USA > New York > Tompkins County > Dryden > The centennial history of the town of Dryden. 1797-1897 > Part 21
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In 1831 he married Betsey Jagger, by whom he had five children, viz : Betsey Fidelia, who died in youth; Rowena, who became the wife of Hiram W. Sears, and the mother of John G. Sears, formerly district attorney of Tioga county, N. Y., now a lawyer of Denver, Col- orado, and died October 9, 1866; Charles G., who died unmarried in 1872; William H. Harrison, who married Ella Ward and died in 1885, leaving a family of three children ; and Albert, who married Diantha Bissell, and died in 1886, leaving a family of three children.
In November, 1833, Mr. Southworth engaged in the mercantile bus- iness with Thomas McGraw, afterwards his son-in-law. In 1836 he built the original brick store on the corner of South and West Main streets and in the same year his brick house on North street. He early experienced some business misfortunes, but his dealings were on the whole very successful. The purchase of a large tract of pine lands in Allegany county in partnership with his son Ellis and his son-in-law, John McGraw, was one of his most successful investments. The bulk of his wealth, however, was not made in large transactions, but in the careful, constant, shrewd management of small affairs, out of which his genius derived profits when others would have failed.
To the writer, who had some personal intercourse with him in his declining years, John Southworth was a very interesting character. Having no business education except that acquired from common ex- perience and observation, and no schooling except of the most rudi- mentary kind, he would express himself clearly in unpolished but forci- ble and terse language, and would write out with his own hand a contract which, for precision and completeness, few lawyers could equal. Of a genial and social nature, he could tell a good story as well as make a good bargain. He was kind hearted as well as penurious and one of the anecdotes of his career so fully and correctly illustrates the combination of these somewhat conflicting qualities that we feel im- pelled to insert it here, as follows : In his dealings with a shiftless, un- fortunate man who lived in the South Hill neighborhood, he took a mortgage on the poor man's only cow to secure the payment of what was due him, which was about equal to the value of the animal. Re- ceiving no payments, he came to the conclusion that the only way in which he could collect what was justly due him was to take the cow on
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the mortgage. Convinced of this, he started out one morning with a boy to assist in bringing home his property. Arriving where the man lived and finding the cow in the door-yard, he directed the boy to let her out into the road while he went into the house and made known his business. The man did not appear, but his wife came to the door with her little children following and clinging around her. She said to Mr. Southworth that her husband was away and that the cow was all that she had left with which to feed her little ones. Bursting into tears she continued, saying that if the cow was to be taken from her she should die in despair. Mr. Southworth stood at the door listen- ing to her statement, while the children cried in sympathy with their mother, until he, too, commenced to weep. The boy, who was driving out the cow as directed, seeing the situation, hesitated, suspecting that feelings of sympathy would overcome Mr. Southworth's first inten- tions ; but he was mistaken, for, observing the delay in carrying out his instructions, Mr. Southworth dashed the tears from his eyes and, calling to the boy in a severe tone, he said : " Why in h-1 don't you drive along that cow?" The firm determination to have what belonged to him overcame his sympathetic impulses, which were also strong. The cow was legally and equitably his property and, as he considered it, he paid in large taxes his full share towards the support of the poor.
While Mr. Southworth never held any public office, his time being fully taken up in his many business interests, to all of which he gave his own personal attention, he was not insensible to his public duties as a private citizen. When volunteers were being called for during the dark hours of the War of the Rebellion, he contributed at one of the war meetings five hundred dollars for the aid of the families of those who should go to the front. When the question of building a railroad, which resulted in securing to Dryden the Southern Central branch of the Lehigh Valley, was being agitated, and other more nar- row-minded property holders refused their aid, he was a liberal con- tributor to its stock, which was then of very doubtful value and after- wards of none at all.
While he was not known as a religious man, and, in his forcible use of language, was often quite profane, the church people of the vil- lage did not always apply in vain for his assistance in their financial affairs. He was at one time pursuaded to attend one of the meetings of the M. E. church society, the object of which was to raise funds with which to enlarge and repair their church edifice. Bishop Peck, who, in his youth, was one of the first M. E. clergymen located at Dry- den, and with whom Mr. Southworth had thus formed an old friend-
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ship, was present at this special meeting to raise funds for the church. After Mr. Southworth had consented to subscribe one hundred dol- lars, the bishop, minister, and church members endeavored to obtain smaller contributions from those of less ability. In this effort Mr. Southworth readily joined, finally offering to contribute fifty dollars more if John Perrigo and another man would sign for twenty-five dol- lars each, which would thus add another one hundred dollars to the fund. When the others hesitated, Mr. Southworth, in his earnestness to carry out the scheme and unmindful of the company he was in, said : " Why, d-mn it to h-1, Perrigo, you can do that much." It. is needless to say that the bishop and church members who sur- rounded him did not severely rebuke him for his strong language up- on that occasion.
While Mr. Southworth was a man of a strong will, which would bear no contradiction, he was not altogether heartless or unreasonable, and he always manifested a disposition to help those who were inclined to strive to help themselves. Unmerciful to those who were unfaithful to their agreements with him, there was no limit to the confidence which he placed in those by whom he thought confidence was merited. While extremely simple and economical in his personal habits, his hospitality was unbounded. His faults were for the most part on the surface, and of his better qualities he made no display. Notwith- standing the rapid decline in the value of his real estate shortly be- fore his death, his accumulated property inventoried nearly a million.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
MILO GOODRICH.
The subject of this chapter was born at East Homer, N. Y., January 3, 1814. His parents, who had recently emigrated from the East, were natives of Sharon, Conn., and were in humble but respectable circum- stances, his mother, Almira (Swift,) being a woman of great industry and ambition, while his father, Philander, was a mason by trade, serv- ing at one time as a captain of the state militia, and noted as a man of high character and genial disposition. When Milo was about two years of age, his parents moved and located upon a small farm Dear the Marl Ponds in Cortlandville, where the childhood of our sub- ject was spent. He early manifested a great fondness for books, and when he was sixteen years of age he commenced teaching the same district school at South Cortland where, up to that time, he had re-
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ceived his education. Thereafter he pursued his studies by means of the money which he could save in teaching, being a student of the old Cortland Academy at Homer, and afterwards at Oberlin Institute, in Ohio, which had then recently been established to aid students who were obliged to pay their own way. In the meantime he taught dis- triet schools in Groton, Peruville, and Berkshire, N. Y., as well as in Mahoning, Pa., and Brooklyn and Weymouth, Ohio. In the year 1838 he commenced the study of law in the office of Judge Barton, at Worcester, Mass., where he was admitted to practice in 1840. He then went West, to the territory, as it was then, of Wisconsin, where he practiced law in the new country at Beloit. After two years of this experience he returned to New York, and in 1844 he married Eunice A. Eastman, of the town of Groton, and soon afterwards removed to the adjoining town of Dryden, which was his home for the next thirty years.
Here he commenced his practice of law in a very humble way, rent- ing only rooms in which to commence housekeeping, possessing no means, and not yet being admitted to practice in the higher courts of this state. There was, however, in those days, much litigation in justice's court, which served as a school in which his great natural ability rapidly developed, and he was thus enabled to rise from the lowest to the highest grade of his profession. In 1849 he was ap- pointed postmaster at Dryden village and at about the same time he served as superintendent of schools for the township.
In 1848 his parents moved to Dryden, building with him the home on South street where they lived together until their death.
In 1867 Mr. Goodrich was elected a delegate to the state consti- tutional convention of that year, and subsequently was a member of Congress from his district. In the former capacity, as a member of the judiciary committee and among men of the highest rank in the state, he alone submitted a minority report in favor of an elective judiciary with a term of fourteen years for its judges, instead of chang- ing back to a judiciary appointed for life; and his report, substan- tially as submitted by him and subsequently adopted by the conven- tion and finally by the people of the state, embraces the system which has ever since prevailed.
In the year 1875 his increasing practice in the U. S. courts and the higher courts of his own state influenced him to remove to Auburn, where he continued to be engaged in a business of great activity and success until about two weeks before his death, which occurred April 15, 1881. His remains were brought to Dryden, where they rest with
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those of his parents and of several of his children, who had died be- fore him. During the past year, his wife, Eunice A. Goodrich, who was a woman of domestic habits but possessed of a strong character, and was a devoted wife and a noble mother of his children, was buried beside him.
Of their eight children three only survive, viz: George E., who oc- cupies the homestead and continues the practice of law in Dryden ; Frank, who is now a member of the faculty of Williams College ; and Fanny G. Schweinfurth, of San Francisco, Cal.
It will be impossible to convey to the reader who did not know him an adequate conception of the magnetic power of Milo Goodrich as a speaker, especially when engaged in the trial of cases before a jury. When he was attending court in Ithaca and Cortland there were but few important trials in which he was not engaged. He devoted him- self almost exclusively to his chosen profession, which he pursued for the success which awaited his efforts in it, rather than for the pecun- iary compensation. Many of the expressions in his arguments were so impressive that they are still remembered and cherished by those who listened to them. He was endowed by nature with a strong physical constitution, which rendered him capable of incessant work, and he possessed great mental power, which, when fully developed, impressed all who came in contact with him. Not alone distinguished as a law- yer, he developed rare literary taste and culture, and some of his poetry upon local subjects exhibited his abilities in that direction. Upon public occasions he frequently delivered addresses, and in all political campaigns of his time he was one of the foremost local speakers.
He was a Republican in politics until the Greeley campaign, which caused him to separate himself from the party to which he had, up to that time, given his earnest and conscientious support. Of a generous and public-spirited disposition, he liberally supported all public enter- prises, and, when the Southern Central railroad was contemplated, he united his efforts with others in securing its accomplishment, without seeking its emoluments. His magnetic influence as a speaker and his high character as a man will always be remembered by those who per- sonally knew him, but he cannot be fully appreciated and understood from any description which can be given.
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JEREMIAH WILBUR DWIGHT.
CHAPTER XLIX.
JEREMIAH WILBUR DWIGHT.
Jeremiah Wilbur Dwight was born at Cincinnatus, Cortland county, New York, April 17th, 1819. He was the oldest son of Elijah and Olive Standish Dwight, and a direct descendant of John Dwight, who came from England in 1635 and settled in Massachusetts.
John Dwight founded a family which has produced, perhaps, as great a number of talented men who have distinguished themselves on progressive lines, as any family in this country.
Through his mother, Mr. Jeremiah Wilbur Dwight was a lineal de- scendant of Captain Miles Standish, who came over in the Mayflower in 1620. In 1830 Mr. Dwight's parents moved from Cincinnatus into Caroline, Tompkins county, and six years later, into that part of the town of Dryden known as South Hill. His parents were poor and un- able to give him an education except that afforded by the common schools. His necessities aroused his ambition. In 1838 he came to Dryden village and, for forty-nine years, was identified with her in- terests and history. He entered the store of A. Benjamin, to learn the mercantile business, and an incident connected with this real starting point in his life shows the strong characteristics which ever marked his subsequent career. He was a stranger, but, feeling the responsibility of aiding his father's family, he determined to secure a foothold. Six dollars, his savings from farm work, constituted his entire capital. The coveted clerkship was already filled, but the clerk who served was willing to sell his position to young Dwight for his six dollars. Dwight risked his all, confident that he could make himself so useful that he would become a necessity to his employers. He suc- ceeded, as he remained constantly with the firm until the business was sold to A. L. Bushnell. Meantime, he had taken advantage of in- struction at odd times at the Burhans school, and, when the new mer- cantile firm was formed, he went with it and a few years later was taken into partnership.
Their store was located at the south-east corner of Main and South streets. After remaining there a few years, a new firm was organized by J. W. Dwight and I. P. Ferguson and they occupied a small store on the north side of Main street. In 1852 Mr. Dwight was able to build the stone store building, in which he continued the mercantile business under the firm name of J. W. Dwight & Company. Probably no store in this section of the country at that time transacted a larger
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or more prosperous business. As a merchant, Mr. Dwight was a suc- cess. By early and late application to business, strictest economy, truthfulness, honesty, and exemplary habits, Mr. Dwight made hosts of friends and won the confidence and respect of the people.
As he became more prosperous, he invested in real estate. His first venture was the purchase of the Goddard farm. In this new en- terprise he showed his innate business sagacity, did well for himself, and, at the same time, helped to develop Dryden village. He laid out "The Square," by cutting Pleasant and James streets through the farm, platted the farm into building lots, and reserved for himself that portion which is now known as the Dwight homestead. From the re- mainder developed Union street, nearly all of the east side of South street, and more, as the farm ran south to Virgil Creek and east to the Tucker farm, including what is now the school lot. Later, in partnership with Dr. Montgomery, he purchased part of the Tucker farm, which ran further east, and also partially laid that out into streets and building lots.
Since his investments proved successful, he invested again with others in the Dryden Woolen Mill, the Stone Flour Mill, and the Dry- den Lake property. In the management of all these enterprises he demonstrated his able judgment, his correct estimates of values, and his comprehensive grasp of financial problems. At this time, as his acquaintance broadened and opportunities presented themselves, he made investments elsewhere. First, in New Jersey, later on. in pine lands in Wisconsin. Later, in 1880, he organized the Dwight Farm and Land Company, of North Dakota, which purchased there sixty thousand acres of land. The present town of Dwight, located in North Dakota in a part of the holdings, bears his name. His business transactions, so successful that any man might be proud of them, were the legitimate outgrowth of investments made in real estate and de- veloped by courage and the strictest application.
As a citizen he early took an interest in all public improvements, and was always in the front ranks, bearing his full share in the work of village incorporation, school improvements, church repairs, and or- ganization of the Agricultural Society and of a Cemetery Association worthy of the town and the times. He was a prime mover in the or- ganization and building of the Southern Central railway, feeling that the time had come when Dryden should be connected with the out- side world by other means than that of the stage coach. Into this project he threw his characteristic zeal to make the undertaking a suc- cess. He was for a long time director and vice-president and gave
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JEREMIAH WILBUR DWIGHT.
generously both his time and money to the work. Though absorbed in his own business affairs, he was frequently called upon to adminis- ter estates for others, and was selected by Jennie McGraw-Fiske as one of the trustees of the Southworth Library bequest. All trusts he fulfilled conscientiously, and according to the dictates of his best judg- ment. He was always the friend of the unfortunate and those strug- gling against adverse circumstances.
Believing that the policy of the Republican party would best insure the safety and development of his country, which he loved, he was an ardent Republican. For many years Dryden was known as the ban- ner Republican town of the county and the credit was due as much to Mr. Dwight's devoted efforts as to any other cause. He never failed to attend every caucus and election or to brave severe storms in order to go to surrounding school-houses to speak when duty called. In 1857 and 1858 he was elected supervisor of the town of Dryden and during both terms was chairman of the county board.
In 1859 he was elected Member of Assembly and was re-elected in 1860. In the early years of the war he was appointed by Governor Morgan as a member of the war committee for his own senatorial dis- trict and he served until the committee disbanded. In 1868 he was sent as delegate to the National Republican Convention at Chicago, where he supported General Grant for President. He was a member of Congress for six years, representing the twenty-eighth New York Congressional District, at that time composed of Tompkins, Broome, Schuyler and Tioga counties. He was first elected, in 1876, to the forty-fifth Congress and then re-elected to the forty-sixth and forty- seventh Congresses. In 1884 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention, at Chicago, where he supported James G. Blaine for President. In politics he was noted for his fertility of resources, fidelity to party, loyalty to friends, and, though he was in the political maelstrom, his high moral character protected his name from the taint of corruption.
In 1845 he married Rebecca Ann Cady, daughter of Hon. Elias W. Cady. Their descendants are : Mary M. Dwight, who married Sanders E. Rockwell and has one son, James Dwight Rockwell ; Olive Adelia Dwight ; Julia R. Dwight ; Annie A. Dwight, who married Richard S. Tyler ; and John W. Dwight, who married Emma S. Childs.
Mr. Dwight died November 26th, 1885, at the age of sixty-six. He rests in Green Hills cemetery.
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HISTORY OF DRYDEN. CHAPTER L.
JOHN C. LACY.
The Lacy (or Lacey) family is of ancient English origin, being known as DeLacey when they came with William the Conqueror from Normandy to England. Richard, the grandfather of John C. Lacy, was born in England. Benjamin, his father, was born in Mans- field, Morris county, New Jersey, October 1, 1768, and died in Dry- den October 1, 1820. He came to this township, as a pioneer, in the fall of 1801, with his wife, who was a daughter of Captain Cornelius Carhart, of English and German descent, who commanded a company of sixty men in the battle of Monmouth, June 18, 1778. She was a woman of sound mental qualities, as well as of industrious, frugal habits. She survived her husband thirteen years, keeping her fam- ily of six children together on their farm in what is now Dryden village, until her decease.
Benjamin was a farmer, a man of sturdy character and one of the most enterprising and public-spirited pioneers of Dryden. He did much for the cause of education, which was then in its infancy in the new community, Daniel Lacey, the son of his brother Rich- ard, as we have seen, having been the first school teacher in Dryden in 1804. In 1819 he erected the first clothing works in Dryden, al- most on the present site of the Dryden Woolen Mill, and, in the next year, which was the last of his life, he and two of his brothers de- veloped the Dryden Mineral Springs, where the Sanitarium is now located. They had discovered the value of these springs while pros- pecting for salt. If, in their search for salt, they had possessed the modern means for boring deeper, their search would doubtless have been successful, since extensive beds of this mineral are now found in the adjoining towns of Ithaca and Lansing and in other places in the county where great depths have been reached.
John C. Lacy was born on his father's farm in Dryden near the lo- cation of the present stone grist-mill, October 21, 1808, and was, con- sequently, only twelve years of age at the time of his father's death. His means of education were very limited and two years later he com- menced, with his older brother Garret as his partner, to carry on the farm and to pay off the incumbrance which existed upon it. Their efforts were successful and enabled them to eventually buy out the in- terest of the other children. The partnership of the two brothers con- tinued until 1857, when Garret decided to remove further west, selling
John &Lacy
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out his interest here to the subject of this chapter, who was thus the only representative of the Lacy pioneers of 1801 to remain in Dryden. About that time, or soon after, he married Maria A., daughter of the late Asa M. White, of Candor, N. Y., whose ancestry is also worthy of special notice. She was in the direct line of descent from Peregrine White, who was the first child born in New England of English parent- age, being born on board the Mayflower in the harbor of Cape Cod about December 10, 1520.
Mr. Lacy died October 4, 1893, and his wife, July 18, 1895. Their only child, Ada Belle, is the wife of D. F. Van Vleet, of Ithaca, one of the leaders of the Tompkins County bar. Their son, De Forest Lacey Van Vleet, is the only grand-child of Mr. and Mrs. John C. Lacy.
While Mr. Lacy was a man of conservative judgment and thought- ful, prudent disposition, he was always one of the substantial and re- liable men of the community in which he resided. The reminiscences which he wrote on his eightieth birthday, from which we quote on page 74 of this volume, illustrate the thoughtfulness of the man, and preserve for our benefit the knowledge of events which would other- wise be lost. His literary taste, for one brought up as he was with- out educational advantages, was also very commendable, and the writer remembers from childhood with what skill and enthusiasm Mr. Lacy used to take part in the debates at the old school-house, forty years ago, with J. W. Dwight, T. J. McElheny, Dr. Montgomery, and others. In 1862 he served as president of Dryden village, and was chosen at other times as assessor and as highway commissioner of the town. He belonged to the first temperance organization in Dryden and, in 1861, he joined the First M. E. church of this village, of which he was always, from that time, a stable and constant member, contributing largely of his time and means to its management and support. While others were more headstrong and impetuous in the pursuit of their undertakings, Mr. Lacy was always deliberate and judicious. He was a man who would have commanded success in any sphere of business to which he might have been called, a thorough and persistent reader and thinker, and possessed an accurate estimate of men and things. His natural kindness of heart and his benevolence endeared him to the community in which he lived, and his pure integrity and honesty of purpose in whatever he did has never been questioned.
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