USA > New York > The men of New York: a collection of biographies and portraits of citizens of the Empire state prominent in business, professional, social, and political life during the last decade of the nineteenth century, Vol. II > Part 23
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58
90
MEN OF NEW YORK -- EASTERN SECTION
In 1889 Judge Stephan helped to organize the Home Seekers' Savings and Loan Association of Kingston, which has proved to be a great success and a benefit to the city. He became one of its charter members, and has served as attorney for the institution ever since. He is a member of Rondout
FREDERICK STEPHAN, JR.
Lodge, No. 343, Free and Accepted Masons, and was Master of the same in 1892. He is also a Knight Templar and a member of Cyprus Temple, Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He belongs to the Knights of Pythias and to the Rondout Club.
PERSONAL CHRONOLOGY- Frederick Stephan, Jr., was born at Rondout, N. Y., May 20, 1859; was educated in common schools and Ulster Academy, Rondout ; worked as a bookkeeper in Boston, 1880-84 : studied laws, and was admitted to the bar in 1886 ; married Alice Vignes of Kingston, N. Y., February 22, 1888 : has practiced laws in Kingston since 1886, and has been city judge since January 1, 1896.
Martin Ingham Townsend of Troy, New York, is a son of Nathaniel Townsend of Massachu- setts, through whom he inherited the blood of the Inghams of eastern Connecticut and of the Trains of Massachusetts ; and through his mother, Cynthia Marsh Townsend, he traces his descent from Henry Adams of Braintree and Miles Standish of Plymouth and Duxbury, Mass.
In 1816 Mr. Townsend's parents moved to Williamstown, Mass., and the three sons all graduated at Williams Col- lege, and all became lawyers. The eldest brother, Rufus M. Townsend, practiced in partnership with Martin 1. Townsend at Troy from 1836 to 1882, and continued active professional work until his death at the age of eighty-one and a half years. The third brother, Randolph W. Townsend, is still a prac- ticing lawyer in New York city at the age of eighty-five. Martin I. Townsend graduated from college in 1833, studied law under David Dudley Field of New York and Henry Z. Hayner of Troy, and has practiced his profession in the latter city since 1836.
Mr. Townsend was for four years an alderman of Troy, was district attorney of Rensselaer county from 1842 to 1845, delegate at large to the constitutional convention of 1867, a member of con- gress from 1875 to 1879, United States district attorney for the northern district of the state of New York from 1879 to 1887, and a member of the constitu- tional commission of 1890. Williams College conferred upon him in 1866 the degree of Doctor of Laws, and he has been a regent of the University of the State of New York since 1873. Until 1848 he was a Democrat in political belief ; but in June of that year, in union with Thomas V. Carroll and Charles R. McArthur, he called and held the first meeting in the United States to protest against the nomina- tion of Cass on a pro-slavery platform, and he has ever since been an ardent, unwavering Republican.
In the threefold attributes of citizen, lawyer, and statesman, Mr. Townsend has been generally accep- ted for half a century as the representative man of his county. His intellectual equipment is marked by quickness and breadth of comprehension, original- ity of conception, sound common sense, and power of presenting and enforcing his views. His tem- perament is nervous and enthusiastic, his spirit
£
MEN OF NEW YORK- EASTERN SECTION
inquisitive and aggressive, his moral sense hearty and sincere. He has always combined the enthusiasm of a Huguenot and the steadfastness of a Covenanter. These qualities have made him a leader of men from his youth, and his talents are of that large degree that approaches to genius. A born radical, not of the destructive type but of the reforming, in muni- cipal matters, in the law, and in the affairs of the nation, he has ever been among the foremost to recognize and advocate every movement toward amelioration.
Mr. Townsend's physical energy has always been so abounding, and his mind so broad, that he has not relished the deep and narrow digging in a single direction that is needed in order to become what is known as a " learned lawyer." Still, the law books show a highly respectable number of leading cases in which he has originated and suc- cessfully enforced unfamiliar doctrines. Probably the most celebrated of these are the Marshall will case and the Meneely bell case, involving respectively the doctrines of charitable trusts and unfair trade competition. As a jury lawyer he has been more in his element. In his best moments he can never have been excelled. Although he disdains the arts of polished rhetoric and declamation, his quickness and adroitness, versatility, courage, presence of mind, irresistible wit, and knowledge of human nature, have enabled him to rise to great heights of forensic power, frequently producing a tremendous and ineffaceable impres- sion. His career at the bar has been one of exceptional success, for he has always had the foresight and wisdom to try in public none but good cases : the others he has settled or tried out of court. Much of his success has been due to his invariable habit of cross- examining his own client before he has embarked in a suit. Every legal reform in the state has found in him an earnest and unwearied advocate ; and it is largely due to him that married women have their rights, and that parties can testify in their own suits.
Comparatively little as Mr. Townsend has cared for the books of the law, he has always loved most others ; and from his youth has read nearly everything, by night and by day, in science, history, literature, and theology : so that he has acquired a rare fund of exact and general
knowledge which, by the aid of an infallible mem- ory, is always readily at command. He has also loved and practiced farming on a large scale, and in these two avocations he has found the solace of his long life.
Few men have taken so commanding a position in congress in a first or second term as Mr. Townsend. In this he has overcome the tradition that a new "M. C.," like children, "should be seen and not heard." Something of this was due to his mature age, and more to his tact and wit. In his short congressional career he acquired a national reputa- tion that was the wonder of the old members, and the despair of the new. In the state constitutional convention he took and maintained a similar pre- eminence. He has never cared for office, and the state and the nation have been the losers, because
MARTIN INNGHAM TOWNSEND
he has lacked and despised some arts necessary to the successful politician.
High as is his intellectual stature, it is of Mr. Townsend's grand moral qualities that his
92
MEN OF NEW YORK-EASTERN SECTION
contemporaries best love to speak, and for which he will be long remembered. Most prominent and most essential among these is his broad humanity. Like Abon Ben Adhem, Mr. Townsend loves his fellow- men. He even loves the cattle on the hills ; and . Cowper would call him friend, for he would not " needlessly set foot upon a worm." This union of tenderness and aggressiveness is rare and always strongly attractive. His large humanity led him in 1848 to cast off the shackles of party allegiance, and almost alone to declare the unpopular doctrine of re- striction of slavery. He gloried in defying the wicked Fugitive Slave law. In the early and discouraging years of the great Civil War his was one of the clarion voices that never faltered in its patriotism. Having convictions, he has always had the courage of them, and a grand contempt of wrong. Never has he taken counsel save from his own conscience and from God. On occasion these qualities have made him seem irascible, and impatient of mcan motives and dull and mercenary men ; but generally this defect has been overbalanced by his incisive wit and exuberant sense of humor, which have salved the sores that his unsparing probe may have made.
PERSONAL CHRONOLOGY- Martin Ingham Townsend was born at Hancock, Mass., February 6, 1810 ; graduated from Williams College in 1833 ; married Louisa B. Kellogg of Williams- town, Mass., May 10, 1836 ; was district attorney of Rensselaer county, 1842-45, member of congress, 1875-19, and United States attorney for the northern district of New York, 1879-87 ; has been a regent of the University of the State of New York since 1878 ; has practiced fare in Troy, N. Y., since 1836.
John Bogarson Van Etten, one of the ablest lawyers of castern New York, is of pure Knickerbocker descent. His first American ances- tor was Jacob Jansen, who came to this country in 1664 from the city of Etten in Brabant, Holland, and settled in Ulster county, New York. The record of his marriage to one of his countrywomen on January 4, 1665, may still be seen in the old records of the First Reformed Church of Kingston, where he is spoken of as Jacob Jansen von Etten ; and from this early entry may be traced the origin of the family name. John Van Etten, the grandfather of our pres- ent subject, was a direct descendant in the fourth or fifth generation of the founder of the American line. He was born May 31, 1759, and at the age of eighteen took part in the battle of Saratoga as one of Morgan's regiment of sharpshooters. Though a mere boy, he was already distinguished by the great strength for which the family has long been famous,
as may be judged from the gun that he used in that battle. This ancient weapon, now in possession of his grandson, measures seven feet in length and weighs sixteen pounds. It was called " Tower Hill, " and was considered the best gun in the regi- ment, being the only one that would carry a ball across Saratoga lake.
After the close of the revolutionary war John Van Etten married, and had three sons, one of whom was a soldier in the war of 1812. The youngest, John Aaron, born May 19, 1801, was married Octo- ber 19, 1826, to Rebecca, daughter of Peter Vreden- burgh. and settled on a farm in Vaudale, Ulster county, afterward called Aaronton out of respect for him. In 1869 he sold his farm, and moved to Kingston, where he died at the age of eighty-seven. He was the largest and strongest of a family noted for size and strength, and these qualities more than once saved his life. He was at the same time gentle and kindly in disposition, generous, brave, sincere, and honest.
John E. Van Etten, the son of this modern Samson, was born on his father's farm in 1830. His early education was received in the common schools of the neighborhood, and he afterward studied at the Albany Normal College under George R. Perkins. He graduated thence in 1850, and after a year of further classical study, he prepared himself for the legal profession under Erastus Cooke, late justice of the Supreme Court. In 1856 he was admitted to practice in the courts of New York state, and in 1867 in the United States courts.
Mr. Van Etten has now followed his profession in Kingston for forty years, and has given his whole time and talent to it. He has his reward in the dis- tinguished position he has attained at the bar and in the public regard. His learning and ability are amply attested by the legal records of Ulster county, where he has won many cases involving intricate points of law, and requiring an intimate and accurate knowledge of the principles concerned. A few of the more important must be briefly referred to, though lack of space forbids more than a passing mention.
In the case of Whitaker as. Burhaus, involving the title to lands received by patent from George III., Mr. Van Etten, after being beaten in the Circuit Court and in the General Term, secured a reversal before the Court of Appeals, thus overturning two previously reported decisions on which he had first been defcated. In the case of Weyman vs. Smead, involving the question of the rights of an assignee, Mr. Van Etten lost his case in the Circuit Court. but secured a reversal in the General Term upon the
MEN OF NEW YORK . EASTERN SECTION
point that the assignee of a mortgage, though a pur- chaser in good faith and for a valuable considera- tion, stands in no better position than his assignor. In the case of Tillson ys. Terwilliger, reported at page 273 of volume 50 of the New York Court of Appeals reports, Mr. Van Etten carried his case on a point then new in the law. He se- cured another hardly won victory in the case of Donovan vs. Van Demork, which involved the complicated subject of trusts. In the lower courts it was held that the trust in question was passive, and therefore void ; but in the Court of Appeals Mr. Van Etten secured a re- versal of the decision, and established his claim that the trust was active and valid. The late Judge Nelson, who had a somewhat similar case soon after, paid Mr. Van Etten the high compliment in open court of resting his case entirely upon Mr. Van Etten's argument ; and Judge Ingalls stated that in the twenty- five years he had been on the bench, he had never seen a better brief. This case was carried a second time to the Court of Appeals ; but Mr. Van Etten was still successful, thereby overturning two pre- vious sheriff's sales and a previous mort- gage and judgment of foreclosure, with the deeds given thereunder.
Mr. Van Etten has never filled a politi- cal office, but he holds a high position in the community where he has lived so long. His home in Kingston occupies a commanding situation from which a magnificent view of the Catskill and Berk- shire mountains is obtained, and which has been named MIt. Cælum on that account. Here he has gathered an cx- tensive library, and devotes his leisure time to his books and to rural affairs, in which he takes great interest.
PERSONAL CHRONOLOGY-John Edgar- son Van Etten was born at Vaudale, Ulster county, N. Y., April 2, 1830 ; was educated at the Albany Normal College ; studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1856 ; married Adelaide Green of Kingston, N. Y., April 28, 1858 ; has practiced law at Kings- ton since 1856.
Francis Il. Willard, editor of the Newburgh Daily Register, was born in Kentucky about forty years ago. He did not stay long in the South, how- ever, but was brought to New York state in child-
hood, his parents settling in Boonville, Oneida county. There he attended the common schools, and afterward the village academy, and finally com- pleted his education at Whitestown Seminary.
'In 1880 Mr. Willard began his connection with the newspaper world as telegraph editor of the Water-
JOHN EDGARSON VAN ETTEN
town Morning Dispatch, and the next year he was made managing editor of the paper. During the political campaign of 1882 he had charge of the edi- torial columns of the Utica Daily Press, then just organized. In the fall of 1882 he returned to Boon- ville, and became a member of the firm of Willard & Sons, proprietors of the Boonville Heral:l. He con- tinued his connection with this paper for nearly ten years, gaining a great deal of valuable experience. and helping to build up an excellent country paper.
But Mr. Willard's talents as an editor and pub- lisher could not find scope in the management of $0 small an enterprise : and when, in 1891, an oppor- tunity presented itself to purchase the Newburgh Register, he sold his interest in the Herald and
94
MEN OF NEW YORK-EASTERN SECTION
sought a wider field of activity. When he took charge of the Register the paper was in a condition far from flourishing, but under his able and vigorous management it has become a prosperous and thor- oughly well conducted journal. Commodious and attractive quarters have been secured, modern machi-
FRANCIS A. WILLARD
nery has been put in operation, and improved meth- ods of conducting the work have been adopted ; so that to-day the Register is conceded to be the lead- ing newspaper between New York and Albany. Mr. Willard exercises a general supervision over every branch of the large establishment ; but the editorial department is under his immediate charge, and his forceful articles regarding public questions are quoted by leading Democratic papers throughout the state.
Mr. Willard's public service began soon after he reached his majority, when he acted for two years as clerk of the village of Boonville. In 1885 he was the Boonville member of the Oneida-county board of supervisors, being the first Democrat elec- ted to that office on the regular party ticket since
the war. He took a prominent part in the work of the board, and although one of its youngest mem- bers, was recognized as the leader of the Democratic minority. His popularity with his party was shown by his nomination in the same year as member of assembly from the third Oneida-county district, but this nomination he refused to accept. In August, 1886, President Cleveland appointed him postmaster of Boonville, and the appointment gave great satisfac. tion to the people of the place. On his removal to Newburgh he at once took an active part in the public life of the city, and soon became one of the leaders of his party there. Before he had been in the city two years he was selected as chair- man of the Democratic city committee in one of the most closely contested conven- tions ever held there. His advice and counsel are always at the service of his party, and are highly respected and fre- quently sought. For three years he held the position of statistician in the bureau of labor statistics at Albany.
PERSONAL CHRONOLOGY - Francis A. Willard was born at Midivar. Ky., August 23, 1856; was educated at Boonville ( N. Y.) Academy and Whites- toron Seminary ; was clerk of the village of Boonville, 1878-79; married Caroline L. Müller of Boouville February 27, 1880 ; was connected with the Watertown " Morning Dispatch" and the Utica " Daily Press," 1880-82; was one of the editors of the Boonville " Herald, 1882-91 ; was a member of the Oneida- county board of supervisors, 1884-85, and postmaster of Boouville, 1886-91; has beeu editor and senior proprietor of the Newburgh " Daily Register" since 1891.
horton D. VQright of Gloversville, promi- nent among the younger lawyers at the Fulton-county bar, is the son of Daniel H. Wright, who came to the United States from Stratford-on-Avon in 1845, and settled in Troy, N. Y., where he married Sarah Abbott of Brunswick, Rensselaer county. Horton Wright was born in Brunswick thirty-five years ago, and received his early educational training in the union school at Salem, N. Y. He after- ward prepared for college at the Hoosick Falls High School, and at the age of eighteen entered Cornell University, where he remained for two years. He then read law at Troy, N. Y., and at
95
MEN OF NEW YORK - EASTERN SECTION
Hoosick Falls ; and in September, 1886, was atd- mitted to the bar.
With this excellent intellectual equipment Mr. Wright began his career as a lawyer. The impor- tant question of a field of activity he decided in favor of Gloversville, a thriving little city that afforded abundant opportunity for achieving success in his chosen profession. He accordingly opened an office there in October, 1886, and has practiced there continuously during the decade since elapsed. He has always conducted his practice without asso- ciates, and has built up an important clientage. In 1892, when barely thirty years old, he was elected district attorney of Fulton county, and filled the position for three years with distinguished ability.
Mr. Wright has had considerable experience in criminal cases, both in his private practice and in his capacity as prosecuting officer of the county ; and he has been particularly successful in this line. He has conducted no less than five murder trials. In the case of Josef Zlamel he acted as counsel for the people, and secured the execution of the prisoner. In the other four cases he conducted the prosecution as district attorney, and in three of them he obtained a heavy sentence against the defendant. In the case of Walter Brown, charged with the murder of Hiram Os- born, a rival hotel keeper, John L. Hill was associated with Mr. Wright in the conduct of the case. When first elected district attorney, Mr. Wright, with the assistance of Matthew Hale, conducted the prosecution of Daniel E. Sutliff, ex- sheriff of Fulton county, for presenting to the board of supervisors a bill contain - ing fraudulent items.
Aside from professional work Mr. Wright is prominent in many ways in the life of Gloversville. He belongs to the Free Masons and the Knights of Pythias, and is a member of the Baptist church. His great diversion and relaxation from the cares of business is chess; and in this difficult field he has gained consid- crable distinction, and has established a reputation as the best player in his part of the state. He is fond of books, read- ing largely outside of professional sub- jects ; and is steadily accumulating an excellent private library.
PERSONAL CHRONOLOGY - Ilorton D. Wright was born at Brunswick, N. Y., December 7,
1862 ; was educated at the Unosick Falls High School and Cornel! University ; studied loro, and was admitted to the bar in 1886 ; married Gertrude A. Carurick of Arietta, N. Y., May 27, 1885 : was district attorney of Fulton county, 1893-95 ; has practiced law at Gloversville, N. Y., since 1886.
Maurice E. Ufriabt, justice of the New York state Supreme Court, and widely known throughout northern New York for his ability at the bar and on the bench, was born in Oswego county little more than fifty years since. The family is of Scotch- English descent, his great-great-grandfather, Caleb Wright, having emigrated to the United States in 1740, and settled in Connecticut. Caleb Wright, jr., the next of the line, took part in the battle of Bennington, supplying himself with bullets by meht-
HORTON D. WRIGHT
ing the weights of his eight-day clock. Lauchlin Wright, the son of this revolutionary hero, lived in Cambridge, Washington county, N. Y. ; and his son, David P., was the father of our present subject. On
2%
MEN OF NEW YORK -EASTERN SECTION
his mother's side Justice Wright is descended from Walter Woodworth, a native of Kent, England, who settled in Scituate, Mass., sometime prior to 1635. In this line, also, we find a revolutionary soldier ; Captain William Woodworth of Westchester county, New York, having served under General Washing-
MAURICE L. WRIGHT
ton, and commanded for a time the Charlotte pre- cinct in his county. His son. Major Lott Wood- worth, took part in the war of 1812, and commanded his regiment at the battle of Plattsburgh.
several narrow escapes from death. During an engagement in the Roanoke expedition, several of the gun's crew to which he belonged were killed and wounded, the man who stood next him at the gun being cut to pieces by a shell. On another occasion, when on shore and at some distance from his comrades, he was mistaken for a rebel by a company of Union cavalry- men, and commanded to surrender. Sup- posing them to be rebels, he fired upon them, and received in return a volley at a distance of about a hundred yards. By some marvelous good fortune he es- caped unharmed, and the attacking party discovered their mistake in time to pre- vent further trouble.
Returning North in 1865, Justice Wright finished his general education, and then became a student in the law office of Congressman John C. Churchill of Oswego. The next year he entered Columbian College Law School at Wash- ington, D. C., and graduated therefrom in 1870. He then formed a law part- nership at Mexico, N. Y., with his brother-in-law, T. W. Skinner, at that time surrogate of Oswego county ; and for the next twenty years he practiced his profession there with increasing suc- cess. For three years, beginning in 1879, he was president of the village of Mexico. In 1883 he was elected by the Republi- can party county judge of Oswego county, and was re-elected in 1889, holding the position until 1891, when he resigned in order to accept a higher office. In 1890 he was appointed by Governor Hill a member of the constitu- tional commission to revise the judiciary article of the state constitution. This commission included many of the ablest lawyers of the state, and its work was most favorably received by the consti- tutional convention of 1894 ; and Justice Wright's appointment thereto was a gratifying evidence of his high professional standing. In 1891 he received an additional proof of his popularity in his election from the 5th judicial district as a justice of the Supreme Court.
Justice Wright began his education in the common schools, afterward attending the academy at Mexico, N. Y., and Falley Seminary, where he prepared for college. He gave up for a time, however, his plans for further study : and in the summer of 1864, before he was nineteen years old, enlisted in the Justice Wright is a man of excellent judgment as well as sound learning in the law ; and his genial and courteous manners have won for him many friends throughout the state. In the spring of 1897 his name was prominently mentioned by the Repub- United States navy. He was assigned to duty on the gunboat " Valley City" in the North Atlantic squadron, commanded by Admiral Porter. Though he entered the service less than a year before the close of the war, he saw hard fighting, and had . lican papers in his part of the state for the office of
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.