USA > New York > Oneida County > Utica > Memorial history of Utica, N.Y. : from its settlement to the present time > Part 7
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Within a year of his arrival Samuel Stocking erected a building on the east side of Genesee a short distance above the corner, which was known as Mechanic Hall, and was soon filled with tenants, and into this his own hat shop was ere long transferred. But in 1816 he removed to the brick store fronting Broad street, where he was to be found during the rest of his residence. For many years after his first estab- lishment he continually enlarged his operations until they assumed a magnitude in his particular line never before or since attained in any part of the State. His purchase of furs for the manufacture of hats brought him early to the acquaintance of John Jacob Astor, then in the zenith of his usefulness. Astor soon appreciated the person with whom he thus dealt, and yielded to him implicit confidence and unbounded credit. Mr. Stocking acquired gradually by his business and by saga-
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
cious purchases of land in Utica and other places a very large property, amounting it is said to half a million of dollars before its partial reduc- tion by the revulsion of 1837. The simplicity of his personal manners continued, however, unabated, together with his perseverance in the business to which he had been educated.
As closely given to business as the preceding, as charitable and as useful, was James Dana, who attained at least a competence of worldly goods while securing an unusual share of public respect for his straight- forward honesty and his earnest and consistent religious life.
David P. Hoyt was a tanner and currier and a shoemaker. Possessed of decided energy and perseverance, with an excellent judgment in matters of business, he was successful therein to a greater degree than any other person in the same employment. For many years he carried on his trade in shoes and leather on Genesee street a little way above Whitesboro. His tannery was on the latter street beyond Broadway and adjoining the lane called by his name. Here he had IIO vats covered with buildings and a little below them on the lane a windmill to grind his bark. Besides his tannery he had, after the construc- tion of the canal, a warehouse on its southern bank next west from Washington street, and a basin beside it. Mr. Hoyt was always a prom- inent man in the affairs of the place, and by his industry as well as by his interest in its good assisted much in promoting the prosperity and growth of Utica. He was treasurer and afterward trustee of the village, a director of the Bank of Utica, and in 1819 he represented the district in the chamber of the Assembly.
At the meeting of the first Board of Trustees held under the new charter of 1805 David W. Childs was appointed their clerk, and con- tinued to record the meetings until September of the following year, when ill health obliged him to withdraw. On the organization of the Bank of Utica in 1812 Mr. Childs, who was a director, obtained also a more profitable office, being made its attorney and notary. In suits by the bank for notes that were not paid it was the duty of the attorney to issue writs for each of the endorsers, and for these writs he received a handsome fee. By means of his office and by other business, for he was a sound and industrious lawyer, he acquired a valuable property. Among the provisions of his will was a legacy to the Utica Sunday
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SKETCH OF ABRAHAM VARICK, FR.
School of $250, while to the Theological Seminary at Auburn, to the Western Education Society, and to the American Bible Society he also gave $500 each.
A member of the legal profession, though conspicuous chiefly for his business enterprise and the magnitude of his undertakings, and who was long an honored citizen of Utica, was Abraham Varick, jr. His ancestral home was in Hackensack, N. J., but he was the son of Abra- ham Varick, of New York, and nephew of Col. Richard Varick, of Rev- olutionary memory, former mayor of that city and attorney-general of the State. In the summer of 1804 he came to Utica to settle. Though educated to the bar he was never an attendant on the courts nor took in hand the suits of others. For many years he acted as agent for the Holland Land Company, and was busied in selling for them the lands they owned to the north of Utica. Being an active and capable busi- ness man and full of enterprise he devoted himself throughout his life to dealing in lands, to the management of factories and furnaces, and to other financial projects. As early as September, 1804, he bought the large farm lying at the head of Genesee street, which was known as the Kimball farm, paying for it the sum of $5,500. It was mapped out for building purposes, and within two years sales were made at prices which were then deemed quite high. Subsequently Mr. Varick became possessed at various periods of a number of lots and buildings in differ- ent parts of the village. But his largest investments were made in West Utica. About 1827, in connection with A. B. Johnson, he bought the Jason Parker farm, which extended from the river to Court street oppo- site the asylum. And together with Charles E. Dudley, of Albany, he bought about the same time from Philip Schuyler a part of great lot No: 99, being the farm adjacent to the preceding on the east. These were also converted into building lots and yielded rich returns to their owners, while they opened the way for the extension of the city toward the west. His name is preserved in the main avenue of these western domains. He was largely interested in many factories of different kinds, as in the cotton-mills at Clinton, the Oneida factory at Yorkville, the Oriskany factory, the Utica glass factory, etc. An iron furnace at Constantia was chiefly controlled by him as well as mills and a rope- walk at Denmark in Lewis County, and he was a heavy stockholder in
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
one of the earliest railroads of the State, that known as the Ithaca and Owego. His latest and most considerable operations were carried on at Oswego, where he came in possession of a property which included no small part of the business section of the town. There he built a fine cotton factory, of which the machinery alone cost him $60,000, and had also a dry dock and a marine railway. In the Presbyterian Church he was a prominent person, and when measures were set on foot to estab- lish a Reformed Dutch Church no one was more zealous or liberal than he. He was one of its first elders. For a time he was president of the Oneida County Bible Society. In person he was tall and impos- ing, in demeanor dignified and sedate.
Dr. David Hasbrouck was a native of Shawangunk, Ulster County, N. Y. He studied medicine with Dr. James Graham, of Shawangunk, and attended lectures in New York. He came to Utica in 1804 and formed a partnership in practice with Dr. Alexander Coventry, he occu- pying the office on the west side of Genesee street next door below the mouth of Broad while Dr. Coventry continued to reside in Deerfield. There also he sold drugs. His practice was for the most part restricted to a few leading families. He was the first secretary of the County Med- ical Society on its organization in 1806. About 1815 he removed to Kingston, Ulster County, but died in Schenectady in October, 1823, at the age of forty-five.
"Dr. Christian Stockman, from Germany and last from Albany, where he has resided for the last ten years, has opened in Utica on Gen- esee street a general assortment of drugs and medicines. He will like- wise attend to any calls in the line of his profession as physician and give advice at his store in all cases, and when requested visit any pa- tient who may favor him with a call." Besides drugs he kept also German toys for sale. His announcement a few years later of a Ger- man almanac must have seemed to the readers of the Gazette outland- ish and strange. He was lost at sea on his return from a trip to Europe.
Into the growing hamlet there came in the course of the year 1804 two brothers from Connecticut, and with them there came one who has generally passed as a third brother, but who was in reality a cousin and the brother-in-law to each of them, each having married one of his
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SKETCHES OF PIONEER CITIZENS.
sisters. These were Abijah and Anson Thomas and their relative, B. W. Thomas. All survived by many years the early period of our history and contributed by their honorable career as merchants and their responsible position in the church to the fair name and prosperity of Utica. Anson Thomas engaged in no business until about 1815, when he began as a merchant in company with B. W. Thomas, which partnership lasted fifteen years. His later partner until he retired from business was James Dutton. In March, 1839, he was chosen president of the Bank of Central New York, which office he held while he lived, discharging its duties with watchful fidelity.
The earliest hint we have of Hugh Cunningham is furnished by him- self in 1804, when he informs the newspaper readers that Hugh Cun ningham & Co. have opened a new store in the village opposite the postoffice, which was lately that of William Fellows. Next we get a telescopic peep at him through the memory of one of his contem- poraries. A group of citizens are gathered around the pump in the pub- lic square gazing at the great eclipse of 1806, and prominent among them sits Cunningham, astride the pump handle, enlivening the com- pany with his waggery. In 1810 he built himself a store on the east corner of Genesee and the square, the site of the early House Tavern ; but hardly was it complete when on the night of the 3d of October it was burned to the ground. Presently rebuilt he was in it by the mid- dle of January ensuing and ready to wait on purchasers of dry goods.
Isaac Coe was made village treasurer at the first election held under the charter of 1805, and continued in the office by annual re-elections as long as he remained in Utica. Possessed of decided enterprise, an active mover in the project for establishing a glass factory at Vernon, and the largest subscriber to the stock of the company he was if not the first at least one of its earliest presidents. But his ambition outran his resources and his career ended like that of many another : he failed and went West. In September, 1810, a new treasurer was appointed "in lieu of Isaac Coe, who has left the place." Upwards of fifty years after the abrupt departure of Mr. Coe, and when nearly all who had once known him had gone down to their graves, he re-appears on the scene of his youthful experience to make good his delinquencies. Call- ing upon the son of one of his former creditors he deposits with him the
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
means with which to pay with interest all his old indebtedness. Other men have made restitution after years of pecuniary indebtedness; not many have carried a burdened conscience for fifty years without the power to absolve themselves and yet have lightened it at the last.
Enos Brown and Daniel Stafford were dealers in hardware, and after their failure in 1820 the former became again a butcher as he had been in his youth. He lived here in feeble health until 1856. A tinman, coppersmith, and nailer in company with David Stafford was Augus- tus Hickox, whose activity and zeal for the public good brought him to the front and eventually made him president of the village. William Tillman was a cabinetmaker; Ara Broadwell, a mason, much employed both on public and private constructions ; Elisha Spurr, a jolly tapster and a busy politician ; Chauncey Phelps, pavior ; Alfred and Solomon Wells, carpenters ; Elisha Rose, blacksmith.
August 13, 1804, the firm of Walton, Turner & Co. took possession of a store below Bagg's and at the same time opened the forwarding business in two warehouses situated a little distance below the river bridge, where the Central Railroad now runs. Duncan Turner was a Scotchman who came from Nova Scotia to Albany, where he sold little notions and accumulated about $500. Joining Jonathan Walton, of Schenectady, he engaged in forwarding and came to Utica to manage the business at this end of the line. The warehouses were set on upright posts, which were undermined by a freshet about 1807. The buildings were secured by being fastened to a tree, but the wheat stored therein was so much damaged that it was sold to Mr. Gilbert to be made into starch. Their later store was on Genesee where Broad street enters it. At the beginning of the War of 1812 Mr. Turner removed to Lowville and shortly after to Ogdensburg.
In approaching the year 1805 we begin, as it were for the first time, to meet with evidences of united interests among the villagers, and we find these evidences in the expression of a desire for a more perfect corporate life. Their wishes in this respect are contained in a petition to the legislature for a new charter, which was received in the Assembly, February 12, 1805. Their reasons are so fully set forth that we make no apology for copying the document in full together with the appended names :
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PETITION FOR A NEW CHARTER.
" To the Honorable the Legislature of the State of New York in Senate and Assem- bly convened :
" The petition of the freeholders and inhabitants of the village of Utica, in the County of Oneida, humbly sheweth :
" That the rapid increase of buildings, business, and population in said village seems to demand a police better regulated and more enlarged than at present the said village enjoys, particularly with respect to fires and the prevention of public nuisances ; That your petitioners have already in many instances experienced a want of power in the inhabitants of said village and the Trustees elected by virtue of the law under which the affairs of said village are now regulated ; That a greater number of firemen are re- quisite than is at present allowed; That the population of the village is very rapid to- ward the west and south, so that the bounds of the same as now settled in these directions are too much limited ; That a great portion of the inhabitants of said village are in the habit of consuming baker's bread, and there being no assize of bread the poor as well as others are obliged to pay for that necessary article a greater price than is paid in New York and Albany ; That it is found impossible in many cases to carry into effect the laws respecting swine, &c., running at large in the streets, having no power to distrain and impound, and the owner being frequently unknown.
"For these and other reasons your. Petitioners therefore pray that your Honorable body will grant to the freeholders, inhabitants, and Trustees of the said village powers similar to those enjoyed by the village of Poughkeepsie; in order that the above and many other existing evils may be avoided; That the bounds of said village may be ex- tended; and that the annual meetings of the inhabitants of said village may be here- after on the first Tuesday in April in each year."
B. Walker, Erastus Clark, N. Williams, Thos. Skinner, Daniel Thomas, S. P. Goodrich, Talcott Camp, Wm. Fellows, M. Hitchcock, David Hasbrouck, Frederick White, David W. Childs, Watts Sherman, James Dana, Thomas Walker, J. Ballou, Apol- los Cooper, Benj'n Ballou, Jason Parker, Judah Williams, jr., Willett Stillman, John Mayo, Rufus Brown, Ira Dickenson, Elkanah Hobby, William Webster, Samuel Web- ster, Thaddeus Stoddard, Caleb Hazen, Augustus Hickox, Sanı'l Ward, Benajah Mer- rell, Abraham Williams, John Adams, Ab'm Varick, jr., N. Butler, Jer. Van Rensselaer, jr., Christian Stockman, Bryan Johnson, Francis A. Bloodgood, John B. Murdock, Francis Guiteau, jr., John Hobby, Charles C. Brodhead, Ezekiel Clark, Ayl- mer Johnson, Moses Bagg, jr., John C. Hoyt, B. Brooks, Gurdon Burchard, D. Turner, E. B. Shearman, Philip J. Schwartze, Joseph Ballou, Elisha Capron, James Brown, Thomas Ballou, Joseph Ballou, Thomas Jones, Elisha Rose, Obadiah Ballou, James Hazen, David Stafford, Eph'm Wells, John Bissell, Evan Davies.
Having thus scanned the population of the nascent village, and passed in review many of its members from the origin of the settlement down to the beginning of extant historic records, let us now consider the people as a whole and the appearance of Utica at the date in question. The vil- lage, it is evident, had now taken a start and was growing with some
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
degree of vigor ; and this start would seem to have begun from about the year 1794, as will be seen from a glance at the few data we possess. The three log shanties of the Bleecker map of 1786, and as observed by a passing settler in 1787, had in 1790 hardly increased in number, for this is the sum of them given by Morse in his earlier gazetteer, and William Miller, of Trenton, found no more in 1793 when he first passed through the place. In 1794 there were, according to Judge Jones, 1 about ten resident families, or according to a settler of that date seven or eight houses, although two Welsh emigrants on their way to Steuben counted the next year only four houses and a barn on the main street. In 1796 the number of houses, says Morse, had increased to thirty- seven and in 1798 Dr. Dwight estimates their number at fifty. Maude, two years later, tells us there were sixty, while another authority 2 rates the population of 1801 at 200 souls. In 1802 the number of houses, as we learn from Rev. Mr. Taylor, had grown to nearly ninety, and in 1804, when Dr. Dwight was here again, he found 120 houses and a long train of merchants' stores and other buildings.
The actual narrowness of confine of the Utica of 1805 and the small progress it had made toward its present measure of prosperity will be evident when we know that the only streets in use were Main, Whitesboro, Genesee, Hotel, and a portion of Seneca, the latter having been added to the preceding in the year 1804. Others were laid down on the manuscript maps of the proprietors, but unrecognized by author- ity and as yet without houses. Business found its way from the river as far up Whitesboro as Hotel street, as far up Genesee as the upper line of Broad, and a little way along Main; beyond these limits shops and stores were sparingly intermingled with private residences. The business was mostly conducted in little wooden buildings. Not more than two brick stores had yet found a place. The dwelling houses of Main and Whitesboro streets may be judged of by a few specimens still to be seen east of First street and west of Broadway. The road along Genesee street consisted of a log causeway barely wide enough for teams to pass one another, and having a ditch on either side into which if the hindmost wheels slipped a vigorous pull was required to raise them again to the track.
1 Annals of Oneida County.
2 A. B. Johnson.
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A CRITICAL ESTIMATE OF EARLY UTICA.
The corduroy road, which once started between what are now Broad- way and Washington streets and pursued its winding way to New Hart- ford, was ere this abandoned for the more direct turnpike continuous with Genesee street. The transient occupancy of many of the stores and houses and the general floating habit of many of the traders and artisans is markedly evident. At this time, as well as for some years longer, there was doubtless much of the rawness of a new people living apart from populous centers and almost destitute of schools and churches. Yet there was on the whole an unusual amount of intelli- gence and good morals. Some of the settlers had been bred at college, others had enjoyed a wide experience abroad and had moved in polished circles, and the majority had been trained under elevating and purify- ing influences. Utica was surpassed both by Whitesboro and New Hartford, and at least equaled by Rome, its later and more enduring rival. These places were not only earlier in their origin and had already become centers of trade, but Whitesboro in 1802 became with Rome a half-shire town of the county. Here the courts were held and here the chief officers and many of the leading lawyers had their abode. Already there were clustered in it a few legal gentlemen of marked ability who would have been distinguished in any community, whether for their eloquence and skill as advocates, their sound learning, or their just estimate and successful practice of the dignity and duties of their profession.
But as yet these heads of the profession were not only founders of this bar ; they had also a monoply of its privileges, so that in legal as in other needs Utica was but secondary and dependent. If an order were to be procured from the courts or any other business to be transacted therein, or even if it were wished that a deed should be acknowledged, a journey to Whitesboro was necessary. In matters of household con- venience and daily consumption a like dependence was also though not so imperiously felt. If a fastidious citizen despaired of getting from the stores of his own traders the finest loaf sugar or a nicer kind of tea than the Bohea, then in common use, he would be sure of finding them with William G. Tracy, of Whitesboro; and both this place and New Hart- ford had for many years thriving merchants who drew custom from Utica. New Hartford, too, in the cultivation and polish of many of its
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
families, had social advantages that were little short of those possessed by Whitesboro.
A natural characteristic of the small and sparse population of the vicinity was the very great freedom of intercourse which existed. De- pendent on one another for fellowship and assistance they were knit by the closest of bonds and found much of their enjoyment in the exchange of hospitable visits. Ranks and degrees in society there were, as at present, but these distinctions were less marked and the bars easily broken down. . Thus each was impressed by his fellow, and happily there were enough of ennobling agencies at work to chasten and exalt the whole. Moreover distances were of little account and bad roads so trifling an impediment that if congenial associates were deficient or unsatisfying at home they were sought in the cultured and high toned families of the neighboring settlements; and so it was that Utica was scarcely more indebted to its own leaders than to the foremost people of Whitesboro and New Hartford for the influences that formed and en- riched its character.
As we have seen a goodly number of stores and shops were dis- persed along the principal street. Yet there was room enough outside of it for the operations of farmers, and some of these were cultivating the soil of what are now the oldest parts of the city. As luxuriant a crop of wheat, said an eye-witness, has been grown in the Second ward of Utica as he afterward met with in the famous wheat regions of Genesee; and as for potatoes the most abundant growth he re- members to have witnessed in all his lifetime was the product of this same neighborhood. The few simple manufactories as yet in existence have been mostly already glanced at. There was the shop of William Smith for the making of wrought nails on the east bank of Nail Creek. There was a small shop for cut nails on the south side of Main street a little east of the square. It was followed by the similar shop of Delvin on Genesee street. These were worked by no other power than the hand and foot, the nails being cut by one process and headed by another. There was Ure's brewery on Nail Creek opposite Smith and there was the new one of Inman just opened on the corner of Broadway. There were four tanneries, viz .: those of Ballou, Hopper, Hubbard, and Hoyt. There was the wagon shop of Abijah Thomas and the hat factory of Sam-
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EARLY TRADING AND BARTERING.
uel Stocking. There were a few places where chairs and other furniture were made, and there were shops where other mechanical trades were conducted. And these constituted the whole manufacturing interests.
It was trade that chiefly commanded the enterprise which is at pres- ent enlisted in a great variety of pursuits. And it found a vastly wider field for its exercise than is enjoyed by the local merchants of to-day. From Lewis and Jefferson, from Onondaga, Madison, and Chenango Counties, farmers and country dealers sent hither their wheat and other grains, their pot and pearl ashes, and the surplus of their farms and dairies, to receive in exchange for consumption or for sale goods from the East that were best attainable by transport on the river. Compar- atively little money was in use, and business was largely a system of barter and credit wherein the merchants on the Mohawk held toward the outlying settlements relations akin to those now existing between the importers of the metropolis and inland dealers all over the country ; they found a market for these frontier producers and supplied them in return with the manufactures of Europe and the groceries and liquors of New England and the West Indies. The following are a few only of the prices of articles in common use, both imported and native. A kind of East India muslin that would scarcely hold together to be measured was sold for two shillings. This was called bafters. A somewhat finer variety known as gurrers commanded a sixpence more. Calicoes were six shillings and sixpence per yard ; better and handsomer can now be bought for one shilling. West India sugar sold at from ten to fourteen cents ; maple sugar in its season at sixpence. Board was $2.00 a week ; a single meal two shillings.
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