USA > New York > Westchester County > Rye > The bar of Rye Township, Westchester County, New York; an historical and biographical record, 1660-1918 > Part 4
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Henry Brown, the maternal grandfather of Judge Sawyer, was born in the family homestead at Round Hill, the son of James Brown, who located there when a boy with his father, James Brown. James Brown, the elder, Judge Sawyer's great-great-grand- father, came from Ireland before the War of the Revolution. Judge Sawyer's maternal grandmother was Susan Roscoe, whose father was an old resident
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of the town of Greenwich, Connecticut. James Brown, the younger, married Catherine Hobby, whose people were among the oldest settlers of the town of Greenwich, which was then commonly called Horseneck, a name which survives to this day among some of the older residents.
Judge Sawyer first attended the public schools in Stamford, Connecticut, later the High School at Muskegon, Michigan, and afterward the New York Preparatory School. Entering New York Univer- sity Law School, in 1901, he was graduated there- from with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, in June, 1903. Prior to that date, in April, 1903, he had taken his Bar examination and, on May 1, 1903, at Brooklyn, was admitted to the New York Bar. Thereafter he formed a copartnership with Arthur I. Strang, under the firm name of Strang & Sawyer, with offices at White Plains. This firm later associated itself with Clinton T. Taylor, under the name of Strang, Sawyer & Taylor. Judge Sawyer withdrew from this firm upon his election to the office of Surrogate.
On March 23, 1898, at Port Chester, Judge Sawyer was married to Mary Brown Hilliker, of Port Chester, daughter of Charles and Mary (Compton) Hilliker. Of this marriage was born a son, Charles Douglas, July 28, 1906.
Judge Sawyer is a member of the New York State Bar Association and the Westchester County Bar Association. He is president of the Board of Edu- cation, Union Free School District No. 4, town of
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Rye, and trustee of the Library and Reading Room, Port Chester. He recently completed his term as a trustee of the Supreme Court Library at White Plains, and was formerly corporation counsel to the village of Port Chester. He is a member and trustee of the Summerfield Methodist Episcopal Church, Port Chester, and a member of the Eagles, Knights of Pythias, Freemasons, Knights Templars, Mystic Shrine, and Elks Orders. He is also a member of the Westchester County Democratic Club; the National Democratic Club, New York City; Harry Howard Hook and Ladder Company, Port Chester; Firemen's Benevolent Fund Association, Port Chester; White Plains Club and Rye Beach Club, and an honorary member of Union Hook and Ladder Company, White Plains.
Judge Sawyer has been a resident of the town of Rye since December, 1891, having removed there from Greenwich, Connecticut. His activity in public affairs, in which he has always displayed fearlessness and a dominant personality, his success as a lawyer, and his record as Surrogate, have resulted in his attaining to a position of commanding influence in the town of Rye, as well as in the county of West- chester, and of becoming one of Rye's foremost citizens.
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David Jamison
A "Mr. Jamison" is mentioned as having practiced law in Westchester County as early as 1719. The identity of this man is somewhat in doubt, but Mr. Justice Isaac N. Mills, writing in Scharf's History of Westchester County, says there can be little doubt that he was David Jamison, one of the patentees of Harrison's Purchase.
David Jamison was apparently a man possessed of much power and influence. With William Nicolls, Ebenezer Wilson, John Harrison, and Samuel Height or Haight, he obtained, in 1696, through Colonel Fletcher, governor of the province, from the King of England, a grant for that portion of the town of Rye then known as Harrison's Purchase or Harrison's Precinct and which now is included within Harrison township. Jamison, it is said, was "first in Colonel Fletcher's confidence and favor, above all others, and enriched himself by the grants of land sold by Colonel Fletcher, he having a share for brokerage." On June 10, 1712, Jamison was appointed attorney-general for the colony of New York, at an annual salary of one hundred and fifty pounds. Prior thereto he had been chief justice of New Jersey.
The grant made by the unscrupulous Fletcher, who
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was notorious for the extravagance with which he disposed of the public lands, caused great indignation among the inhabitants of Rye and so much so that the town "seceded" and returned to the colony of Connecticut. "By this summary measure," says Baird, "the people of Rye were despoiled of a most important part of their rightful possessions. It was a loss felt by each proprietor for each had an interest in the undivided lands, to the disposition of which he looked forward as a provision for his children." For four years, 1697-1700, Rye was a part of Connecticut.
The Purchase was used in common by the five patentees who soon divided, it among themselves in equal portions. Their deed of partition, dated November 10, 1700, became lost. Whether it was stolen or not does not appear, but the advantages of newspaper advertising, even in those early days, were shown, when, after a notice offering a "hand- some reward" for its return was published in the New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, March 18, 177I, it soon came to light.
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William Willett
William Willett was a resident of Harrison's Purchase, then a part of the town of Rye. He was a son of Col. Thomas Willett, of Flushing, Long Island, and a grandson of Thomas Willett, the first Mayor of New York City after its capture by the English, and a prominent figure in the early history of the colony, who was born in England in 1610, and died in 1674. Marinus Willett, of the same family, who died in 1830, was Mayor of New York City in 1807. Mr. Thomas Willett, for many years a resident of Port Chester, and who recently died, was a great-grandson of Marinus Willett.
William Willett, in his time, held a position of influence throughout the town of Rye, and particu- larly that portion which afterward was included in the town of Harrison. He represented his con- stituency in Westchester County in many of the colonial assemblies, and was first admitted Septem- ber 12, 1699, but on September 22nd was expelled for having presented a paper "writ in barbarous English," representing that the organization of the House is illegal and Gouverneur (the Speaker) an alien, and for refusing to recognize a summons to appear and answer with regard thereto. The succeed-
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ing assembly, November II, 1702, adjudged Gouver- neur an alien, and adopted a resolution that acts passed under the speakership of an alien are "not binding upon the citizen." He was returned to the next assembly and served for many years thereafter. In 1718 he was a boundary commissioner in connec- tion with the dispute over the Connecticut boundary. He subsequently, in 1721, succeeded Caleb Heath- cote as Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Westchester County. His son, William Willett, who became known as Col. William Willett, was supervisor for the town of Rye from 1750 to 1761, and also, like his father, served for many years in the Colonial Assembly. He had two other sons, Isaac, high sheriff of Westchester County 1737-66, and Cornelius.
Judge Willett died in 1733.
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Gilbert Willett
Gilbert Willett, like many other members of his family, was a man of distinction, and must have attained a position of prominence in the town of Rye, and particularly that portion which now comprises the town of Harrison, wherein he appears to have resided. In 1731, he served as boundary commis- sioner over the dispute concerning the Connecticut boundary. He served in the twentieth Colonial Assembly from 1728 till 1737, and was high sheriff of the county of Westchester from October, 1723, to October, 1727, and again from October, 1730, to October, 1733. He appears to have been the first Surrogate of Westchester County, or Judge of the Prerogative Court, as it was then termed, having served from 1730 until succeeded by John Barton, who was appointed February 9, 1754. The name of Gilbert Willett appears with fifteen others as signers to a petition dated November 16, 1764, addressed to the lieutenant-governor of the province, asking for the incorporation of Rye Parish.
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1
Samuel Purdy
Samuel Purdy, son of Joseph Purdy, was born in the latter part of the seventeenth century. He died in 1753, and during his time was one of the promi- nent men of Rye township. He was a judge of the Court of Common Pleas of the County of West- chester in 1734-37, and again from 1740 to 1752, and appears to have been appointed presiding judge of that court January 22, 1752. He was also chosen to various other public offices, such as supervisor, town clerk, overseer, and farmer of the excise. He was justice of the peace in Rye for more than thirty years and was recommended by the Rev. James Wetmore, Rector of Rye Parish, in 1732, for appoint- ment as schoolmaster at Rye, being "a gentleman very well respected in the town, a constant com- municant in the Church, a man of good abilities and sober, exemplary life and conversation. He is the foremost justice of the peace in the Parish, and one of the quorum, as well as chaplain [captain?] of the militia." He was school teacher in the parish from 1733 to 1749, when he removed to The White Plains, where he died in 1753. The Rev. Mr. Wetmore in reporting his death said that "the Church has suf- fered a loss by the death of Mr. Purdy, the Society's
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schoolmaster, who was a friend to religion, and did many kind offices to the poor, as far as he was able. His corpse was attended to the Church on Ash Wednesday by a great concourse of people of all persuasions."
Shortly before his death, Judge Purdy had sold to his two sons, Samuel and Caleb, for one hundred and seventy pounds, "my home-lot where I dwell, in Rye," comprising five acres. This included the present rectory grounds of Christ's Church.
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John Thomas
John Thomas, the son of Rev. John Thomas, mis- sionary of the Gospel Propagation Society and first rector of St. George's Church, in Hempstead, Long Island, located in Rye about 1734. In 1739, he owned land in Rye Woods, the site occupied by his home being located on what are now known as Harrison and Lincoln Avenues, in the town of Harrison. At that time, however, these lands were in Rye township, Harrison not being organized as a separate township until March 7, 1788. It was in 1773, that the Board of Supervisors of Westchester County refused to recognize a supervisor for Harri- son as distinct from the town of Rye.
It is said that Judge Thomas was the most promi- nent personage in the northern part of the town and that his estate in Rye Woods was large and furnished with a goodly number of slaves. This family, with the Jays in the lower part of the town, held a com- manding position among the inhabitants, both fami- lies espousing the patriot side in the contest of the Revolution. John Thomas, for many years, exer- cised his influence widely, and Timothy Wetmore said of him, in 1761, that he "was favored with all
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the administration of all offices, civil and military, by the help of which he has procured himself a large interest in the county."
His patriotism was intense, but as a large number of the inhabitants remained loyal to the Crown, he, like many other brave men of his time, frequently found himself in trouble and his life in danger. In 1775, one Godfrey Haines of Rye Neck, a tory, and a number of his friends formed a plot for taking Judge Thomas at his home, but their plans were frustrated. Haines said that some of the townspeople would be taken off and carried to General Gage's army. "One," he declared, "would be had at all events, and that is Judge Thomas, who must be caught if it cost the lives of fifty men." At this time there was a body of troops known as the Queen's Rangers, numbering some five hundred men, all Americans and Loyalists, who ravaged and despoiled the country and made many persons prisoners. It was through Judge Thomas, Frederick Jay, and others, in 1776, that the inhabitants of Westchester County made complaint to the convention of the depredations committed by these troops. By this time Judge Thomas had become particularly obnox- ious to the British, and, as a result, a number of attempts were made to capture him, which finally resulted successfully. On Sunday morning, March 22, 1777, some British troops which were raiding the country, seized Judge Thomas at his house in Rye Woods and took him to New York, where he was put in prison in the old Sugar House, and there he
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died May 2, 1777. It is said that he is buried in Trinity Churchyard.
Judge Thomas, on February 19, 1729, married Abigail, daughter of John Sands, of Sands Point, Long Island. She was born January, 1708, and died August 14, 1782. Their children were John, Thomas, William, Sibyl, Charity, Margaret, and Gloriana. Their sons John and Thomas became prominent men, the former being sheriff of Westchester County, and the latter rendering distinguished service to his country, both as a soldier and statesman. He attained the rank of major-general and displayed the same intense patriotism as his father. He also served in the Legislature and in other offices of public trust. His remains lie buried in the Thomas burial ground on the estate of his father, a short distance west of Lincoln Avenue. Over his grave is erected a large monument.
Aside from his service in the cause of liberty, Judge Thomas served in the Colonial Assembly of New York from 1743 to 1768, and again in 1769, acted as a boundary commissioner in 1753, was a deputy to the Provincial Congress in 1775, and held office as a first judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Westchester County, from May 8, 1755, to the date of his death. He was Associate Judge of that court from 1737 to 1739. It was Judge Thomas who aided Dr. Robert Graham in securing the selection of White Plains as the county seat in 1759.
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Robert Graham
Robert Graham, the son of the Rev. John Graham, a Scotch clergyman, came from Woodbury, Con- necticut, to The White Plains, then a part of Rye township, shortly before 1750. He is described as having been a young physician of genius and enterprise. In 1749, he purchased the farm which in recent times was owned by Mr. Samuel Faile.
For more than thirty years, Dr. Graham was the ruling spirit in all matters of public interest in the town and it was largely due to his energy and enter- prise that White Plains became a place of prominence in the county. It was chiefly through his efforts that the court house was located in White Plains and the courts removed thither from West Chester. It is said he gave the county the land upon which the court house was erected, by deed to John Thomas, of Harrison (then Rye), then a member of the Colonial Assembly, through whose assistance in that body the change from West Chester was effected. It is also said that the first country store in The White Plains was built and stocked by Dr. Graham. This store stood opposite the court house and here the people, for more than half a century, would gather to discuss politics.
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Robert Graham was the first to fill the office of "first" judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Westchester County, that office having been created in 1778. He was appointed February 17th, of that year.
Robert Graham was a deputy to the Provincial Convention held in New York, April 20, 1775, and also a deputy to the first and second Provincial Congresses, in 1775 and 1776. He served as a member of the Assembly in the twenty-fourth session, 1800 and 1801. From 1769 to 1775, he was super- visor for the White Plains. 5
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Timothy Wetmore
Rye's first lawyer is said to have been Timothy Wetmore, who, it appears, was a man versatile and influential, and of many activities, his reputation extending throughout the county. While, perhaps, he may have been the first regularly licensed lawyer in the town, and doubtless was the first lawyer who lived in what is now the town of Rye, he, neverthe- less, was preceded by several persons who became prominent in the law and identified with the county judiciary, such as John Thomas, Edward Thomas, William Willett, and Gilbert Willett, all of whom lived in that part of Rye township then known as Harrison's Purchase.
Timothy Wetmore was a son of the Rev. James and Anna (Dwight) Wetmore. The Rev. James Wet- more was born at Middletown, Conn., December 31, 1695, and educated at Saybrook Academy and Yale University, receiving from the latter the degrees of A.B. and A. M. He was ordained in 1718, as first pastor of the Congregational Church of North Haven, Conn., and continued his labors there for about four years. Doubting the validity of his ordination, he resigned his charge, and, in 1723, went to England where he was ordained deacon and priest of the
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Church of England. He returned to America in 1726, and was inducted as rector of the parish of Rye, which then extended considerably beyond the present confines of the town. Here he remained until his death of the smallpox, May 15, 1760. His wife died February 28, 1771. Besides Timothy, their other children were James; Alethea, wife of Rev. Joseph Lamson; Anna, wife of Gilbert Brundage; Charity, wife of Josiah Purdy; and Esther, who first married David Brown, and secondly Jesse Hunt, high sheriff of the county in 1780.
It is said of the Rev. Mr. Wetmore that, such was his zeal for episcopacy, he once declared he would rather join in worship with a Jewish synagogue, than with a Presbyterian church. He must have been a man of no inconsiderable intellectual attainment, having published a letter against Dickinson in defense of Waterland's discourse on regeneration; a vindi- cation of the professors of the Church of England in answer to Hobart's sermon in favor of Presbyterian ordination; a rejoinder to Hobart's serious address; an appendix to Beach's vindication, and other papers.
Timothy Wetmore was born in Rye in or about the year 1736. He first studied for the ministry, but circumstances prevented his going to England for ordination. He was among the first graduates of Kings, now Columbia, College, in 1758. He subse- quently studied law and was licensed to practice April 26, 1770.
Mr. Wetmore first married October 21, 1756, Jane Haviland, of Rye. Of this marriage were born
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James, Jane, Anna, Timothy, Fletcher, Thomas, Luther, Theodore, and Robert Griffith. His second marriage was to Rachel, widow of Benjamin Ogden, of New York, of which marriage there was no issue.
About 1753, he was appointed schoolmaster in Rye Parish by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and continued to teach until 1769. In 1763, soon after the death of his father, he owned and was living in the Square House, now the municipal hall of Rye village, and which his father had owned and lived in. It is possi- ble that Timothy Wetmore was born in this historic structure.
By this time he had become a figure of com- manding influence in the town. After his father's death, the Rye Parish was for some time without a rector. This was bitterly complained of by some of the people, and, on May 6, 1761, Timothy Wet- more addressed a letter to the secretary of the society, voicing his complaint of the lack of a minister and stating that he had assumed to read the services and administer the sacraments. In July, 1762, the Rev. Ebenezer Punderson, of New Haven, was called and commenced his labors. In November, 1764, a number of the inhabitants united in a pe- tition to the lieutenant governor of the province asking incorporation of the parish. This petition, which was granted in the following month, contained the signatures of Timothy Wetmore and John Thomas, who afterward became bitter enemies.
Troublous times were now upon the inhabitants of
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the town, a great many of whom, particularly those of the Established Church, sided with the Crown. Timothy Wetmore became a pronounced tory and joined with others, on September 14, 1774, in a declaration of loyalty, expressing their "great desire and full resolution to live and die peaceable subjects to our gracious sovereign, King George the Third, and his laws." In November, 1774, however, Mr. Wetmore issued a statement in which he explained and qualified his endorsement of the declaration of loyalty, but he still protested his loyalty to the King. It is related that a certain George Harris, who was also a school teacher in the town, in addressing a petition to the convention of New York State, in 1776, referred to Timothy Wetmore as "that arch Tory or enemy to his country, who has and does yet keep up the spirit of Toryism in Rye."
At the close of the war in 1783, Mr. Wetmore removed to the Province of New Brunswick, and at the opening of the supreme court in St. John, 1788, was admitted to the Bar. He settled at Gagetown, where he held a number of county offices. His son, Thomas, was admitted as attorney in 1788, and a copartnership between father and son was afterward formed. The following is a copy of the copartner- ship notice:
LAW OFFICE
At the house lately occupied by Mr. Fitzsimon, King Street, St. John, where constant attendance will be given. Having also an office at Fredericton,
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the seat of the Government, they will have it in their power to transact business with the utmost dispatch the rules of government will admit.
TIMOTHY WETMORE, THOMAS WETMORE.
16th July, 1793.
In 1800, Timothy Wetmore returned to New York, where he took up his residence. He died there in March, 1820, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.
It would be interesting to speculate upon what, if any, controversies took place between Timothy Wet- more, the Tory, and John Jay, the Patriot, who both at one time lived in the town of Rye, and who must have been thrown in frequent contact with each other.
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Richard Hatfield
Richard Hatfield was a leading lawyer of West- chester County after 1776, the period of his greatest activity ceasing about 1790, although he continued to practice after that date. He was a native of and lived in the White Plains Precinct, as it was then called, and included in Rye township. It is said that he was "the foremost man in every enterprise, whether it was organizing and incorporating a church or presiding at a town meeting."
Mr. Hatfield held the office of county clerk from I777 to 1802. He was appointed surrogate of the county, March 23, 1778, and held that office until he was succeeded by Philip Pell, Jr., who was appointed March 13, 1787. He was a delegate to the State convention which ratified the Constitution in 1788, a member of the seventeenth session of the Assembly, in 1794, a member of the Council of Appointment of the State in 1795, from the southern district, and a member of the State Senate, serving in nine ses- sions, from 1795 to 1803.
Judge Hatfield was one of the organizers of the Presbyterian Church in White Plains and assisted in organizing the Methodist Church there also. He died at his residence in White Plains, in 1813,
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and left a son, Richard, whose name also appears, but infrequently, as practicing law in Westchester County, and a daughter, Esther. Another daughter married James Woods, and left a son, Richard Hatfield Woods.
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Edward Thomas
Edward Thomas, a member of the distinguished and influential Thomas family, was a son of John Thomas, who was born February 3, 1732, and who for some time was high sheriff of Westchester County, and Phoebe Palmer Thomas, and a grandson of John Thomas, judge of the Court of Common Pleas of the county, who was captured by the British and died in prison in 1777.
Edward Thomas doubtless exercised much author- ity throughout the town of Rye in his time, although it was not long after he was born that that portion of the town, namely, Harrison's Purchase, in which he was probably born and in which he lived, ceased to be a part of the town of Rye and became a sepa- rate township. About 1795 he located in White Plains, on the "Squire place." He served as surro- gate of Westchester County, to which office he was appointed January 28, 1802. His successor, Samuel Youngs was appointed February 19, 1807.
He married Anne Oakley, who died May 12, 1807, aged forty-five. He died May 2, 1806, aged forty- four. They had but one son, William, who died August 22, 1836, aged thirty-seven.
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Peter Jay Munro
Born in Rye, January 10, 1767, the son of Rev. Henry Munro, and Eve, the only daughter of Peter Jay, Peter Jay Munro attained to a high position of prominence in his profession. He seems to have been a leading lawyer from 1789 until 1821. His father, who was born in Scotland in 1730 and died there in 1801, was at one time missionary of the Gospel Propagation Society, at Yonkers, N. Y.
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