John W. Fowler, May 9, 1836, who came from Binghamton ; he was deposed from his office and retired June 15, 1841. Rev. Charles S. Porter, previously of New York, be- came pastor March 23, 1842. He remained only till November 18, 1844. His call had been unacceptable to many and a considerable number of families withdrew from the congregation. He was succeeded by Rev. William H. Spencer, then a licentiate, January 13, 1846. He removed to Milwaukee, September 24, 1850, and afterward accepted the secretaryship of the Presbyterian Committee of Publication and died while pastor of the Westminster Church, Chicago. Rev. Philemon H. Fowler, D.D., previously of the Second Church, Washington, D. C., and next of the First Church of Elmira, N. Y., began his labors here on the Ist of January, 1851. As a scholar, as a gentleman, as a Christian, as a pastor, as a philanthropist, as a man of affairs he possessed qualities of a high order, and wherever he moved he won recognition as a leader of men. Dr. Fowler was born in Albany, February 9, 1814, and grad- uated from Hobart College, Geneva, in 1832, and from the Theological Seminary at Princeton, N. J., in 1836. After a pastorate in Washing- ton and one in Elmira he came here and was installed February 10th. For nearly a quarter of a century he served this church admirably and so as to bear his sheaves with him in any reckoning of fidelity and efficiency. His scholarship was broad ; he was naturally a student ; but he deemed nothing pertaining to humanity alien to himself; he ex- emplified in many respects the ideal Christian pastor. He was a tower of strength and a beacon light to Presbyterianism here in Central New York, and he did a strong man's share in behalf of morality, education, and true progress. Among the most distinguished men who have
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
brought honor to the pulpit of Utica not one in any denomination has lived a purer life, has been a broader type of manhood, has had higher aims, has left behind him better fruit of his ministry or the perfume of a more saintly influence. He was also an active and influential mem- ber of the committee which led the way in the reunion of the Presby- terian Church, and he was the last moderator of the new school assembly which adopted the plan ; in 1870 he preached before the first assembly of the United Church. His long and useful service he closed on the 4th of February, 1874. He died December 9, 1879. Of his two sons and two daughters the latter alone remain.
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