USA > New York > Oneida County > Rome > Our city and its people : a descriptive work on the city of Rome, New York > Part 20
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OUR CITY AND ITS PEOPLE.
New York. After the war he became prominent in the military service of Rhode Island. In June, 1794, a charter was granted to the Bristol Train of Artillery, the charter members being Mr. Wardwell, William De Wolfe, Samuel V. Peek, and John Bradford, and at the first election of officers on April 7, 1796, Samuel Wardwell was chosen captain with rank in the militia of lieutenant-colonel. This company, by its charter, was made independent of all regiments; when in active service it was to be under the command of the governor of the State only. Its members, which, exclusive of officers, "must not exceed sixty-four in number," were exempted from bearing arms or doing military duty in the militia of the State. In 1797 two brass field- pieces, said to have been captured from the British at the surrender of Burgoyne, were presented to the cor. pany by the State, "to be fired on all public occasions," and they are still used for the purposes specified. Col. Samuel Wardwell, under the firm name of Bourne & Wardwell, was also prominently identified with the commerce of Bristol prior to the beginning of this century. The firm owned at one time forty- two vessels and for many years carried on an extensive shipping business. The year Oneida county was formed (1798) Colonel Wardwell purchased in one body 4,000 aeres of land in the town of Ellisburg (now Jefferson) then in the county of Oneida. This purchase included the site of the present village of Mannsville. In 1812 he set- tled at what is known as the "Ridge " in Rome, N. Y., where were then located a grist mill and saw mill. There he purchased 285 acres of land, tore away the old grist mill and erected a new one (on the site of the Rome water works), which stood until 1868. In 1815 he sold forty acres and the business part of the " Ridge Mills" to David Driggs, and the remainder of his land to the grandfather of the late Dr. M. Calvin West.
The children of Col. Samuel and Lydia (Wardwell) Wardwell were Nathaniel, born September 20, 1778, married Dolly Fales, and died in Ellisburg, N. Y., November 16, 1857; Nancy, born September 25, 1780, married John M. Bourne, and died at Providence, R. I., in 1856; Jonathan, born January 30, 1783, died at sea in 1805; Sarah, born January 21, 1785, married Thomas Peckham; Lydia, born September 10, 1786, married Allen Smith; Samuel, born June 14, 1788, married Hannah Monroe, and died at Mannsville, N. Y., in 1857; Mary, born November 28, 1789, married Joseph C. Wood, and died at Ellisburg, N. Y., in June, 1819; Daniel the subject of this memoir, hereafter mentioned; Henry, born July 9, 1792, was made lieutenant on board the privateer " Yankee " in October, 1814, in the war of 1812-15, and died at Havana, Cuba, in August, 1816; Abby, 1st, born September 17. 1793, died in in- faney; Abby, 2d, born December 31, 1794, married Henry Wright; and three who died in infancy.
IIon. Daniel Wardwell was born in Bristol, R. I., May 28, 1791, was graduated from Brown University in his native State in 1811, and in 1812 removed with his father to Rome, Oneida county, where he entered the law office of Judge Joshua Hathaway, one of the pioneer lawyers of Fort Stanwix. In 1813 Mr. Wardwell be- came a student in the office of Gold & Sill, of Whitesboro; in 1814 he was admitted to the Court of Common Pleas in Jefferson county; and in January, 1815, he was admitted to the Supreme Court as attorney. In those years he was residing in Adams and Ellisburg, looking after the large landed interests and other property of his father in that part of Jefferson county. In 1816 he became a resident of Rome village, where he practiced his profession during that year and 1817. He then re-
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BIOGRAPHICAL,
turned to Jefferson county and remained until 1821, when, in January, he was ad- mitted to the Supreme Court as counselor. Early in 1821 he opened a law office in Utica and in August was admitted as counselor to the U. S. District Court. In 1822 he took up his permanent residence in Mannsville, N. Y., where he and his brother- in-law, Major H. B. Mann, erected a large cotton factory, which was totally de- stroyed by fire in 1827, when just ready to begin operation. Its destruction entailed a loss to the owners of $10, 000.
In 1824 Mr. Wardwell was appointed by Governor Yates side judge of Jefferson county, where he was elected to the Assembly in 1825, 1826, and 1827. In 1826 lie caused considerable commotion in Albany, New York, and the river counties by in- troducing and advocating in the Assembly a resolution favoring the removal of the State capital to Utica or some other central point. In 1828 there was great political and anti-Masonic excitement in this State. Gen. Andrew Jackson was running for president, De Witt Clinton for governor, and Judge Daniel Ward , ell for State sena- tor-all strong Masons high in the order. It was one of the anti-Masonic years. The State was then divided into eight districts, with four senators from each district, and one senator was elected in each district every year. The Fifth district then comprised the counties of Oneida, Jefferson, Herkimer, Lewis, Madison, and Oswego. The term of Charles Dayan, of Lewis county, as senator, expired, and in 1828 Judge Daniel Wardwell and William H. Maynard, of Utica, were opposing nominees. Mr. Maynard was one of the brightest legal luminaries of the Oneida county bar; the anti-Masons endorsed him; and as Judge Wardwell was never afraid to " wear his principles on his coat sleeve," he was defeated by about 300. In return the Jefferson county congressional district elected him to Congress for three successive terms, be- ginning in 1830. He had as his colleague during his entire congressional service his first fellow law student. Hon. Samuel Beardsley, with whom he retained a warm personal and political friendship for many years, especially during Andrew Jackson's stormy administration, of which they were staunch supporters, both being warm personal friends of the president. Judge Wardwell was elected for the fourth time from Jefferson county in 1837, and that year was a member of the committee on ways and means. In 1860 he removed to Rome, where he died, universally respected, in March, 1878.
In polities Judge Wardwell was a staunch Democrat of the Jacksonian school until the division of the Democracy in 1848, when he affiliated with the " Free Soil" wing. In 1856 he was a delegate to the Pittsburg convention which nominated John C. Fre- mont for president, and ever after was as firm a Republican as he had been a Dem- ocrat in the palmny days of " Old Hickory." . Judge Wardwell was not a legal advo- cate, nor did he engage to any extent in the argument of causes in courts; but he was a good, sound lawyer and a safe counselor, one whose judgment and legal advice were sought after by a large clientage and always relied upon as entirely safe to fol- low. He was widely known and esteemed, not only for his profound knowledge of the law, but also for his many attributes of head and heart. His integrity was never questioned. As a legislator he always labored conscientiously and unceasingly for the interests of his constituents and fully merited the trust and confidence which he received at their hands. He was kind, generous, and indulgent to the poor, a friend whose advice and counsel were often sought, and a man upon whom was placed the utmost reliance.
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OUR CITY AND ITS PEOPLE.
Judge Wardwell was married at Whitesboro, N. Y., on July 20, 1815, by the Rev. John Frost, to Miss Hetty Mann, daughter of Hon. Newton Mann (whose sketch ap- pears in this work). She was born at Attleboro, Mass., December 16, 1796, and died at Mannsville, N. Y., September 28, 1858. Their children were Abby Mann, born April 11, 1817, married Robert B. Doxtater, and died in 1884 (Mr. Doxtater was the first superintendent of the Rome and Watertown railroad and held that position until his election as president of the Michigan Southern railroad; while riding over that line, attending to his duties, he was stricken with apoplexy, and died suddenly at La Porte, Ind., May 15, 1853, aged thirty-nine years, at the early dawn of a bright and auspicious future); Henry, born July 11, 1819, deceased; Newton Mann, born February 12, 1821, married, first, Elizabeth Jones, deceased, and second, Mrs. Antoinette (Waite) Sutton ; Samuel, born November 14, 1822, admitted to the bar in 1847, married Mary A. Stillman in 1848, and now cashier of the Farmers National Bank of Rome; Julia Doolittle, born January 13, 1828, died June 11, 1831; Charles Carroll, born December 4, 1829, died May 7, 1859; William Wilberforce, born January 15, 1834, married in January, 1860, Elizabeth W. Smith, and now a leading hardware merchant in Rome; John How- land, born December 29, 1837, married Cornelia Comstock; and Edward Herbert, born April 28, 1841 married, first, Josephine Hitchcock, of Utica, deceased, and second her sister Harriet. October 4, 1859, Judge Wardwell married for his second wife, at Adams, N. Y., Letitia W. Smith, who survives him and resides in Rome.
NEWTON MANN.
Tuk family of this name in America descends in an unbroken line from William Mann, youngest child of Sir Charles Mann, who was born in England in 1607. At a very early day in the history of the Massachusetts colony William Mann immi- grated to this country and settled in Cambridge, where he married, first, Mary Jarred in 1643 `and, second, Alice Tiel on June 11, 1657, and where he died in 1662. Rev. Samuel Mann, his only son, was born there July 6, 1647, was grad- uated from Harvard College in 1665, and soon afterward was ordained to the min- istry and settled over the Congregational church in Wrentham, where he remained until his death, May 22, 1719. He is recorded as both a "learned minister and a great man," and was the paternal ancestor of Horace Mann, the celebrated New England educator, whose statue graces the State House in Boston. May 19, 16'3, he married Esther Ware, of Dedham, and among their children was Samuel, jr .. who was born August 18, 1675, married Zipporah Billings, and died in 1732. Samuel Mann, jr., had thirteen children, of whom the youngest son, Dr. Bezaleel Mann, was born at Attleboro, Mass., June 15, 1724, and died there October 3, 1796; his wife, Bede Carpenter, died in 1793. Dr. Mann was an eminent physician and amassed large wealth. He was an active and influential patriot during the Revolu- tionary war, a member of the Committee of Safety, judge of the Superior Court of Attleboro, and a member of the committee to report upon the first constitution sub- mitted to the people of Massachusetts. His children were Dr. Preston Mann, a graduate of Brown University and a skillful physician in Newport, R. I., where he
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BIOGRAPHICAL.
entertained Washington and La Fayette during the Revolution ; Dr. J. Milton Mann, also a graduate of Brown University, a physician in Attleboro, Mass., and later in Troy, N. Y., and drowned in the Hudson River; Mary, who married Josiah Draper and was the mother of Virgil Draper, whose portrait and biography appear in this work; Dr. Herbert Mann, a graduate of Brown University, surgeon on the privateer General Arnold during the Revolutionary war, and frozen to death at sea; Newton Mann, the subject of this memoir, subsequently mentioned; and Eunice, who mar ried Dr. Seth Capron, who was graduated from Brown University, studied medicine with her father, and served in the war of the Revolution.
Newton Mann was born in Attleboro, Mass., in 1770, and inherited all the noble attributes of mind and body which distinguished his scholarly ancestors. He early imbibed those underlying principles of manhood that characterize the respected citizen. His education was obtained in his native town where he remained till about 1806, when he came with Dr. Seth Capron and his family and the widow of Dr. J. Milton Mann and her children to Whitesboro, Oneida county, N. Y., for the purpose of engaging in the manufacture of cotton goods, which Dr. Capron had closely studied in New England. With Dr. Capron, Benjamin S. Walcott, Theo- dore Sill,1 and Thomas R. Gold, he at once organized a stock company and erected on Sanquoit Creek, on the site of the present New York Mills, the first cotton factory . in this State. Mr. Mann was the principal stockholder. The Oriskany Woolen Mill was subsequently incorporated with a capital of $200,000 by Chief Justice Am- brose Spencer, Jovis Platt, William G. Tracy, Thomas R. Gold, Theodore Sill, Mr. Mann, and De Witt Clinton. This company imported large numbers of merino sheep from Spain, many of them costing as high as $600 and $1,000 cach. These sheep were kept in the vicinity of the village, mainly on the opposite side of the Mohawk River, and one of their farms was called "Mount Merino." The com- pany continued business several years and prospered until the peace of 1815 opened our markets to a flood of importations. Before the year 1825 Mr. Mann withdrew from both enterprises and moved with his family to Mannsville, Jefferson county, a village named from his son, Major Herbert B. Mann, who in partnership with Judge Daniel Wardwell (whose portrait and biography appear m this work) erected a large cotton mill there, which was burned in 1827, when ready to begin operation. There Newton Mann resided the remainder of his life, dying April 11, 1860, at the age of ninety years.
Mr. Mann was an old line Whig of pronounced convictions, but never sought nor accepted public office. An uncompromising Abolitionist himself he was a warm per- sonal friend of Gerrit Smith, Alvin Stewart, and other noted anti-slavery advocates, and during the great abolition movement which swept over the country prior to the Rebellion he was a powerful and an active factor. For many years he was in- timately acquainted with the " underground railroad;" his house in Mannsville be- came a noted "station," and he personally assisted in passing large numbers of slaves on to Canada. He was a devout Christian and a member of the Congrega- tional church, and throughout life manifested a lively interest in all charitable and benevolent objects, to which he liberally contributed. Kind-hearted, enterprising, and sagacious he merited and retained the confidence, respect, and esteem of his
' Theodore Sill married Eliza, daughter of Dr. J. Milton Mann, and they were the grand- parents of Edward Comstock, of Rome, whose portrait appears in this volume.
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OUR CITY AND ITS PEOPLE.
fellowmen and bore the highest reputation for honesty, integrity, and moral upright- ness. He was a good business man, a shrewd investor, and an able financier, and realized handsome profits from his various investments.
Mr. Mann was married in 1795 to Miss Abigail, daughter of Josiah Maxcey, grand- daughter of Lieut. Josiah Maxcey, of Attleboro, Mass., and sister of the Rev. Jonathan Maxcey, D. D., successively president of Brown University, Union College, and the College of South Carolina. She was born in Attleboro in 1766 and died at Mannsville, N. Y., November 17, 1860. Lieut. Josiah Maxcey, an officer in the old French war, was the owner of a slave named Caesar, whose tombstone is standing in the graveyard at North Attleboro, Mass., and upon it appears the following epitaph, which has been reproduced in most of the magazines of the country:
Here lies the best of slaves, Now turning into dust; Cæsar, the Ethiopian, craves A place among the just; His faithful sont has fled To realins of heavenly light, And, by the blood of Jesus shed, Is changed from black to white; . January 15th he quitted the stage, In the 7th year of his age. 1780.
Mr. Mann was a person of magnificent appearance, endowed with a large but graceful physique, and in stature represented almost perfect manhood. Well- developed, dignified, and of elegant and commanding physical proportions, he was a typical gentleman of the old school. The likeness of him reproduced in this vol- ume was taken when he had reached the age of eighty-five. At his wedding in 1795 he wore a blue broadcloth coat with crimson velvet collar falling below the point of the shoulders, a drab waist-coat and knee breeches, silk hose, low shoes with buckles containing French paste stones, and hair braided in a cue and powdered. His bride was attired in a peach-blow satin dress trimmed with brocaded satin, blue satin petticoat, peachblow silk hose, white slippers, and lace. These were elegant but not unusual costumes for those early days, and indicate the high and dignified posi- tions their wearers occupied in society. Mr. and Mrs. Mann's married life of sixty- five years was an uninterrupted course of domestic peace and happiness. Their love and affection were simple, pure, and ardent, unmarred by the slightest infelicity, and graced by a constant and consistent devotion as beautiful as it was enduring. They were almost inseparable, especially during the latter years of their lives, and always found the highest enjoyment in each other's society. Their children were Major Herbert B., who married Julia Doolittle and was the father of the late Dr. John Preston Mann, the celebrated specialist of New York city; Hetty, who married Judge Daniel Wardwell, whose portrait and biography appear in the present volume; and Abby Maxcey, who married Dr. Roswell Kinney, of Mannsville, N. Y.
ALFRED ETHRIDGE.
ALFRED ETHRIDGE was born in Little Falls, N. Y., July 29, 1817, and is of English descent. His father, James Ethridge, was a hat manufacturer in Little Falls, sub-
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BIOGRAPHICAL.
sequently a farmer in the town of Herkimer, and latterly a hat maker in Herkimer village. Alfred Ethridge left home at the age of nine and spent four years on a farm; he was then at home for three years and the following year began learning the cabinet maker's trade. He then became a clerk in a grocery store in Utica at $5 per month and board, but after one year accepted a clerkship with Dygert & North- rup, merchants, of Frankfort, N. Y., where he remained four years. During the next two years he was manager in charge of the store of Root, Berry & Co., in that village-a firm having large contracts on the Erie Canal enlargement. At the end of that period he formed a partnership with his old employer, Willet Northrup, under the style of Northrup & Ethridge, and continued the mercantile business over which he had presided as manager until 1844. During his early career Mr. Ethridge's edu- cation was necessarily limited to the practical affairs of life. He spent very little time in schools. Thrown upon his own resources, without a dollar, but endowed with pluck and native energy, he forged ahead and succeeded in accumulating a little capital. With this and his natural qualifications he engaged in business, which from the first proved generally successful.
In 1844 the firm of Northrup & Ethridge removed their goods to Rome and started trade on the east side of James street, just south of the canal, where they were burned out in January 1856, when the copartnership was dissolved. Mr. Ethridge succeeded to the business and opened a store on the northeast corner of James and Dominick streets, known as the Merrell Block, where he continued till about 1865. In the latter year he erected the present Ethridge block, on the corner of Dominick and South Washington streets, and moved into it. After several years Ackley P. Tuller became his partner under the style of A. Ethridge & Co., and later Erwin C. Carpen- ter was admitted to the firm. In 1875 Mr. Ethridge's eldest son, Franklin A., was given an interest and soon afterward the name of Ethridge, Tuller & Co., was adopted. January 1, 1879, the firm dissolved, Messrs. Tuller and Carpenter retir- ing. The concern was reorganized by Mr. Ethridge and his son, Franklin A., under the style of Alfred Ethridge & Co., and two years later a younger son, James M., was admitted. Since then the firm has remained unchanged. The business as originally started consisted of a general assortment of goods for the retail trade. Finally a jobbing business was gradually built up, and about 1875 it became exclu- sively a wholesale industry, with groceries, canned goods, coffees, etc., as leading specialties. Their trade has developed from modest proportions until now it reaches out into a wide area of the State and into adjoining States.
Mr. Ethridge was originally a Whig and later a Republican, and for many years took an active part in local politics. For a time he was a member of the board of supervisors, but otherwise never accepted public office. He was elected supervisor against a strong Democratie opponent in the Democratie stronghold at Rome. He always manifested a keen interest in the advancement of the city and contributed in various ways towards its material prosperity, and especially to charitable and benevo- lent objects. Enterprising, sagacious, and publie spirited, he has throughout a long and successful career retained the confidence and respect of every one with whom he has had business or social relations. He was one of the founders and directors of the Merchants Iron Mill, and for several years was interested in many other corpora- tions.
Mr. Ethridge was married November 5, 1851, to Miss Abby Murdock House, whose
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OUR CITY AND ITS PEOPLE.
father, Leonard, son of Eleazer and Abigail (Moseley) House, was born at Glaston- bury, Conn., August 24, 1787, and died at Houseville, N. Y., December 23, 1879. Her mother, Louisa Murdock, was born in Sandgate, Vt., January 12, 1788, married Mr. House on December 28, 1809, and died at Houseville, N. Y., July 6, 1870. Mrs. Ethridge was born July 10, 1824. Mr. and Mrs. Ethridge had four children: Frank- lin Alfred, Isabella (born April 1, 1856, died February 29, 1872), James Murdock, and George.
M. CALVIN WEST, M. D.
THE West family, of whom the subject of this memoir was a worthy representative, is of English origin, and for generations imbibed the noble characteristics of their mother country. John West, sr., born in Shaftsbury, Vt., April 25, 1770, settled in the town of Western, Oneida county, N. Y., in 1790, and there his son, John, jr., was born December 26, 1796. In 1816 the family moved to Rome, N. Y., where the pioneer John died July 28, 1834. His wife, Harriet Stephens, whom he married January 26, 1792, was born in Connecticut on November 11, 1768, and died August 21, 1818. They had ten children, four sons and six daughters, of whom John, jr., was the fourth child and oldest son. November 26, 1821, John West, jr., married Mary J., daughter of John Driggs, who was born in Stafford, Conn., January 22, 1800, and who died January 30, 1882. Mr. Driggs came to Rome in 1804 and en- gaged in the manufacture of woolen goods, having a satinet factory at "Ridge Mills, ' and also operated grain and lumber mills until his death in 1855. Mr. West died February 6, 1860.
Dr. M. Calvin West, youngest son of John jr., and Mary (Driggs) West, was born in Rome on the 11th of September, 1834, and obtained his education in the district schools and Rome Academy, graduating from the latter institution at the age of eighteen. For a few years thereafter he assisted his father in agricultural pursuits, but his inelinations soon took a professional turn. In 1857 he went to Hagerstown, Ind., and read medicine in the office of his paternal uncle, Dr. Calvin West.1 In 1860 he was graduated with the degree of M. D. from the Medical Department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and during the following year continued his scientific and clinical studies with his uncle at Hagerstown. In the fall of 1861 he began the active practice of his profession in Floyd, Oneida county, where he remained until 1863, when he settled permanently in Rome. While in Indiana he was a prominent member and for a time president of the Wayne County Medical Society, and prepared and read before that body a practical paper on " Hypodermic Injection," which was published in the Cincinnati Lancet. He was an active mem- ber of the Oneida County Medical Society, a delegate to the New York State Med- ical Society, a member of the New York State Medical Association, and a permanent member of the American Medical Association. In 1865 and 1866 he was one of the
1 Dr. Calvin West, born in Western. Oneida county, August 9, 1800, became a prominent phy- sician in Indiana and a surgeon in the Union army in the war of the Rebellion, and died at Hagers- town on August 25, 1863.
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BIOGRAPHIICAL.
faculty of Rome Academy and delivered a series of lectures on physiology and kin- dred subjects.
Dr. West was a physician of high standing and rare ability, and enjoyed an ex- tensive practice. He possessed a cheerful and restful personality, an underlying current of humor, a keen discrimination, a large fund of information, and a sense of justice which carried the weight of conviction. Tenacious of friendship and en- dowed with great kindness of heart, he won universal respect and the confidence of all with whom he came in contact; careful, shrewd, and wise in business affairs he was generally successful in everything he attempted. Ile early won professional recognition from his associates and esteem from all classes of citizens and held them to the end. His advice and counsel were often sought. He was thoroughly iden- tified with the prosperity and advancement of the city of Rome and always took a lively interest in publie affairs. In July, 1881, he was made a member by Mayor Comstock of the first board of fire commissioners and in October following he was elected a commissioner of the Rome free schools, and held each position three years, . ~ being president of the board of education a part of the time. He was physician to the county poor house during the term of Superintendent Theodore S. Comstock, was long a director in the Central National Bank, and in January, 1891, became president of the Rome and Carthage Railroad Company, a position he held at the time of his death, which occurred in Rome on October 20, 1891. He was also a member of Rome Lodge, No. 266, I. O. O. F., and trustee of the First M. E. church of this city.
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