USA > New York > Oneida County > Utica > Memorial history of Utica, N.Y. : from its settlement to the present time > Part 46
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On January 2, 1851, John M. Jones, of New York city, published the first number of Y Drych (The Mirror), the first weekly Welsh news- paper printed in America. In December, 1854, he 'sold it to a stock
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
company. In a couple of years it passed into the hands of J. W. Jones, then to J. Mather Jones, and is now owned by Thomas J. Griffith, who has printed it in Utica for nearly twenty years. J. W. Jones be- came one of its editors in its second or third year and has been its chief editor (except for a short time) ever since. J. C. Roberts has been as- sociated with him for about twelve years. In the beginning of 1854 a stock company in Utica started Y Gwyliedydd Americanaidd ( The American Watchman). It was printed at the office of the Utica Herald until 1855, when it was bought by Y Drych Company. In 1868 another stock company established the Baner American in Scranton, Pa., and published it for several years. It was sold in 1877 to T. J. Grif- fith, proprietor of Y Drych, with which paper it was merged. Y Drych is the oldest Welsh newspaper in the world. One was established before it in Liverpool, but was afterward merged in a later one. Both directly and indirectly it has been of incalculable benefit to the Welsh people. Its literary standard has always been high, and under its present editors will compare favorably with any newspaper in the same language pub- lished anywhere. It has a circulation in all parts of the world. In addition to the above described weekly newspaper two Welsh monthly magazines are issued in Utica.
The Church Eclectic, a monthly magazine of church literature and ecclesiastical miscellany, is the title of a new enterprise by Rev. W. T. Gibson, D.D., then rector of St. George's Church, Utica. The first number was issued March 1, 1873, in a thin pamphlet of thirty-two pages, and the publication has continued to the present time (Vol. xix., No. 10), enlarged to 100 pages octavo. Its object was announced as intended to do for church literature what the Living Age and similar publications are doing for secular literature, without infringing on the functions of the weekly religious press. It has, however, in addition to its choice selections from foreign periodicals, published many editorial and other original contributions by some of the oldest writers in the church, besides having a department for correspondence, book notices, and notes and comments on current events. It has already had a longer existence than any other monthy of the Episcopal Church except the Spirit of Missions.
A monthly paper known as the Christian Worker is issued by the
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JOURNAL OF INSANITY - EVENING TELEGRAPH.
Woman's Christian Association in the interests of Christian and chari- table work. It contains lists of the officers of the charitable societies of the city and is otherwise made up of original and selected matter. Its editor is Mrs. S. W. Crittenden.
The American Journal of Insanity is a quarterly journal devoted to the consideration of mental disease and its treatment, which had its origin with Dr. Amariah Brigham, the first superintendent of the State Hospital in 1844. It is conducted by the superintendent of this insti- tution and his assistants, receiving aid also from other alienist physicians, and has been issued continuously by the successive officers of the hos- pital from its beginning to the present time.
The papers thus far sketched are now in existence. Those which fol- low are no longer issued.
The Evening Telegraph, an independent daily paper, was started on May 1, 1851, by T. R. McQuade & Co., the Co. representing James McIver, who was the responsible editor. It was aided by several cor- respondents, among whom were James and John McQuade, brothers of Thomas R., Judge Smith, R. B. Miller, J. S. Henshaw, Erastus Clark, Dr. Edwin Hutchinson, H. H. Fish, etc. Mr. McIver left the city in 1856, when James McQuade became the editor and continued as such until 1861, when he entered the army. Next Henry W. Chase had charge of it. In the fall of the year 1863 it was sold to F. A. Crandall and continued for a long time, when it passed into the hands of D. T. Ritchie, who like the former had been one of the staff of the Utica Herald. The paper came to its end in the summer of the year 1865. It was a sprightly and enterprising journal, was ably edited, and en- joyed a good circulation.
The Gospel Messenger, the organ of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Western New York, was founded by Dr. John Churchill Rudd in 1827, less than a year after he came to Auburn from New York to take charge of St. Peter's Church in that village. The first number of the paper is dated Auburn, Saturday, January 20, 1827. It was a sheet of four pages (91/2 × 131/2 inches) with four columns (23/8 inches) to each page. It was started with the strong approval and support of Bishop Hobart, whose death took place while on a subsequent visit to Auburn at Dr. Rudd's parsonage, September 12, 1830. About the year 1846
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
Dr. Rudd removed with the paper to Utica, where he died November 15, 1848, after which for a short interval the paper was cared for by Rev. Dr. Leeds, then rector of Grace Church, Utica. Bishop De Lancey, then succeeding to the ownership of the paper by arrangement with the heirs of Dr. Rudd, " assigned " it over to Rev. Dr. William A. Matson as " editor and proprietor," who conducted it down to the year 1860, when he resigned the position and removed from the city. Bishop De Lancey then made the same arrangement with Rev. William T. Gibson, D.D. (1862), who then became editor and proprietor from January, 1861, and continued as such until January, 1872, Bishop De Lancey having died April 5, 1865, and the new diocese of Central New York having been set off in 1868. In January, 1872, the Gospel Messenger was re- moved to Syracuse and conducted by the recently elected bishop of Central New York, the Rt. Rev. F. D. Huntington, until November of that year, when it was merged into the Church Journal of New York, which in its turn was a few years after merged into the present Church- man. This paper was once extensively circulated, not only in Central and Western New York, but throughout many of the newer States of the West.
It remains to note by name only a few of the earlier issues, chiefly de- nominational, of Utica.
There were the Utica Christian Magazine, published by a com- mittee composed of Congregational and Presbyterian ministers and printed by Merrell & Camp, 1814-15; the Christian Repository, a monthly printed by William Williams, 1822-28 ; the Western Recorder, 1823-28, a weekly published by Merrell & Hastings and having two or three different editors ; the Baptist Register, a weekly started by Rev. E. F. Willey and Elon Galusha, and continued for several years by Rev. A. M. Beebee; in 1855 it was removed to New York and consolidated with the Examiner and Chronicle ; the Utica Evangelical Magazine and in a new series termed the Magazine and Advocate, owned and edited by Rev. Dolphas Skinner in behalf of Universalism, 1827-31 ; the Western Sunday School Visitant, 1826-28 ; the Friend of Man ; the Teetotaller ; the Mechanics Press ; the Uticanian ; the Mother's Magazine, 1833; and the Club, by Henry Goodfellow, esq., 1814-15.
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SEATS OF THE EARLY COURTS.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF UTICA.
T HE earliest courts of the county of Oneida were held at various places, as at New Hartford, Rome, and Whitesboro, and after 1803 more especially at the two latter places, since in that year these were made half-shire towns of the county. Utica had no building suit- ably adapted for their sessions until after the academy was completed in 1818. This building it has been seen was intended for the joint pur- poses of a school, a court-house, and a town hall, and was taken in charge by the trustees of the village, who soon presented a request that the sessions of the Supreme and of the United States Courts should be held within it. By a legislative act of April 21, 1818, the justices of the Supreme Court were authorized to hold terms of the Circuit Court and Court of Oyer and Terminer, between the regular terms of August and January, at such places in the county as they should deem proper, and it appears that they were held at Rome, Whitestown, and Utica. About this time it was ordered that a session of the United States Dis- trict and of the Supreme Court of the State should be held in the acad- emy at Utica.
A visitor who attended the October term of the latter held in Utica in the year 1820 saw there a full bench, Chief Justice Spencer pre- siding, flanked by Judges Van Ness and Platt on his right and Judges Yates and Woodworth on the left. The bar was filled with lawyers of the first ability and reputation, including Aaron Burr, Thomas J. Oak- ley, Martin Van Buren, Elisha Williams, etc., the last two named being opposed in a trial.
Another old-time resident has not forgotten the forming of the pro- cession in the vicinity of Bagg's Square which was to escort the United States district judge to the court-house. The constabulary with the marshal and his deputies preceded the lawyers, who were followed by the judge in his robes.
On the 4th of February, 1836, "an act relative to the county jails,
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
County Courts, and Courts of Oyer and Terminer in the county of Oneida " was passed by the legislature. One of the provisions declared that " in case one of the new jails shall be located in Utica the County Courts, now required by law to be held at Whitestown, shall be held in the court.room of the building called the academy in Utica. Under this act the academy served as a court-house until the erection of the present court-house in 1850-51.
The Bench and Bar of Oneida County have from an early period been highly estimated both at home and abroad, and in this estimate the law- yers and the judges of Utica have held a full share. Such of the law- yers as have been chiefly conspicuous in public stations or in the affairs of city and county, and have been noteworthy rather as politicians or else as men of affairs, active promoters of the enterprise of the place than as advocates or presiders in the courts, have been already noticed. In this chapter it is proposed to sketch those chiefly who, restricting themselves more closely to the line of professional duty, have obtained notoriety as jurists, advocates, and judges. While others that have preceded in our narrative have shared with them in their legal and forensic engage- ments these have been mostly typical of our former bench and bar.
Nathan Williams was without doubt the first lawyer to permanently locate in Utica, where he afterward became eminent in his profession. He was born in Williamstown, Mass., December 19, 1773, and although it is not positively known when he first came to Utica it is believed to have been not later than 1797. At the first term of the Common Pleas, held in Oneida County in 1798, he was admitted to practice in the court; he had already been admitted to the bar in Herkimer County. In the same year he was admitted to the courts of Chenango County and was appointed district attorney of that county in 1802. He soon com- manded a large practice, although it is said of him that he habitually aided his clients to avoid law suits rather than undertake them. His biographer says of him : " Prompt and exemplary in all that related to local or general benevolence his contributions of time, influence, and property entered largely into nearly every measure that elevated the town of his adoption. At an early period of his residence he assisted in the establishment of a well selected public library. Of this he was for many years librarian." He was active in religious affairs and zeal-
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NATHAN WILLIAMS - ERASTUS CLARK.
ously co-operated in the organization of Trinity Church, of which he was warden. He was president of the village corporation and president of the Manhattan Bank. In the War of 1812 he gave freely of his in- fluence and energies to uphold the cause of the government, and even left his business to march with the volunteers to Sacket's Harbor, then under command of his brother-in-law, Gen. Jacob Brown. He was district attorney of the Sixth District in 1801-03 and again of Oneida County in 1818-21 ; was representative in Congress in 1805-07; and member of Assembly in 1816, 1818, and 1819. He was also a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1821. He was appointed in April, 1823, to the responsible office of Circuit judge and held the position for many years. " As a judge," says his biographer, " his addresses were fervently moral. Few men could attend his court in any capacity and not obtain instruction in the duties of life and encouragement for their cultivation." Every part of his life was filled up with something to render his memory dear to his kindred and honored by his country. At the age of sixty years he resigned his office of Circuit judge and a few months before his death he removed to Geneva upon receiving the appointment of clerk of the Supreme Court. His death occurred Sep- tember 25, 1835. Of his family, which was a large one, nearly all are now deceased. Three daughters are still residents.
Erastus Clark, son of Dr. John Clark, was born in Lebanon, Conn., on the IIth of May, 1763. He was one of the earliest attorneys of Oneida County and located in Utica in 1797. He was a graduate of Dartmouth College, and after diligent study of the law and admission to the bar he removed to Clinton in 1791 and there began practice. His learning, his industry, and above all his character for probity grad- ually raised him to a high rank in his profession. In the early village of Utica he was called to various offices of public trust; was elected a village trustee under the charter of 1805, held the office many years, and was also among the earlier local presidents. In 1817, when a new and enlarged charter was accorded the village, he was again called to guide in its administration. In the meantime he had twice represented his district in the State Assembly. Associated with Alexander Hamil- ton, Egbert Benson, Jonas Platt, Thomas R. Gold, and others he was named a trustee in the original charter of Hamilton College. And yet
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
so long as he lived few of his profession were more diligent at the court or more relied on for the wisdom and soundness of their legal counsel. For, although he was not endowed with the fascination of popular elo- quence, in the learning of the law he was unsurpassed. The following estimate of the character of Mr. Clark was written by Judge Jonas Platt :
" For originality and decision of character his name was proverbial. An enlightened conscience was his habitual guide ; and if from precip- itancy or irritation his head sometimes erred there was a redeeming principle in his heart which reclaimed and regulated his erring judgment and passions with magnetic influence. His frankness was sometimes ill- timed and excessive. What others thought he spoke, and this naked and unreserved habit of mind and expression frequently gave offence when he was not conscious of it, and sometimes betrayed apparent vanity. But of no other man can it be more truly said that those who knew him best esteemed him most. His liberal charity and his generous spirit in pro- moting benevolent objects and public institutions were ever leading and conspicuous, while no man was less indulgent to his own appetites or more self-denying in his pleasures and personal gratifications. His habit of living was simple, plain, and frugal ; and yet his house was the abode of cheerful, cordial, and familiar hospitality. In the more inti- mate and tender relations of domestic life the virtues of this excellent man shone with peculiar luster. His religious character was free from ostentation, but uniform, consistent, sincere, and ardent." Mr. Clark died November 7, 1825. His daughters are deceased. His son and namesake is living.
Francis A. Bloodgood, admitted as an attorney of the Supreme Court on August 5, 1790, made his début before a Fort Schuyler audience on the anniversary of our nation's independence, 1797. He was a native of Albany and a graduate of Union College. Two years later he was ap- pointed county clerk, and in that office he accomplished what was almost his life-work. He was a village trustee in 1805 and on the organization of the Bank of Utica became one of its trustees. In 1810, as senator,. he represented the district at Albany, where he was a zealous follower of De Witt Clinton. He died in Ithaca, whither he removed about 1823.
Judge Morris S. Miller, born in 1780, was a son of Dr. Matthias Bur- nett Miller, of Long Island. He graduated from Union College with.
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MORRIS S. MILLER.
valedictorian honors in 1798, and studied law with Cornelius Wendell, of Cambridge, Washington County, and then became private secretary to Governor Jay. Upon his arrival in Utica in 1806 Mr. Miller began the practice of his profession and being a man of decided ability, well versed in the law, and conciliating in manner he soon established him- self in the public confidence. Within two years he was made president of the village and within four years he received the appointment of first judge of the county. The latter office he continued to hold by successive re-appointments until his decease, discharging its duties with credit and public approval. In 1813-15 he represented his district in the thirteenth Congress. His first speech received the warm commend-
ation of John Randolph. By it and by others directed likewise against the war measures of the administration he gained some reputation. He was then a Federalist, but some years later he deserted his former po- litical friends and became a Bucktail Democrat, being one of the so- called " high minded gentlemen " who opposed the nomination of De Witt Clinton. In July, 1819, Judge Miller was sent by Mr. Calhoun to Buffalo to represent the United States government at the negotiation of a treaty between the Seneca Indians and the proprietors of the Sen- eca Reservation. Besides the offices we have mentioned and a trustee- ship in Hamilton College he held other places of trust and honor. For his public spirit and liberality were active and his merit acknowl- edged ; capable and conscientious, intelligent and refined, courteous to all, and hospitable almost to excess he was deservedly esteemed and his standing was one of mark and influence. A striking trait in his character was his attachment to the Episcopal Church, an attachment not hastily formed, but the result of a rational, diligent, and well ma- tured inquiry ; yet whilst he valued his church before every other he freely conceded to all that liberty of conscience which he required for himself, and willingly co-operated with those of a different faith in ef- forts to promote good morals and extend evangelical religion. An el- derly person lately deceased relates the following incident : "I happened to be at Rome in the winter of 1815-16 where the judge was holding the Court of Common Pleas. A trial was going on which excited much interest, and in which two important witnesses had been examined on opposite sides of the case, whose testimony was so directly opposed to
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
each other's that either one or the other must have been perjured. Judge Miller, in his eloquent charge to the jury, said they must recon- cile the lamentable conflict of testimony the best way they could to se- cure the ends of justice, and so warmly expressed his feelings in wit- nessing such an unfortunate scene of human frailty as to draw tears, not from himself alone, but from the whole audience." It may be added that he was prompt in his affairs, neat to fastidiousness in his person and his grounds, and though neither tall nor spare, being rather mid- way of extremes, his frame was both delicately and firmly knit and his features regular and pleasing. Throughout his residence he managed the interests of the Bleecker family in Utica, an estate which was
thought to be worth $400,000, and of this Mrs. Miller owned one-quar- ter. They occupied the house at the lower end of Main street, already spoken of as the earlier residence of Peter Smith and also of James S. Kip. It was a two-story house of wood, painted yellow, and having a piazza on the front or north end. The grounds about it were ample and the garden well stocked with fruit trees, especially the Bleecker or orange plum, which the judge first introduced here from Albany. Free as he was in dispensing this choice plum among the gardens of his neigh- bors he was equally free in disseminating the products of his extensive orchard of grafted apples. This orchard filled the space now bounded by West, Rutger, Steuben, and South streets, and from it any farmer who would be at the trouble to plant them might take fifty young trees. Before his death Judge Miller had made preparations to build at the head of John street, had put out the shrubbery and shade trees, and had erected a wall in front of the site where his son, Rutger B. Miller, erected in 1830 the fine stone mansion which now forms the central building of the Rutger place. His death occurred while he was still in the prime of his years, November 19, 1824.
Thomas Emmons Clark was born February II, 1788, at Colchester, Conn., and began practice in Utica in 1811. He was a graduate of Union College, studied law with Judge Jonas Platt, of Whitesboro, and was admitted to the bar in the fall of 1811. As a lawyer the merits of Mr. Clark surpassed his reputation. If he was less conspicuous as a speaker than some of his illustrious peers of the Oneida bar he made up in solid acquirements and strong native sense what he lacked of
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THOMAS E. CLARK - JOSEPH KIRKLAND.
more showy qualities. He was rather learned than brilliant, rather given to convincing the understanding than exciting the imagination. He was a large reader, a laborious and profound scholar, a man with whom it was impossible to come in contact without feeling the impress of his learning and his worth. His knowledge of the classics as of the law was thorough, while he was largely versed in metaphysics, the- ology, and the Bible. He was singularly unambitious and unaffected. Earnest for his client he never thought of himself or uttered anything merely for effect. Without the least assumption of dignity there was in him a dash and a directness of purpose that were equally evident in his brusque, noisy talk and wholesome laugh, his headlong gait, and his swift and all but unreadable writing. He was a member of the As- sembly in 1828 and of the Senate in 1848-49; of the Presbyterian and afterward of the Dutch Reformed Church he was long an elder and a Bible-class teacher. He died April 14, 1857. His daughter, Mrs. George W. Wood, is the only survivor of his family.
While Oneida was still a part of Herkimer there settled within its borders a young lawyer who was acknowledged at once as an equal among the best of his associates at the bar, and who since then, not more by rare excellence in his calling than by weighty sense and energy in action, uprightness, purity, and benevolence of conduct, and much effective and unselfish official service, has made the name of Joseph Kirkland suggestive to all of virtue, usefulness, power, and honor. At the first term of Common Pleas held in the county after its organiza . tion, in company with Thomas R. Gold, Jonas Platt, Erastus Clark, Na- than Williams, Arthur Breese, and others, all of whom had practiced in the courts of Herkimer, he was admitted to the same privilege in Oneida and together with those enumerated he was appointed to report a system of rules for the court. Mr. Kirkland, by his unremitting ap- plication, tenacity of purpose, and an integrity that amid the fierce collisions of legal competition was never called in question, soon rose to an eminent rank. In 1801 he ran as a candidate for delegate to the State Constitutional Convention and received as many votes as his op- ponent, Henry Huntington, of Rome, though the seat was accorded to the latter. In 1803 he was chosen by the Federal party to represent them in the State Assembly. Of his career while here it may be said,
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
as of his like experience in later years, that no man ever sent from the county carried with him and preserved more completely the confidence of his constituents. From February, 1813, to February, 1816, he dis- charged with ability and faithfulness the duties of district attorney for the Sixth District. That these duties involved much labor and care, in addition to no small amount of professional skill and acquirement, we are assured when we consider that this district then comprised Herki- mer, Otsego, Chenango, Madison, Lewis, and Jefferson as well as Oneida Counties.
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