Our county and its people; a descriptive work on Oneida county, New York;, Part 65

Author: Wager, Daniel Elbridge, 1823-1896
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: [Boston] : The Boston history co.
Number of Pages: 1612

USA > New York > Oneida County > Our county and its people; a descriptive work on Oneida county, New York; > Part 65

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While acting as principal of the Oriskany Falls school in 1864 James A. Douglass married Elouis M. Bush, of Sangerfield. She, too, was a teacher, having been edu- cated at a private school in Waterville and at Cazenovia Seminary. They both con- tinued to teach at the Falls for the next two successive years, when Mr. Douglass retired from the school and bought a large warehouse on the bank of the old Che- nango Canal, engaging in the lumber and produce business.

In 1867 he entered into partnership with E. A. Hamlin, under the firm name of Douglass & Hamlin, the firm carrying the same line of business till 1877. At that time Mr. Hamlin retired from the firm, the business having since been conducted by Mr. Douglass.

In 1883, in company with Herman Morgan, he bought the old Oriskany Falls brewery which had a wide reputation for its line of product. This partnership con- tinued till 1894, when Mr. Douglass purchased the interest of Mr. Morgan and is now carrying on that business with his various other industries.

In 1888 Mr. Douglass built a large canning factory which is now conducted under the firm name of C. L. Douglass & Co. (the C. L. Douglass being the son). Mr. Douglass has been married twice. His second wife, whom he married in 1892, was Mrs. Flora Hubbard Smith, of Chittenango, Madison county, N. Y. Through all his career Mr. Douglass has been an ardent Republican and has been active and in- fluential in both town, county and State politics. He has, too, been honored by his party with many offices of importance. He has been president of his village, a mem- ber of the State Legislature and since 1890 has represented his town in the Board of Supervisors. As a member of that board he has shown himself to be one of the most competent representatives the town has ever had. That this has been recog_ nized is evidenced by the fact that the board elected him its chairman in 1893, and in 1891 and 1892 chairman of the miscellaneous committee and chairman of the build- ing committee in 1893 when the sale of the old county house buildings at Rome

OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.

and a new site bought and new buildings erected. It was due mainly to his busi- ness sagacity that this sale at a large figure was brought about, and new and much more elaborate structures built for an amount considerably less than what was received for the property sold. With him an office is a public trust in the strictest sense. Mr. Douglass has had two children, one son, Clinton L., born January 3, 1869, and Anna L., born July 13, 1870. She died December 26, 1885.

REUBEN TOWER.

REUBEN TOWER, agriculturist, was born in Waterville, Oneida county, N. Y., Jan- uary 17, 1829.

He is of the seventh generation from John Tower, who emigrated from Hingham, in Norfolk, England, and settled in what is now Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1637; and whose long line of descendants had been eminent, first in conspicuous services in wars with the Indians; the French and Indian war and the Revolution ; and in sub- duing the wilderness, as well as in various lines of business, science and the learned professions.

Reuben Tower, father of the subject of this sketch, was born at Rutland, Mass., February 15, 1787. He married Deborah Taylor Pearce, of Little Compton, Rhode Island, February 15, 1808, at Paris, Oneida, county, N. Y., and settled in Sanger- field, Oneida county, N. Y. He died at St. Augustine, Florida, March 14, 1832.

His business was that of a general merchant, and his life was marked by an in- terest in all concerns of public welfare and the development of his adopted State, especially in the projection and completion of the Chenango Canal. He was an hon- orable and able member of the New York Legislature of 1828.

His family embraced eight children, of whom the eldest was Charlemagne, a grad- uate of Harvard College in the Class of 1830, and a distinguished lawyer and capi- talist of Philadelphia.

Reuben, the youngest son, commenced his educational career at old Oxford Acad- emy and continued his preparation for college with three years at Phillips Exeter Academy at Exeter, N. H. He was admitted into the Freshman Class at Harvard University in 1848, but illness forced him to abandon his university career at the close of his sophomore year.

He then turned his attention to business affairs, and before he was twenty-one years of age was conducting a flourishing enterprise in the manufacturing of alcohol and also fattening cattle, and his business ability and success are well indicated by the fact that at twenty-five years of age, he had accumulated a capital of $23, 600.

A natural love of agriculture led him to direct his energies and mind toward the science of land tillage, and there is no phase of agriculture that has not engaged his attention, and no department in which he has not achieved success.

As a stock breeder his reputation is well nigh national, and he has raised herds of blooded cattle, and a score of high bred horses, that would do credit to a Kentucky stock farm, the colts selling at from 8400 to $2,000 each.

One permanent mark of his enterprise as an agriculturist is worthy of conspicuous mention, namely. the splendid reservoir and system of water works which he con-

BIOGRAPHICAL.

structed on the farm of Charlemagne Tower, over which he had supervision. This system of water works is far superior to that which supplies the adjoining village. The reservoir covers two and two-thirds acres of ground, with an average depth of seven and one half feet, and attracts many visitors.

But while Mr. Tower has achieved a high reputation as an agriculturist, he has made an impress upon the village of Waterville that shall herald his name for many generations. Indeed, so long as the village exists it will proclaim his spirit of enter. prise and advancement in its streets and environments Here truly, he has made himself a part of Oneida county, and set his seal upon it.

His fellow citizens could not but see the value of a man both educated and prac- tical and they elected and re-elected him president of the village of Waterville for a long series of years, and during all this he threw the same energy and zeal into his official duties that he always manifested in his private affairs. He was not satisfied to perform simply absolute and routine duties. The point with him was, not how little he could do, but his constant anxiety was to plan and perfect some new methods of benefiting the village. One street required filling, another needed cutting down. another to be curbed ; none were neglected. Some changes and repairs were costly ones, but the progressive village president did not wait for public funds to be pro. vided. He gave more from his own private purse than he asked from the village treasury, and also furnished many laborers from his own individual force.

So it came, that the handsome village of Waterville bears testimony throughont its length and breadth, to years of vigilance and self-sacrifice on the part of a presi- dent who had striven, not always without opposition from weli-meaning fellow- townsmen, to improve and beautify the place, which shall forever hold his name, in the grand "Tower Avenue " that owes its attractive length and breadth, as well as its name to him.

But it was not in the welfare of the corporation alone, that he took delight. Citi- zens of Waterville to-day attest that nothing seemed to give him so much pleasure as to see the working men come in on Saturdays and get their pay.

Mr. Tower is a Democrat in politics and was elected to the office of Supervisor of Sangerfield five successive years, and always by large majorities, notwithstanding the party vote was very close. It was a striking case of the office seeking the man, for Mr. Tower never sohcited a vote, nor pulled a wire, and yet he sometimes re- ceived a two-thirds majority. His services on the Board of Supervisors were on the line of economy, good legislation and honest work. A leader among Democrats, he was awarded a prominent place in the board, where his rare judgment, sterling integrity, and genial temper were thoroughly appreciated and fully recognized.

Not only was he appointed on the most important committees, but as a special evidence of the high regard of his fellow-members, he was, at one time, the recipient of a handsome and valuable gold headed cane from the board.

With no self vanity to gratify, with none of the petty views of the small politician, he despised every form of wickedness and meanness, and his friends consider the intrinsic worth of his dignity and ability deserving of almost any office.

Mr. Tower's residence is the most interesting feature of Waterville to visitors, and one's attention is immediately drawn to it by its famous "chime of bells."

His reception room is nearly one hundred feet long, forty feet wide, and fifteen

OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.

feet high, with Axminster rug of wondrous size, nearly hiding the hard wood floor. Beautiful wainscoting in massive paneled oak extending half way to the lofty ceiling from the sides of the room. Costly pictures adorn the walls, not the least prized of which are half a dozen, representing high bred horses of his own raising. The room is heated by a mammoth fire-place, of pressed brick, the expense of which must have been fabulous. Here huge birch logs blaze on andirons of "ye olden tyme."

Windows set high in the walls invite views of neat outbuildings, yard, fields and village street, while from the observatory, which crowns the building, one holds the vast expense of Oriskany Valley within his easy scope.

The bell tower is one hundred and three feet in height, and its "chime " of ten large bells makes the music of the village, and wafts the time to all the country for miles around. The smallest bell weighs three hundred and seventy-five pounds, the largest one over a ton. This tower is also embelished with the large illuminated dials of a village clock, which strikes both the quarters and the hour, with echoing melody.

The social characteristics of Mr. Tower are admirable. In family relations his attachments are most ardent, and there is always a charming atmosphere of geni- ality and good spirits in his presence and conversation. Faithfulness to duty and steadfastness in friendship are traits in his character that have ever won the admi- ration of all. A cultured man of superior intellect. he is gencrons both in mind and heart, liberal in his estimate of his fellow men and kindly just in all his dealings with them. Gifted with a fine presence, and natural, easy dignity, he is a grand type of the thorough gentleman.

AMOS O. OSBORN.

AMOS O. OSBORN was born December 12, 1811, and is sixth in descent from his English ancestor Richard, who came from England to Hingham, Mass., in 1635 and went from there to New Haven, Conn., in 1639 where he became a free planter and shared in the division of land in 1643.

His father, Amos Osborn, born November 30, 1764, was a native of Trumbull, Fair- field county, Conn. He came to Waterville in 1802, where he engaged in distilling, and in 1810 purchased the farm, part of lot 39, where he and his son have ever since lived, of Benjamin White, who in turn had bought it of Col. Marinus Willet, one of the original proprietors. He was a man of industry and integrity, which with frugal living and wise management of affairs brought him a handsome competence later in life. He married Rosanna, a daughter of Benjamin Swetland, a soldier of the Rev- olution. Of the six children born to them Amos ()., the fourth, is the only one now living. He received his early education in Waterville and at the private school of Rev. Ely Burchard at Paris Hill. Later he went to Hamilton, which had already become a noted school centre, and after fitting there, was for two years a member of the class of 1836 of Yale College. After leaving college he studied law with his brother-in-law, the Hon. Levi D. Carpenter, of Waterville, and with Judge Joshua Spencer of Utica. In the fall of 1837 he was admitted to the bar, and soon after

BIOGRAPHICAL.

opened an office for the practice of his profession in Westfield, Chautauqua county, N. Y. After two years he returned to Waterville to engage in the same profession.

Mr. Osborn was a Whig in politics and has always been an ardent supporter of the Republican party. In the years 1845 and 1846 he was elected supervisor and for thirteen years was a justice of the peace while his party in Sangerfield was greatly in the minority. He also represented his district and was a useful member of the two-session Assembly in 1853. For forty-five years he was a director in the Bank of Waterville. In 1840 he was one of the original incorporators of Grace church, Water- ville, and for fifty-three years has been its senior warden and a most liberal sup- porter. In 1853 he with his father-in-law, Deacon Joseph Moss of New Berlin, Che- nango county, N. Y., built at their own expense its rectory.

It was by his suggestion and effort that the Waterville Cemetery Association was formed and it has been greatly by his aid that it has since become one of the finest village burial grounds in the State. Mr. Osborn has been its president and chairman of its executive committee ever since its incorporation.

The diary kept during the ninety days at sea of a journey to Australia in 1855 and 1856, at which time he circumnavigated the globe, and the notes of places visited both in Australia, on the Continent and in this country, show his quick habit of observation and the readiness with which he grasped and made use of points of special interest.

Throughout all his life Mr. Osborn has been a student in literature and the sciences and a man of extensive research and learning. His large and well selected library, chiefly of books of reference and works on science, shows his ardent love of nature which has ever found in tree or flower, bird, insect or rock, something to study and admire, so that his life, seemingly one of leisure, has been a very busy and a very happy one. He has been much interested in geology and his studies and discoveries in that line have been of special interest and value to science. His collection of fos- sils is extensive and especially full from the series of rocks in his own neighborhood. He has also devoted much time and attention to the historical study of his own town. He prepared the chapter on the town of Sangerfield in Judge Jones's Annals of Oneida county, and has in preparation a fuller history, not yet published, in which are genealogical notices of over three hundred of the early settlers of the town which he has studied and arranged with great care. While thus untiring in self-develop- ment he has been greatly interested in the advancement of Sangerfield, especially earnest in his views of right and law that should govern corporations and municipal- ities as well as individuals. His genial smile and cordial manner, his generous aid in case of need, his quick response of sympathy in joy or sorrow, his unvarying in- terest in the welfare of the public as well as its individual members, his public spirit always manifest in everything promising progress or improvement, have won for him the respect and esteem of the public in the community which gave him birth and which has strengthened and grown with his advancing years.

He is a life member of the American Museum of Natural History of the State of New York; a life member of the New York Agricultural Society; a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a life member and fellow of the Geological Society of America and a life member and councilor of the Oneida His- torical Society.

Mr. Osborn married for his first wife on May 23, 1838, Harriet N., youngest daugh-

OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.

ter of the late Joseph Moss and Rhoda Griffith of New Berlin, Chenango county, N. Y. She died March 27, 1861. Four daughters were born to them. Rosanna, who died in early childhood; Rosalie, wife of the artist Albert Bierstadt; Mary, wife of Charles C. Hall of New York, and Esther, the only one now living, the wife of Will- iam G. Mayer of the U. S. Navy, and later a leading lawyer in Cincinnati, Ohio. On July 1, 1863, Mr. Osborn married for his second wife Adaline, youngest daughter of the late Ellis Morse and Adaline Bagg of Eaton, Madison county, N. Y.

JAMES G. HUNT, M. D.

THE ancestry of Dr. James G. Hunt, of Utica, belongs to the " Northampton line " and is traced backward through several generations to Rev. Robert Hunt and Jon- athan Hunt, who emigrated to America from Northampton, England, in the year 1660, and settled in Connecticut. It is claimed by many of the family that there were four (some say three) brothers who came to this country together. Jonathan afterward settled in what is now Northampton, Mass., and Rev. Robert in the town- ship of New London, Conn. Among their descendants was Timothy Hunt, who was a soldier in the war of the Revolution under General Abercrombie in an attack on Fort Ticonderoga, and who finally located in Tryon county (now Florida, Montgom- ery county), N. Y., where he died. During the Revolutionary period Timothy Hunt and his family were among the sufferers by the Tories and Indians under the lead- ership of William Butler and Joseph Brant, a Mohawk sachem. On the morning of November 12, 1778, after the Indians had accomplished the destruction of Cherry Valley and the surrounding country, they finally reached the settlement of Chuck- tenunde Creek in the town of Florida. Mr. Hunt's buildings were burned and most of his stock was killed, the remainder escaping to the forest, while himself and family were saved by concealing themselves in a neighboring ravine, closely filled with elders, willows, and thick underbrush. His wife, Susanna Vermilia, was of French descent, and of their ten children-five sons and five daughters-Isaac, who was born in Florida, Montgomery county, married Polly Kinney, of the same place. Rev. Robert Hunt, 2d, son of this Isaac and grandfather of Dr. James G., was born in that town November 25, 1792, being one of twelve children. He married Margaret Johnson, of Columbia, Herkimer county, N. Y., and began preaching in the Free Will Baptist denomination as soon as he reached manhood, first in Warren, Her- kimer county, and afterward in Columbia, Schuyler Lake, Whitmantown and South- ville. In 1852 he removed to Troy, O., and in 1853 to China, Wyoming county, N. Y., where he remained twelve years. His health failed and he subsequently made his home in Hudson, Mich. In 1871 he came to the home of his son, Dr. Isaac J. Hunt, of Utica, where he died December 7, 1872. Rev. Robert Hunt had ten children, five of whom were sons, and all of them became physicians. One of these, Dr. Isaac J. Hunt, father of Dr. James G., was born in Warren, Herkimer county, N. Y., March 27, 1820, and married Mary, daughter of John Ingersoll, a farmer and manufacturer of Ilion, Herkimer county, N. Y. He was graduated from the Castleton (Vt.) Medical College, became a successful physician, and practiced his profession

BIOGRAPHICAL.

for nearly thirty years in the city of Utica, where he died January 25, 1875. He had two sons: Dr. James G., the subject of this sketch, and Loton S., who was born in Utica in 1853, read law and was admitted to the bar, and was appointed by Presi- dent Harrison United States consul to Guelph, Canada, whence he was subsequently transferred to Palmerston, Ontario, Canada, where he still resides and officiates in that capacity.

Dr. James G. Hunt was born in Litchfield, Herkimer county, N. Y., on the 21st of June, 1845. His boyhood experience was not materially different from that of a large majority of American youths, though he was fortunate in being able to devote nearly the whole of his early life to study. Beginning with the district school he continued until he was graduated from the Utica Free Academy at a comparatively early age. Shortly afterward he became assistant bookkeeper in the Ilion Bank at Ilion, N. Y., and remained there for a year or more, until 1866, when he accepted a desirable position in the Utica post-office. In 1867 he went to Buffalo as bookkeeper for Andrews & Whitney, with whom he remained one year. Returning to Utica in 1868 he began preparation in his father's office for the profession that was to be his life work. Indeed it may be said that he grew up surrounded by the atmosphere of the medical profession. After about four years of industrious study under the careful instruction of his father he entered the medical department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he took two courses of lectures and a course in the laboratory of analytical and applied chemistry. These were followed by a third course in the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, from which he was gradu- ated on the 13th of March, 1871. At the time of his graduation one of the daily papers spoke of him as follows: "He received the largest number of diplomas for clinical instruction in medicine and surgery from the Quiz Association connected with Jefferson Medical College of any one in his class." During the same year (1871) he attended a course of clinical lectures in the Philadelphia Hospital (Blockley), and also a course of lectures in anatomy, operative surgery, bandaging, and fractures in the Philadelphia School of Anatomy.

Returning to Utica Dr. Hunt entered immediately into practice in association with his father. This partnership continued until 1874, since which time he has practiced alone, meeting with an unusual degree of success. In attempting to note the ele- ments of this success it may, perhaps, be justly said that they consist chiefly of a thorough knowledge of his profession, gained by persistent and judicious study, supplemented by constant reading of the later developments that have been re- corded throughout the range of medical literature, coupled with a temperament and manner which happily fit him for his work. His capacity for professional labor is almost unbounded, and he never spares his energies in his devotion to his duties.

Dr. Hunt's professional standing, as well as the position he occupies in the com- munity, may be judged to a certain extent by the various calls that have been made upon him to stations of honor and responsibility. He is a member of the Delta Phi Society, Iota Chapter of the University of Michigan, 1869, and of the Jefferson Medical College Alumni Association, 1871; was made a member of the Oneida County Medical Society on October 7, 1872; is a member of the Utica Medical Library Association and was its president in 1886; was elected a member of the Oneida County Microscopical Society on June 19, 1881 ; is a member of the American

OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.

Medical Association and the New York State Medical Association, and was chosen a member of the American Public Health Association on December 7, 1880; was ap- pointed by Gov. A. B. Cornell as commissioner of the State Board of Health and served from 1880 to 1885; is physician to and one of the incorporators of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, organized February 1, 1881; is a life member and trustee of the Utica Mechanics Association ; was appointed sur- geon of the Board of United States Pension Examiners on March 30, 1889; was made a trustee of the Utica Female Academy on February 6, 1888, and still holds that position; and is a director of the Globe Woolen Mills. Dr. Hunt has also taken a deep interest in fraternal organizations and is prominent as a Mason, having taken the 32 , and is also a member of the Mystic Shrine, and an Odd Fellow. It is much to his professional credit that he was chosen a surgeon for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company in 1885, The New York, Ontario and Western Railway in 1886, and is acting in that capacity at the present time; he also held a similar position on the New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railroad from 1886 to 1889. On May 2, 1891, he was elected a member of the National Associa- tion of Railway Surgeons and on March 8, 1892, a member of the New York State Association of Railway Surgeons. He was physician and surgeon in charge of the Masonic Home at Utica from its opening until two years ago, when a medical staff was formed, since which time he has been chairman of the executive committee of the staff. He has also filled the posts of chief surgeon in Faxton Hospital (1880 to 1886) and surgeon at St. Luke's Hospital (1883 to 1893) and St. Elizabeth's Hospit- al (1888 to 1894), and is now surgeon on the staff of Faxton Hospital. He has held the rank of first lieutenant in the 44th Separate Company National Guard and assistant surgeon of that organization, and was president of the Utica Citizens Corps in 1886, 1887, and 1888. It is just to say that in all these various positions Dr. Hunt has shown his fitness and capacity for the capable discharge of their duties, and earned the respeet and esteem of those with whom he has been associated.

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Our county and its people; a descriptive work on Oneida county, New York;, Part 65

Author: Wager, Daniel Elbridge, 1823-1896 Publication date: 1896 Publisher: [Boston] : The Boston history co. Number of Pages: 1612

Author: Wager, Daniel Elbridge, 1823-1896
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: [Boston] : The Boston history co.
Number of Pages: 1612