USA > New York > Oneida County > Utica > Memorial history of Utica, N.Y. : from its settlement to the present time > Part 42
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St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church (German) was organized in 1842 by Rev. Joseph Prost. The first house of worship was a frame building purchased from one of the Methodist congregations of the city, and located on Fayette street. The congregation grew rapidly and in 1855 a fine two- story brick building was erected and used as a school. In 1874 the old frame church on Fayette street was torn down and the handsome new brick church edifice erected on Columbia street. It is built in the Romanesque style, has two towers, and is 200 feet long. Its erection extended from 1869 to 1873, under the pastorate of the late Father Alpheus Zoller, of the Fathers Minor Conventual of St. Francis, who took charge of the congregation in 1858 ; the church will seat 2,000 persons. In 1878 a new convent was built on the east side of the church and in 1885 a spacious brick school house was erected. The latter has eight school rooms, with an attendance of 500 children under the charge of one male teacher and six sisters of the Order of St. Francis. There is now in course of erection a commodious convent
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for the school sisters on Fayette street. In the Sabbath school are 240 scholars. The present pastor is Rev. Clement Luitz, who is assisted by the fathers of the order. The congregation owns a fine cemetery. There are 600 families connected with the church.
St. Patrick's Catholic Church was organized on the natal day of its patron saint, March 17, 1850. Services were held at first in a building (now a part of St. Elizabeth's Hospital) erected for the purpose on Col- umbia street west of Varick. The first pastor was Rev. Patrick Car- raher. When he first came to the parish he inaugurated a movement to secure a new church. A lot was purchased on the corner of Colum- bia and Huntington streets, and on July 30, 1851, the corner-stone of an edifice 120 x 64 feet was laid. The building was of brick and cost $30,000. Rev. John McDonald, the present pastor, succeeded to the charge in October, 1888, Father Carraher having resigned after a pas- torate of over forty years. He died in October, 1890. In November, 1890, fire destroyed the church building and services have since been held in the old school-house near the church site on Columbia street, which has been the property of St. Patrick's Church for many years. In March, 1886, the church property was sold on a mortgage foreclos- ure, Father Carraher being the purchaser, and its affairs are still in liti- gation. The congregation numbers 1,500 and there are 225 children in the Sunday school.
The present edifice of St. Mary's Catholic Church (German) was pur- chased in 1870 by the first pastor of the congregation, Rev. G. Veith, from the German Lutheran Church on South street. It is located at the corner of South street and Taylor avenue. Two years after the pur- chase Father Veith was succeeded by Rev. J. B. Eis, who remained only six months, and was followed by Rev. H. Fehlings, who was appointed by the bishop of the diocese in 1873. During his ministration a rectory was added to the church on a lot adjoining on South street. The church building has been enlarged and with its various additions now assumes the form of a cross. Connected with this socicty is a parochial school numbering over 100 children, and three benevolent societies- the Society of St. Boniface, the Society of St. Aloysius, and the Society of St. Stanilaus. A cemetery is owned by the congregation. Two hundred German families are connected with the church and the pres- ent pastor is Rev. Andrew Lindenfeld.
ST. FRANCIS DE SALES AND ST. AGNES CHURCHES. 447
In April, 1877, Rev. Father McNierney, bishop of the diocese, gave letters of instruction to Rev. Luke G. O'Reilly, then assistant of St. John's parish, authorizing him to organize a new parish of all that sec- tion east of Genesee street and south of South street, to be known as the Church of St. Francis de Sales (Roman Catholic). About 300 members of St. John's parish who lived in this district met at first in a school- house, which was placed at their disposal by the city authorities. Within a year after the establishment of the parish the building located on Steu- ben street near South street, which had been one of the public school edi- fices, was purchased, entirely remodeled and beautified, and by the liber- ality of the members of the parish paid for. Father O'Reilly has been in charge of this parish from the beginning and is still the pastor. Persist- ent efforts were made from the first to get a good church edifice and a suitable site was finally secured at the corner of Eagle street and Summit avenue (lately High street). Ten years from its organization the church had completed the erection of a beautiful brick building and parochial residence. The property is valued at $75,000. The church is in the Romanesque style of architecture, with one tower, and will seat 1,000 persons. Father O'Reilly is assisted by Rev. Bartholomew Stack. The congregation numbers 1,000 communicants and there are 300 scholars in the Sunday school.
In 1886 a Sunday school was established by members from St. John's Church in the old public school building in Mary street, which was soon afterward turned into a Catholic school. In May, 1887, a new Roman Catholic parish was formed of all that section east of Mohawk street and called St. Agnes. Rev. John J. Toomey, who had been assistant at St. John's for five years, was appointed pastor over this district, services were begun, and steps were taken toward the erection of a church building. A lot was secured at the corner of Blandina street and Kossuth avenue and the corner-stone of the church was laid in July, 1887, the services being conducted by Rt. Rev. Bishop Ludden, while Father Lynch of St. John's preached the historical sermon. Father Toomey died June 13, 1891, and Rev. Michael O'Reilly, of Pompey, N. Y., was appointed his successor. The church services have been held in the basement thus far, but the completion of the building will be rapidly pushed forward. There are about 2,000 persons in the congregation.
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The first Hebrew congregation in Utica was organized in 1848 with Rabbi Ellsner as leader. They worshiped in rooms hired for the pur- pose on Hotel street. In 1852-53 the congregation was re-organized with Rabbi Rosenthal as pastor. They built a small frame edifice on Bleecker street for a synagogue. These services did not continue long, the records showing that from 1855 to 1870 the congregation had no place of worship. In 1870 a synagogue was built on Whitesboro street and chartered in the name of the House of Jacob. It was a frame build- ing seating 300 persons. Rabbi Sapero then officiated and was suc- ceeded by Revs. Jacob Hess, L. Eisenberg, A. Sinai, H. Lavine, N. Ticken, D. Lavine, L. Sher, and H. Friedlander, the present rabbi, who came in May, 1891. In 1882, during the pastorate of Rabbi Sinai, the synagogue was sold to Solomon Griffiths, and July 22d a church standing at No. II Seneca street was bought from the Moriah Welsh Church for $7,000. The present attendance is about 200. The president is P. Ga- linski ; trustees, Joseph Lipstein, B. Jacobson, and N. Levi.
On December 7, 1888, Levi Lyons, Elias Marulsky, and David Roth- stein purchased from the city a school-house at the corner of Whites- boro and Washington streets for $2,715. These men formerly wor- shiped with the House of Jacob. A congregation was soon gathered at the school- house and January 5, 1889, an organization was effected and a charter obtained. They took the name House of Israel. The first president was Levi Lyons; vice-president, Elias Marulsky; and these officers are acting at present. During the year 1889 repairs to the amount of $3,000 were made upon the building, which seats 375 persons. Rev. Morris Coplin was the first rabbi; his successor was Rev. Birnie Lavine, the present rabbi, who came to the synagogue August 15, 1890. The membership is about fifty. A small Sunday school is held in the basement in connection with the synagogue.
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EARLIEST SCHOOLS.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SCHOOLS AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOL LIBRARY.
T HE first school in Utica (then Old Fort Schuyler) of which we have any account was kept in a building on the south side of Main street about midway between First and Second. This old school-house, once the sanctuary of the fathers and the seat of learning for their sons, as well as the ordinary place of assembly for secular as well as sacred purposes, still exists, now degraded to a shed. Its longer side was once parallel with the street. It has since been wheeled around so that it now stands endwise with the street. The seats were in part slabs of rough boards without backs, and resting on logs inserted in auger holes. The teacher was ensconced in a seat to the left of the entrance. As a place of worship the building was used until the completion of Trinity Church in 1806, when for a brief period the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians worshiped there alternately. As a school-house and for town meetings it held out a little longer, but after the inauguration of two grammar schools farther up town, and after its stove and lamp had been sold at auction in 1808, its usefulness had departed. The teacher in charge in 1797 was Joseph Dana, who is well spoken of as a good in- structor, remarkable for the order and discipline he maintained. He was succeeded by one Clark, and he by Roswell Holcomb about 1804, the same who twenty years later was in charge of the free school that sprang up afterward. In 1805 we hear of another teacher, Gideon Wil- coxson, but he soon took to the law and became elsewhere prominent therein. In 1807 Jonathan Child presided over a school that was kept in the Welsh Church on the corner of Washington and Whitesboro streets, but his stay was short.
In 1808 Eliasaph Dorchester was teaching in the Welsh Church while his rival, David R. Dixon, occupied a building which stood where Grace Church now is, and which, besides serving as a school-house, became now the place of assemblage for the trustees of the village. Mr. Dixon had graduated at Yale College in 1807, only a short time 57
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before he began his school. In February, 1811, he opened an evening school for instruction in singing while continuing his grammar school through the day: At the same time he was privately carrying on a course of study in divinity. This he prosecuted under the direction of Rev. Mr. Carnahan. In 1813 he left the place. As a teacher Mr. Dixon was capable and good tempered. His school was the Federal one in contrast with that of Mr. Dorchester, whose patrons were found among the Democratic families. Among his pupils he had two who were subsequently admirals in the navy, two State senators, an eminent portrait and genre painter, and others scarcely less celebrated.
Thomas Colling during the years 1810-II kept a night school. In the year 1813 a private school was in operation which was known as the Juvenile Academy. It was kept in the third story of the building situated on the north corner of Broad and Genesee streets. The room had been constructed for a Masonic hall and consisted of a tolerably sized hall and two small rooms in the rear. It was attended by many of the children of the principal families of the village, male and female, instruction being given in all the branches of a classical education as well as in the elements of English learning. The first teacher was Henry White, a gentle, fair-haired man who afterward became a minis- ter. Being taken with a fever and afterward going away to recruit the remainder of one of his years of teaching was completed by S. W. Brace, then a pupil of Hamilton College. The teacher in the year 1816 was Oded Eddy, son of the first Baptist preacher of Deerfield.
In the year 1813 nineteen citizens of Utica asked the Regents of the University to incorporate an academy to be located in their village. A charter was granted on the 28th of March in the next year, in which charter the following persons were named as trustees: Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, Arthur Breese, Talcott Camp, David W. Childs, Francis A. Bloodgood, Bryan Johnson, A. B. Johnson, Thomas Skinner, Thomas Walker, Apol- los Cooper, Solomon Wolcott, Anson Thomas, Ebenezer B. Shearman. They elected Mr. Van Rensselaer their president; Mr. Walker, treasurer ; and Mr. Shearman, secretary. They also started a subscription to raise the means with which to erect a building and create a fund that should yield an annual income of $200, for these were the preliminaries on which depended the validity of their charter. After a little fruitless ex-
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periment in favor of their design it was found necessary, as it would seem, to modify the terms of their subscription in order to give it success ; and a marginal after-thought was appended, enlarging the original purpose of a mere academic building into that of a building for the accommoda- tion of courts of justice and public meetings. Though the circulation of the subscription ceased after only about $1,600 had been subscribed the trustees formally accepted their trust, and, as we have said, requested Rev. Jesse Townshend in June, 1815, to take charge of their "infant seminary." This Mr. Townshend was born in 1766 at Andover, Conn., was graduated at Yale College in 1790, after which he prepared himself for the ministry and took charge of a church in his native State. More recently he was a teacher at Madison, Madison County. The repute of his school at the latter place had drawn thither several boys from Utica and its vicinity, and gained him a patronage which induced him to settle there. At the time of his appointment by the trustees he was teaching a grammar school in the village. Mr. Townshend remained instructor about two years and then became pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Palmyra, N. Y. With respect to his personal character it is said that " few men have lived of more uniform and undissembled piety."
In the meantime a committee of citizens proposed to the trustees, in the year 1816, to aid them in erecting a building which should subserve the joint purposes of "an academy, town-house, and court-house," and fresh subscriptions were started. At once there sprung up a famous controversy about a site for the proposed structure ; and Genesee road, Miller road, and Whitesboro road had a street fight to settle that mat- ter. The Van Rensselaers, the Bleeckers, Dudleys, and . Millers, the Coopers, Potters, and Bellingers contested it so hotly that it became necessary, as expressed in the new subscription paper, in order to "secure harmony in the village," that the subscriptions should be so made as that every subscriber to the amount of $5 should have a vote for either of two sites designated, one of which was the site finally adopted and the other a lot on Genesee street then adjoining the old Van Rensselaer homestead. On polling the votes for a site, as pro- vided in the document, 667 votes were found in favor of the site on Chancellor Square and 445 in favor of that on Genesee street, being a ma- jority of 222. The choice was strongly stimulated by an auxiliary sub-
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scription containing the significant signatures of John R. Bleecker and Charles E. Dudley, who offered two village lots valued at $500 contingent on the selection of their favorite site. The subscription amounted to $5,000, but was inadequate to finish the building and yield the requisite income of $100 a year. To this sum the village authorities at length voted an addition of $300 more, and this was followed in the summer of 1818 by a fresh subscription on which was raised $500 and by a pledge of the Dudley and Miller lots to secure the annual income. The building was finally completed in the summer of 1818. It occu- pied the site of its imposing successor. It was an unpretending brick edifice of two stories, about fifty by sixty feet with a wide hall, one large room on the north and two smaller on the south on the first floor, and the whole upper floor was the court-room. The external appear- ance of the structure was not such as would now suit favorably, al- though it was a well proportioned and symmetrical building. But it was never commodious for its purpose and was ill calculated to serve the double use it was destined to. Constables were required to stand guard during play hours to stifle urchin shouts, while the sacred silence of study hours was interrupted by the tread and turmoil of throngs of jurymen, witnesses, attorneys, and judges, to say nothing of the pleas- ant grievance of being routed out of this and that recitation room to make way for jurymen about to cast lots or toss coppers for verdicts. And thus with all its inconveniences and its hinderances it stood for over forty years without change of purpose or of plan, never lacking of a teacher or pupils, yet harboring from term to term the followers of the Supreme, the National, and the County Courts, and serving likewise the ends of citizens intent on matters of local or of general interest-a nursery for generations of youth, a hall of judgment for the wrong-doer, and a town hall for a public spirited and intelligent people.
In August, 1818, the Rev. Samuel T. Mills, a Presbyterian clergy- man, was appointed the first preceptor of the academy at a salary of $800 a year, and in October a Mr. Whiteside was chosen assistant for six months with a compensation at the rate of $300. In January, 1819, William Hayes was appointed to teach writing and arithmetic at $50 a quarter, this quarter consisting of eleven and one-half weeks. It was now determined that there should be a public examination and exhibi-
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tion every year, that the trustees should visit the school once a month in classes, and that it should be examined by the teachers at the close of each quarter. There were three classes of pupils, one of whom paid $5, one $4, and one $3 a quarter for tuition. Mr. Whiteside was suc- ceeded by Ambrose Kasson as teacher in the English department. Mr. Mills, though an earnest and worthy man, was infirm of constitution and soon resigned. His place was temporarily filled by William Spar- row, a graduate of an English or Irish university, who was a student of ' theology and a candidate for orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church, to which he was soon ordained. However skilled for a professor he was not well adapted for popularity with boys in consequence of a certain distance and air of haughtiness which forbade familiarity. For a short time in 1822 the principal teacher was Edward Aikin, brother of Rev. Samuel Aikin, who was afterward a physician. There is a gap in the records and nothing to indicate the situation of the academy until April, 1824. During that interval, or the most of it, the school was in charge of Capt. Charles Stuart as principal. He was a half-pay officer in the British East India service and had been many years in the East. He was a peculiar mixture of the severe and the playful; tremendous in his wrath and hilarious in his relaxed moods; with a most attractive smile and a thunderous volcanic frown in which there seemed to be a struggle to put down some violent passion ; withal of the most humane and tender feelings; fond of children and youth and of joining boyishly in their sports, but strict with them and often bitter in his reproofs, and terrible in his punishments of casual offences of which they did not always know the exact enormity ; particularly of those against religion, purity, and good manners. He was an earnest, energetic, enthusiastic man ; every way uncompromising; conscientious to morbidness ; and alto- gether one of the most eccentric and mystical of men. His system of instruction was eminently religious and it was so spontaneously and naturally. It is believed that he was the first teacher in this country to introduce the practice of singing a hymn in school worship.
Succeeding Mr. Stuart was Alexander Dwyer, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, accomplished both in the classics and in mathematics. His discipline was somewhat of the Busby sort, but he did not suc- ceed in administering it satisfactorily either to the recipients or their
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natural guardians. It was probably this circumstance and his cold, ungenial manners that shortened his connection with the school. A brother of his, also a Trinity College man, was his assistant.
In January, 1825, David Prentice, then principal of the academy at Oxford, Chenango County, to which he had given such a good name for thoroughness of teaching and discipline that scholars flocked to it from considerable distances, was appointed principal. He was a single- minded devotee of Latin and Greek, and spent his life in teaching them with diligence and enthusiasm. He imparted a more vigorous spirit into the management of the school, the Regents of the University now pronouncing their testimony in favor of it by saying that "it has established a public character." In November, 1828, military drill was established as an experimental regular exercise. In 1832 the school was broken up by the prevalence of the cholera and the academy build- ing, on account of its isolation, was devoted to the purposes of a hos- pital. In December, 1836, Mr. Prentice announced his intention of removing to Geneva to accept a professorship of languages in the col- lege there. He was an unobtrusive, faithful, indefatigable teacher, and was for several years a professor in Hobart College. He died in Geneva in 1859.
In December, 1836, Rev. Thomas Towel was appointed his successor in the academy. About this time a proposition was made by the trus- tees to annex the Utica Female Academy, under the charge of Miss Urania E. Sheldon, as the female department, in case she should consent. To this Miss Sheldon wisely declined. It is a suitable place to say here that female pupils had from time to time been taught in the academy as well in the languages as in other branches of instruction. Mr. Towel found it necessary to suggest that some new rules might be devised for the government of the institution, probably for the purpose of defining the relative positions of the principal and assistant teacher. The committee to which these were referred for consideration concluded that a new organization was necessary, and to make a clear field both the princi- pal and the assistant resigned their places. Mr. Towel wanted the pluck to maintain his superiority as the principal against a spirited and antagonistic asssistant and the tact requisite to manage boys.
In April, 1838, Mancer M. Backus, a former pupil of Mr. Prentice,
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who was just graduated from Columbia at the age of twenty, was made principal. He had two assistants, one of whom remained only until August. The following year George R. Perkins was appointed mathe- matical professor and William A. Barber teacher of English, and an ap- propriation was made for the purchase of books and apparatus. There was now a call for more room and in 1840 the unprecedented force of five teachers. In 1841 Henry J. Turner was engaged to teach French and Theodore W. Dwight became an assistant classical teacher. Such an appointment became necessary in consequence of the failing health of the principal. It was insufficient to respond to his energies. Under his auspices, assisted as he was by Professor Perkins, the school had taken a forward spring and reached the highest state of prosperity it had yet attained. The same day Mr. Backus resigned George R. Perkins, his associate, was appointed principal-the first instance of the appointment to that post of any person who did not claim to be qualified in classical studies. In July, 1842, George Spencer was appointed classical teacher at a time when the academy seemed to be falling off in consequence of that department not being adequately filled.
Other causes were at work tending to undermine the academy as an independent school. About this period the state of the common schools of the city began to excite a degree of attention that resulted in a com- plete reformation of the whole local system, and it was not long before the common schools gained a repute that commended them to general favor. In proportion as the new system advanced and ripened the academy seemed to languish. The ordinary branches of an English edu- cation could now be taught with such order, gradation, and efficiency, and so entirely without individual expense, that the academy had little to depend on but its Greek and Latin and the higher mathematics. It could still train pupils for a collegiate course, and that was all that it could do better than the city schools; and as its pupils diminished its resources diminished, too, until it became a struggle for bare existence.
In November, 1844, Mr. Perkins resigned as principal in order to accept an appointment in the State Normal School, when Mr. Spencer was made principal. Oren Root (now professor in Hamilton College) was selected as the teacher of mathematics, a place which he retained only a few months, when he was followed by John G. Webb. In 1848
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