USA > New York > Noted living Albanians and state officials. A series of biographical sketches > Part 22
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As a promoter of public improvement and progress in the solid old Dutch city of Albany, Gen. Parker, with the enter- prise of his New England ancestors stirring him to action, has already won an enviable reputation among all classes of citizens. His public services in this respect, though often of
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a varied and onerous nature, have always been gratuitously and cheerfully rendered. He served as president of the Young Men's association in 1875 and 1876, when he and his associates cleared the association of heavy debts ; and dur- ing his term was started the noble project for a great public hall for the city of Albany with library building attached. Elaborate plans were made, framed and exhibited to the Al- bany public, but the necessary funds could not then be raised, and the project slumbered to be revived by Mr. Par- ker and others in 1887 and 1888, when the long-desired Bleecker trust was secured by them from Judge Parker and over fifty thousand dollars besides, raised by popular sub- scription ; and as a result we now have the magnificent Har- manus Bleecker hall. The framed building plans of 1875 will, upon the completion of the hall, be hung up in the same as a part of the history of the institution.
General Parker was elected by the alumni a trustee of Union college and served one term. He is a trustee of the Albany Law school ; is president of its alumni association and represents that body in the board of governors of Union uni- versity. He is also a trustee of the Albany Medical college, succeeding his father in that position on his resignation after more than forty years' service, during fifteen of which he was president of the board. He succeeded his father in 1881 as one of the board of managers of the Hudson river state hospital at Poughkeepsie, one of the most complete and valuable asylums for the insane in this country. New buildings there are about completed, begun in 1886, while General Parker was in the senate, and the capacity of the institution is more than trebled and much additional land for farm purposes has been acquired by the state within the past three years. General Parker was elected president of
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the board the day he entered it, and has since been re- elected eight times. This great asylum to-day can accommo- date one thousand patients and represents an investment by the state of over two millions of dollars, independent of the large outlay in the purchase of the original three hundred acres of valuable land presented to the state upon which to found the institution. Its board of managers is strong and in- dependent in its policy, and while enforcing the most rigid economy in all the departments of the institution, is deter- mined that it shall excel all others in this country in com- pleteness, efficiency and good results.
General Parker was married to Miss Cornelia Kane Strong, of New Orleans, April 22d, 1868. Mrs. Parker was fatally injured by a runaway, caused by the negligent con- struction of the neck-yoke of the carriage in which she was driving, September 29th, 1882. She lingered until Decem- ber 18th, 1883, and left six children - two sons, now in Yale college, and four daughters who are nearly grown. She was a woman of rare abilities and gracious manners, as well as of great personal loveliness. At the time his wife met with her sad accident, General Parker himself, in his endeavor to save the others in the party, was fearfully injured and it was a long time before he regained his former health and vigor.
General Parker is above medium height, powerfully built, with far more than ordinary physical strength and endurance. He has always been a very temperate man and an athlete, rarely varying a pound in weight. For many years he has ridden horseback daily - Sundays excepted, without regard to rain or shine, heat or cold.
He is a man of engaging manners, active in his move- ments and gentlemanly in his bearing. As a public speaker he is earnest, ready and forcible; always firm in his con-
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victions and undeviating from the line of duty which he marks out. He is endowed with remarkable will power, and possesses great decision and independence of character. Now in the very prime and vigor of manhood, following in the footsteps of an honored father, he has in prospect many more years of activity in his professional and political work and in lending a helping hand toward the further growth and development of municipal and state affairs.
CHARLES H. PECK.
" There is a lesson in each flower, A story in each stream and bower; In every herb on which you tread Are written words, which, rightly read, Will lead you from earth's fragrant sod, To hope, and holiness, and God."
ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
N ALBANIAN who has manifested a high order of genius in a special department of science, and whose devotion to the study of the beauties and sublimities of nature is supreme, is Professor Charles H. Peck, the present botanist of the New York state museum of natural history. He was born in the town of Sandlake, Rensselaer county, N. Y., on the 30th of March, 1833. His father, Joel B. Peck, operated a saw-mill at that place, and when but four- teen years of age young Peck assisted him in running the mill during the summer months. In the winter he attended the district school - a much more congenial work for him than that of handling lumber.
But this manual exercise was at the same time greatly beneficial to him in strengthening his naturally delicate con- stitution and fitting him for future usefulness in his later scientific researches. In 1851, at the age of eighteen, he entered the state normal school at Albany, where for a year
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he pursued his studies with the closest application and the most absorbing interest. It was here that he first took up the special study in which he has always since been so deeply interested, and for which he seems to have been naturally inclined from early youth. An extra class in botany, taught by Professor J. H. Salisbury, then one of the professors in the normal school, was formed, and young Peck was one of the first to join it. It was a volun- tary class, and discontinued at the close of the school term. But it was instrumental in settling a point in the intellectual aspiration of our student. He now determined to become a botanist, and the elementary studies in this science which he carried on here awakened in him an interest in the sub- ject which never forsook him, and which had a great deal to do in shaping and directing his whole future career. Thus it often happens that apparently trifling circumstances 1 give a color and character to the history of an individual which are far-reaching in their influence and most important in their final results. While cherishing the most ardent love for the study of botany, Mr. Peck was not then in a situation to pay exclusive devotion to the more profound investigations of this interesting and very instructive science. In the meantime he was to engage for a brief period in teaching school, in clerkship in a country store, and in com- pleting a general collegiate course.
Graduating from the normal school in 1852 he took charge of a large district school in Rensselaer county in the autumn of the same year This school had then an average attendance of about sixty pupils. Though young and inex- perienced as a teacher, Mr. Peck resolutely undertook the work and successfully conducted the school through the win- ter term. In the summer of 1853 he accepted a position as
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a clerk in a general country store, but after a trial of four months in this capacity, he was obliged to relinquish his clerkship on account of impaired health, doubtless feeling at the same time that he had not found his proper calling in the dry goods business. After resting for a brief season at home he fully made up his mind to avail himself of the privileges of a collegiate course, and for this purpose he carefully undertook his classical preparatory studies. He entered Union college at Schenectady in the fall of 1855. It may be truly asserted that Mr. Peck pursued his college studies with a closeness and intensity which were lacking in many a student of far more robust constitution. He made the most of the precious hours of college life, poring day after day and night after night over his text-books. He took the regular classical course, and so high and scholarly were his attainments in this branch of learning that he was one of the three members of the class who successfully passed the thorough and extended examination for the Nott prize scholarship.
It was while at college that Mr. Peck's former love for botanical research had a more favorable opportunity of be- ing kindled anew. He received his botanical instruction from the late Professor Jonathan Pearson, a man genial in his nature and earnest in his literary work. Professor Pear- son did not confine his teachings to the class-room, but made excursions with his botanical class to the fields and mountains, teaching facts and principles as suggested in the broad and beautiful field of nature, where -
" They sat, reclined
On the soft, downy bank, damask'd with flowers."
These excursions of the college class, however, were not frequent enough to suit the taste of Mr. Peck, who wished
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to lose no opportunity to gratify his love for botanical in- vestigation. During nearly every Saturday in the summer and autumn months, he might have been seen rambling through the college garden or over more distant fields, hills and mountains, in search of plants for study ; and specimens for his herbarium. He thus combined the enjoyable and profitable pursuit of knowledge with most agreeable recrea- tion, impressed, doubtless, with the sentiment of Words- worth -
"To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
Mr. Peck graduated from old Union with honor in 1859, when the mutterings of coming civil war were about to agi- tate the country. He at once accepted a position as teacher of classics, mathematics and botany in the Sandlake Collegi- ate institute, the school in which he had received his own classical preparation for college. Here he remained three years, patiently and carefully imparting the fruits of his hard earned, extensive knowledge to his scholars. While here a position as tutor in Union college was offered him but circumstances were such as to prevent its acceptance.
At the end of the second year of Mr. Peck's professorship here, a happy domestic event occurred in his life, and that was his marriage to Miss Mary C. Sliter, a young lady pos- sessed of many virtues, who had been his classmate in his school-boy days, and who now consented to be a helpmate to him during life. Two sons, both of whom are living, are the fruits of this union. Having thus happily settled down in life, Mr. Peck removed to Albany with his young wife, at the close of his third year at Sandlake, and accepted a . position as teacher in a private school, where Latin, Greek, book-keeping, etc., were especially under his charge. After
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four and a half years of continuous and faithful work in this capacity, his services were transferred to the New York state museum of natural history, with which institution he has since been connected as botanist. About this time he be- came a member of the Albany institute, and he is now cor- responding member of several scientific societies. The dreams of his early life may now be said to have been fully realized, and he has ever felt perfectly at home in his present sphere of activity and usefulness. This position has given him an excellent opportunity for the full exercise of his love for botanical pursuits, and he has availed himself of it with gladness. The duties of his office made it necessary to de- vote much time to the study of fungi, and in this branch of botany he has become one of the leading authorities in this country. His annual reports to the board of regents of the university of the state of New York constitute an important addition to mycological literature, and they are eagerly sought after by botanists throughout this country and Eu- rope. He numbers among his correspondents the most dis- tinguished European and American botanists. He has de- tected and described very many new species of fungi, and has added much to the general knowledge of these plants. By his labors the herbarium of the New York state museum of natural history has taken a position of prime importance among the public herbaria of the world, containing as it does the type specimens of a large number of species of fungi, some of which are not represented in any other herbarium. The number of species represented in the herbarium has been almost trebled, now numbering over four thousand, of which one-half at least are fungi.
In 1886 Mr. Peck removed to a country seat at Menands, three miles from Albany, where he could experiment with
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plants, and where he has taken much interest in horticultural operations.
At the age of eighteen Mr. Peck united with the Presby- terian church, and he is at present a member of the Fourth Presbyterian church of Albany, of which the Rev. A. V. V. Raymond is pastor. In politics he has always been a repub- lican, but not an active partisan, sometimes even voting for candidates of the opposite party when deeming them best fitted for the place.
ISAAC G. PERRY.
N architect of high standing and great popularity in his profession is Isaac G. Perry, the regular capitol commissioner, whose official residence is now in Albany. Born in Bennington, Vt., of Scottish ancestry, on the 24th of March, 1822, he passed his earliest days amidst the grand, patriotic scenes of the Green mountains, breathing pure, invigorating air and laying the foundation of a strong constitution.
His father, Seneca Perry, a native of White Creek, Wash- ington county, N. Y., and a carpenter and joiner by trade, died in 1868. His mother, whose maiden name was Martha Ann Taggart, was born at Londenary, N. H., and died in 1860. She was ardently attached to the old Presbyterian faith. His grandfather was Valentine Perry, and his grandmother, Patient (Hays) Perry, both of White Creek. His grandmother on his maternal side was Mary Woodburn of Londenary, N. H. The Woodburns came from Scotland to this country at an early date, and settled in Londenary and its vicinity.
His parents removed to Keeseville, Essex county, N. Y., when their son Isaac was a lad of seven years. There he attended the village school for several terms, and served an apprenticeship with his father as a carpenter and joiner, pur- suing his studies in this line with the greatest enthusiasm
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from early morn until late at night. He may, in fact, be called a born architect, so early did this subject engross his thoughts and fire his ambition. And so speedily did he ac- quire a knowledge of its elementary principles that in a short time he began to do work on his own account.
His abilities as an architect soon became so well known to the citizens of Keeseville and the surrounding country that he received and executed many orders for building purposes, gaining a professional reputation which has ever since been on the increase, until its crowning glory has been reached.
In 1852 Mr. Perry removed to New York city and opened an office at 229 Broadway. It was a bold venture for a young architect from a rural district, but it was a successful one. For twenty years he carried on his business in the metropolis with a steadily increasing volume and a skillful completion of architectural designs. But the time had come when he was to engage in works of a public nature for the state. In 1857 he had the good fortune to receive a com- mission to furnish plans and superintend the construction of the New York State Inebriate asylum at Binghamton, N. Y. By the construction of this edifice -a fine specimen of cas- tellated Gothic architecture -his fame was more widely ex- tended and his reputation permanently established. But he relaxed none of his native born energies in the prosecution of his chosen and important work. The citizens of Bing- hamton were loud in the praise of the rising young architect, and work after work came rushing into his hands. Among the many other important buildings in Binghamton erected under his supervision we have only space here to mention the following : The First Baptist church, the Centenary M. E. church, the Congregational church, St. Patrick's church, the Phelps bank building, First National bank build-
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ing, the McNamara block, the Hagaman block, the Perry block, the High school building, Hotel Bennett, the Phelps mansion, not to speak of the numerous other fine private residences there, the result of his handiwork. His works extended all through and far beyond the Chemung valley.
In order to be near the scene of his great architectural undertakings, Mr. Perry left New York city eighteen years ago and took up his permanent residence in Bingham- ton. But his professional works were not confined to that city alone. Leading citizens of Scranton, Wilkesbarre, Pa., and other towns sought after and obtained his services. At Scranton he built the Lackawanna court-house, the Dickson Manufacturing Company's machine shops, the Second Na- tional bank, the Scranton Trust Company's bank, the Li- .- brary edifice, the residence of Hon. Joseph H. Scranton, Jr., after whose father the place was called, dwellings for Messrs. Linnen and Green, besides many others of a similar nature, all constructed in a substantial and very attractive manner. Wilkesbarre also bears the marks of his pleasing designs and rare architectural skill. There he built the fine resi- dence of Charles Parish, the First National bank, the opera house, residence of Stanley Woodward, blocks of commer- cial buildings, and numerous dwelling-houses. At Port Jervis, N. Y., he built the Dutch Reformed church and par- sonage, Rev. Mr. Mill's house, the Catholic church, the Far- num and Howell commercial block, and several other public and private edifices. All these are but a small portion of the work performed by Mr. Perry before his connection with the new capitol at Albany. It has been stated that at times the work in his office has aggregated $1,000,000. He also furnished many designs for buildings in the western states, as far as Kansas, where his fame had already extended.
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The noble specimens of Mr. Perry's architectual skill in so many different places were sufficient to call more par- ticular attention to him by our state authorities in the selection of an able and accomplished architect to look after the proper continuance of the work on the new capitol, and accordingly, on the 30th of March, 1883, Governor Cleveland appointed him the regular commissioner of the capitol, under the new law creating a single commissioner to have "entire charge of the interests which had heretofore been confided to a board of commissioners." Six days afterward this most judicious appointment was confirmed by the senate. It is proper to say that this responsible po- sition was unsought by Mr. Perry, while at the same time it was favorably received by the press of the state of all political parties. Though a pronounced democrat Mr. Perry brought no entangling politics into his new professional work; and for the past seven years he has discharged the duties of his office on the broad principles of impartiality, justice and honesty, thus meriting the encomiums of his friends and the full confidence placed in him by the people of the empire state. Indeed, we believe that politics have but little attractions for him, for his whole heart seems to be wrapped up in the cause and advancement of his own pro- fession. During his administration as capitol commissioner he has superintended the work with an energy, diligence and fidelity commendable in every respect. Always alert in his field of labor, looking over the progress of the work, drawing and perfecting plans and making every desirable improvement, he has spent his days and evenings with this one all-absorbing subject on his mind.
One of the most striking, beautiful and elaborate speci- mens of his architectural work on the new capitol is his de-
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sign, arrangement and adornment of the interior of the state library, which must always attract the attention and call forth the admiration of visitors from all parts of the country. In the central hall of the library, the dimensions of which are forty-two feet by seventy-two feet, with a ceiling fifty- three feet in height, are thirty-two massive, highly polished columns of red granite. Of these, on the first floor, are four clusters of six, two double and two single ones. The capi- tals are in clusters of six, no two of which are alike in de- sign. On the fourth floor are eight more clusters of granite columns, eight clusters of four and four double ones. The flooring is of red tile with variegated borders, made in Cleve- land. The ceiling is a marvel of beauty, adorned with most appropriate figures and allegorical designs delicately painted by a New York artist, among which are portraits of Shakes- peare, Milton, Goethe, Schiller, Byron and Longfellow. Symbols of science and art appear on the opposite sides, while in the center of the ceiling are cupids floating among roses in a summer's sky, which no person of refined tastes can look upon without admiration.
From the central hall to the right, on entering, is the law library, occupying a space of thirty feet by forty-five feet, with its numerous alcoves well filled with the choicest treas- ures of legal science. Two flights of stairs lead to the floors above. On the left of the central hall are the spacious gen- eral library rooms extending to the end of the south-west side of the building, occupying a space of forty-eight feet by one hundred and four feet, also containing flights of stairs leading to other floors. The whole apartments, both of the law and general library, are finished under the most watchful care of Mr. Perry, who designed to make them a worthy re- ceptacle of one of the most valuable public libraries of the
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world, and in the construction of which his name will ever be pleasantly associated.
The senate stair-case and the court of appeals room are also works in which he has taken great pains in finishing in an elaborate and artistic manner. While many persons sup- posed that Mr. Perry was only a first-class builder they may now see in these grand capitol works that he also possesses a high order of architectural genius and artistic design. He is also the architect of the new armory building on the cor- ner of Washington avenue and Lark street.
In his personal appearance Mr. Perry is of a tall, robust figure with a large head, light brown hair a little sprinkled with grey, long, flowing beard, very plain and affable in his manners, without the least display of vanity or ostentation, but evincing at the same time no little strength of intellect, decision of character and indomitable perseverance, sufficient to grapple with, and master the most difficult and complica- ted matters in the line of his profession.
Besides his acknowledged abilities as an architect and builder there is one trait in his character that must commend itself to all good citizens, and that is his inflexible honesty, the crowning glory of his long and busy career, standing forth like a stately granite shaft. Gov. Hill only recently voiced public sentiment when he characterized Isaac G. Perry as " an able, responsible and competent architect."
In December, 1848, Mr. Perry married Miss Lucretia L. Gibson of Keeseville, N. Y.
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yours truly Att. Ramsey
JOSEPH H. RAMSEY.
MONG the distinguished men who have figured honor- ably in the civil and political affairs of Albany and Schoharie county, is the Hon. Joseph H. Ramsey, ex-senator. He has been aptly styled the little giant of the Albany and Susquehanna railroad. Stirring and exciting actions, es- pecially in railroad matters, have marked his long and busy career - actions in which he has shown a determination and an unyielding perseverance seldom equalled or surpassed in fighting for what he deemed to be right, as well as for the best interests of his fellow-citizens in railroad matters.
Born on the 29th of January, 1816, in the town of Sharon, Schoharie county, N. Y., he spent his boyhood days there amidst the rich and attractive scenery of a now flourishing portion of the state. His ancestry is of German and Eng- lish origin, the more sturdy and substantial qualities of which he has combined in an eminent degree. His father, the Rev. Frederick Ramsey, was a man of high moral and religious character, who was for more than fifty years a local minister in the Methodist church. After fighting " a good fight " in spiritual matters, he departed this life about twelve years ago, over eighty years old, in the lively hope of receiving the everlasting " crown of righteousness " reserved for the just. The mother of ex-Senator Ramsey is still living, at the
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