Our county and its people; a descriptive work on Oneida county, New York;, Part 77

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 77

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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 Cæsar, 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 soul has fled To realms of heavenly light, And, by the blood of Jesus shed, Is changed from black to white; January 15th he quitted the stage, In the 77th 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- 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

ALFRED ETHRIDGE.

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BIOGRAPHICAL.

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 Democratic opponent in the Democratic 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 public 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 father, Leonard, son of Eleazer and Abigail (Moseley) House, was born at Glaston-

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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.

bury, Conn., August 24, 1787, and died at Houseville, N. Y., December 23, 1879. Her mother, Lonisa 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 inclinations 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 men- 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, 1806, 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.

M. CALVIN WEST, M. D.

JOHN STRYKER.

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BIOGRAPHICAL.

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. He early won professional recognition from his associates and esteem from all classes of citizens and held then 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 public 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.

Dr. West was married November 6, 1861, to Miss Felicia H. Williams, daughter of Jesse Williams, the father of the cheese factory system in America and the proprie- tor of the first cheese factory in Oneida county Their children were Olive D., Jessie J., Dr. Calvin B., F. May and Florence Mary. Dr. Calvin B. West, born in Rome, March 29, 1867, was graduated from the Rome Academy in 1885 and from Phillips Academy at Andover, Mass., in 1886, spent three years in Amherst College, and was graduated with the degree of M. D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York city in 1893. After filling the position of house physician and surgeon to the Paterson General Hospital one year he came to Rome in August, 1894, and began the active practice of his profession.

JOHN STRYKER.

IN the early history of New Amsterdam the name of Stryker appears somewhat conspicuously in connection with numerous offices of trust and responsibility. It is found in the lists of high sheriffs, and in government councils as well as in business and commercial enterprises, and invariably commanded wide respect and confidence. Originally of Holland Dutch etymology, Van Strycker, it came in time to be Americanized and contracted into Stryker, the form under which several genera- tions have flourished and prospered. Very early in the settlement of New Amster- dam Jan and Jacobus Gerritson Strycker, Dutch burghers, obtained a grant of land on Manhattan Island, and from them descends the families bearing the name in this

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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.

country at the present time. The line from Jan (1) is Pieter Strycker (2), Jan Strycker (3), Pieter Strycker (4), John Stryker (5), Daniel Perrine Stryker (6), and John Stryker (7), the subject of this memoir. October 25, 1673, Jan Strycker (3) was chosen captain of a company that was raised in the town of Midwont (Flushing), to respond to the call for troops issued by Governor Stuyvesant to resist the encroachments of the British. In 1773 John Stryker (5) was commissioned captain of a troop of light horse cavalry in Somerset county, N. J., and when the Revolutionary war broke out he offered his services to his native State. He fought with his company all through the Revolution. In 1863 his lineal descendant, John Stryker, jr., became a captain of New York State volunteers in the war of the Rebellion. Daniel Perrine Stryker (6), a merchant in New York city, married Harriet Pierson and had three sons and two daughters, of whom the last two and one son died young. Those who attained maturity were John (7) and Rev. Isaac Pierson Stryker. The latter is a retired Presbyterian clergyman residing in New Jersey and the father of Melancthon Woolsey Stryker, president of Hamilton College.

Hon. John Stryker (7) was born in Orange, N. J., December 7, 1808. His father died a few years later and at the age of seven his mother brought him to Whitesboro, Oneida county, N. Y., where he received his education in the local academy. He began active life as a clerk for William G. Tracy, a leading merchant of Whitesboro, but soon developed decided inclinations for a professional career. He read law with Thomas R. Gold and later in the office of Storrs & White, and was admitted to the Oneida Common Pleas in 1829, before he had reached his majority. In the same year he came to Rome, N. Y., and formed a copartnership with Allanson Bennett. Sub- sequently he was associated in the practice of law with Hons. Henry A. Foster, Calvert Comstock, Charles Tracy, B. J. Beach, George H. Lynch, and others. In 1835 he was elected member of assembly. In 1837 he was appointed surrogate of the county and held that office ten consecutive years, or until the constitution of 1846 made it elective. In 1847 he discontinued the practice of law, in which he had been very successful, and thenceforward devoted his attention to building up railroads and other important enterprises. He was one of the original movers in the Utica and Syracuse railroad project, was the first attorney for the company, was one of its directors until the lines were consolidated, and was largely instrumental in securing its location through Rome and in defeating the attempt to locate it through the southern part of the county. Afterward he was closely identified with many railway lines, including the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana, the Terre Haute and Alton, and others, pushing them to completion and placing the corporations upon a sound working basis. He was engaged extensively in railroad operations until the fall of 1867, when he suffered a stroke of paralysis. He died at his home in Rome on April 30, 1885.

Mr. Stryker was a shrewd business man and investor, one of the foremost railroad financiers of his time, and intimately associated with such noted men as Samuel J. Tilden, Erastus Corning, Dean Richmond, and others in railway projects. His counsel and advice were regarded as reliable, his word was as good as his bond. A man of great business capacity and of unswerving integrity he retained through life the respect and confidence of every one who knew him. He was heavily interested in numerous local corporations and landed investments, and being public spirited and

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BIOGRAPHICAL.

enterprising always took a just pride in the prosperity of the city. Ile was one of the founders of the Rome Locomotive Works, one of the incorporators and a director of the Merchants Iron Mill, a director in the Rome Iron Works, and one of the originators and for some time president of the Rome Gas Light Company. He was a director in several banks and for many years officiated as president of the old Bank of Rome. He was one of the founders of the Deaf Mute Institute of Rome, and was especially active and influential in securing the Black River Canal and in changing the course of the Erie Canal for the benefit of the city.

In politics Mr. Stryker was a life-long Democrat, and during many years enjoyed a wide and intimate acquaintance among all the noted politicians of the United States, and especially among such men as James K. Polk, Gov. William L. Marcy, Governor Seymour, Governor Bouck, Edwin Croswell, Silas Wright, and other equally prominent statesmen of the country. He was remarkably familiar with political history. His shrewd management as a leading politician was manifest far and near, especially in the county of Oneida, where he practically controlled his party's operations. He was long the center of the famous "Rome Regency," which represented the principal Democratic influence in this section in its time. But he did not seek office; he pre- ferred to manage politics and direct his party's movements, for which he had a natural taste and ability and in which he was eminently successful. He probably attended more district, county, state, and national conventions than any other man of his day in New York. He was a delegate to twelve state and four national con- ventions and for ten years was a leading member of the Democratic State Commit- tee. In 1867 he ran for Congress against the late A. H. Bailey and was defeated in a Republican stronghold by a very small majority.

Mr. Stryker was a great reader, and was at all times thoroughly posted, and possessed a wonderfully retentive memory, especially in political affairs. Genial, kind, and generous by nature he was a liberal benefactor to all religious, charitable, and educational objects, and for twenty years was one of the wardens of Zion Epis- copal church of Rome. He was the architect of his own fortune and wisely em- ployed it for the advancement of his city. His family homestead, which he erected about 1839, occupies the northeast corner of the historic site of Fort Stanwix and stands wholly or partly on the site of the old blockhouse.

In 1839 Mr Stryker married Miss Frances Elizabeth Hubbard, daughter of Hon. Thomas Hill Hubbard, of Utica. [Mr. Hubbard was the first surrogate (in 1809) of Madison county, deputy attorney-general of the district comprising the counties of Oneida, Otsego, Chenango, Herkimer, and Lewis in 1816-18, district attorney of Madison county in 1818-21, member of congress six years, and presidential elector in 1812, 1844, and 1852.] She died April 17, 1891, aged seventy five years. Their children were John, deceased; Phebe, of Rome; Harriet P., wife of Edward H. Butler, a banker, and ex-state treasurer, of Detroit, Mich .; Grace, wife of Rev. E. Bayard Smith, rector of Trinity Episcopal church, of Troy, N. Y .; and Thomas Hubbard Stryker, of Rome.

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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.

DAVID UTLEY.

THE Utley family is of English extraction, and for several generations imbibed those sterling habits of thrift and frugality which characterized native New Eng- Ianders. David Utley, sr., father of the subject of this memoir, was born in Con- necticut, and came from Dutchess county, N. Y., to the town of Western, Oneida county, about the year 1795, guiding himself through the wilderness from Fort Stanwix by the aid of a compass and blazed trees. An ambitious pioneer, though broken in health, he managed to clear a farm and died there when comparatively a young man.

David Utley, son of David, sr., was born of Quaker parentage in Western on February 12, 1802, and spent his youthful life upon the parental acres, attending the district schools as opportunity afforded. He remained, a farmer, in that town until 1847, and for fifteen consecutive years served his townsmen as supervisor. In this latter capacity he was one of the influential members of the board and retained the confidence and respect of all with whom he came in contact. In 1847 he became a permanent resident of Rome, where he originated and founded the Fort Stanwix (now the Fort Stanwix National) Bank, which commenced business in December of that year on the corner of James and Dominick streets. Mr. Utley was elected its first president, a position he held by re-election until it became a national bank in 1865, when he was chosen to the same office in the reorganized institution, and served in that capacity until his death on June 20, 1882. He was succeeded by his son, Harmon G. Utley, who had entered the bank as teller in 1847 and subsequently became also its vice-president. Mr. Utley was one of the ten founders of the Rome Exchange Bank and served as a director of that institution and its successor, the First National Bank, for many years. He was also a director for some time in the City Bank of Oswego and in the Rome & Watertown and Mobile & Ohio Railroad Companies, and was largely instrumental in securing the location of the R., W. & O. Railroad shops in Rome. He was one of the founders and long a director of the Rome Iron Works and Merchants Iron Mill and for many years a member and ves- tryman of Zion Episcopal church.

Mr. Utley was widely recognized as an able financier and occupied a prominent position among leading bankers of Central New York. He was closely identified with various measures which owe a large measure of their success to his personal direction or valued counsels. He was shrewd, sagacious, and somewhat prophetic, a man of excellent business ability and sound judgment, and a powerful factor as a banker, and in local financial affairs. Unostentatious, quiet, and mild-mannered, but firm and decided in his opinion, he was a close student of human nature, a good diplomatist, a man of even temperament, and a prosperous and influential citizen. He took a keen interest in the welfare of his city and was always a liberal contrib- utor to charitable and benevolent objects. A life-long Democrat he never sought public office, yet in Western he was pressed forward by his townsmen year after year to the highest elective position within their gift.

Mr. Utley was married, first, to Miss Amy Beckwith, daughter of Lemuel Beck- with, the first settler in 1789 of the town of Western, Oneida county, where she died leaving four children, of whom George P. and Harmon G. (of Rome) survive. His second wife was Miss Catherine Marsh, of New York city, who died without issue.

DAVID UTLEY.

VIRGIL DRAPER.

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BIOGRAPHICAL.

VIRGIL DRAPER.

THE first American ancestors of the Draper family were James Draper and Miriam Stansfield, his wife, of Heptonstall Parish, Vicarage of Halifax, Yorkshire, England, who came to this country and settled in Roxbury, near Boston, Mass., about 1650. James Draper was a son of Thomas and was made a freeman of Roxbury in 1690. The line of descent from Thomas to the subject of this memoir is as follows: (1) Thomas, (2) James, (3) James, (4) James, (5) Josiah, (6) Josiah, and (?) Virgil. James Draper (3) was born in Roxbury in 1654, married Abigail Whitney, of Dedham, Mass., February 18, 1681, and died April 30, 1698. He was a soldier in King Philip's war in 1675. James Draper (4), son of James (3), was born in 1691, married, first, Rachel Addis and, second, Abigail Child, and died in 1768. He was captain of the Trained Bands of Militia in his district. Josiah (5), son of James (4) and Abigail (Child) Draper, was born in Stoughton, Mass., September 12, 1727, and married Sarah Ellis. Their son, Josiah (6), was born in Dedham, Mass., October 14, 1753, and died in Attleboro, Mass., May 17, 1819. He married Miss Mary Mann, daughter of Dr. Bezaleel Mann, of Attleboro, and sister of Newton Mann, whose portrait and biog- raphy appear in this work. September 25, 1778, he enlisted as a drummer in Captain Plympton's company of Medfield, Mass., volunteers, and served creditably in the war of the Revolution. He had thirteen children, of whom Virgil was the eighth.

Virgil Draper, born in Attleboro, Mass., January 4, 1789, inherited all the sturdy characteristics of his long line of worthy New England ancestry, and besides was liberally endowed with those native attributes which make the successful man. He acquired his rudimentary education in the public schools of his birthplace, interspers- ing it with a practical experience which proved valuable in after life. In 1806 he came to Whitesboro, Oneida county, N. Y., to live with his maternal uncle, Dr. Seth Capron, and immediately entered the newly established cotton mills there to learn the manufacture of cotton goods in all its branches. The principal owners of these mills were Dr. Capron and Newton Mann, and in them Mr. Draper remained until 1822, when he came to Rome, N. Y., as superintendent of Dominick Lynch's mill. About two years later he went to Stittville, Oneida county, and established a cotton mill, which he sold out in 1827. Returning then to Rome he purchased the Lynch waterpower and mill property at what is known as " Factory Village " and engaged in the manufacture of cotton goods on an extensive scale, having also a general store in connection with the establishment. He continued this business with marked suc- cess until about 1840, when he retired. In 1827 he also purchased the property on the corner of Spring and Dominick streets, where the Lynch residence had stood and which was in 1825 destroyed by fire, and erected the present dwelling, which is occu- pied by his daughter and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. H. K. White. The Lynch house was the first structure built on the historic site of Fort Stanwix after that mil- itary stronghold had been demolished, and which embraced the site where the Draper homestead now stands.

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Our county and its people; a descriptive work on Oneida county, New York;, Part 77

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