USA > New York > Chautauqua County > Ellicott > The early history of the town of Ellicott, Chautauqua County, N.Y. > Part 35
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Association, and Alexander Prendergast and his wife executed a conveyance of this valuable property to such corporation. Alexander Prendergast, who had left his farm, (though still continuing its management) and moved into Jamestown, died August 1, 1885. Thus this Prendergast family is extinct. It has taken more of my time to say what I have said of Judge James Prendergast and his family than I thought, but if I said any thing how could I have said less. *
It is due to the enterprising and thrifty farmers in this and adjoining towns, that I should notice specially their act of love and reverence for their fath- ers and mothers, who, imbued with faith, hope and charity, entered with the pledges of their love, into the dense forest, built for them the house of logs, cut on the spot from tall, straight trees, these farmers to whom reference is here made, conceived a few weeks since, the happy thought of placing in the Marvin Park a memorial of those who felled the forests and commenced the making of the beautiful farms which they now occupy and enjoy, and upon which they have substi- tuted the brick or the framed house for the log house of their fathers, in which some of them were nurtured, and reared, and educated in the log school house, per- haps a mile from the hearthstone so dear to them, and the entire family circle. To these men are we indebted for the beautiful log house just dedicated, and to them we make our acknowledgements and render our thanks. With these enterprising farmers, to conceive was to execute. Such is the spirit of the age. They put their hands to the plow and look not back but to see that the furrow is straight. As to the dedication of this house, in this historical memorial, it will not be
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expected of me to commit the folly of attempting to add to the eloquent dedicatory address of my friend Dr. Hazeltine. I can add nothing of interest to what he has said so well. I will add, however, that he can- not surpass me in admiration of united Chautauqua, three-fourths of whose territory situate in the valley of the great Father of Waters and one-fourth in the val- ley of the St. Lawrence, through which magnificent rivers, the springs found on all the farms, and the rivulets and large streams find their way to the ocean thousands of miles away; occupying the gateway be- tween the East and the West caused by the Alleghany Mountains ; extending on the North, into the ad- joining county of Cattaraugus, and on the South, into Georgia, the Alleghany and upper Ohio rivers gently flowing along its western base, to join the Mississippi in its southern course to the sea ; hence the numerous railroads crossing the county east and west, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and other roads north and south to the rich ore and coal beds of the mountain and the petroleum oil fields of Western Pennsylvania. All these are beneficial to the farmer, and where may he look for a more satisfactory home? May Chautauqua County ever remain as she is with her present boundaries-no division, no disintegration.
It occurs to me that the ladies, who have taken so lively an interest in the dedicatory services, have, for some time, been thinking, "Has the Judge forgotten us?" Ladies, if you think so, you have done me un- intentional injustice. No, no, you have not for a moment been forgotten, but you have been a trouble to me all along my extended remarks. My mind has
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been occupied in endeavoring to think out remarks appropriate to the occasion. I have not been able to satisfy myself, and am really, in your presence, not a little embarrassed. I think I comprehend to some extent your beautiful conceptions, if I have not mis- taken their design, you have carried them into exe- cution most elegantly, most artistically, you have fed us most bountifully, and after the manner of the fathers you have our thanks.
As to the guests; you have succeeded in bring- ing to your table many octogenarians, more a little short of that age, and I am sure I can truthfully say, not one of your guests left, or will leave the table with any appetite for more, and I shall be safe in saying that all of us have been delighted with the entertain- ment, and in behalf of all your guests I tender to you our warm and earnest thanks, trusting and believing that the interesting chapter of history to which you have so well contributed will be known, read and understood by your children and their children so long as the monument built on these grounds, to com- memorate the virtues of your ancestors, shall remain Repeating our thanks, I bid you farewell.
MEMORIALS.
REUBEN EATON FENTON
Was the youngest son of George W. and Elsie (Owen) Fenton, the pioneer settlers on the banks of the Conewango, in that part of the town of Ellicott now known as Carroll. He was born in the town of Ellicott July 4th, 1819, and he died in the town of Ellicott August 25th, 1885.
It is not for us to write the biography of this emi- nent man ; or the history of the times in which he lived. It is not for us to follow his footsteps through the important places he filled, or to speak of the prom- inent parts he played in this great drama of life. Other and far greater biographers and historians will do all this. Reuben E. Fenton did not belong to the town of Ellicott, or to Chautauqua county, or to the state of New York-but to the United States and to the world. The attempt to confine the labors of his life- or the memory of them, to our small territory, would be as insane and as futile as that of the imbecile, who, with his pint cup, would remove the waters of the beautiful Conewango because they rippled past the
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mansion in which he was born,-forgetful that they would soon be claimed by the sparkling Alleghany, and then the bright Ohio, and that ere long the mighty Mississippi would bear them on her majestic tide to the great ocean that washes every shore.
But we may be permitted to say that Ellicott was the town in which he was born; that his boyhood days were passed on the banks of that beautiful stream which conveys the crystal waters of Chautauqua Lake in the first part of their journey to the far distant Mex- ican gulf. That the neighboring school house of logs is where he gained his first rudiments of knowledge, and where he studied his Daboll, that sowed in his young and fruitful mind those small seeds of mathe- matical knowledge which in after years grew into that noble and wide extending tree,-spreading its branches over the nations, and bearing so great a fruit- age of financial knowledge on which a world's com- merce and wealth are founded. It was the home of his youth, and it was in Chautauqua's Academies and Seminaries of learning that for the most part he gained that rudimentary knowledge which laid in his expan- sive intellect that broad foundation on which he reared the superstructure of his future fame. It was here, while quietly following the pursuits of his early life, that the greatness which was inherent in him was dis- covered and clearly discerned by a few acute minds, and in early manhood through their influence he was sent to the Nation's Congress. The opportunity thus presenting, Reuben E. Fenton's great mind expanded and matured by its own native and inborn power. He well knew the qualities of his own intellect and how much of ability it could be made to yield by thorough cultivation; he understood wherein his greatest power
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consisted, and he diligently used every means to culti- vate those faculties which he was aware could alone secure him success. He read with the greatest ardor all works on government, and especially the political history of our own country and its advancement in the science of government, and instituted rigid compari- sons between the genius of our own laws and those of other countries.
It is seldom that a man is as self conscious as was Reuben E. Fenton. He was aware that his powers were equal to the heaviest of tasks ; he knew that he could comprehend all that men had known. He felt con- scious that his powers of acquiring, and his industry, were unsurpassed, and still more ;- he felt that knowl- edge in his mind would not be a dead and useless weight, but that a power was in him inherent, to mould and transform, and to bequeath to the future high and worthy thoughts and desires, on all subjects upon which he should fix his mind.
For several terms he was re-elected to Congress in succession, excepting one term, and very soon his opinions came to have great weight, and although yet young, he was looked upon as a leader, and was placed on the most important of the congressional commit- tees. But what to us was more important than all was his conduct during the war. The ardent patriotism he then evinced, belongs only to the highest order of minds, for it is the teaching of all history, that true patriotism manifests itself in the greatest strength in the most gifted individuals. The love of country is a sentiment so expansive in its nature, so wide in its views, so benevolent in feeling, so far-reaching, ener- getic and powerful, that it is beyond the comprehen- sion of cold hearts and narrow minds. Patriotism is
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the attribute of generous, benevolent and noble na- tures, and is the highest conferred on man by his Cre- ator. In it is centered the wealth of all past experi- ences, and keeping in advance of human actions, pene- trates the future. It is exhaustless in invention, and connects causes with effects, and in past events learns what the future should be. True love of country fills its votaries with a hope which cheers and is ever sus- taining; it is fertile of expedients, firm amidst dangers, and always sustains the weak and faint hearted. It shows its greatest and most glorious power in caring for those who have fought its battles ; not those only who led the soldiery in the midst of the fight, but the poor soldier himself, who, as he lies bleeding on the field of strife, finds his best and life saving friend in the true patriot. It is he who secures him good at- tendance when sick and wounded, soothes his nostal- gia, renews hope, and excites to deeds of future valor, and thus builds up an army and a state that connot be conquered. Reuben E. Fenton was one of the true, un- failing patriots of the war of the Rebellion, and as such gained for himself that glorious appellation, not only in his own state, but in all the Northern states, and even among the stricken soldiers of the rebel south,
" FENTON, THE SOLDIER'S FRIEND."
Twice he was elected Governor of the Empire State, a station he filled with honor and signal ability; full of patriotic zeal he was signally the man the Em- pire state needed in her great emergency.
Reuben E. Fenton regarded the Republic with more than filial love and affection, and he never for a moment doubted that it would be rescued untarnished from the peril which menaced it ; and, that placed on
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a still more secure basis with slavery abolished, and his country able to truly say that all men are free and equal, it would shine with greatly increased lustre, and would continue to hold aloft the beacon torch which should finally be a light to enlighten the whole world. He deemed it his duty to prosecute the war with renewed vigor until the last musket should be wrenched from the grasp of the last traitor to the Re- public. Patriotism and love of country were the all- absorbing themes of his discourses in the old log school house on the banks of the Conewango ; he constantly kept them before his mind as constituting a bright beacon, constantly advancing before him-constantly attracting him by its brightness, and constantly allur- ing him onward. Now, when he had become the Gov- ernor of his native state, and during a period in which the Republic was menaced with the greatest danger, and its very existence threatened with destruction, he felt that duty demanded that he dedicate to her ser- vice his best talents, and energies, and powers. The state of New York was kept at the front in sending her men and means to the country's defense. He proved himself
THE WAR GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
At the close of his term as Governor he was cho- sen to represent the state in the United States Senate. Of all the manifestations of human ability and power, Mr. Fenton regarded that of Statesman the highest to which men could attain. To accomplish himself as such he made all knowledge attainable subservient ;- not only history, political economy and science of gov- ernment yielded to his active mind their neccessary treasures, but poetry, philosophy, and the classics of
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ancient and modern literature were compelled to afford all the aid they could to minister to his wants. A friend one day approached him with the question, "Fenton, why do you devote so much time to these deep, abstruse studies of law, government and political economy ? You are only building a monument which at your death will melt away and disappear like some gorgeous cloud pile, which the wind and the sun scat- ters, never again to appear." "You remark truly, my friend, that all of man's knowledge disappears, is buried with him and is soon forgotten. As a matter of ambition I consider all of this work but a vanity and vexation of spirit-but it is not with an ambitious spirit that I try to make myself conversant with this matter, but that I may discharge my duty to the very best of my ability to my constitutents and to the country. Do you not find in duty well performed one of the greatest sources of happiness ? I do, and when I have discharged my duty to my satisfaction, the winds may throw down the monument, as you are pleased to call it, as soon as they choose-I care not."
Fenton was impelled to the deep studies of finance, political economy, and science of government, not only that he might more understandingly and more thoroughly perform his duty to his constituents and to the country, but likewise from a love inherent in his nature for the work. The mechanism of his mind was particularly adapted to such investigations ; and fur- thermore, he was smitten with the beauty of the ideal he had formed in his own mind, of the duties required of a true statesman, and he was urged by an irresisti- ble desire to give that ideal expression in hisown acts. He labored for this as the painter labors to express the glowing conceptions of his imagination upon the can-
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vass, and for the mastery of his art. Reuben E. Fen- ton bound himself for life to this pursuit, and no change of circumstances in himself, or in the affairs of the country, no weariness, no increased weight of toil and of labor, could induce him to abandon the ideal which his mind had produced. He did not depend upon his acquired knowledge, it was the creation of his soul-it existed as an unfashioned image of beauty in his mind, and he worked incessantly to give that image with all of the attributes with which his intellect had clothed it to the world. It was a perfect ideal, an image of beauty, which had been born of his own soul, had in embryo taken root in his own mind, there developed, and had come forth enwrapped in his own soul's deepest thoughts and desires; as truly so as the best and most beautiful creations of Grecian art which have survived the centuries, came forth to astonish and enrapture a world-enwrapped in the soul of Phidias.
When we reflect upon the character of the man, and the vast work he accomplished, his great traits become more and more apparent, and his intellect stands forth as one of superior order. The memory of his good deeds-his remarkably studious and laborious life-his devotion to the service of his country-his labors in the cause of liberty and universal freedom- his more than nobleness, after his retiracy to private life-his interest in the welfare of his childhood's home-his sudden death-when we reflect upon these, Reuben E. Fenton stands forth in our presence with an interest, a power, a nobleness, we cannot escape. And the record of these virtues is the noblest legacy the great and the good can bequeath to posterity. They are the foundations of principles, which influ-
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"ence the future, act through all time, and are never forgotten. Their true power may not be rightly and fully comprehended in the present, but they will become more and more deeply felt in the future, and will be- come more and more efficient for good as the nation advances in true knowledge and virtue. The good such men do can never die; it endures with life-giving and eternal power, and forms in the hearts of thous- ands a beautiful ideal, in which it lives forever.
His affections were deep and tender ; he was calm, quiet and unassuming in demeanor, and faithful and true to all the conditions of domestic and of public life. His devotion to his family, his friends, and to the country and to its welfare, shone more and more brightly to the close of his life. There is nothing in his character we more admire than the quiet, dignified manner in which he withstood the injuries and insults heaped upon him when his great and growing ad- vancement stood in the way of an ambitious, unscru- pulous and powerful contemporary and associate. The calm philosophy, stern integrity, and love of virtue with which he mantled himself, and nobly stood and proudly fell, a martyr, midst the general corruption, was an act of Roman virtue and patriotism, far exceed- ing and above our feeble praise. It is upon such men that the true advancement and enlightenment of na- tions have always depended and must continue to de- pend. Their noble deeds are soon implanted in the mind and imprinted on the heart of the child, and from child to children, and handed down to children's children-from generation to generation, until the good flowing from the heart and mind of one man have filled the whole earth. His devotion to the country and to its welfare shone more and more
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brightly to the elose of his life. A public service com- meneing so early, at the very dawn of manhood, and continuing so long-of equal brightness, so filled with generous, patriotic and noble aets, is not recorded on the pages of our country's history, superior to that of Reuben E. Fenton. This is the verdict of to-day, and it will continue to be the verdict when the history of his aets and of his time is written.
The day that Gov. Fenton died we stepped into the bank to see him on a matter of business. We were met by our friend, Mr. Kent, with the joeose enquiry, " If we were still living;" we replied that we were, and intended to continue until he was disposed of, which probably would not detain long. Mr. Fenton came around from behind the cashier's counter, laughing, and said, "You are both older men than I am, but you should not be surprised if you both outlived me. I have a difficulty here," putting his hand up to his left breast-"that troubles me occasionally, and I feel it now-I do not know what it is-but I sometimes im- agine the difficulty is at the heart, and I think it quite probable I may die suddenly." We passed into his private room, and were engaged with business perhaps fifteen minutes! Another person, in the meantime eame in. We chatted for a short time; we never saw the Governor in better humor or in better spirits. We asked him in a jocose way, what had become of his heart disease ? Hereplied, "Oh, it is there, Doctor. I feel it, and it troubles me; but we must not always brood over our ailments in the presence of friends." We soon passed out and came home, and a few min- utes later one came running into our house with the intelligence, "Governor Fenton is dead." He never left the room in which we left him, alive.
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On the day of his burial the sun rose bright and warm, after four days of cloud and cold and gloom. It did seem as if nature had been weeping and mourn- ing his departure; and now when so many had gath- ered together from all parts of the state, and from other states, to lay him away for his final rest-was smiling through her tears, and bidding us to look be- yond the highest honors this world can give, to those greater rewards in reserve for the well doer here. This was the feeling at the time, and remarked by many, as they were engaged in the last solemn rites to the dead. It was a solemn day with all of us, the whole town was dressed in the deep habiliments of mourn- ing, the factories and all places of business were closed, all things wore an appearance of deep solemnity and mourning, save the smiling heavens above.
Tuum, honos, nomenque, laudesque, semper, mine- bunt .- Virgil.
" Your honors, your name and your praises shall remain forever."
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JOHN ADAMS HALL.
There has lived in our midst no man more deserv- ing of remembrance by those with whom he was asso- ciated in his native town, than the late John Adams Hall. We say native town ;- he was born in Wards- boro, Vt., December 27th, 1813, and was brought by his parents to the wilderness of Ellicott the following spring. His infancy was spent in an emigrant's home, and his earliest recollections were of that humble home in the wilderness. In a log school house in the forest was implanted in his mind the germs of that knowl- edge, which taking root, expanded and grew into so fair an educational tree, the fruits of which in after life he has so often presented to us.
We approach the preparation of this memorial with a singular timidity, for John was among the first and most valued of our boyhood's associates, and that early friendship is one of a few that has come with us, under all the various circumstances of life, up to his death. Those ties of friendship, wrought in boyhood's days, have always refused to be broken. When he left home at the age of fifteen, and went to Warren as a clerk in his uncle's store, we made many a visit thither to see John Hall, and when he, twenty years later left the flourishing business he had there built up, and, actuated by filial duty, returned to the home of his childhood to assume the care of his aged and declining parents, no one rejoiced over that return more than ourself. And although for several years, those early ties seemed to be loosened-for we only occasionally met-yet when together, the bonds of that early friendship assumed their former strength, and if possible, bound us stronger than ever.
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Up to the age of fifteen John's days were spent on his father's farm, and his education was that of the winter's school, taught in a log school house a mile distant from his father's home; the remainder of the year he was engaged in work on the farm, consequently his early school education was limited. Of a gentle and rather timid nature, he united with a remarkable quick- ness of apprehension, a love of books. In a person thus constituted such a love is equal to a liberal education, and so it proved with Hall. His education was largely gained by reading choice and well selected books, and in him it proved the most valuable education that he could have acquired. John A. Hall's character and deportment from youth up, never failed to commend itself, and to command the respect and approbation of all who came in personal and daily contact with him. We sincerely believe that his most controversial edi- torials, his most scathing articles on morals and on temperance and conduct ; the sarcastic sentences in his Paul Pry letters from Washington and elsewhere, and his failure to support the candidature of certain men for office, never made for him a pronounced en- emy-for they were written and prompted by the most generous sentiments, with no ill feeling towards indi- viduals, but with a thorough hatred of vice and wrong methods and wrong doing. His enemies, we may say, dreaded the lash, but bore no ill will to him who so thoroughly and correctly applied it, and no man had truer and more cordial friends and well-wishers in all sections of the country than he. No one was ever in- jured by an unkind word or deed of his. Mild and respectful in his intercourse with all whom he met- tolerant in his judgments-reasonable in his expecta- tions-easy to be pleased-patient and cheerful to wait
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the appointed time for his success-content to forego what was denied-he was not a person calculated to make enemies, but on the contrary, to win the good will and esteem of all. His enemies, if he had any, were those political shysters who could not bend him by either money or influence, to their nefarious pur- poses. He loved his party, to which he was always true-but he loved truth and honesty far more. A rare serenity of mind endowed him richly with that truest independence that can belong to man, and which to him, every one who ever knew him accords. Occupying a conspicuous and responsible station, in which an agitator would have found abundance of temptation and scope for turbulent activity and oppos- ing views, and which unavoidably, from the circum- stances of the times, invited harsh and determined assault, he knew how to be inflexibly true to obligations without losing his temper or even marring his good feel- ing. The candor of his mind was remarkable; he was willing to give error a fair show, for he trusted in the power of truth, and always believed that it would finally prevail. Who is there that will say that John A. Hall was unjust in an adverse statement, or ever knew him to sharpen an argument with a taunt? As the editor and conductor of a public journal he was signally the right man in the right place. The essential and spon- taneous uprightness of his understanding, gently in- fluenced his mind to the open and willing reception of all truth, and by a sort of insensible but irresistible contagion, inspired in him a true love for it. He was gentle, but of great firmness in counsel, and his action was marked by a steady tranquility of spirit. A truer man to stand courageously by what his cautious judg- ment had once approved as fit and right, never lived.
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