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Cornell University Library 1994."From Utica Morning Herald, December 2,1896.
THE DEDICATION
Impressive Exercises at the
Munson-Williams Memorial.
The Building Transferred to the
Oneida Historical Society.
Acting President Dimon Presents the
Deed and Keys and Eulogizes the
Donors—Judge Coxe Accepti the Me-
morial and Makes Some Suggestions
as to Its Use—Chancellor Upson’s Ad-
dress on “Some Characteristics of the
People of Oneida County^’—Letters of
IRegret,
The Munson-Williams memorial was
presented to the Oneida historical socie-
ty and dedicated last evening. Six hun-
dred of Utica’s best citizens attended the
exercises. The capacity of the society’s
new heme was severely tested. The
main hall, the museum and statuary hall
were filled. Several hundred folding
■chairs were- put in use. The exercises
were simple but impressive. During
the afternoon the building was open for
public inspection, and several hundred
people availed themselves of the oppor-
tunity. Members of the committee in
charge of the opening were at the build-
ing. The committee consisted of Hon.
John G. Gibson, T. It. Proctor, Rev. Dana
W. Bigelow, Dr. G. Alder Blumer, N.
Ourtis White, Warren C. Rowley, Thom-
as E. Kinney, Hon. Watson T. Dunmore,
T. W. Spencer, Rev. T. Banister, Dr. J.
V. Haberer, William L. Watson and
Thomas F. Baker. The committee will
hold a meeting in a day or two to wind
up its affairs.
The lecture room, statuary hall and
museum were tastefully decorated with
American flags and bunting. The lec-
ture room was in green, gold and white.
On the walls were old paintings of Gen-
eral Herkimer, Governor Seymour, Gov-
ernor Clinton and historic scenes. In-
dian relics and curios were hung about
the rooms. The decoration was done by
the society of the daughters of the revo-
lution. Among the ladies who devoted
their time to the work were Mrs. G. Al-
der Blumer, Miss Barnard, Miss Theo-
dora Dickinson, Miss Mary Merwin, Mrs.
W. H. Taylor, Miss White, Mrs. W. E.
Johnson, Miss Catharine Bray-ton, and
the committee of the historical society
in particular, Mrs. A. H. Munson,
Miss J. F. Grosvenor, Mrs. W. Stuart
Walcott, Mrs. W. E. Ford, Miss Cornelia
Williams and Mrs. Spencer Kellogg.
Hon. William H. Watson, regent of
the university of the state of New York,
presided. He opened the exercises by
briefly stating the occasion of the meet-
ing. With Dr. Watson on the stage were
Chancellor Anson J. Upson, Rev. Dr.
Chiles T. Olmsted and Judge A. C. Coxe.
The choir of the Reformed church, un-
der the leadership of Professor A. L.
Barnes, sang the anthem, “Great is the
Lord” (Lohr.) The members of the choir
were Miss Roberts, Miss Richards, Mrs.
Hoff, Mrs. Clark, Mrs. McGucken, Mrs.
Dobson, Mrs. Dye, Messrs. Ballou, Wen-
zel, Mclncrow and Tourtellot.2
Prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. Charles
T. Olmsted, recto? of G-race church. The
choir sang “At thine altar lowly kneel-
ing” (Hanscom,) after which all sang
this hymn:
O God, beneath thy guiding hand,
Our exiled fathers crossed the sea;
And when they trod the wintry strand,
With prayer and psalm they worshiped thee.
Thou heard’st well pleased, the song, the
prayer,
Thy blessing came, and still its power
Shall onward thro all ages bear
The memory of that holy hour.
Laws, freedom, truth, and faith in God
Came with those exiles o’er the waves;
And where their plgrim feet have trod
' The God they trusted guards their graves.
And here thy name, O God of love,
Their children’s children shall adore,
Till these eternal hills remove,
And spring adorns the earth no more.
VICE PRESIDENT DIMON’S ADDRESS
Presentation of tlie Memorial In the
Name of the Donors,
The formal presentation: of the me-
morial to the Oneida historical society
in the name of the donors was mad© by
First Vice President George D. Dimon.
After presenting the keys of the build-
ing and the deed to Judge Coxe, he said:
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Oneida
Historical Society, Judge Coxe—I have
been appointed by the committee in
charge of the arrangements to-day, and
have been requested in behalf of Mrs*
Frederick Town Proctor and Mrs. Thom-
as Redfield Proctor to present the keys
of the Munson-Williams memorial to the
Oneida historical society, and to hand to
you the deed which conveys the title to
the ground on which it stands. The gift
thus made is a beautiful and complete
consummation of a generous intent on
the part of one who is now gone from
us, carried out without the slightest
reservation by her daughters in the way
it is believed it would have been done
had their mother lived.
On the first day of December, 1876, just
twenty years ago this evening, a meet-
ing was called in the office of Hon.
Charles W. Hutchinson to discuss the
formation of a historical society. It was
preliminary, and a second meeting was
arranged for a fortnight later at which
a constitution was adopted, officers elect-
ed and members proposed.
. We think it thus appears that the first
suggestions for this society came from
Mr. Hutchinson, who was one of the first
vice presidents, for many years its presi-
dent, and. by whose recent death that
office is at this time left vacant. Mr. Hut-
chinson was always interested in the ob-
jects of the society, and especially in the
erection of the monuments which mark
the places where the dead heroes of -the
revolution—Steuben and Herkimer—lie
buried, and where the battle of Oriskany
was fought. He gave to the society the
triangle of land on Which he built the
foundation for a monument to mark the
location of old Fort Schuyler, where now
three cannon stand guard, further down
Park avenue.
The first president of the society was
Horatio Seymour, a man whose memory
every true Utican cherishes with fond-
ness. He was greatly interested in the
objects of the society. The first work
taken up was the celebration of the cen-
tennial anniversary of the battle of Oris-
kany. Governor Seymour did much to
make that celebration the grand success
that it was, and to accomplish afterwards
the erection of the handsome monument
which marks the battle ground.
John F. Seymour was one of the organ-
izers of the society, vice president for
several years, and greatly interested. He
did most of the planning and arranging
about the erection of the Oriskany monu-
ment, and during his life was chairman
of the committee for its care. To all who>
knew him, his kind and genial manner
and warm heart need not be recalled, for3
they will be forever fresh in their mem-
ories.
The society has but recently been
called to mourn the loss of one of its
vice president, who was also one of the
first councilors, Hon. Daniel E. Wager of
Rome. He was a careful investigator
and a thoro historian, whose publications
were always of great interest and value.
Another name can not be forgotten by
those who are among the earlier mem-
bers of the society. That is Morven M.
Jones. He was its first corresponding
secretary and librarian, and for many
years devoted a great deal of labor and
thought to its welfare. We all remem-
ber his white hair and benign counte-
nance, and feel that the existence of the
society owed very much to his labors.
But were I to indulge in the reminis-
cences that the names of the first of-
SAMUEL A. MUNSON.
fleers of this society bring up, it would
not be possible to confine my remarks, to
the time that can be used by me to-night.
Hon. Edward Huntington of Rome was
another of its vice presidents.
The following were the first coun-
cilors, of whom only two are
now living: William J. Bacon, Matthew
D. Bagg, Daniel Batchelor, Storrs Bar-
rows, Trenton; Roseoe Conkling, Dr.
Gilbert A. Foster, Dr. John P. Gray, De-
Witt C. Grove, Daniel B. Goodwin,
Waterville; Dr. Luther Guiteau, John H.
Edmonds, Hon. Ward Hunt, Pomroy
Jones, Judge Alexander S. Johnson,
Francis Kernan, Michael Moore, Tren-
ton Falls; Rutger B. Miller, Edward
North, John F. Seymour, Richard U.
Sherman, John Stryker, Rome; Charle-
magne Tower, Philo White, O. S. Will-
iams, William D. Wolcott, Daniel E.
Wager.
No wonder that the society has had a
life of continued usefulness. Not only
were its objects good, but there were en-
listed in its work a selection of names
that would honor any institution in the
land. Among the officers and members
there were others, many of whom still
survive, that were most efficient in or-
ganizing and conducting thro its early
years the society which still honors
them and values their membership and
services.
But, to turn from the recipient to the
gift itself.- I will not undertake to say
a word in description of it, but will ex-
press the hope^ that the society may be
able to care for it and1 use it in a manner
that is worthy of so magnificent and
beautiful a structure. In making this
gift, the donor made certain conditions,
which were as follows:
Utica, Nov. 17, 1893.
Mrs. Helen E. M. Williams proposes
to purchase a lot and erect a building
for the use of the Qneida historical so-
ciety; as a memorial to her father, hus-
band and brother, on the following con-
ditions:
I. The gift shall be known as the
Munson-Williams memorial and the
building shall be so designated on the
elevation, and the name shall be perma-
nently incorporated in its front,
v II. The site proposed is the triangle at
the junction of Elizabeth and John
streets and Park avenue,' if it can be se-
cured.
III.	The building shall be erected ac-
cording to plans and specifications made
in competition by three architects, to
be selected by Mrs. Williams, and shall
be submitted to and approved by her in
every particular. It may cost forty
thousand dollars, and shall be for the
use of the Oneida historical society ex-
clusively.
IV.	The deed of gift shall be to trus-
tees for the benefit of the society, to be
named by Mrs. Williams; but the prop-
erty is to be forever under the control,
care and management of the Oneida
historical society, and so accepted by it.
These conditions were agreed to*, and
it is difficult to see what objection could
be made to them. So, it is trusted that
all friends of the society will unite, in
the first place, in giving to its new home
the name of the Munson-Williams Me-
morial. To add the word “building”
only makes the gift smaller, and does4
not, in fact, comply with the condition.
It is not understood' that the condition
in regard to the use of the society will
prevent its use for such purposes as is
thought desirable, not being in conflict
with the purposes of the organization.
It is hoped that the object intended by
Mrs. Williams, that of a memorial, will
be fully understood. It was to be a me-
morial to her father, husband, and
brother, To the wisdom and care of
these dear ones, she owed the oppor-
tunities to attain the generous purposes
with which her life abounded, and she
wished to commemorate the reverence
and love she bore them.
, HON. CHARLES W. HUTCHINSON,
In whose office the first meeting of the society
was held.
Alfred Munson came to Utica from
Connecticut, where he was born in Bark-
hamstead, Nov. 21, .1793. ‘He was de-
scended from Thomas. Munson, who
came early to this country and joined
the settlement at New Haven, where he
was one of the signers of the “Planta-
tion Covenant,” the rock on which the
colony and church of New Haven was
built, and on which that commonwealth
rested for many years. Thomas Mun-
son was a man of ability and integrity,
as was evidenced by the positions of
trust to which he was called by his
neighbors, and the large and respectable
family of Munson, whose members are
found in every part of this country, do
honor to the name of their ancestor. Al-
fred Munson, before he removed to
Utica, was engaged in conducting the
home farm., a saw mill, and a grist mill,
owned by the family. The manufacture
of burr millstones was also begun in
Connecticut. In 1823, when 30 years old,
he removed to Utica and prosecuted the
manufacture of millstones, but a man
of such energy was not to be confined to
a single line of business. He was also
interested in packet boats on the canal,
and steamboats on Lake Ontario, and
later, in the building,and management
of the railroad between Utica and Sche-
nectady, and was a director of the jNew
York Central railroad for many years.
The Utica and Binghamton railroad also
was promoted by him, and he was its
president. The Syracuse and Oswego
railroad was another that he helped to
build. He was extensively engaged in
the manufacture of iron in Baltimore,
Md., and established and owned Frank-
lin Iron Works, near Clinton, in this
county. He was one of the originators
and first president of the Utica steam
cotton mills, and of the Globe woolen
mills. He was the first president of the
Oneida bank, and so continued until his
death. He was one of the managers of
the New York state lunatic asylum from
the opening of the institution, and chair-
man of the board until his death. The
erection of the beautiful Grace church
was most largely due to his taste and
judgment, as well as to his generosity.
I regret that I can only mention some
of the more important points of his
career and character, and will quote, as
to the latter, what I find in the lately
published history of Oneida county:
‘His mind was unusually active and
clear. He was prudent, penetrative and
sagacious, and was possessed of sound
common sense, discriminating judgment,
and remarkable wisdom. Bold, fore-
sighted and eminently calculating, his
plans, when matured, needed only will
of execution—'his most conspicuous and
commanding trait1 to overcome every ob-
stacle and insure success. He was in-
fluenced by purity as well as rigor of pur-
pose, and was liberal minded and public
spirited. He loved to engage in large,
but strictly -legitimate, business enter-
prises, and especially in such as tended
to promote the welfare and prosperity
of the community. The rare combina-
tion of business elements in his charac-
ter—bis resolute determination, his con-5
s’tant watchfulness, his self-reliance, lent
a prestige of success to every scheme in
which he embarked. He was married to
Elizabeth Munson of Nonthford, Conn.,
May 29, 1823. He died May 6, 1854.”
James Watson Williams was born in
Utica, May 18, 1810. He graduated at
Hobart college, studied law in 'New York
city, and practiced his profession in this
city; was clerk of the supreme court aft-
er his father’s death. He was mayor of
the city of Utica in 1847. He was a man
of cultivated taste, and finished attain-
ments as a student of literature and his-
tory. While he had arrived at some po-
litical preferment, his disposition was
rather retiring and he withdrew from
public life. It is to those who knew him
best that we turn for the warmest praise.
I will quote what one of those has recent-
ly written: “He was not a politician in
the ordinary sense of that much abused
word, but he was a politician in a far
higher sense—H© studied the constitu-
tions of various lands, to know the causes
of success or failure. He studied polit-
ical history for its lessons and its writ-
ings. He was a good Latin scholar; he
kept his knowledge of Latin fresh to the
ALEXANDER SEWARD,
One of the first members of the Oneida his-
torical society.
last. The history and the literature of
many lands were known to him. His
conversation and writings bore witness
to the extent and value of his researches.
He did not pretend to science, but his ad-
dress on the Atlantic cable, in 1853, and
his address to the Germans celebrating
the centennial of Humboldt bear witness
that be knew its history and its tri-
umphs.” But it was in the home life that
his warm and loving heart was known
best of all. His daughters and his sis-
ters still testify to that, and the memory
of his affection will, by them, be kept
forever green. He died May 21, 1873.
Samuel A. Munson was born in Utica
and died at his home on Fayette street,
May 26, 1881. He was educated at the
Utica academy, and was soon engaged
in the manufacture of iron in Baltimore,
Md., and later in the Franklin Iron
Works in this county, which were suc-
cessfully operated under his manage-
ment. He was not actively engaged in
any business afterwards, altho he was
largely interested in many enterprises.
He was a director of the Western Union
telegraph company, in which he had in-
vested a large amount, but he declined to
accept a part in the direction of many
other corporations. I can not do better
than to quote from what was said at the
time of his death, by one who knew him
intimately: “In estimating his character
and genuine worth, it would not be just
to leave out of account physical infirm-
ities, inherited traits and native apti-
tudes. As a business man, he was
methodical and painstaking, prompt,
true to his word, and honest to the last
degree. He formed his opinions inde-
pendently and dispassionately, by a care-
ful study of all data within reach. Where
his opinions were once formed he seldom
had occasion to reverse them. His deeds
of charity and kindness were habitual,
but the right hand made no report to the
left. What he gave to those in trouble
was given so quietly that the world never
knew it, with his consent. Apparently,
it only gave him pain to see his name in
any public announcement of a liberal act.
Fortunately he was not shut out from
sources of pleasure that are elevating and
pure. He loved his books, his peaceful
garden, his rare paintings, and all the
gentle ministries of a true home life. If
ever he forgot his habitual reserve, it.
was in the presence of sunny childhood,
or a rare exotic flower, or one of the
grand epics of the easel.” His fellow
townsmen generally were not well ac-
quainted with him, but he had friends
who testified warmly to his kind heart
and genial temper;
But, now, I come to speak of the one
whose thought lives in these walls—
Helen Elizabeth Munson Williams. She6
was barn in Utica, Aug. 28, 1824. She
attended school at the Utica female
academy. She was married to James
Watson Williams, Sept. 30, 1846. There
were three children, the eldest of whom,
Grace Elizabeth, died at the age of 12
years. Naturally of a retiring disposi-
tion, she was fond of reading and study,
and many hours were spent with her
husband and daughters in the quiet en-
joyment of their books. She was fond
of paintings, and the walls of her house
bore testimony to her taste and judg-
ment, in the number of beautiful pic-
tures and other objects of value that they
THOMAS R. PROCTOR,
Vice president of the Oneida historical society.
carry. She was thoughtful, cultivated,
of most excellent judgment and refined
taste, and generous with a liberality that
knew no bounds, except a fear that she
might do harm or an injury .by her
gifts. They were made without osten-
tation and were not publicly known, ex-
cept where it was impossible to cover
them because of their greatness. Of her
many magnificent gifts, there are none
more complete and beautiful than this
one to the Oneida historical society.
Her failing health prevented her from
formulating entirely the plans for it, but
she thought about and discussed them,
and so far as they could tell, her daugh-
ters have carried them out exactly as
they ttelieve their mother would have
done, with a liberality and love that is
unlimited.
I forbear to speak of the living, for
fear that the words that should properly
express my feelings, would seem to lack
in sincerity because of their profuse-
ness. The result of their munificence
and generosity is exceedingly beautiful,
and this building, which is in the Flem-
ish gothic style, selected by Mrs. Will-
iams herself, was designed by Richard
H. Hunt of New York.
This society will be weak indeed if it
fails to be greatly strengthened and as-
sisted in its work by this. auxiliary. It
is an instrument in its hands, which,
like the churches erected to the worship.
of the Most High God, in the hands of
the faithful, must be used for the culti-
vation of the higher artistic and finer
part of our natures, a temple of art, as
well as a monument of history.
In order to attain to the greatest de-
gree the good objects which it is in-
tended to further, it must be managed
with a liberal policy.
• As thro my hands pass the tokens of
this princely gift, I trust I may be par-
doned for expressing a very deep sense
of personal gratification.
JUDGE GOXE’S ADDRESS,
Acceptance of the Memorial on Behalf
of the Society.
The acceptance of the memorial on be-
half of the Oneida historical society was
made by Hon, Alfred C. Coxe. He said:
Ladies and Gentlemen—I have been
chosen by the Oneida historical society
to receive these keys. We accept them
with mingled pleasure and regret; pleas-
ure, that we are permitted to occupy a
home so commodious and ornate; regret,
that the generous donor is not here to
witness the full fruition of her munifi-
cence. To this gentle lady and to her
daughters, who, with devoted liberality,
have executed the trust thus bequeathed
them, the thanks of this society are due
so long, as it continues to exist.
In this fair land of universal freedom,
where the air is surcharged with liberty
superlative and supreme; where the
poorest and lowliest may reach the high-
est station; where the young men, who
begin life with no capital but honesty
and industry, become the merchant
princes and financial kings of the next
decade; in such a land the ' charlatan
who creates discontent and bitterness by
attempting to array the poor against
the rich, is a hateful and despicable
creature. Unreasoning as is this at-7
tempt to array the masses against the
so-called classes—there are no classes
in America—the effort will probably
never cease so long as failure is com-
pelled to witness the ostentatious prodi-
gality of success. The vulgar selfishness
of some American millionaires so accen-
tuates and embitters poverty that it be-
comes a fertile field for socialism. From
GENERAL CHARLES W. DARLING,
Corresponding secretary of the Oneida his*
torical society.
hunger and envy the steps are short to
hatred, malice and anarchy. If the no-
ble example of generosity which we meet
to commemorate were more often fol-
lowed the aversion for the rich, of which
we have heard so much of late, would
soon be changed into admiration, esteem
and friendship.
Gentlemen and ladies of the society,
this home is ours. What shall we do with
it? With its occupation comes increased
responsibilities. We can keep it selfish-
ly to ourselves, or we can open wide its
portals and welcome every man and wo-
man of Utica, not only, but of central
New York, who- has a taste for history,
or literature, or art. We can make this
a cold and cheerless shrine, where a few
devotee® shall worship, or we can trans-
form it into a veritable Pantheon, the
home of all the gods and of all the muses.
We can light here a fadeless beacon
which will summon the disciples of cul-
ture from afar to- come and worship at
her “pilgrim-circled hearth.”
When I say that our future policy
should be on broad and liberal lines,, I
believe I express the wishes of you all.
How can this Ibe accomplished? First
and foremost by increasing our member-
ship. We can accommodate five hundred
members as well as two hundred. Many
prominent citizens of Utica and the sur-
rounding towns are not members to-day
simply because they have not been
asked. A little energetic and system-
atic work, like that undertaken of late
by the committee on membership, will
secure this increase. To this end the
annual dues should be placed at a sum
so reasonable as to be within the means
of every clergyman and school teacher
in Oneida county. The society will be
much more successful with a member-
ship of five hundred paying two dollars
per annum, than with two hundred pay-
ing five dollars per annum. If the an-
nual dues are not decreased, at least the
initiation fee might be dispensed with.
I am personally acquainted with several
citizens who would make admirable
members and who wish to join the so-
ciety, but do not feel able to pay the ini-
tiation fee in addition to the annual
dues. Give us members and enthusiasm
and the finances will take care of them-
selves. Secure the co-operation of all
in the community who are interested in
the objects of this society and “abundant
streams of revenue will gush forth.”
With the membership thus increased our
meetings should be something more than
dry discussion over “quaint and curious
volumes of forgotten lore.” They should
be enlivened with debates upon the im-
portant topics of the day and addresses
by distinguished specialists at home and
abroad. They should be popularized by
the presence of members of kindred so-
cieties and humanized by the introduc-
tion of music. The moment the Oneida
historical society becomes popular, ac-
tive and aggressive its success is as-
sured. What boundless possibilities
await it!
There are in this city many relics of the
revolution and the civil war, which, in the
nature of things, will be scattered and lost.
The owners of these relics and manuscripts
should be encouraged and urged to, deposit
them here, where they will be safe for all
time. These walls are bare. They should be
covered with paintings. The Utica art as-
sociation has a fund of several thousand dol-
lars. I know it was the hope of the early
members that this fund should some day be
used as the nucleus of a permanent art gal-
lery in Utica. For many years the associa-
tion has made no sign and its money has re-
mained idle in the bank. Has not the hour
arrived when this fund should arise from
the vault where it has slumbered for nearly
twenty years? If ecoomically and judiciously8
expended it will purchase a score of pic- Of the. art gallery at The Hagtie it may fairly
tures from the pencils of the best American be said that it is less than 80 years old. The
artists. Even that number would adorn these famous Ryks museum at Amsterdam, which*
walls, and the art collection thus begun contains Rembrandt’s 'masterpiece, “The
Would, as in other cities, receive additions Night Watch,” was-finished only about ten
from time to time from public enterprise years ago.
and private gift. It is not too- much to hope Encouragement may even be had while con-
that we will all live to see the day when templating the progress made in Paris, the
TJticans are as proud of their art gallery as great art school of the world. Pilgrims from
Parisians are of the Louvre and the Luxem- every clime go there to drink inspiraton from
bourg. I have no right to speak for the art her innumerable fountains. The city is one
association, but this suggestion has met with vast treasure house of art. The stately tem-
the hearty approval of the few members to pies, the classic facades, the graceful col-
whom I have broached the subject.	umns, the statues which almost ijreathe, the
Again, I trust the day is not far distant
when the triangles on the south and east of
this building are adorned with statues of some
of Utica’s illustrious dead. What, for ex-
ample, can be more appropriate than that we
should raise a memorial to him who, ex-
actly twenty years ago to-day, founded this
society? Every man and woman, boy and
girl in Utica would thus become familiar with
the graceful figure and noble brow of the
typical American gentleman, Horatio Sey-
mour. Auburn has a statue of Seward, St.
Louis of Benton, Chicago' of Lincoln and
Douglass, New York of Webster and Conk-
ling, and Boston of Everett and Sumner.
Why should not we erect a statue of Sey-
mour and the other illustrious men who
have made our city famous in the past?
Before the society celebrates .the half cen-
tury of its existence her museum should be
filled with relics, her walls covered with
paintings, her triangles adorned with statues
and the Oneida historical society should be
famous thro’out the land. You may think I
take too optimistic a view, but with such a
home as an incentive what may not enthusi-
astic endeavor accomplish?
The great galleries and museums of Europe,
which are now the deight of travelers from
every land, had most unpretentious origins.
Most of them are not as old as the present
century. The national gallery of England,
which has a frontage of 500 feet upon
Trafalgar square and contains a collection
which is the admiration of the world, is only
about 70 years old. Its first exhibition was
in 1824 in a private residence in Pall Mall.
The collection has been increased since then,
principally from private gifts, until it now
contains over fifteen hundred pictures, divided
about equally between English and foreign
schools. “A man who can not spare time,”
says Charles Kingsley, “for a daily country
walk may slip into the national gallery. That
garden flowers as gaily in winter as in sum-
mer. Those, noble faces on the wall are
never disfigured by grief or passion. There,
in the space of a single room, the townsman
may take a walk beneath mountain peaks,
thro green meadows, and by rushing brooks,
where he lingers till he almost seems to hear
the ripple of the stream! and to see the fishes
leap.” What a delight would it be were
there here such a retreat from the leaden
skies and unvarying monotony of a Mohawk
valley winter!
#The South Kensington museum was estab-
lished in 1852 from a surplus derived from
the national exhibition of 1851. It is then but
45 years old, and be it observed, was founded
as I have suggested the Utica collection shall
be founded—from the surplus derived from
an art exhibition.
At Antwerp the splendid building which
contains the museum was not completed until
1890. The royal picture gallery at Brussels
was not purchased by the city until 1845.
WARREN C. ROWLEY,
Treasurer of the Oneida historical society.
artistic fountains, the unrivaled arches, the.
glitttering domes, the noble bridges, all at-
test the aesthetic character of the French
people. The French are the evangels of mod-
ern art, and nowhere, except possibly in the
Athenian republic, has there been such in-
tellectual activity and co-operation in the field
of the fine arts as in their capital. When one
realizes that this tremendous progress, this
natonal revival is the work of less than a
hundred years, dating only from the revolu-
tion, and that some of its most brilliant
achievements have been during the regime of
the republic, there is room for hope that
other nations, even tho republics, may
yet. achieve similar pre-eminence. Even the
Turk is awakening. Within the last decade
there has been established at Stamboul a
museum of art and archaeology which has al-
ready far outgrown the building provided by
the government. These and many other in-
stances which might be mentioned illustrate
what an art-loving people may do in a com-.
paratively short space of time. They show
what enthusiasm and determination, even in
the most unsympathetic and hostile environ-
ments, can accomplish. Is it not time that
the American people begin actively to con-
sider this subject, to' collect the priceless
relics of our struggles for independence and
national existence and cherish them for the
benefit of posterity? That we have been al-
most culpably remiss in. this matter can not
be denied. While cultivating the useful, the
ornamental has been neglected.
A recent writer in Scribner’s Magazine
says:
“The beautifying of our cities with monu-
ments and buildings should really be, and I
believe will eventually become, the American
way of displaying wfealth. Considering what9
our wealth is, and, as shown by the Chicago
exhibition, what the capabilities of our na*
tive architecture are, the condition of our
leading cities as regards monuments of sculp-
ture or architecture is one of the sorrowful
wonders of our condition. We are enormously
rich, but except one or two things, like the
Boston library and the Washington public
buildings, what have we to show? Almost
nothing. Ugliness from the artistic point of
yiew is the mark of all our cities. The stran-
ger looks thro them in vain for anything but
population and hotels. No arches, no1 great
churches, no court houses, no city halls, no
statutes, no tombs, no municipal splendors of
any description, nothing but huge inns.”
Why should not the work of regeneration
begin right here? Few cities are better fitted
to lead in the coming renaissance, few cities
have such proud traditions, such illustrious
names, or a more refined and cultured people.
Few historical societies have accomplished so
much during so short a period. The shafts
at Oriskany and at Little Falls and the
monument at Steuben are largely due to its
energetic patriotism. It is for us to see that
its light continues to shine with a brighter
flame and over a wider horizon. Let us then
resolve to make this society worthy of its
home and: an honor to the city and the state.
CHANCELLOR. UPSON’S ADDBESS.
Some of the Characteristics of the
People of Oneida County.
The hymn, “Lord, while for all man-
kind we pray,” wasi sung and Dr. Wat-
son then introduced Rev. Anson T. Up-
son, LL. D., chancellor of the university
of the state of New York. Regent Wat-
son introduced Chancellor Upson, as
follows:	“I have now the pleasure of
presenting to you a gentleman who, to
the older portion, at least, of this audi-
ence, can certainly need no introduction.
Early a student of law in this city, he
was afterwards for 21 years the profes-
sor of-rhetoric and elocution at Hamil-
ton college, and gave to that depart-
ment the highest position and influences
During that long period, as connected
with every literary or historic occasion
of importance, he was in almost constant
contact with our citizens. Hon. Anson
J. Upson, chancellor of the university of
the state of New York, will now deliver
the dedicatory address.”
“Mr. President and Ladies and Gen-
tlemen-—No theme seems to be suggest-
ed more naturally by this historical oc-
casion than a discussion of some of the
characteristics of the county of Oneida.
I hope it will be pleasant for us to recall
some of our virtues, and perhaps profit-
able to remind each other of some of our
deficiencies.
It is only 110 years ago—in 1786—that
the actual sovereignty of the Oneida In-
dians in this county forever ceased. By
treaty with commissioners representing:
the authority of this state, the Indiana
surrendered most of their lands, and be-
came tenants of the soil which the god
of nature had given them, and which
they had so long called their own. Other
peoples in considerable numbers had al-
ready begun to take possession of these
fertile lands. That remarkable mingling
of various races, so characteristic of the
state of New York, had begun to show
itself in this county. We are told that
in 1800, the 90 houses only at that time*
in Utica contained already the repre-
sentatives of 10 or 12 different nations,,
and this variety has been a character-
istic of our population ever since.
The races represented in this audi-
ence to-night are very numerous. I
would not venture to count them. We*
are so accustomed to this ancestral var-
iety that we seldom speak or think of it.
A visit to France, where all the people*
are of French descent, or to Germany*
where almost all are pure Germans, or
to1 Scotland, where every man yon meet
is a Scotchman, or to Ireland, or even
to England, reveals the monotony of the*
population there, and by contrast, the
variety here. One need not visit a
world’s exposition in Paris to see repre-
sentatives of all nations. Walk down-
Broadway, New York, and almost every
other man or wohian you meet will rep-
resent a different race.
In the settlement of this county the
New Englanders were the advanced
guard of the incoming host. It seems as
if the ford of the Mohawk, at the foot
of Genesee street in this city, were a10
barrier which stopped, for a time, the
advance westward of the Palatinate
Germans, who had held the river from
Canajoharie to this point. Under the
leadership of that sturdy pioneer, Hugh
White, the New Englanders led the way.
They came from New Hampshire, from
Massachusetts, from Connecticut and
from Rhode Island. Most of us readily
acknowledge New England precedence
In a recent visit to the Connecticut town
where my father was horn and is buried,
most of the names I heard were repe-
titions of familiar names in this county.
The New Englanders came first, and
with their strong hands, clear minds
and independent thought and energetic
purpose, have exerted a controlling in-
fluence.
Yet that influence has been modified,
in the settlement of this county; and
yet few of us realize how almost unex-
ceptional it was, in every town. Of the
28 towns in the county of Oneida, New
England men and women first settled
23, and in three of the remaining five
towns, they shared the first settlement.
essentially modified and improved, I be-
lieve, by subsequent or almost contem-
poraneous immigration of other races.
The Hollanders, such as the Mappas and
the Vander Kemps in Trenton, Van Epps
in Vernon and the Bleekers, the Van
Rensselaers and the Varicks in this city,11
brought with them to this country a cheer-
ful hospitality, as well as a thrifty enter-
prise, a dignified courtesy and a tried
and victorious patriotism. Later came
the Welsh in larger numbers, some of
them in strange costumes, the women,
as I have seen them in Whitesboro street,
wearing men’s high hats and knitting
stockings as they walked. Almost with-
out exception the Welsh were and are
thoughtful, acute and industrious, ambi-
tious for the best things in music, in
literature and religion, frugal, steady and
virtuous. The Irish immigrants, such as
the Devereuxs and the Lynches and Mc-
Quades and their descendants, have
modified and, I believe, improved the
prevailing New England character of the
population. They have cheered the life
of the county, by their inexhaustible hu-
mor, and their ready wit. The Irish
among our population have given to- us
all a keener sense of the ludicrous, which
has improved our manners and refined
our taste. Their Celtic temperament has
encouraged in our American life expres-
sion more than repression. Later many
Germans have come. While we have
made these Germans, some of them, a
little less free in their thinking, they
have taught us thorOness in our intel-
lectual and philosophical work, as well
as much delicious and inspiring music,
and how to enjoy it. The Scotchman,
with his stalwart limbs and clear eyes,
has sometimes overmatched our Yankee
shrewdness and thrift, and so taught us
to be more modest and cautious. Now
and then a French Huguenot, like the
Guiteaus and Augustine G. Dauby, has
enlivened our social life-, giving us a con-
tinuous lesson in kindness and courtesy,
no matter how adverse the circum-
stances.
Men and women of all these various
nationalities, » and their descendants.,
Puritans and Dutchmen and Welshmen
and Frenchmen and many more, have,
within the last one hundred years, in the
provindence of God, so coalesced, become
so twined and intertwined, so united as
to be truly only one people, having char-
acteristics of its own, which may be
easily recognized.
You will not charge me with indulg-
ing in extremely extravagant eulogy,
when I say deliberately, that the busi-
ness men of this united people in Oneida
county have been habitually honest. I
do not say that this is true without ex-
ception, far from it. And yet I think
that the eldest here will agree with me
in saying that the tone of public senti-
ment in the county of Oneida, the pre-
vailing trend of public opinion in its
practical expression, almost invariably
favors strongly the honest man. It dis-
approves dishonsety, no matter how suc-
cessful apparently it may be. Nothing
may be said about it publicly, but the
dishonest man is distrusted, and he feels
it. I knew such a one who always
walked in a back street, to and fro be-
tween his place of business and his
home. Perhaps the noble example of
Jedediah Sanger, the first settler of
New Hartford, has had something to do
with this prevailing respect for an hon-
est man. You remember how just before
DR. M. M. BAGG,
Librarian of the Oneida historical society.
he left his New Hampshire home, by the
burning of his house and store,, he was
made bankrupt. But as soon as he be-
came successful in his business at New
Hartford, far away tre»f*f his creditors,
he paid the principal and interest’of all
his debts. Such an example, and oth-
ers like it, have had their legitimate and
inevitable influence upon public opin-
ion and upon personal conduct. As a
class our bankers inspire confidence.
Who could ever doubt the integrity of
Publius Y. Rogers? Our merchants not
only give credit, but they receive it.
Who would not trust George Henry
Huntington, Benjamin Walcott or Sam-
uel Campbell, William G. Tracy or
James Sayre, or John J. Knox and Sal-
mon Case or John Camp? Quacks in
medicine are not employed by most peo-
ple of this county. Our lawyers are not
inclined to be technical and tricky in the12
management of cases, or mercenary in
the encouragement of needless litiga-
tion. Did anyone ever charge Erastus
Clark or Joshua A. Spencer Or Henry A.
Poster or Timothy Jenkins or Charles
A. Mann or Edward S. Brayton or John
P. Seymour with being mercenary law-
yers? Am I not right when I say that
the tone of public sentiment in the coun-
ty of Oneida encourages integrity and
discourages dishonesty ?
Regent, of the university of the state of New
York.
This county has been criticised for its
conservative methods in business. They
call us ‘slow.” We certainly are not
“fast/” and yet standing as we do to-
night near the end of 100 years of our
history, a fair-minded critic would not
hesitate to say thait in most respects our
progress has been satisfactory, our
growth substantial, our improvement
real. Say what you please about what
you may name cowardly fear of taking
risks, your thanks are due to the wise
and conservative policy of your bankers
and other business men. This conserv-
ative policy carried this county in com-
parative safety thro such panics as that
of 1837, 1857, 1873 and 1893.
We have made but little or no reckless
speculation. Yet now and then the most
conservative community will lose its
self-possession. Our distinguished civil
engineer, Lorenzo M. Taylor, in a paper
read before this historical society, told
a story which sounds strange to Onei-
da county ears. He told us how in 1836-
37 a speculative fever set our people
crazy. Lots, hundreds of “handsome
green lots/’ so named, along the upper
bank of the Mohawk river, in front of
where the state hospital now is, were
sold over and over again, at high prices,,
lots 'that are from once to three times a
year under six feet of water.
And pardon me, if in this assemblage
of old friends, and neighbors, 1 tell you
of another example in more private life;
in which our very conservative commun-
ity seemed to forget for a time its wise
caution. In the early spring of 1842 or
1843 a Frenchman came to town and
opened a vacant store in the Hurlburt
building, on Genesee street, just above
the corner of Lafayette street. He
stocked the store with ishrubs and plants,,
in great profusion. None of the shrubs
or plants were in bloom, of course, in
those cold March days; but the wily
Frenchman hung the walls with pictures,
of wonderful flowers these plants would
produce in the. early summer ; brilliant
with blue peonies, yellow lilacs, bright
green roses, and black geraniums, as
big as platters; learnedly accounting for
these monstrosities, by mysterious al-
lusions to the wonderful effect of hybrid-
izing. Our cautious fellow citizens
could not resist these fascinations. Bar-
row loads, and in one case a wagon load
of these m'arvelous plants were pur-
chased at fabulous, prices, carried away
and doubtless planted in the gardens of
this conservative town. But no one has
ever revealed the story of the blossom-
ing and.the blooming! Not one of these
cautious purchasers has hitherto been
found to acknowledge that he bought a
single plant. But you will not lose all
respect for your speaker If he tells you
now, than on that memorable occasion,
tho he was a poor boy, he purchased for
$1.50 a cutting of a rose bush that was
promised to bloom as a haouse colored
moss rose. It did bloom later, and the
blossom w*as that of a very common May
rose!
Conservatism does indeed sometimes
‘o’erleap itself,’ but it has not here
checked enterprise or killed invention.
Our cotton and woolen mills, which
line the two great streams of the county,
or which, in this city, give employment
to so many, are the result of the inven-
tion and enterprise of our early inhabi-
tants, iike Dr. C’apron and his compeers
and immediate successors; and also of
the subsequent industry, enterprise and
public spirit of men in our own- time.
i13
The historic John Butterfield and Theo-
tftjre S. Paxton, those leaders in our ma-
terial development, with their restless
enterprise and genius for organizing, are
not so exceptional as we are in the
habit of believing. The people of our
■county engage in business- of all sorts,
respond with reasonable alacrity to new
inventions, new methods, new ideas.
Another characteristic of the people of
this county is their interest in public
affairs. Prom the beginning they have
not been so busy with their own af-
fairs, so industrious, so self-reliant, so
satisfied with their personal success, that
they have cared only for themselves as
individuals, neglecting the interest of
the community. Most of the early set-
tlers, coming from New England,
brought with them the town meeting.
CHANCELLOR ANSON J. UPSON, LL. D.
In fact, they could not live long together
here without a town meeting. And those
new-comers who were not ‘Yankees;’
soon conformed to this custom. Less
than four years after the landing of
Hugh White at the mouth of Sauquoit
creek, the first town meeting was held
in his barn. And the next year another
town meeting was held in a barn owned
by Needham Maynard, on the road
from Whitesboro to Middle Settlement.
At these meetings, supervisors and
town clerks, assessors and other town
officers were elected, beginning thus the
practice of a hundred years. At this
second meeting there was much excite-
ment, the contest lasting thro two days.
To ‘keep the peace,’ courts of record
were soon organized. The first court
within the limits of this county was
probably held in the house of worship,
then nearly completed, and still stand-*
ing, as a Presbyterian church, in the
village of New Hartford. It was the
term of the Herkimer common pleas and
general session^. But four years later
Oneida county had its own county court,
and courts of ’oyer and terminer’ were
held within its limits. The people were
too much interested in the peace and
prosperity of the community not to es-
tablish and sustain these courts; and
were too much interested in good order
to permit their judges to neglect their
duties. Justices were actually fined for
non-attendance at court. And in the
second year of this century the grand
jury of the county indicted six highly
respectable gentlemen for neglecting to
sit on the bench with the first judge.
One of these recalcitrant ‘side-judges’
was James Deane of Westmoreland. Our
people have had confidence in our courts
as interpreters of the law, because, as a
rule, our judges have been just, and our
lawyers trustworthy. I can not name
all these just judges, they are so numer-
ous. I might as well undertake to call
the roll from Nathan Williams, thro
Samuel Beardsley and Philo Gridley and
Hiram Denio, down to the present time.
Long before Lincoln our people be-
lieved in ‘a government of the people, by
the people and for the people.’ We be-
lieve in the duty as well as in the right
of suffrage. In Oneida county politics
we have had some bad leaders, who have
not always been deserted and condemned
as they should have been. And we have
had some very good political leaders.
Such men as Jonas Platt and Horatio
Seymour and Roscoe Conk ling and Fran-
cis Kernan never deceived the people.
They had too much frankness and pub-
lic spirit and independence and patriot-
ism, too high a sense of honor to de-
ceive anybody. The frequent changes
of political opinion in this county, like
the frequent political changes in this
state, not only prove the intelligence of
the people, but also their interest in pub-
lic-affairs. Indifference to public affairs
produces a monotonous suffrage. Strict
allegiance to party, God be thanked, is
becoming a thing of the past. It seems
unaccountable that the childish game of14
‘follow your leader’ was seriously
played in politics by so many adults
years ago. Readers of a party newspa-
per really believed every word of it. As
a boy, I read the Albany Evening Jour-
nal, edited by Thurlow Weed. Mr. Weed
daily abused his rival editor of the Ar-
gus, Edwin Croswell, calling him all
sorts of hard names. As I read the
Journal, believing all I read, I wondered
how the people of Albany could permit
such a scoundrel as Mr. Croswell to live.
Great was my subsequent surprise when
I found that the two apparent enemies
were intimate friends, and that their
readers had been deceived for political
effect.
Such is our common and growing in-
terest in public affairs, that we take
and give much more freedom of expres-
sion of opinion now-a-days. And we are
not afraid to do it. The right of free
speech, and of the people to assemble
freely and express their opinions, is more
universally acknowledged in this coun-
ty than it was in 1835, when the first
anti-slavery convention was broken up
by a riot, and Gerrit Smith became, in
consequence, an abolitionist. You could
not stir up such a rioit now. It would be
equally difficult, if not impossible, to in-
duce any of your respectable citizens
now to enter a printer’s office and throw
his printing material out of a second
story window, as was. done in this city
in 1835, because forsooth, the printer was
an abolitionist.	.
But this increasing and intelligent in-
terest in public affairs, I am compelled
to say, has been a failure thus far in
this county in one important respect. I
refer to municipal reform. Municipal re-
form has been attempted here as else-
where many times in recent years; but
such reform has not been permanent.
It has been occasional only, because
taken possession of by political parties,
and conducted on political party lines.
But in the words of St. Clair McKelway,
‘national politics need not enter and
should not enter into the laying of pave-
ments. There is no democracy, necessar-
ily, in street cleaning. There is no re-
publicanism, necessarily, in the removal
of garbage; there is no populism, neces-
sarily, in police guardianship, or in the
extinction of fires.’ Municipal reform
can be made permanent, abuses in city
government can be corrected and honest
administration in our cities can be se-
cured, only by substituting municipal
parties for national political parties in
city elections. Let the people divide
themselves, if they must divide, on ques-
tions of city. administration. Let the
people for# that day, and for that elec-
tion, have*nothing whatever to do with
national or state politics. When some-
times the very existence of a city is
threatened from within, why not at that
time, for that occasion, for the special
purpose of that election, put national
party politics on the shelf?
Another characteristic of the people of
this county is patriotism. Oneida county
people are patriotic toward their own
county. They love to recognize in each
other the family likeness. They have for
each other a feeling of comradeship.
They are glad to have lived here, and
they never tire of talking it over. They
believe as a home it is quite as good and
probably somewhat better than most
other counties.
And I think it can be said truly that
we have been and are patriotic in an-
other and broader sense. We are habit-
ually interested in our whole country.
Most of the people of this county have
been ready, many times, to' make sacri-
fices of property, of opinion, and of long'
cherished prejudices for the sake of pro-
moting the highest and best and broad-
est interests of our whole country.
Yet sometimes we have claimed more
credit in this respect for Oneida county
than we ought. The people of what is
now Oneida county did not fight in the
revolutionary war. Except a few strag-
glers and half-breeds, there were no
white people here to do the fighting.
There was no white settlement in what
is now this county, except that of the
town of Deerfield, before 1784, one year
after the close of the revolution. Yet we
glorify Port Stanwix and Oriskany as if
our Oneida. county ancestors fought,
there. We forget that Gansevoort was
an Albanian and Willett from New York
city, and Herkimer from the lower Mo-
hawk. And so far as I can classify the
names of the soldiers on the roster at
Oriskany, everyone of them was a Ger-
man or a Hollander except four or five.
Yet we can not honor too highly those
heroic Dutchmen. They have hallowed
this ground for us. These heroic events
were upon our own soil. They were in-
trusted to our patriotic remembrance.
They are as much our own as are the
hallowed graves of Baron von Steuben
and William Floyd.
But if the people of this county came
too late to exemplify their patriotism' in15
the revolution, they were here to do good
service in the war with England in
1812-13. This war with England was no
picnic, as many seem to think it. It was
a serious conflict, resisting the asserted
right of Great Britain to search our
ships on the high seas for deserters. At
one time six thousand men were drawn
from four counties of central New York,
and were assembled at Sackets Harbor,
under the command of General Oliver
Collins of this county. Commodore Mel-
ancthon T. Woolsey, much of whose life
was spent in this county, and whose
grandson holds high place among us, as
sagacious and skillful as he was brave,
in command of a vessel insignificantly
named the Oneida, repelled, at Sackets
Harbor, a British squadron of five ves-
sels, after an engagement of only two
hours. Commodore Woolsey during
most of the war was the scourge of Brit-
ish commerce on the lake.
Early in my life I learned, to believe
that this war with England in 1812 was
indeed a serious conflict. My grand-
father, Captain William Clarke of this
city, in the assault upon Queenstown
Hights, under General Solomon Van
Rensselaer, was picked up for dead. He
carried a bullet in his body during the
remainder of his life and he received a
captain’s commission for gallantry in
that assault. Let me now thank your
soldiers for the flag which they place
upon his grave in your cemetery every
memorial day.
But still further, the historian of this
county need never doubt the patriotism
of our people, so long as he can record
the fact that at least ten thousand of
your fathers and brothers and husbands
and sons, residing in this county, enlist-
ed in the war for the union. How im-
possible it is to> appreciate a tithe of the
significance of this immense number-
10,000 from a single county! Only as
you begin to. think of the individuals in
this vast army some of whom you have
known, some of whom you have loved as
your life—what they were and what they
did, and the heroic purpose they helped
to accomplish: only then can you faintly
appreciate the patriotic significance of this
incalculable sacrifice of health and
strength and life for our country. I am
aware that in what I am about to say
all do not agree, but for myself I be-
lieve that with strict protection from
fraud, a sufficient pension should be
given to every man who, by enlistment,
risked his life for the life of our land.
No matter what the man is, or has been*
or may be, so long as he has risked his
life for his country, as by his very enlist-
ment he did, that country—a prosperous
country like this—is bound by every mo-
tive of generosity and justice and pat-
riotism to give him an adequate support
for the rest of his life. But with all this
let us never forget that the highest,
truest patriotism rejoices as. truly over
the victories of peace as of war. War is
waged to gain the rights of peace.
We can not claim to be a highly lit-
erary people. But we have believed in
education. We have believed in the
need, for a successful life, of acquiring
knowledge. We have believed in the im-
portance of mental and moral and physi-
cal training. I have never noticed in
this county any lack of faith in thoro
classical training. So far as I am in-
formed, there has been no wide-spread
fear of educating our boys and girls
overmuch—but of their Sphere/ as if
there were in this county any fixed con-
dition in life out of which it would be
an impertinence to rise. Or as if an
education were not valuable for its own
sake, as well as for the money to be
made out of it. This county has held
high rank for the number of its college
graduates in its own high places, and
for the number of its young representa-
tives in various colleges. Many a sec-
ond edition of an educated father is now
being ‘revised and corrected’ in the very
college, perhaps, where the father was
graduated. Influenced by such opinions,
our people have established schools of
all grades abundantly. One of these
was the remarkable high school of
Charles R. Bartlett, among whose ex-
cellent teachers were Fay Edgerton,
Asa Gray and Uridge Whiffen.
The Utica free academy, which crowns
deservedly your excellent system! of city
schools, has been honored by having for
its historian that graceful writer and
cultivated gentleman, James Watson
Williams, who, with a style as charming
as Charles Lamb’s, has given us charac-
ter sketches of its teachers and trus-
tees. Suffer me to say that Mancer M.
Backus, its principal from 1838 to 1843,
was the best teacher of my life. The
school for girls chartered as the Utica
female academy has been for years a
center of refined culture, benefiting this
community not only but also innumer-
able homes in all parts of our land. The
liberal institute established at Clinton
in 1852, and now at Fort Plain, has16
given a good education to hundreds of
Onenda county young men and young
"women. And quite as successful has
heen the Houghton seminary, estab-
lished at Clinton in 1854. The Oneida
Institute, founded in 1827, a,t Whitesboro,
by Rev. Dr. G. W. Gale and Pelatiah
Rawson, who were succeeded in 1834 by
the celebrated Beriah Green, illustrates
educationally the difference between
theory and practice. The theory was ex-
cellent. The students were to labor on
a farm four hours every day; but the
harder they worked on the farm, the less
they could study. The more they stud-
ied, the harder it was for them to work.
Dullness reigned out of doors and in.
After a varied experience of 16 years,
the Oneida institute ceased to exist.--Its
memory lives as a warning to all edu-
cators who continue to be fascinated by
this plausible theory. The plain words
of Horace are still true, ‘You can not
■drive out nature with a fork.’
The successor of the Oneida institute
in 1844 was the Whitestown seminary,
unsurpassed by any school of its grade
in this state. It lived for 36 years; and
when the noble James S. Gardner, its
principal for 30 years, died in 1880, its
life went out also. In the first 25 years
of its existence not less than 10,000
young men and young women were
helped to higher ideals by the disci-
pline and nurture there afforded. I will
not here draw the parallel between the
brilliant logic of Beriah Green and the
plain, practical sense in education of
Principal Gardner. It is enough to' say
that the loss of Whitestown seminary
to the county of Oneida was so great as
to be almost shameful!
Hamilton college, I need not tell you,
has contributed much to the educational
forces of this county. Without its prox-
imity, its facilities and its attractions,
hundreds of young men in- this county
would have received no collegiate edu-
cation. Every department of business in
this county as well as professional life
has felt its influence. It has blessed your
•county thro the self-reliant, practical
character of its graduates, filled as they
are with the spirit of adaptation to any
and all the conditions of life into which
they may be called. And yet I make no
apology for saying that benefits received
have not been reciprocated. Many of its
graduates and friends have acknowl-
edged liberally their obligations, but the
wealth of this county ought to have
made, and will yet make, this historic
institution worthy of its name, and . of
the memory of its illustrious founder.
I have no patience with the dull mor-
alizing one often hears about mental
dissipation from the reading of newspa-
pers. You can say the same about the
reading of miscellaneous books. Com-
pared with severe study such books men-
tally dissipate. The danger lies in both
cases only in excess. I rank the news-
papers of Oneida county in their educa-
cational influence next to our schools.
These historians of public events, these
guides of public opinion, by their enter-
prise, their thoughtfulness, their purity,
their comparative independence have
won our respect and confidence. We have
learned to trust them as our teachers.
The editors of our newspapers are worthy
of honor at the bar of public opinion—
an honor higher than political office; and
all the more should they be remembered
because their editorial productions are
necessarily so short lived.
In our Oneida county education we
have reason to be thankful also that the
wretched system of so-called ‘district
school libraries’ upon which this state
has wasted $3,000,000 has been abolished,
and that other and better and larger and
more carefully managed libraries are
taking their place. And we are grateful
to the public spirited citizens who as
trustees are willing to serve the public
so beneficially in the care and distribu-
tion of invaluable books.
Some time in the winter of 1852-3
Ralph Waldo Emerson was a guest at
Bagg’s hotel. He honored me with his
acquaintance; and among other things
he asked in his repetitious, hesitating way
was this: ‘Who are your best poets in
this neighborhood ?’ The question
troubled me. It was as if the Bostonian
expected to find a stock of poets in ev-
ery town he entered. I was confused.
Pardon me if the only poet in the county
I could think of for the moment was the
illustrious Joseph C. Pancko. Dr. Bagg’s
paper on the earlier poets of Utica had
not been published then. (Seeing my
confusion, Mr. Emerson added ‘I mean
who are your literary men? Your auth-
ors?’ I could not think of one. It was
a strange forgetfulness produced by my
mental search for the poets, that kept
me from remembering Asa Gray of Sau-
quoit, Emerson’s neighbor, then profes-
sor at Harvard, who had written num-
berless botanical books. How could I
forget James D. Dana of Utica, the lead-17
Itlg geological author of the country,
then at Yale? And think of a Utica hoy
when the reputation of his home was
challenged, forgetting Wells Williams,
that citizen of the world who had im-
mortalized himself by 'The Middle King-
dom?’ How could I forget the acute
and philosophical essays on the science
of language by Alexander B. Johnson,
and one of the most satisfactory treatises
on English grammar ever published, by
George Spencer, principal of the Utica
academy? Was it my deplorable ignor-
ance of the higher mathematics that
made me forgetful of my friend, George
R. Perkins, who had written six widely
circulated mathematical 'treatises which
had been translated into Spanish? The
professors of Hamilton college have al-
ways been too busy in engrossing work
as teachers to write books, but Henry
Mandeville had only just then finished
his most original and useful book, ‘The
Elements of Reading and Oratory.’
Pomroy Jones, the annalist of this coun-
ty, was then smoking his pipe at West-
moreland; and Ellis H. Roberts!, one of
the best historians of this imperial state,
was doubtless then planning his interest-
ing and highly valued history. Even if
Yander Kemp of Trenton was not an
author strictly I could have named the
learned Hollander as knowing more
about authors than Emerson himself.
And strangest of all, 'how could I have
been so ungallant 'as to forget the grace-
ful stories of our-own ‘Fanny Forester,’
then living at Hamilton? or the inimita-
ble ‘Widow Bedott Papers’ of Mrs.
Frances Berry Whiteher, then nearing the
close of her life at Whitesboro ? or the lit-
erary work of Mrs. Thomas J. Sawyer,
then living at Clinton?
The truth is, so far as I am informed,
not much poetry has been written in
Oneida county. There may be piles of
unpublished verse in our garrets, scores
of ‘mute inglorious Milton’ in our homes.
There are doubtless thousands of read-
ers who keenly enjoy the best poets; but
somehow our atmosphere does not in-
spire poetry. Some of our people ac-
tually sneer at bards. One of the ablest
lawyers, years ago, with inexpressible
contempt in his voice and look and man-
ner, said of one who called himself a
lawyer, in a neighboring county: ‘Oh, he
is only a poet.’
When our distinguished geologist,
James D. Dana, first saw the cliffs of
Dover, clad in all the beauty of their
delicate coloring, they excited in him no
imagination, no sentiment. He wrote
to his friend, Wells Williams, ‘Would
that you were here; we would take our
sledge hammers and disembark and
knock these chalk cliffs in pieces and
find some specimens.’ Imagination and
sentiment need to be cultivated more
than they are in our Oneida county edu-
cation. I am thankful that our leading
institution of learning has a president
who not only writes inspiring verses, but
himself inspires imagination and senti-
ment in the alumni and in his students*
Religion is ‘the recognition of God as
an object of worship and of love and of
obedience.’ This recognition, this wor-
ship, this feeling of obligation to love
and obey, may express itself in various
forms. The erection by various denomi-
nations of houses of worship in all parts
of this county and their occupancy, their
pecuniary support and the maintenance
of religious services therein, all together
show that our people in general are more
or less religious; and so they are. This
sense of obligation to God and this de-
sire to practice the duties which this
obligation requires, this under-current of
religious thought and conviction, per-
vade and have pervaded this county,
from the beginning. All races that make
up our cosmopolitan population are alike
in this. Try to name any conviction
among us that is deeper and more uni-
versal that this, and you can not do it.
Religious belief in one form or another
is almost as much a matter of conscious-
ness with us, as a belief in our own in-
dividual existence. We know that we
are neither pagans nor atheists. Not
that this belief has controlled our con-
duct invariably. Far from it. This
county is by no means a congregation
of the saints. I could fill you with horror
by naming a tithe of the vices and
crimes that stain our annals. But you
and I know that, take away the re-
straints which this belief in God im-
poses, and you would turn your county
into a pandemonium.
One evident result as well as proof
of this prevailing religious conviction
is found in the demand which each town
in the county makes for religious lead-
ers. This conviction it is which demands
and supports so many pastors or minis-
ters or priests, whichever you choose
to name them. These religious leaders
represent, as well as lead and control,
the ethical convictions of the people.
This county has rarely had any leaders
of its churches who were not good men*i§
Attd’they did not have bad men, because
they would not have them. None but
good men, of sincere religious belief,
would represent their own convictions
and principles. These good leaders have
been, in all denominations. There has
been no difference. And what a band of
noble men they have been and are.
Rev. Dr. Asahel S. Norton of Clinton
was a controlling moral force in the
town of Kirkland for 40 years. People
of all sorts‘believed in his sincere Chris-
tian character, and they followed him
with an attachment that was almost
idolatry. The name of Bishop Henry,
B. Whipple, ‘the apostle to the Indians/
can not be mentioned in Rome to-day
without reverence. It was not because
Rev. Dr. George W. Bethune was so elo-
quent, so scholarly, such an accom-
plished gentleman, such a man of the
world, that he was so influential in this
county. The people believed in him,
not for these things, rare as they are,
hut because ‘he spoke boldly in the name
of the Lord Jesus/ Not only Rev. Sam-
uel Kirkland and Rev. John Sherman of
Trenton, but within our knowledge, not
to mention names of the living, Drs;
Fowler, Corey and Coxe of this city,'and
Dr. Brandegee, who gave his life to
Grace church; and the faithful Roman
Catholic priests, whom I well remember,
Father Quarter, and the gentle, saintly,
Bishop McFarland; all these, and others
like them,, were influential religious
leaders, because the prevailing religious
convictions of our people were in sympa-
thy with their fundamental belief, their
life and their work. Bigotry and nar-
row sectarianism find no encouragement
in the free air of Oneida county. A tra,-
dition survives that John C. Devereux
collected the offerings in the Presby-
terian church of this city, on Sundays,
years age, when no Roman Catholic
church was here.
This Oneida county is filled with
homes. These homes are characteristic
of the county. I can appeal to your own
experience when I say that the best of
them have been Christian homes, hal-
lowed by a mother’s prayers and a fath-
er’s precepts and example. Criticized
sometimes in the past, as too strictly
governed, occasionally caricatured as
uncomfortable and severe, I may be mis-
taken; but I believe that few of us
brought Up in such a home, who have
reached adult age, are now willing to
admit that in our youth we were too*
strictly controlled.
Numerous hospitals are more and
more characteristic of this county, for
the poor,. for the rich, for old men and
women, for orphans. And these are
crowned by ,the great state hospital for
the insane, which, by its endless bene-
factions, is continually comforting the
people with the conviction that even
that soulless thing, the state, has a heart
and a conscience.
The prosperity and growth of most,
of these churches and homes and hos-
pitals have been promoted very largely
by Oneida county women. Honor the
women.
“Eliret die Frauen:	Sie flechten und Weben
Himmlische Rosen ins irdische Lebeii.”
To-night we would honor the women
for this their beneficent devotion. How
far beyond all calculation do such femi-
nine achievements rise above what
could possibly be attained in vulgar,
partisan contention, or thro ostentatious
social ambition.
In all these homes and hospitals from
time to time, an angel in the house ap-
pears in the person of the beloved phy-
sician. . There is hardly a family rep-
resented here who can not, on the in-
stant, now recall the name of some phy-
sician who has been their friend, their
counselor* their reliance in-sickness and
trouble; on whose knowledge, judgment
and skill they have relied many times
for- their life, yes, for lives dearer to
them than their own. I have no patience
with any who depreciate the usefulness
of these men who are so helpful. This
county may not surpass other counties
in its medical corps; but as I have read
the record which our painstaking, accu-
rate Dr. Bagg has made of some of our
early physicians, I have recognized in
them the prototypes of those whom we
have known—energetic, self-sacrificing,
poorly paid, heroic helpers of us all. I
know of few examples of heroic devotion
to the sick and the suffering equaling
that of William Williams and Spencer
Kellogg in the summer of 1832. The
cholera for the first time had come. Ter-
ror was universal, terror increased if
not inspired by ignorance. Ther people
were pale and paralyzed by fear. Strong
men rose in the morning, to die and be
buried before sunset. Hundreds fled from
the city. But nothing daunted these two
men. Nothing withheld them from the
bedside of the sick and dying or even
from the offices needful for the dead. In
the appreciative words of Judge William
J. Bacon, ‘The cheerful, beaming face ofWilliam. Williams carried in; itself bene-
diction and healing; and the firm de-
termination of Spencer Kellogg inspired
courage and hope in almost despairing
hearts.’ If we had no other examples
of unselfish heroism in our history, these
would hallow that history forever.
Let me thank your committee for its
repeated invitation, which gave me cour-
age to lay this poor tribute upon this
altar of my affection. None can be more
sensible of its inadequacy to the occa-
sion than myself. This county is not my
birthplace, yet forty-seven of the happi-
est years of my life were spent within
its bounds. Here where my kindred are
buried, I would ever be at home. I am
no deserter.
“Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills;
My heart with rapture thrills
Like ‘that above.”
Too much can not be said of the gener-
osity which prompted this superb gift,
that we dedicate to the muse of history
•to-night. Our benefactors will permit
me to add a few earnest words to the elo-
quent expression of our gratitude already
given by Judge Coxe. The grace of the
gift is all the greater because it was so
spontaneous in the mother and was con-
firmed so freely and unreservedly and
voluntarily by her children.
Deserved honor is here paid in this
Munson-Williams memorial building
first of all to Alfred Munson himself.
‘Being dead he yet speaketh.’ We are
reminded here of his inspiring example
in the activity of his life in this city, in
the acuteness and rapidity of his mental
action. Here we honor him for his life-
long energy, his far-sighted enterprise,
his wise discretion, his habitual adapta-
tion of the best means to accomplish the
best ends, his most uncommon common
sense; and we honor him for the re-
markably persi stive will which shone in
his eyes, invigorated every line of his
slender form and characterized the man.
Most of all we honor his memory for his
elevated life, his unswerving integrity
and the generosity of his benefactions.
By this Munson-Williams memorial
building we honor also the memory of
James Watson Williams. We remember
his refinement, his modesty, his graceful
courtesy, his culture, his taste, his deli-
cate humor, his literary acquirements,
his classical scholarship, his varied
knowledge; and above all, we honor
him to-night for his affectionate natqre
and his public spirit, which prompted
• him to devote, so generously, so much of
his time and very competent attention
to education in this city, to our schools
and our library—objects closely akin to
that which this building, dedicated • in
part to his memory, is designed to sub-
serve.
In this Munson-Williams memorial
building we honor also a beautiful ex-
ample of filial devotion, in fulfilling the
wishes of a departed father, as expressed
to his children and grandchildren in his
last will and testament.
But we honor our benefactors most
when we endeavor to fulfill the object of
their gife. Thro this building permanency
has been given\o the work of the Oneida
historical society. The life of this as-
sociation is hereby assured. Here its
appropriate work will be continued. The
invaluable records of the past will be
collected and preserved. In the epi-
grammatic words of President Stryker,
when he asked me to send to Hamilton
college library, some documents of great
interest to me—said he: ‘In your pos-
session they are but souvenirs, in our
possession they are history.’ Hereafter
such invaluable papers as those of Baron
Steuben and Henry R. 'S’torrs, and the
Yander Kemp correspondence shall not
be hidden away in New York or Buffalo
or Syracuse, because there is no appro-
priate place for them in their own coun-
ty. From this historical publishing
house shall be sent forth year after year,
historical papers and discussions, as val-
uable even as those already published.
We will continue to raise monuments
that shall perpetuate the memory of
‘men and events in the county of Oneida,’
and we will take measures to protect
monuments from a vandalism worse than
that suffered *by ancient Rome. And
with the aid of ‘the daughters of the rev-
olution’ we will so mark historic places
that they shall never be forgotten.
The time may come when these walls
will be adorned with historical pictures
painted by illustrious artists. One of
these may be a picture of the young
Samuel Kirkland as he is about to start
for the first time from Johnson hall; and
in the dreary desolation of winter, /in
company with two Indians, with whom
he can not exchange a word, strike off
into the forest, on a journey of nearly two
hundred miles thro the wilderness. An-
other picture may be that of James Deane
rescued by three Indian women from
threatened execution by Oneida chiefs*20
Another may be the raising of the first
flag at Fort Stanwix. And still another
may he Baron Steuben laying the cor-
nerstone of Hamilton Oneida academy.
There could be no more appropriate pic-
ture to illustrate traffic in the early life
of this county than that of Peter Smith
and John Jacob Astor trudging on, foot
from old Fort Schuyler to Schenectady,
with packs on their backs, stopping here
and there to pick up furs at the Indian
settlements. Let there be hung on these
walls two kindred pictures of events in
our later history—the departure of the
Utica Citizens’ corps to do their duty
in the war for the union and the return
of the 26th regiment.
But whether these historical pictures
are ever painted or not; with God’s help,
we will make this building an impreg-
nable historical fortress from which shall
be sent forth the forces of memory to
wage continually a perpetual fight
against oblivion.
The exercises closed with the singing
of “America,” the “Doxology,” and bene-
diction by Rev. Dana W. Bigelow, pastor
of the Memorial Presbyterian church.
For an hour afterwards the building
was open to inspection. The society’s
guests signed the registry before leav-
ing.
General Darling, the corresponding
secretary of the society, received from
all over the country letters of regret.
Ex-Governor Flower wrote:	“I regret
sincerely that imperative engagements
deprive me of the pleasure of accepting
your kind invitation to be present at the
dedication of the Munsom-Williams me-
morial building, on Tuesday evening.”
Corresponding Secretary W. D. Love,
jr., of the Connecticut historical society,
Hartford, wrote: “The Connecticut his-
torical society presents its congratula-
tions to the Oneida historical society on
the dedication of its new home—the
Munson-Williams memorial building.
As our state contributed largely her best
blood in the early settlement of Oneida
county, we have a material interest in
your affairs and are pleased to learn
of your prosperity. We trust your new
building will greatly increase the inter-
est in your work, and we believe your
society will in the future reflect a last-
ing honor upon the donors.”
Henry Hurlburt of New Berlin wrote:
“I heartily congratulate you and the
other members of the Oneida historical
society upon having such a substantial
and beautiful home.”
Director W. M. Beauchaump of the
Onondaga historical association, Syra-
cuse, wrote:	“I have always referred
to the example and work of the Oneida
society as an object lesson for its older
but less aggressive sister, the Onondaga
historical association.”
Rev, Dr. William C. Winslow, presi-
dent of the Egypt exploration fund,
wrote:	“I know no more active, pro-
gressive, useful a local society in Amer-
ica in the historical field, and I count it
no mean honor to* be connected with it.”
Oliver R. Hubbard of New York
wrote: “I congratulate the society most
cordially on this valuable acquisition, so
honorable to the liberal benefactors and
an evidence of its successful growth and
guarantee of its permanence and pros-
perity.”
General G. P, Thurston, vice presi-
dent of the Tennessee historical society,
Nashville, Tenn., wrote: “The Tennes-
see historical society of Nashville begs
to present its congratulations to the
' Oneida historical society upon the com-
pletion of its new home. We desire also
to commend the wisdom and the splen-
did liberality that so generously provid-
ed this permanent building for so use^-
ful and noble a purpose.”
District Deputy Grand Master George
Beal, F. and A. M., Hamilton, wrote:
“I very much regret my inability to be
present at the dedication of the Munson-
Williams memorial this evening, to
which you’ have so kindly given me an
invitation. I highly appreciate the honor
of the invitation and thank you most
sincerely. Congratulating the society
on the beautiful home it will occupy and
wishing it the most abundant success in
the'future,” etc.
William H. Seward of Auburn, in ex-
pressing his regret at being unable to
attend the dedication, said: “I beg you
to accept my most hearty congratula-
tions upon this important event in the
history of your very useful and success-
ful organization.”
General James Grant Wilson, the
well known editor and writer of histori-
cal and biographical works of New York,
wrote:	“I very greatly regret . that a
previous engagement in Connecticut will
prevent my being present on Tuesday
evening at the dedication of the Munson-
Williams memorial building, which I
hope to see at some future day. Had I
(been so fortunate as to be free, I should
have deemed it both a pleasure and a
privilege to have beep present on so in-21
teresting an occasion. With, best, wishes
for its perfect .81100688,” etc.
The following congratulatory tele-
gram was received yesterday afternoon:
BUFFALO, Dec. 1.—Congratulations
to the Oneida historical society. Its
treasures are choice and rich and well
deserve the handsome home which in
the future will hold and keep them. For
great men Oneida has been the banner
county, and all other sections of the em-
pire state look upon the record and the
roster of names with pride.
Norman E. Mack.
I-elter from Hon. Xntlier R. Marali
Among the letter of regret received
was one from Hon. Luther R. Marsh,
the well known New York lawyer, as
follows:
I have to express my thanks for remem-
brance, and for your kind invitation to the
dedication ceremonies of your new Munson-
Williams memorial building on the first of
next December. A great achievement in 20
years!
I rejoice, that you are to have so safe and
convenient a depositary for the valuable his-
torical collections now in your custody. They
should not reman where any mischance could
destroy them, injure or impair them.
Your new temple will give a fresh impetus
to your project of gathering and preserving
the memorials of former times, and of the
present era, for the benefit of the oncoming
generations. There are, I doubt not, in the
old baronial houses of Oneida, many a trunk
containing records of the past, of inestimable
value, in illustrating the stormy period of the
beginning. No region richer in deeds of valor,
and' in men of renown.
What has become of the trunk of Richard
Varick papers, which was in the possession of
the late Charles A. Mann?—among them was
the draft of a petition to congress from that
noble hero, the Baron Frederick William von
Steuben, drawn by the immortal pen of Al-
exander Hamilton; and the various interlinea-
tions in which showed how careful the
writer was that his phrase should be perfect.
A memorial Of the grim old Prussian general
would be something to. be cherished. You
remember that when nis patience was ex-
hausted in trying to teach tactics to an un-
manageable awkward American squad, and
having exploded all the German oaths he
could muster, he cried to his aide:
“Come, and swear for me in English; these
fellows will not do what I bid them ”
He learned his art under the Great Fred-
erick, and he practiced his men so that, on
the battlefield, they maneuvered with as much
coolness and precision* as if they were in
a grand parade.
There was, too, in the office of Justus. H.
Rathbone a. trunk of papers left by Mr. Tal-
cott, a lawyer of Utica, and the brother of
the greatest of American lawyers, Samuel
Austin Talcott of Utica. I remember one of
the papers—an imaginary Account of a con-
vention of dogs, with their speeches; which
was most amusing. I never explored the other
papers in the trunk, but anything relating to
so eminent a man as Samuel A. Talcott should
be preserved.
I mention these two cases to show how a
diligent quest would bring to the light many
a manuscript, illustrating the former times;
and which would increase in interset and
value as the years go on.
.1 fear it is too late to obtain any new knowl-
edge of the great Oneida chief, Skenandoa,
who died at thei age of 110 years, in March,
1816; who had been reformed from early
habits of intemperance by Rev. Mr. Kirkland
of Oneida, and who said he wanted to be bur-
ied near his minister and father, so that “he
coud go up with him at the great reseurree-
tion ’
“I am,” he said, “an aged hemlock. The
winds of a hundred winters have whistled thro
my branches. I am dead at the top. The
generations to which I belonged have run
away and left me; why I live the good spirit
only knows.” Neither Logan nor Red Jacket
ever expressed. themselves more poetically or
with deeper feeling.
Your enterprise is worthy of all com-
mendation. We can embalm, if we can not
enact, history.
The truth is, that people are not yet aware
what invaluable treasures you possess. They
are now so crowded as to be practically in-
accessible, jammed in pigeon-holes, covered
up on shelves, and in corners; and hidden un-
der accumulations equally valuable. Now, in
your spacious edifice, they can be spread out
for the enjoyment of the public eye, and the
education of the public mind.
Your institution will now become a mag-
net, which will draw to it many an interest-
ing letter, and manuscript, and testimony,
which, else, would be, in time, scattered to the
winds nnd forever lost. ;
I had the pleasure to have been acquanited
with your architect, the late Richard Hunt—
a man of genius—which he has evidenced in
the beautiful and stately structure which is to
be your home.
It is hoped that you will so diffuse historic
knowledge, that such mistakes will not again
occur as that of the traveler who, as the
train passed thro one of your towns, in-
quired how the name of “Oriskany” came to
be applied, and was told that it was in honor
of General Oriskany, who was killed in a
famous battle at that spot.
To many it is a pleasant • theory to imagine
—to me it is a glorious reality to know—that
John F. Seymour can look down with a
proud satisfaction on the triumphant success
of the institution which 20 years ago he
labored so hard and so faithfully, to inau-
gurate and establish; and that Miss Munson,
and her husband, James Watson Williams,
have seen arise the noble structure which,
while it commemorates the two eminent
families of Utica—the Munsons and the
Williamses—will hold, in perpetuity, the rel-
ics, the manuscripts, the memorials, the evi-
dences, which will carry down the advancing
ages, the past and present records of so
grand and prominent a center as old Oneida,
and the counties that touch its borders—in-
deed, old Tryon county. Nor will it neglect
the names and portraits of the chief men
who have borne the achievement on their
shoulders to its success—among them:
Charles W. Hutchinson, in whose office the
society was born.
Dr. M. M. Bagg, the historian of Utica.
William M. White.
General C. W. Darling, sought for by
numerous societies over the world.22
Warren 0. Rowley.
Robert S. Williams.
Rees G. Williams.
My old friend, Alexander Seward.*
George D. Dimon.
Horatio Seymour, our . honored governor.
Edward Huntington.
S. N. D. North.
Daniel Batchelor.
Morven M. Jones.
And others whom I' can not pause to enu-
merate.
And your boards of councilors, which em-
brace the names of United States Senators
Roscoe Conkling and Francis Kernan, of United
States Judge Ward Hunt, of Ellis H. Rob-
erts, D. E. Wager, A. S. Johnson, Dr. J. P.
Gray., Charlemagne Tower and many others—
names whose reputation state lines could not
confine, but have grown into national fame.
Your graceful act is an example for other
historic centers to emulate We have a his-
tory worthy of perpetuation. It lies loose
all around. It needs to be gathered, con-
centrated, and made safe from fire, calamity,
negligence and dispersion. Much has al-
ready been squandered; but much remains,
and will oft be found where least expected.
I look forward, and plainly see the time,
when this memorial building of Oneida will
loom up in public estimation; and become a
shrine for visitation by historians and archae-
olgists, and students of all degrees, and
patriots with glowing hearts. Then, as now,
will the founders’ names be held in honor.
I regret that circumstances will not per-
mit me to witness the imposing ceremony
which will consecrate this historic temple to
its .public use forever.
Letters of regret were also received
from Secretary B. S. Lyman of the numis-
matic and antiquarian society, Philadel-
phia, Pa.; Mrs. Charles S. Fairchild,
New York; Mr. Ledyard, Washington,
D. C.; Rev. Dr. J. E. Kittredge, Geneseo-;
Secretary Eastman, New Hampshire his-
torical society, Concord; Secretary Grid-
er, Mohawk Valley historical society,
Canajoharie; Dr. Samuel J. Parker, Ith*
oca; R. A. Brock, secretary Virginia his-
torical society, Richmond, Va.; Hon.
James E. M. O’Grady, Rochester; Dr.
John S. Billings of New York; Rt. Rev.
W. C. Doane, Albany; St. Clair McKel-
way, Brooklyn; Hon. A. B. Colvin, Glens
Falls; Professor W. H. H. Beebe, New
York; William Poillon, Chicago, 111.; Dr.
H. G. Hanchett, New York; Mrs. Rhine-
lander, New York; General S. E. Marvin,
Albany; Secretary E. A. Gretchell, his-
torical society of Old Newbury at New-
buryport, Mass.; Colonel H. G. Prout of
New York; Dr. Polk of New York; Rev.
Dr. Jay Dana, Housatonic, Mass.; Judge
Stephen "Holden, Sherburne; Rev. Dr.
Caleb Davis Bradlee, Brookline, Mass.;
General Greely, U. S. A.; General W. H.
Morris, Fordham; William C. Bryant,
Buffalo; Rev. J. E. Coley, secretary West-
port historical society, Westport, Conn.;
Rev. W. Frothingham, Fonda; Secretary
Adams, American 'historical association,
Baltimore, Md.; Curator Peter Neff,
Western Reserve historical society,
Cleveland, O.; Colonel E. M. L. Ehlers,
grand secretary F. and A. M., New York;
State Librarian E. C. Spencer, Lansing,
Mich.; .Secretary I. R. Trowbridge, New
Haven colony historical society, New
Haven, Conn.; Earl B. Putnam, Phila-
delphia, Pa.; Eben Storrer, • New York;
General George S. Batchelor, Saratoga;
Librarian E. M. Barlvin, American anti-
quarian society, Worcester, Mass.; E. G.
Munson, Cohoes; Hon. H. J. Coggeshall;
Willis J. Beecher, Auburn; V. B. Snow,
vice president Cayuga historical society,
Auburn; Robert M. Lanney.