USA > New York > Noted living Albanians and state officials. A series of biographical sketches > Part 21
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On the 25th of August, 1845, Governor Wright declared the county of Delaware in a state of insurrection, and a bat- talion of light infantry was detailed to aid the civil authori-
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ties in the preservation of order and the making of arrests. At the inquest held on the body of Sheriff Steele and at the court of general sessions the whole subject was fully investigated. Some indictments were found for murder, but most of them were for manslaughter and lesser offenses. Over two hundred and forty persons were indicted, most of whom were arrested and in custody awaiting trial at the then approaching oyer and terminer. The regular jail and two log jails, temporarily constructed for the purpose, were filled with prisoners. Under these discouraging circum- stances, and with armed men stationed in the court room and throughout the village to preserve order, Judge Parker opened the oyer and terminer at Delhi on the 22d of Sep- tember, 1845. A brief statement of these proceedings and an extract from the charge of Judge Parker to the grand jury will be found in the history of Delaware county, by Jay Gould, published in 1856 and dedicated to Judge. Parker.
" After charging the grand jury he gave notice that what- ever time it might take, he should continue to hold the court till every case was tried and the jails were cleared. The indictments were prosecuted by the district attorney, assisted by John Van Buren, then attorney-general, and by Samuel Sherwood, a distinguished member of the bar, then of New York, but who formerly resided at Delhi; and the prisoners were defended by able counsel, among whom were Samuel Gordon, Mitchell Sandford and Samuel S. Bowne.
" John Van Steenburgh was first tried and convicted of murder. Edward O'Connor was next tried with a like re- sult. Both were sentenced to be executed on the 29th of November; then next four others were convicted of felony and sent to the state prison for life ; and thirteen were sent
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to the state prison for different terms of years. A large number who had been engaged in resisting the sheriff, but who had not been disguised, pleaded guilty of misdemeanors. Some of these were fined, but as to most of them, and as to some who pleaded guilty of manslaughter, sentence was suspended, and they were told by the court they would be held responsible for the future preservation of the peace in their neighborhoods, and were warned that if any other instance should occur of resisting an officer, or of a violation of the statute, which made it a felony to appear for such pur- pose armed and disguised, they would at once be suspected, and might expect to be called up for sentence. Under this assurance they were set at liberty, and it is but justice to them to say that they became the best possible conserva- tors of the peace, and that no resistance of process by vio- lence has ever since occurred in that county.
" At the close of the third week of the court, all the cases had been disposed of. No prisoners were left in jail except those awaiting execution or transportation to the state prison ; the military were soon after discharged and the log jails taken down, and peace and good order have ever since reigned in the county.
" A report of the trial of Van Steenburgh, with a note referring to the business of the court, will be found in I Park. Cr. Rep. 39. The sentences of Van Steenburgh and O'Connor were subsequently commuted by Governor Wright to imprisonment for life, and, about a year later, all those in the state prison were pardoned by the successor of Gov- ernor Wright.
" Great credit was awarded to Judge Parker for his suc- cessful discharge of the delicate and difficult duties devolved upon him at the Delaware oyer and terminer; and at the
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next commencement the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred on him by Geneva college."
Resuming the practice of his profession, in which he al- ways took the greatest delight, and in which he stood in the front rank, he refused to be a candidate again for justice of the supreme court, or for judge of the court of appeals, when the democratic party in his district and in the state was again largely in the ascendency. In 1856 he was the unsuccessful democratic candidate for governor of the state, John A. King, the republican nominee, being chosen. This was the case again in 1858, when Edwin D. Morgan was elected governor by over 17,000 majority. In all those lively old contests and amidst the political vicissitudes of his party, Judge Parker always ran ahead of his ticket, thus showing that he enjoyed the respect and confidence of his many friends.
In 1867-8, he was a delegate from the county of Albany to the state constitutional convention, serving as a member of the judiciary and other committees. On his retirement from the bench in 1855, he resumed once more the practice of the law, taking into partnership with him his son, Amasa J. Parker, Jr., who had but recently been admitted to the bar, and for whom legal practice and study presented an inviting and interesting field of labor. Eleven years afterward, ex-Judge Edwin Countryman, well known as an able and judicious counselor, became a member of the firm ; and under the name of Parker & Countryman, a large and lucrative law business was carried on. In the management of many important cases this firm was remarkably success- ful. Some of the more important cases in which the vener- able judge has been engaged during the past twenty years, are those on the question of the right to tax national banks;
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on the title of Trinity church to property in the city of New York ; on the Levy will contest ; on the controversy between the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company and the Pennsyl- vania Coal Company; and on the boundary line between the states of New York and New Jersey.
Judge Parker was one of the founders of the Albany Law school, and for twenty years was one of the professors in that excellent institution, which is now a department of Union university.
As an author, Judge Parker's style is clear, concise and polished. His numerous contributions to legal science are well knewn. He has also published six volumes of law re- ports, being decisions in criminal cases, and assisted in pre- paring the fifth edition of the Revised Statutes of this state (3 vols., 1869).
Judge Parker ranks high in point of scholarship. In ad- } dition to his acquaintance with English and French authors, he is especially interested in ancient classical literature, and, through the course of a long and busy life, has turned fre- quently with renewed delight to the charming pages of the old Latin and Greek authors. His private library has been selected with great care and discrimination and contains the cream of ancient and modern literature.
He has been president of the board of trustees of the Al- bany Female academy; president of Albany Medical col- lege ; and is at present a trustee of Cornell and Union uni- versities.
In 1886 Judge Parker made a most generous proposition to the Y. M. A. of Albany by offering it the Bleecker fund (which had been transferred to him), for the building of a public hall, the only condition imposed upon the association being the raising of $50,000, by means of which it would
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receive a property worth over $130,000. The amount re- quired was accordingly raised by subscription, the property transferred by Judge Parker, and the work of erecting a fine public hall on a beautiful site was at once commenced. This noble act on the part of Judge Parker, in connection with the generosity of many of our citizens, will be remem- bered with gratitude by thousands of the best and most in- telligent Albanians for generations to come.
On the 27th of August, 1834, Judge Parker married Miss Harriet Langdon Roberts, of Portsmouth, N. H. She was a daughter of Edmund Roberts, the first American diplomatist in Asia, whose life was full of interest and dar- ing adventure While at his delightful home at Portsmouth, Mr. Roberts was surrounded by several distinguished men, such as the Rev. Dr. Burroughs, Rev. Dr. Buckminster, Daniel Webster and Jeremiah Mason, besides the large fam- ily connections of his wife. Mrs. Parker's mother was Catharine Whipple Langdon, a daughter of Woodbury Lang- don, of Portsmouth, who belonged to one of the best known New England families.
For nearly half a century Mrs. Amasa J. Parker gracefully dispensed the hospitalities of the home mansion in Albany, surrounded by devoted and admiring friends.
Of the surviving children of Judge and Mrs. Parker are Gen. Amasa J. Parker, Jr., late state senator; and now Brig .- Gen. 3rd Brigade N. G. S. N. Y .; Mrs. John V. L. Pruyn, widow of the late distinguished chancellor of the university of the state of New York, Mrs. Erastus Corning and Mrs. Gen. Selden E. Marvin -all prominent in social circles, and possessing true refinement and the higher graces of Christian character.
On the 27th of August, 1884, at the summer residence of
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Mrs. J. V. L. Pruyn on "The Cliffs," in Newport, R. I., Judge and Mrs. Parker kept their golden wedding. And on the 2d of June, 1887, the Soth anniversary of the Judge's birthday, a reunion of his family and nearest friends took place in Albany, which was a very pleasant and memorable event in their history and experience. On that occasion the Right Rev. Bishop William C. Doane, with an appropriate toast, presented and read the following lines :
How shall we greet him, honored among men, Who has not only past three score and ten, But bears the weight of all these eighty years, Unbent, unbroken, eye undimmed with tears, And natural force, like Patriarch of old, All unabated ; and his age untold
But by his honors ! Let us write in gold The glory of such age; to which, unrolled Like a long, pleasant pathway, all the past, Filled with strong purposes from first to last, Lies bathed and basking in the sunset rays Of peace, content, renown and length of days. We hail him victor in a fight well fought,
Crowned with the laurels plucked from many a field ; Who learned by teaching, and while learning taught,
And made both life and books their wisdom yield.
Statesman and jurist, strong in earnest plea, And wise in counsel, judging righteously:
Blest beyond men in all that sweetens life, Home, children, children's children, truest wife: Chief among equal citizens, he bears Our City's name to honor high and fair:
With simple ease his well-won crown he wears: "Serus in coelum redeat: " This our prayer.
On the 27th of June, 1889, nearly five years after so pleas- ant a family reunion, the estimable and beloved wife of Judge Parker, after reaching the advanced age of seventy-
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five, peacefully breathed her last, in the family mansion on Washington avenue, which had been her home for forty-five years. Profound sorrow was expressed by her relatives and fellow-citizens at the departure of this "mother in Israel," whose memory will remain among her friends as fragrant as the flowers of spring and more enduring than the sculptured marble. And now, " her children arise up, and call her blessed ; her husband also, and he praiseth her."
" In virtue fair,
Adorn'd with modesty and matron grace Unspeakable, and love- her face was like The light, most welcome to the eye of man; Refreshing most, most honor'd, most desired Of all he saw in the dim world below."
On Saturday, the 29th of June the funeral of Mrs. Parker was held from St. Peter's church, with all due simplicity and solemnity; and her remains were laid in the family lot in the Rural cemetery. At the following morning service in the same church, Rev. Dr. Battershall referred to this re- markable woman in the following beautiful and impressive words :
"Yesterday on the feast of St. Peter, we said the ritual of the dead over one, who for many years was prominently identified with this parish of St. Peter's, and the memory of whose sweet and beneficent life will long linger in this parish and in this city. Harriet Langdon Parker was a woman whom the church must needs honor, for she honored the church, and all her life was its loving and dutiful hand- maiden. She brought to the altar of Christ her strong, vigorous nature with its rare endowments of intellectual power, and trained faculty, and instinct for high and noble things. With her, religion was something more than a
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decoration of life, or an occasional retreat from the storms of the world. It sprung from and it gathered into itself the deepest forces of her nature. It swept into one persist- ent, unfaltering line of movement her whole womanhood. She carried into it, as she carried into every thing, her charity of vision and her strength of will, and it was the in- ner force on which her character grew and her life was lived. She could give a reason for her faith ; but better than reason, there was a warm, throbbing heart beneath her faith.
" How fully and richly her character shaped itself on fixed religious principle, her devotion to the church, her attend- ance at its services, her large and continuous benefactions, all the flow and movement of her life bear witness. And with all that gave strength and steadfastness, there was a wealth of affection, a delicacy of mind, a refinement of thought, a tenderness of touch, which made her righteous- ness gracious and beautiful. From such a life, with its power of doing and its power of loving, even when gathered into that great, unseen life on which it fed, there must needs outflow influences and memories that will help us in our struggle for goodness and work for Christ."
On the evening of the 9th of October, 1889, when Har- manus Bleecker hall on Washington avenue was opened to the public with appropriate exercises, the venerable Judge Parker -" the observed of all observers "- came forward and delivered an interesting address on the life, character and labors of Harmanus Bleecker, and of his own care in the management and disposition of so noble a trust fund for the benefit of the Young Men's association, and the citizens of Albany. It was a proud day in the life of Judge Parker, who had lived to see the consummation of his long
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contemplated project, and in appropriate, impressive lan- guage he concluded his speech in the following words :
" This hall is now finished and long may it stand a monu- ment, more enduring than brass, to the memory of Har- manus Bleecker. Not a monument of mere masonry, solid and silent, speaking only by its unchanging inscription graven upon it - but a living and speaking monument dis- pensing liberally its benefits and its instructions to all who enter its portals.
" Let these walls resound to the discussions of statesmen; the eloquence of orators and the strains of enchanting music ; to the teachings of those skilled in art, learned in science and accomplished in literature. Let the drama here exert its magic and chastening influence, and let Terpsichore, muse of the mazy dance, find here her happiest votaries. And let this hall, by all these means, continue to add to the sum of human happiness and improvement to a time far into the distant future. 'Esto perpetua.'
" My own duties and responsibilities in this enterprise are now ended. But the interest I feel in its success is not les- sened. My hope is high for the future. Upon those who are to administer the affairs of the association a greatly-in- creased responsibility rests. If they act honestly, faithfully and harmoniously, as I confidently believe they will, the in- terests of the city will be largely promoted, and they will receive the thanks, the blessings and the admiration of the people.
" But, whatever the future may be as to the result of our labors, the people of our city will never cease to honor and bless the memory of Harmanus Bleecker and his generous and unselfish wife, for furnishing to the association the means for doing so much good."
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In the study of Judge Parker's life there is much to be learned and admired, especially by the aspiring young men of our day. The example he has set as a diligent student in youth and as a persevering young man for the attain- ment of the grand aims of his life are well worthy of imita- tion. And now with a dignified presence, a wonderfully preserved constitution, and a remarkable vitality, after the accomplishment of so much intellectual work, age still sits lightly upon him notwithstanding the weight of more than four score years. In glancing over his life and labors during this long period we may very aptly apply to him the well- known phrase: "This was the noblest Roman of them all."
On the 13th of May, 1890, many months after the above sketch was originally prepared, Judge Parker departed this life after a brief illness, in the 83d year of his age.
AMASA J. PARKER, JR.
I OREMOST among Albanians who in various ways have devoted their time and best energies to the ad- vancement of the public interests of the city and state, stands the name of Amasa J. Parker, Jr. Born on the 6th day of May, 1843, in the beautiful village of Delhi, Delaware county, N. Y., he is the only surviving son of the vener- able Judge Amasa J. Parker and the late Harriet Langdon Parker. His parents removed to Albany when he was but a year old, and here he grew up in the midst of our institu- tions, in a city for whose welfare and prosperity no one has stronger feelings of attachment, or higher ambition that she may excel. His earliest education was carefully watched over by loving and cultured parents, whom any son might well be proud to honor and revere. When very young he was first sent to a small private school under the charge of Miss Margaret Cassidy. Afterward he became a pupil in the school of the Messrs. Wrightson, where he remained about six years studying the elementary branches. He was fitted for college at the Albany academy. In the fall of 1860 he joined the class of '63 at Union college at the be- ginning of the sophomore year, where he was noted for dili- gence in his studies and for his devotion to athletic exer- cises. It was while in college that his taste for military
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matters was first strongly displayed. In 1861, when the civil war threw its dark shadow over the country, young Parker, then nearly 18 years old, was one of the most active students engaged in organizing and drilling the "Union College Zouaves, ' which furnished upward of sixty commis- sioned officers for our army. In vain he endeavored to ob- tain his parents' consent to his entering the army. They insisted that it was his first duty to look after those liable to be dependent upon him, and voluntarily, and at large ex- pense, furnished a representative to go in his place.
Graduating with honor from " old Union," he turned his undivided attention to the study of the law, a profession to which his natural taste was early inclined, and to which he had devoted much time during his senior year in college. He became a law student in the office of Messrs. Cagger, Porter & Hand - a firm then in the zenith of its reputation - where he remained two years. Early in the fall of 1863 he entered the Albany Law school, and graduating from that excellent institution the following May, was admitted to the bar at the general term of the supreme court at Al- bany, December 26, 1864.
On the Ist of May, 1865, he entered into partnership with his father in the general practice of the law, which partner- ship still continues. From September 1, 1876, to September 1, 1888, ex-Judge Edwin Countryman was also a member of the firm, which was during that period known as Parker & Countryman. In 1888 Mr. Countryman retired from the firm in order to form a new firm with his son.
During a period of over twenty-four years, Amasa J. Par- ker, Jr., besides faithfully serving the public in offices of trust, honor and responsibility, has been active in the line of his profession, practicing in all the different courts, county,
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state and federal, and taking part in numerous and most im- portant cases, especially those relating to banks, wills, and railroad questions, which have been placed in the hands of the distinguished firms of which he has been a member, and whose clientage has always been large and lucrative. The mere enumeration of these cases would exceed the limits pre- scribed by this brief memoir.
Mr. Parker's love of military science and discipline, so early shown in his college days, has increased with the passing years. He is a firm believer in the good citizenship involved in the service of the National Guard. In 1866 he was ap- pointed an aide-de-camp with rank of major, on the staff of the Third division, National Guard.
In 1875 he was elected lieutenant-colonel of the Tenth regiment, N. G. S. N. Y., and two years later was unani- mously chosen its colonel. He brought up the number and condition of the regiment to such a high standard that pre- vious to his resignation in 1880 the regiment had 850 offi- cers and men, and was second only in strength to the famous Seventh regiment of New York city. Mr. Parker served as president of the National Guard association, S. N. Y., from 1878 to 1880. No other officer ever filled that position for more than one term.
Always a strict, consistent and conservative democrat, Mr. Parker's career as a legislator began in 1882, when he was elected to the assembly from the third district of Albany county. He served as chairman of the militia committee, and was also a member of the judiciary committee and the committee on federal relations, and was the compiler of the Military Code now in force in this state.
In 1886 and 1887 he served as state senator from Albany county, and was prominent in the senate for his tireless en-
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ergy and fearless and independent course in what he deemed the right. In the senate he served on the following import- ant committees : Finance, judiciary, cities, militia, commerce and navigation, taxation and retrenchment, and miscellaneous corporations.
Senator Parker originated the plan early in 1886, under which the " Albany delegation," the senator and the four assemblymen from Albany county, gave public notice of stated meetings which were held at the city hall, Albany, weekly, and where the delegation sat as a body, and heard discussed all proposed legislative measures relating in any way to the county of Albany and the cities of Albany and Cohoes. This plan insured a thorough understanding of all "local measures " by the " Albany delegation," created per- fect harmony of action, and prevented sly and underhand legislation. After such preliminary hearings many proposed bills were abandoned, while others were simplified and con- solidated, and others were perfected. The result gave uni- versal satisfaction, and the plan has since been kept up by the succeeding legislators representing Albany county.
Senator Parker, in 1886, after a long and severe struggle, secured the addition of one hundred thousand dollars to the general national guard appropriation, making that sum four hundred thousand dollars per annum ; which amount has since annually been voted by each succeeding legislature without question. The following year he inaugurated and carried through the additional item of one hundred thousand dollars toward the purchase of new overcoats for the entire national guard of the state, and also drafted and passed the Albany armory bill, containing large appropriations by the state and Albany county, and under which the following year the present Albany armory site next west of the Harmanus
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Bleecker hall, on Washington avenue, was acquired by com- mission. Work on the Albany armory is now progressing, and it is expected that it will be completed and occupied by the Tenth battalion of Albany early in the spring of 1891. It will be one of the best and most commodious armories in the state.
In August, 1886, on the reorganization and reduction of the divisions and brigades, Mr. Parker was elected brigadier- general of the Third brigade, N. G. S. N. Y. His brigade district embraces thirty-two of the sixty counties of the state. He has made many radical changes and done much to increase the strength and efficiency of the brigade, which was nearly three thousand strong, and was pronounced the finest brigade among the fifty thousand troops in the parade at the Washington centennial in New York on the 30th of April, 1889.
The New York Times, referring to the parade and the Third brigade on that occassion, quoted from the official re- port to the war department, Washington, D. C., as follows : " As the companies of these regiments rolled by in solid masses they showed a magnificent front, and as a mass and body of troops nothing last Tuesday compared with the Third New York brigade." When Gen. Parker took com- mand of the Third brigade in August, 1886, the total aggre- gated 2,204 officers and men ; now the Third brigade aggre- gates about 3,100 officers and men, and in morale and effici- ency it is second to none in this country.
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