USA > New York > Oneida County > Utica > Memorial history of Utica, N.Y. : from its settlement to the present time > Part 6
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Mrs. Bradstreet was a woman of vigorous natural talent, masculine in features and in temperament, though not without considerable of the
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SOME EMINENT BUSINESS MEN.
refinement and bearing of a lady. Acquiring by study a mastery of the law of real estate she was a host in herself; but she enlisted in her aid some of the ablest counsel of the State. She was herself invariably present at trial of her causes, an eager witness of every step, and a sed- ulous adviser of her advocate,
Capt. James Hopper was a native of England. For many years he was in command of vessels in the English merchant service and owned shares in them and their cargoes. Shortly after his arrival he bought considerable land on the southern borders of the village. Forty-nine acres of it were the cleared farm of Benjamin Hammond in great lot 95, which the latter had obtained from John Bellinger ; in part it was a portion of the Holland Land Company's purchase, and other smaller parts were bought of John Post, Richard Kimball, and Jonathan Evans. On this purchase Captain Hopper put up a house that he enlarged on the arrival of his family, and engaged in farming and also in tanning, both of them pursuits to which he had never been accustomed. The land which he bought increased, however, in value, and became ulti- mately, through the skillful management of his sons, a handsome estate. 1
Daniel Thomas, a merchant of reputable standing, has from that time to the present been worthily represented by descendants in city and county.
Ebenezer B. Shearman became at an early period largely interested in the manufacture of cotton goods and window glass, for the sale of which his store formed the agency. After having been one of the com- pany which in conjunction with Seth Capron set in operation at New Hartford the first cotton factory in the county he purchased the bulk of the shares and managed the institution with skill and profit. The glass that he sold was made at the Oneida glass factory in Vernon by a com- pany of which Mr. Shearman and his brother, Willet H., formed the lead- ing members. At one time he assumed the superintendency of the Utica Glass Works, situated in the town of Marcy, but relinquished it when he found that crown glass, which the company essayed to make, could not be produced cheaply enough to compete with that of English man- ufacture. By his energy and assiduous devotion to business he became independently wealthy. Nor was his enterprise expended in his own
1 See sketch of Thomas Hopper in the biographical department of this work.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
behalf merely. His interest in public affairs was conspicuous and the share considerable which he bore in the civic affairs of his time. For three successive years he was village trustee, for thirty years a trustee of the Utica Academy, and most of that time its secretary. From its foundation he was so long as he lived a director of the Utica Bank, and in 1828 he was one of the electors for President of the United States.
A few individuals of the Welch race were settled in Utica before 1801. Soon afterward they were coming in numbers and formed the only considerable foreign immigration to Oneida County which occurred at the beginning of the century. Those who were farmers dispersed them- selves over the rich hillsides of Steuben, Remsen, and Trenton, while those who had trades lingered in the villages and were universally cred- ited with being the best mechanics and especially builders of the time. Among them were Elders Abraham Williams, Joseph Harris, Daniel Morris, David Reed & Sons, the James family, Watkin Powell, Samuel George, etc.
A settler of 1802 and a very prince among his fellows was John C. Devereux, whose honorable career and many deeds of charity have left behind him a memory as verdant as that of the green isle whence he came. He was born at Enniscorthy in County Wexford on August 5, 1774, and was the son of Thomas and Catharine Corish Devereux. The family were wealthy and well connected throughout the county and lived at ease upon a handsome estate called " The Leap," from the width of the ditch that surrounded it. But they sympathized warmly in the agitations which preceded and attended the outbreak of the Irish rebel- lion in 1798, supplying food and assistance to the patriot army. Com- ing up to this county in order to locate in business, and prompted per- chance by the advice of his friend, William James, Mr. Devereux stopped first at Rome, but soon turned back to Utica. From his firstadvertisement, dated November 8, 1802, we learn that he " opened an assortment of dry goods and groceries at the store lately occupied by John Smith." This was upon the site of a part of the present Bagg's Hotel. Some- what later his store was nearly opposite and about midway between Whitesboro and Water, a store that, jutting out eastward from the present line of the street, formed the west point of the square. When the street was afterward straightened he built a brick store in the rear of the above
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JOHN C. DEVEREUX.
mentioned spot. The goods he had on sale were unusually handsome. The salesman had energy, shrewdness, and industry, a temper most gen- erous, a tongue that was persuasive and fluent, and manners benignant and polished. These brought him quick custom and insured suc- cess from the outset. His business became so extensive that he was probably as generally known through Central and Western New York as any merchant west of Albany. His sales, as reported by one of his later clerks, amounted each year to $100,000. He had a pride in his calling and kept ever in view a high standard of credit and honor. Un- sparing of himself he was no less exacting of others. Yet he contrib- uted freely his advice and personal and pecuniary aid to young men engaging in similar pursuits. Among those he thus helped were his brothers, Luke, Nicholas, and Thomas, the first two being his clerks in succession and afterward partners. But the canal was just opened and the Mohawk about to be left. The current of business was setting up- ward, and the lonely and grass-covered square alarmed the merchants who were settled about it. Not backward in action he purchased with Nicholas the land next above the newly opened canal where the modern Devereux block is now located, and there in 1821 they placed a large warehouse and store. At this place the trade was conducted many years by Nicholas Devereux and his various partners, John C. continuing as before to lend his countenance and credit. Some ten or twelve years later, when there was started a Utica branch of the United States Bank, Mr. Devereux was appointed its president and held the position as long as the bank was in existence. He was strongly attached to the place of his residence, devoted to its interests, and contributed freely to its insti- tutions. Some of them in fact owed their existence and continued sup- port largely to his agency. Such was the Utica Savings Bank, which was established by the two Messrs. Devereux in company with other benevo- lent citizens of the period. Although a zealous adherent of the Roman Catholic Church, and in later years its most munificent patron, yet when Utica was an inconsiderable hamlet, and when all of its inhabitants met in one common place of worship, he not only bore about the plate which was to receive the donations of the worshipers, but gave a contribution of $300 toward the erection of the first Presbyterian Church. Repeat- edly at later dates he contributed freely to many poor and struggling
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
religious societies. To his own church, once so small that he often had all of its members assembled in his own parlor, he was an early, a con- stant, and a generous benefactor.
" Charitableness and hospitality were perhaps the most striking traits in Mr. Devereux's character. He extended the hand of brotherhood to all who were not utterly abandoned, while his house was always open and his welcome to it remarkably courteous and earnest. The poor had reason to bless his memory, and upon no citizen were there more numerous claims." "The city manifested its sense of obligations by electing him its mayor in 1840, at the first election under the law by which the office was derived directly from the people, he having prev- iously held it by appointment of the common council." Others of this date were James Delvin, coppersmith ; Benajah Merrill, auctioneer and sheriff; Solomon Goodrich, bookseller and teacher; Flavel Bing- ham, watchmaker; Frederick White, promiscuous trader ; Benjamin Hicks, hatter; Edward Baldwin, carpenter ; William Rees, farmer, etc.
Of the appearance of Utica in 1802, and more especially of the char- acteristics of its people as they presented themselves to one temporary visitor among them, we have a few hints in the journal of Rev. John Taylor, of Westfield, Mass. His journal of a missionary tour through the Mohawk and Black River country is contained in the third volume of the " Documentary History of New York." In the course of his ex - cursion he stopped two or three times at Utica, and the following pas- sages are extracted from his notes : " This is a very pleasant and beau- tiful village ; but it is filled with a great quantity of people of all nations and religions." "There is but a handful of people in this place who have much *regard for preaching or for anything in this world. Eight years ago last spring there were but two houses in the present town plot. There are now above ninety." " Utica appears to be a mixed mass of discordant materials. Here may be found people of ten or twelve different nations and of almost all religions and sects; but the greater part are of no religion. The world is the great object with the body of the people."
That the place presented at this early period of its existence much of the roughness both of morals and of manners so commonly found in freshly settled districts is altogether probable. In the hurry of clearing
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A PEN-PICTURE FROM MR. TAYLOR'S JOURNAL.
and of building, in the general scramble of trade, men were intent on immediate interests, eager to fix a position and a business, and might have been neglectful of the courtesies of the present life, still more of the claims of the future. Beset on all sides by strangers, either settling among them or crowding past toward new homes in the wilderness, they hardly knew who were their neighbors or had come to realize the fullness of their social obligations. In the absence of churches and of schools there was little of the restraint so controlling in older commun- ities, fewer influences to persuade to the practice of what was due to themselves, their fellows, and their Maker. But that Utica was not wholly made up of the worldly-minded and irreligious people which this writer would have one to believe, that there was a goodly leaven at work amid the fermenting mass, the personal sketches thus far exhibited will, I trust, sufficiently show. Churches and schools were obtaining a foot- hold, and their healthful influence with that of the many educated and superior minds now beginning to assert themselves was fast shaping these " discordant materials " and giving correctness and elevation to the morals of society. Were there no other evidence of a want of charity in Mr. Taylor than those to be met with elsewhere in his jour- nal there is certainly some inconsistency in the picture contained in the last of the quotations we have drawn from him when contrasted with the fact recorded under the same date. He preached, he says, on the afternoon of that day (August Ist) to 300 people. In the morning of the same day his congregation at Whitesboro had amounted to 250, though the service at Whitesboro, it should be added, was the communion, when audiences are usually smaller. Three hundred people were, it is probable, at least half the population of Utica.
Accompanying the journal of Mr. Taylor there is a rude diagram of the place with its buildings set down in their relative position. Eighty- two are figured extending about seventy rods on Main street, and sixty on Whitesboro, and on Genesee street ten rods below the square and sixty above it. The drawing of the west line of the square as the arc of a circle concaves inward there is reason to believe is incorrect, the saliency being in fact angular and toward the center, while the quarter circle which connects this angle with Whitesboro street"formed but an inconsiderable part of the whole west line; so also is there an error in
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
the drawing of Genesee street at right angles with the intersecting street. Notwithstanding these inaccuracies the map is valuable as the only picture of the hamlet at so early a date now known to exist.
Arrived at the year 1803 we encounter several additional names, among which we recognize not a few of those of citizens who were afterward prominent. " David Ostrom was a soldier of the Revolution and among the earliest settlers of Oneida County. About the year 1790 or 1791 he removed from Dutchess County to New Hartford, and after- ward lived in Paris, whence he removed to Utica. Upon the organ- ization of Oneida County in 1798 he was appointed one of the county judges, which office he held until 1815, with the exception of three years in which his name was omitted from the General Commission of the Peace of the county. For a considerable period he executed the du- ties of a magistrate in the village with great correctness and to universal acceptance." As early as February, 1804, he was installed as landlord of the Coffee House, a well known public house which occupied the ground now covered by the Devereux block, and therein remained a number of years. Later he lived nearly opposite on the site of the Franklin House, now covered by the arcade.
Dr. Marcus Hitchcock came with his father from New Haven, Conn., to New Hartford, N. Y., and there studied medicine with Dr. Amos G. Hull. After removing to Utica he began to practice, but was not satis- fied with the profession and soon opened a drug store in company with Dr. John Carrington. The latter was a brother and brief successor of Samuel Carrington. The postoffice fell to him with the drug business of his predecessor, and of this he was the official head from July 1, 1803, down to January 21, 1828.
In July, 1803, a partnership in the practice of medicine and in the sale of drugs was effected between Dr. Francis Guiteau, jr., and Dr. Solomon Wolcott, jr. Studying medicine with Dr. Hastings, of New London, Dr. Wolcott settled himself in Williamstown, Mass. There by the exercise of his profession, and by the purchase and sale of bounty lands given to the soldiers of the Revolution, he acquired some property, and there he was married. Thence he was drawn to Utica chiefly by the persuasion of his former fellow townsman, Nathan Williams.
Em hun C Williams NEM NT
Charles A Manu
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EDITOR JOHN H. LOTHROP.
After Dr. Guiteau withdrew Dr. Wolcott had in succession two or three other partners. In April, 1815, he was appointed garrison sur- geon's mate in charge of the hospital established for the relief of the government soldiers, the care of whom he had already had for some months. About the same time he was made one of the judges of Com- mon Pleas. Toward the close of the war he became interested as a silent partner with William Gaylord in dealings in crockery. Through ill-timed business ventures and the disappearance of his partner Dr. Wolcott practically lost an estate that was appraised at $100,000. In 1804 he had bought the farm originally settled by John D. Petrie next east of Matthew Hubbell, and to it had added another by a subsequent purchase. There about the time of his embarrassment he built the large wooden house where some ten years afterward was opened the Utica High School.
John H. Lothrop - lawyer, farmer, editor, merchant, and, last and longest, a banker-found in the exercise of his pen the calling most suited to his genius and which he most persistently practiced. In 1803 he assumed the editorship of the Whitestown Gazette and Cato's Patrol, at that time relinquished by Mr. McLean. Its name he changed to the Utica Patriot and settled himself in Utica to conduct it. The following year in company with Ralph W. Kirkland he seems to have made a short essay in trade ; at least their names appear in a single announce- ment to that effect. The editorship of the paper filling up neither his time nor his pockets he served also as deputy in the office of the Supreme Court clerk. This he sold in 1811, when, having disposed of his interest in the paper, he removed to New Hartford. He remained there about five years, striving to earn his livelihood by the practice of law, but having been appointed cashier of the Ontario Branch Bank he came back to Utica to assume the duties. And these formed his principal employment for the remainder of his days, while he still continued to contribute to the Patriot or its successor almost to the close of his life. He was expert as a writer of fluent and graceful English, enlivened by playful fancy and lively wit, and chastened by a cultured taste. He had facility also in the making of verse and considerable repute in its exercise.
One of the printers and publishers of Mr. Lothrop's paper was Ira
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
Merrell. He learned the printer's art with William McLean, and when the latter disposed of his paper in 1803 he joined his fellow apprentice, Asahel Seward, in printing it under the editorship of Mr. Lothrop, and continued with him about three years. Some time afterward he was for five or six years foreman of Seward & Williams, and printed for them this same Patriot when they were its proprietors. A later paper on which he did the press work was the Western Recorder, published by Merrell & Hastings, that is to say his brothers, Andrew and Charles Hastings, and edited by Thomas Hastings, the brother of Charles. He also printed a good deal on his own account. Among his issues was a Welsh hymn book.
Thomas Walker, who had learned his trade as a printer with Isaiah Thomas, of Winchester, came to Oneida County with enterprise and in- dustry, here to seek his fortune`and help in building up the nascent civ- ilization. In conjunction with his brother-in-law, Ebenezer Eaton, he started alone a newspaper called the Columbian Patriotic Gazette. This was on the 17th of August, 1799. The Whitestown Gazette had been established at New Hartford in 1796; the Western Sentinel at Whites- boro in 1794. This was therefore the third newspaper published in the county. They brought the printing materials with them and hired a man in Rome to make a Ramage press, and on this the paper was printed. The publication price was $1.50. Mr. Eaton was connected with the paper about eighteen months.
In March, 1803, through the influence of personal and political friends, Mr. Walker removed his paper to Utica, called it the Columbian Ga- zette, and made it a supporter of the administration of Thomas Jeffer- son. The first number of this weekly sheet appeared March 2Ist. Its dimensions were ten and a half by twelve inches, and the paper was coarse and dingy. The second page and about one-half of the third was devoted to foreign news, editorials, and communications; the re- mainder was filled with advertisements. The office was located at about 44 Genesee street. As editor as well as publisher Mr. Walker con- ducted the Gazette for twenty-two years, securing success by his enter- prise and faithful devotion to business. He wrote little himself, but exercised good judgment in his selections and was assisted by able con - tributors. He also dealt to some extent in the sale of books. A large
SOME EDITORS AND PRINTERS. 75
share of the population whom he wished to reach with his paper re- sided at the north as far as Lewis and Jefferson Counties, and there were then no post routes and no communication thither except by chance passengers. Mr. Walker obtained the requisite authority from the Postmaster-General and established several post routes, contracted for mail conveyance, etc. Few publications were issued from his office be- sides the paper.
During the War of 1812-15 Mr. Walker held the position of collector of United States revenue for this district, a position which it so hap- pened that his son, Thomas R., was the first to hold after the late war of the Rebellion. He was a Democrat in all the forming days of the gov- ernment. In the Clintonian struggle in this State he took sides with De Witt Clinton, was afterward a Whig, and latterly a Republican. In 1825 Mr. Walker sold the Gazette to Samuel D. Dakin and William J. Bacon, by whom it was united with the Sentinel under the title of the Sentinel and Gazette. These gentlemen having purchased also the Patriot, the successor of Mr. McLean's paper, there were thus brought together the remains of the three earliest papers of the county. Mr. Walker was one of the directors named in the charter of the Bank of Utica. For several years he was its vice-president and in 1845, when Henry Hunt- ington declined a re-election, he was chosen its president, and was an- nually re elected up to the time of his death. He was also for many years president of the savings bank, and was the first treasurer and the fourth president of the trustees of the Utica Academy. He was a man of singular modesty, simplicity, and purity of character. His death occurred June 13, 1863, in his eighty-sixth year.
Asahel Seward, eldest son of Col. Nathan Seward, of New Hartford, was born in Waterbury, Conn., August 19, 1781. Apprenticed when fifteen years old to William McLean, printer, at New Hartford, he after- ward worked as a journeyman in different offices in New England and New York, in that of Isaiah Thomas, of Worcester, Mass., in an office in Boston, and in that of the Morning Chronicle of New York, of which the father of Washington Irving was then the proprietor. In 1803, in com- pany with Ira Merrell, he bought of Mr. McLean his interest in the Utica Patriot and removed to Utica to publish it. In this paper, under its varying names of Patriot, Patriot and Patrol, and Utica Sentinel, he
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
retained an interest until 1824, successively with Mr Merrell, with William Williams, and still later as one of the firm of Seward & Will- iams with William H. Maynard. At this last named date the paper was sold to Samuel D. Dakin and William J. Bacon, the sellers giving a bond never to publish another paper in Utica. In October, 1806, he established a book printing house and bindery, and soon afterward opened also a book store. About the year 1814 he was joined in this enterprise by Mr. Williams, till then associated with him as a printer only. The house was a prosperous one and for many years the chief publishing house west of Albany; if rivaled at all it was by that of H. & E. Phinney, of Cooperstown. The foundation for a respectable competency was early laid by the purchase from Noah Webster of the right to publish in the Western District of New York his Elementary Spelling Book. For fourteen years this was the leading feature of their business, affording an annual income of $2,000. The other works they issued were chiefly school books, though not exclusively so. After his withdrawal Mr. Seward was not again actively engaged in business. He and others were interested in the Capron cotton-mills, established in 1814, and he was secretary of the company.
William Williams was the son of Dea. Thomas Williams, of Roxbury, Mass., though he was born in Framingham in that State, October 12, 1787. With his father's family he migrated to New Hartford in this county, and with Asahel Seward he moved to Utica in 1803 and learned of him the trade of printing. About 1808 he became a partner in the business of printing, and at a later period the partnership was made to include bookselling likewise. Together they published the Utica Patriot and its successors, the Patriot and Patrol and the Utica Sentinel, down to the year 1824. As publishers and dealers in a great variety of books the firm was widely known and was distinguished for its enterprise and its probity. Their partnership was termin- ated in 1824 by the withdrawal of Mr. Seward, but the business in all its departments was actively carried on several years longer. About 1828 Mr. Williams associated himself with Messrs. Balch and Stiles, who had commenced business in Utica as engravers. The firm issued bank notes for the Utica and some Western banks, and also maps of New York, Michigan, etc. Mr. Williams entered heartily into the cause of
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WILLIAM WILLIAMS AND SAMUEL STOCKING.
anti-Masonry and became about 1829-30 the publisher of the Elucidator, a paper designed to advocate its principles, which was edited by B. B. Hotchkin. The Elucidator, like the " Light on Masonry" above men- tioned, detracted from in lieu of increasing revenues. Mr. Williams was conspicuous among his townsmen for his warm interest and his efficiency in all matters that concerned the general welfare. His time was all given either to business or to some public enterprise or to some religious or moral mission. Though a lover of peace and fruitful in the works of peace he was an ardent patriot, and could not be negligent of his country's claim in time of war. When in 1813 an attack on Sack- ets Harbor was expected and volunteers were called for he was the first and most active man in Utica in raising a company. In 1832, dur- ing the cholera epidemic, he was one of the most self sacrificing and heroic men in the place and was unsparing of his labors for the afflicted. Mr. Williams was early identified with the religious movements of the place, and in his life he was the very pattern of a Christian gentleman. From 1812 to 1836 he occupied the post of elder in the Presbyterian Church and was one of its most honored office bearers. On the or- ganization of the Utica Sunday School in 1816 he became its first super- intendent, and for years afterward and until he was summoned to act as an instructor in the Bible class he was its ruling spirit. Nor were his services in the higher department less devoted or valuable. He was also president of the Western Sunday School Union,
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