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KF 368.T78°i353 UniVerSi,yLlbrary 
 iimlS?'' 31 of Gren ville Tremain. 
 
 3 1924 018 769 368 
 
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 " Wherever loyalty and valor are respected, wherever steadfastness 
 and manly devotion are adtnired, wherever youth, ambition* intelli- 
 gence and beauty combined, command interest and win affection, 
 there will {his) character be cordially and truly appreciated" 
 
 — [Speech over David Williams' Monument, Schoharie, Sept. S3, 1876 
 
 ALBANY: 
 
 WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY. 
 
 1878. 
 
X .A, bso 
 
3ieb, 
 
 ON THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1878, 
 
 GRENVILLE TKEMAIN, 
 
 AT HIS RESIDENCE IN THE CITY 
 OF ALBANY, N. Y., 
 
 $gd> 32 %un, W pm% una ZS gags. 
 
ore 
 
 emoiv. 
 
 Grenville Tremain was born at Durham, Greene 
 county, New York, on April 19th, 1845. He died of 
 typhoid fever, after a short illness, at his residence in 
 Albany, March 14th, 1878'. 
 
 The story of his life is one of affection, purity, duty 
 and devotion. As well attempt to write it as to de- 
 scribe the fragrance of a flower. The outlines of his 
 career are easily noted ; but the example of his life 
 will never be lost upon those who have breathed its 
 atmosphere. In boyhood, youth and manhood he 
 inspired friendship and always retained it. 
 
 His boyhood days were passed chiefly at home. He 
 was fitted for college at Mr. Reed's Walnut Hill school, 
 at Geneva, having previously attended Mr. Anthony's 
 Classical school at Albany, and Mr. Sedgwick's school, 
 at Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He entered the 
 freshman class at Union College in 1862 ; gained meri- 
 torious awards during his college course, and gradu- 
 ated with high honors in 1866. Selected from his class 
 by the faculty to pronounce the valedictory at Com- 
 mencement, his address, together with the marked 
 enthusiasm with which it was received, will never be 
 forgotten by any who were present. The committee 
 
vi memorial of (frenirilk femBitt. 
 
 instituted to select from among the addresses of the 
 day the most deserving in oratory, composition, and 
 general accomplishment, unanimously voted to him 
 their merit of distinction ; and their judgment was 
 warmly ratified by the audience. This impressive epi- 
 sode may be said to be the beginning of his brilliant 
 although brief career. 
 
 He immediately entered upon the study of the law 
 in his father's office, and attended also the regular 
 course of exercises at the Albany Law School. As a 
 student he was careful, thorough, industrious, and con- 
 scientious. His graduation at the Albany Law School 
 entitled him to be sworn in as a member of the bar 
 But he preferred to subject himself to the examina- 
 tion of students by the court. So, disregarding his 
 diploma, he joined the usual class of applicants, and 
 after passing a creditable examination, was admitted 
 to the bar in 1868. 
 
 His father's office was then the centre of one of the 
 most extensive law practices in the State ; and it 
 would have been very easy for a less earnest man, situ- 
 ated as Grenville was, to have contented himself with 
 following rather than with leading. But his ardent 
 love for his profession, aided by his thorough training 
 and industrious application, in a short time not only 
 rendered his services a substantial acquisition to the 
 firm, but gathered about himself an independent client- 
 age. This firm was formerly composed of the Hon. 
 Rufus W. Peckham and Hon. Lyman Tremain. 
 
lUemnriitl of dratfrillt famsin. vii 
 
 When Judge Peckham went on the bench in i860 
 his son, Rufus W. Peckham, succeeded him in the 
 firm, its style then changing from " Peckham & Tre- 
 main " to "Tremain & Peckham.'' When Gren- 
 ville Tremain became a partner the style was again 
 changed to its original title of " Peckham & Tremain," 
 Mr. Lyman Tremain remaining as counsel, but the 
 two sons of the original partners conducting its active 
 business. 
 
 On the 1st of October, 1868, Grenville Tremain 
 was married to Miss Eliza W. Martin, a daughter of 
 Mr. Enos T Throop Martin, of Auburn, New York. 
 The marriage festivities at the hospitable homestead of 
 Mr. Martin, at Willowbrook, will linger in the recol- 
 lections of all who were present as among the most 
 cordial and brilliant within their experience. Mr. 
 Tremain's widow and. five children survive him. 
 
 Grenville Tremain was not one of those men who 
 permit the cares of business to drive away the pleasures 
 and duties either of social, domestic or public life. He 
 was neighborly, genial, and his society was sought for. 
 He loved his home and was proud of its attractive cir- 
 cle. He was also an active, useful and public-spirited 
 citizen. He was for one term President of the " Young 
 Men's Association," a very important library and lite- 
 rary association of Albany, numbering several thousand 
 members. He discharged the duties of this office with 
 great satisfaction, but he found that they occupied so 
 much of his time that he declined a re-election. 
 
viii gStemarial of fetifille fomatn. 
 
 He was a member of St. Peter's church, was very 
 active and interested in the church and its welfare, and 
 was chosen a member of its vestry in 1874. He was 
 continuously re-elected and held the office at the time 
 of his death. 
 
 He was the first president of the " Unconditionals," 
 a semi-social and political society, organized in the 
 Presidential campaign of 1868. In politics he was by 
 conviction an ardent Republican. 
 
 His services as a public speaker were frequently in 
 demand, on literary as well as political occasions. The 
 oration at the dedication of the Williams' monument 
 is acknowledged as one of his most complete efforts. 
 Nearly every year after his maturity had its special 
 occasion for him on the platform. He was accustomed 
 to participate more or less in the political discussions of 
 the day, and to address large meetings in different parts 
 of the State during political campaigns. In April, 
 1874, he was appointed Corporation Counsel of the 
 city of Albany, an office involving many responsibili- 
 ties and much labor. With this exception he never 
 held public office. His administration was remarkably 
 successful. He rarely employed counsel to assist him, 
 and in this respect his administration of the office was 
 exceptional and economical. His faithful and assidu- 
 ous care of the interests confided to him was the occa- 
 sion of observations in the public press, showing that 
 he had saved large sums to the city. 
 
 In the fall of 1877 the Republican State Convention, 
 
HUmorial ol <f rmtrillt femaitr. ix 
 
 with singular unanimity, and, as has been truly said, 
 "without the suspicion of a request from him to any 
 man," nominated Grenville Tremain by acclamation 
 for the office of Attorney-General of the State. Even 
 this acknowledgment, unusual to a man of his age 
 was not required in order that he might be recognized 
 as among the foremost of his profession in the State. 
 He was already a leader at the bar, if any man at his 
 age can be accorded that rank in this profession. At 
 the request of his party he made an active canvass of 
 the State ; and he received the highest vote of any man 
 on his ticket. Had he been as well known personally 
 in other counties of the State as he was in Albany 
 county where he had grown up and resided, his vote 
 in excess of his party ticket doubtless would have 
 elected him. Albany county, democratic usually in its 
 majority by about fifteen hundred to twenty-five hun- 
 dred, nevertheless gave Grenville Tremain a major- 
 ity of about six hundred over a popular opponent. 
 Thus did the friends and neighbors of his boyhood 
 esteem the man. 
 
 The universal expressions of sympathy at the time 
 of his death, cannot pass unnoticed. He was so gen- 
 erally and so well known in Albany, that in every house- 
 hold, on the street, in the church, the courts and the 
 public press, his death was esteemed both a public and 
 a personal misfortune. 
 
 Probably no man of his age ever received from the 
 bar of this State such marked testimonials to his worth 
 
as seemed to flow spontaneously from his professional 
 brethren. In addition to the remarks made at the meet- 
 ing of the bar in Albany, that are found in this vol 
 ume, excellent and feeling addresses were also deliv- 
 ered by the following named gentlemen : 
 
 Mr. William Lansing, Mr. William G. Weed, 
 Mr. Charles J. Buchanan, Mr. Geo. W. Miller, 
 Mr. Matthew Hale, Mr. Amasa J. Parker, Jr., 
 Mr. Abraham Lansing, Judge Thomas J. Van Als- 
 tyne, Mr. David A. Thompson, and Mr. Austin 
 Artcher. 
 
 It is regretted that these addresses cannot be again 
 published in this Memorial, because it would swell the 
 volume beyond its appointed limits. 
 
 The funeral occurred on Sunday, March 17, 1878. 
 The Albany Argus of the following day thus speaks 
 of it: 
 
 " Albany was in mourning yesterday for one of her noblest sons. 
 The last sad rites which the living can pay to the dead but feebly 
 expressed the sense of loss and the great void which the death 
 of Grenville Tremain has caused. The great inexpressible 
 sorrow which fills the hearts of his stricken family and relatives, 
 was not alone theirs. Sacred though it was, it was rendered 
 doubly so by being that of the public at large. The funeral which 
 took place from St. Peter's church, yesterday afternoon at two 
 o'clock, was one of the largest ever seen in Albany. The last 
 sad tributes of honor and respect have too frequently of late been 
 paid to distinguished Albanians who have passed from earth, but 
 no young man who has gone to his final account has been more 
 sincerely lamented, and few have passed away where death was a 
 
Uttmorial of fenfrilb famahr. xi 
 
 greater public calamity, than that of Grenville Tremain. This 
 was attested yesterday in the manner in which prominent citi- 
 zens, high officials, and the public of Albany generally, embraced 
 the last opportunity of paying their tributes of respect to the 
 memory of one who, though comparatively young in years, had 
 won for himself a proud place on the roll of honor and fame, and 
 whose position in his chosen profession was one of honor and 
 responsibility in the past, and of highest promise for the future. 
 It is not strange then that, when in the inscrutable ways of Provi- 
 dence so noble a character is called away, Albany should have 
 embraced so largely the last opportunity of honoring his memory." 
 
 After a brief but impressive service at the residence, 
 the remains escorted by the Albany Zouave Cadets, of 
 which the deceased was a member, were removed to 
 the church, where, followed by relatives, they were met 
 by the Rt. Eev. Bishop Doane, Rev. W. W. Batter- 
 shall, and the Rectors of all the Episcopal churches 
 of the city, and borne to the chancel. The burial ser- 
 vice of the Episcopal church was then proceeded with, 
 Rev. Dr. Potter, Bishop Doane, and Rev. Mr. Bat- 
 tershall, officiating. The floral tributes were so pro- 
 fuse and in harmony with the occasion, that the 
 following description from the Albany Evening Jour- 
 nal is appended : 
 
 " At the head of the coffin was a pillow of white flowers, in the 
 center of which was worked the word " Rest," in English violets ; 
 also a handsome crown and wreath. In the front was a massive 
 crown topped with a white cross. On the credence table was 
 another crown and at the foot of the lecturn a pillow of rare ex- 
 otics. At the base of the altar were numerous other floral 
 
xii memorial of fettfrille ifemam. 
 
 emblems consisting of crosses, crowns, anchors, broken columns, 
 etc. The pew formerly occupied by the deceased and family was 
 closed by a band of white ribbon, on the center of which were 
 two palms and where they crossed was a large calla lily. The 
 floral tributes were scarcely ever seen in greater profusion. They 
 numbered upward of thirty pieces, and were the gifts of relatives 
 and friends." 
 
 There was a large attendance. The spacious edifice 
 was crowded, and all along State street were crowds 
 of mourners who were unable to gain an entrance into 
 the church. Among others present were the wardens 
 and vestrymen of St. Peters, the Chief-Justice and 
 Judges of the Court of Appeals, and other judicial 
 officers ; the members of the Albany county bar ; the 
 State comptroller ; the Albany Zouave Cadets in citi- 
 zen's dress ; members of the Board of Aldermen ; Fire 
 Commissioners ; officials and ex-officials of Albany city ; 
 the Unconditionals ; Kappa Alpha Society of Union 
 College; and members and officers of the Young 
 Men's Association. The following named gentlemen 
 officiated as bearers: Mr. Marcus T. Hun, Mr. Ed- 
 mund L. Judson, Mr. Amasa J. Parker, Jr., Mr. 
 William Kidd, Mr. Julian T. Davies, Mr. William 
 Potter, Mr. James D. Wasson, and Mr. George P. 
 Jackson. 
 
 Sunday afternoon all that was mortal of Grenville 
 Tremain was given to the earth in the family lot at 
 the Albany Cemetery. His memory and his example 
 remain to us. 
 
IZMemavial 
 
 (^xtvwiXXt ^xtmmu. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF 
 - . ALBANY COUNTY. 
 
 At a meeting of the Bar of Albany county, on 
 Saturday, March 16, 1878, at the court room in the 
 City Hall, Albany, on motion of Mr. William 
 Lansing, Mr. Marcus T. Hun was requested to 
 preside. On taking the chair he said : 
 
 Gentlemen of the Bar: 
 
 The loss which we lament to-day is not wholly our own. 
 Grenville Tremain was an eloquent advocate and a distin- 
 guished member of our profession ; but his acts and aspirations 
 were not confined within the limits of his professional life, and 
 the lips which have spoken so often and so eloquently within 
 the walls of this court room have not been silent when other 
 duties have claimed their persuasive utterances. 
 
 Early in life he became deeply interested in political affairs. 
 He entered political life with an honest ambition and decided 
 convictions — with a patriotism quickened by the sacrifice of a 
 brother in our civil war — with an enthusiastic loyalty to the 
 
6 Manorial of <f rarbilk f rnraiu. 
 
 cause he advocated — with a ready eloquence which peculiarly 
 fitted him for public life. He has completed his career unsul- 
 lied by corrupted influences ; respected by his political oppo- 
 nents as he has been greatly honored by his party friends. 
 
 Protected by his professional skill — purified by his resolute 
 resistance to fraud and corruption — guided by his counsels, 
 our city owes much to his zeal and capacity as its corporation 
 counsel. 
 
 After but ten years of a brilliant professional life, his work 
 among us has been accomplished. To few is it given to win 
 honors and distinction thus early in life, and had age but been 
 given, to fulfill the promises of his youth, we know not into 
 what greater and graver responsibilities he might have entered. 
 
 But aside from his public and professional life was a little 
 world, created by himself, nurtured from his genial nature, 
 instructed by his pure example, loving and beloved. Here, 
 away from the flattery of popular applause, relieved from the 
 anxieties of business, warm hearted, genial, sympathetic, the 
 more lovely and attractive qualities of his character revealed 
 themselves. Into its secrets we may not penetrate ; in its piti- 
 ful sorrows we can only deeply sympathize. 
 
 I know that, at a time like this, eulogy is too often extrava- 
 gant of its subject, but, as as a college chum, as an intimate 
 friend and professional brother, I can truly say, whatever 
 his other faults or weaknesses may have been, that I never 
 knew Grenville Tremain to do a mean act, nor to pros- 
 titute his talents and influence to an unworthy end. 
 
 While we cannot deny to ourselves the selfish sorrow for our 
 personal loss which this hour of separation brings with it, yet 
 might not a truer friendship rather rejoice that, upright in life, 
 in the successful and zealous performance of its duties, with 
 an unblemished character, he has safely finished his earthly 
 career, before age had weakened his intellectual powers, before 
 time had changed his physical grace and beauty, or the burden 
 
memorial of feitbilk fomaht. 7 
 
 of disease had saddened the natural buoyancy and sweetness 
 of his disposition ? 
 
 "Ov oi BeoI <pi\ovdiv ccitoQvT]6HEi vioS. 
 
 To the great court before which he has been summoned he 
 bears the record of an honest life, the testimony of a good con- 
 science, the memories of many a kind sympathetic act which shall 
 plead for him there with a mute persuasion whose eloquence no 
 words can equal. 
 
 The following letter from Julien T. Davies, Esq., 
 of the bar of the city of New York, was read : 
 
 Dear Sir: — The heart weighted with grief instinctively finds 
 
 relief in giving utterance to its sorrow. When life has fled, 
 
 friendship yearns to express its loss, and to honor the beloved 
 
 dead. Permit me, then, to join those who were more closely 
 
 allied to him in his professional life than was my fortune, in the 
 
 performance of the last office his friends can render to our dear 
 
 brother, before the tomb receives the earthly casket of his beloved 
 
 spirit. 
 
 " According to his virtue let us use him, 
 
 With all respect and rites of burial." 
 
 Among the professional brethren of Grenvii.le Tremain, who 
 for the past ten years have met him in his daily round of 
 duties, there are many who will paint in glowing words his 
 ability, brilliancy and powers of intellect. I can add nothing 
 to their tributes. I would but feebly repeat their words, 
 did I attempt to describe his professional successes achieved 
 in your midst. To me, however, for more than eighteen years, 
 this man has been a familiar and intimate friend. To me, 
 . as far as one man ever can lay bare his inmost self to another, 
 were revealed the hidden motives that controlled the outward life. 
 In the fall of 1859, we were together at Walnut Hill School, in 
 
8 Pxmoiial of (foirbillc f nmatit. 
 
 Geneva. There for two years and a half, we were room-mates. 
 The boyish friendship then formed, grew and became more 
 closely cemented by domestic and professional ties, even to the 
 day of his death. 
 
 As a boy, Grenville Tremain was generous, frank, cordial, and 
 full of a hearty energy that made him a leader among his peers. 
 While these qualities raised esteem and admiration in those whose 
 acquaintance with him was slight, they occasioned, in those who 
 were brought into close contact with him, the warmest senti- 
 ments of affection, that met with full response from him. Fearless 
 and courageous, strong in his convictions and undaunted in their 
 expression, to him his youthful comrades accorded a prominence 
 in their sports, that presaged his capacity for control in the weighty 
 affairs of life. A fair scholar in his general studies, declama- 
 tion and oratory especially were early pursued by him with 
 diligence. Long before he was capable of composing an accept- 
 able speech, he had attained a confidence in the presence of an 
 audience, and a command of voice and gesture, that established 
 the foundation of his subsequent brilliant success as a public 
 speaker. In college, he maintained the reputation for oratorical 
 ability he had won at school. 
 
 His first public effort that attracted attention, was an oration 
 delivered in the summer of 1866, the year of his graduation from 
 college, at a reunion of his old school-fellows at Walnut Hill, 
 Geneva. The assemblage was large, from all parts of the State, 
 and the youthful speaker, stirred in every warm impulse of his 
 honest, manly nature by the scenes of his boyhood and the pres- 
 ence of his early friends, created an impression not often exceeded 
 in wider fields by his more mature powers. 
 
 His kindly manner, his courteous bearing, his generosity and 
 consideration for others, so well known to the Albany bar, 
 developed naturally from the conspicuous qualities of his boyhood. 
 As boy and man, Grenville Tremain was pure in spirit, and 
 clean in heart. Magnanimity was a predominant characteristic of 
 
lUmrortal ol (Sirnbillc OCrtmain. 9 
 
 his nature. That he never did a mean act, followed from his 
 incapacity to entertain a motive that would produce such a 
 deed. His open, honest countenance, his upright manly bearing, 
 his genial smile and winning manner, were the natural indications 
 of what the man truly was in his inmost heart of hearts. He wore 
 no mask. His clear and pure spirit was revealed in every line of 
 his manly face and form. 
 
 Grenville Tremain, although possessing great quickness of the 
 perceptive faculties, joined with gifts of language and oratorical 
 ability, had the rare capacity to recognize that such qualities are 
 but weapons, and that industry and searching application alone 
 furnish the ammunition with which such arms are made effective. 
 Never was he betrayed by his ease of acquisition, into want of 
 preparation. Never was he led by his facility of speech, into 
 lack of substance in his ideas. His watch over himself, and his 
 efforts at culture and mental development were incessant. He 
 was constantly endeavoring to improve himself by earnest reading 
 outside of his professional needs, and by an acquaintance with 
 literature beyond the shelves of the legal library. He aimed 
 at a broad culture. While enthusiastic in the study and prac- 
 tice of his profession, believing that he had chosen the noblest 
 pursuit that this life affords, and that which leads most success- 
 fully to mental growth and intellectual power, he sought a still 
 higher place than that attainable by him who is a lawyer 
 alone. His enthusiasm was alike a source of power and a charm 
 of attraction. His whole soul was given to the work of the 
 moment. His capacity to sink himself in the interests of 
 others, gave him both the affection and the confidence of his 
 clients. Ambitious, indeed, he was, but his ambition was truly to 
 be, not merely to seem. He would have despised any success 
 not fairly won, and not honorably obtained. 
 
 As boy and man, the conspicuous qualities of his nature were 
 his robust vitality and his tender susceptibility. Sweetness and 
 strength were in him closely allied. Strong in the contest, eager 
 
io Pemorial of &ituinHk femaitt. 
 
 and combative in the pursuit of the object of the moment, in social 
 and domestic life, he was full of sympathy, and ever ready to enter 
 into the joys and sorrows of those who were dear to him. 
 
 His loss to the bar and the community is great, but others will 
 arise to fill his professional place and to. perform his public duties. 
 In the homes where he was a beloved friend, there is a vacancy 
 that never can be filled. On those who loved him as their own, 
 his death inflicts a wound from which there is no recovery. . 
 
 As a friend he was faithful and generous, as a son he was rev- 
 erent and obedient, as a father he was patient and firm, as a 
 husband he was true and single-hearted. In all these relations he 
 was tender, considerate and affectionate. 
 
 The grave closes over him at the beginning of a useful career, 
 at the very moment when he had begun to fulfill the promises made 
 by his early life. 
 
 Beloved by a large circle of friends and relatives, esteemed by 
 the community in which his spotless life has been passed, hon- 
 ored by a learned profession careful of its praise and jealous of 
 its reputation, Grenville Tremain has closed the book of life in 
 its midst, with a record on its pages that few attain, who painfully 
 write on its tear-stained leaves until old age arrests the palsied 
 
 hand. 
 
 " His life was gentle ; and the elements 
 
 So mixed in him that nature might stand up, 
 
 And say to the world — ' This was a man ! ' " 
 
 I remain sincerely yours, 
 
 JULIEN T. DAVIES. 
 To Marcus T. Hun, Esq., 
 
 Chairman, etc. 
 
 Mr. Peyton F. Miller said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman : — I feel that I must add a few words of tribute 
 to the memory of him whose sudden death we have assembled 
 to-day to lament, and whose noble life and manly character it is 
 a melancholy pleasure to eulogize. 
 
Ultmorral of feiunlle femtritt. 1 1 
 
 During my brief acquaintance with Grenville Tremain, I had 
 learned to admire, respect and honor him. I had seen him 
 advance from year to year in his profession until he occupied a 
 position second to no man of his age in the State. I had often 
 thought of his success, and pictured to myself, how, as his years 
 increased his sphere of influence would grow greater and he would 
 receive those rich rewards which are the recompense of long and 
 well-spent years of industry. 
 
 He was gifted with a mind of unusual brilliancy, physique of 
 great attractiveness and a manner singularly fascinating and win- 
 ning. He was an indefatigable student, of great perseverance and 
 indomitable energy. His command of language was unusual, and 
 there was something in the sound of his voice which arrested the 
 attention of all who heard him speak. While I have enumerated 
 characteristics which would have insured to him an exalted rank 
 as an orator, a statesman and a lawyer, Mr. Tremain was the for- 
 tunate possessor of other gifts which endeared him to all who 
 knew him. He was a man of a most amiable, gentle and loving 
 disposition, always bright and cheerful, and influenced in all his 
 acts by a piety which was sincere and deep, and in which he was 
 ever consistent. He was a fond and considerate husband, an 
 affectionate parent and a dutiful and attentive son. We lament 
 his loss to our profession, our city and ourselves ; but what must 
 it be to those dear ones from whom he has been so suddenly 
 taken ? It seems strange that one so noble and well fitted to 
 make the world better should be removed from it in his early man- 
 hood, still we are sure that he has entered into a rest more per- 
 fect, a peace more deep than this world can give, and a joy that 
 will never end. 
 
 Mr. Tremain's life among us has ended just as he was upon the 
 threshold of a brilliant career, when the prospect before him was 
 brightest, yet we cannot feel that his life was incomplete, that it 
 will teach no lesson to those of us who are left. We shall no 
 longer have him in our midst, but our recollection of him will 
 
1 2 , Pemorial of femtolk femain. 
 
 often cheer us, and serve as an example of a man who made 
 the most of his life and advantages, and w.ho, although called by 
 the • angel of death while still young in years, was found full of 
 honors and ready to obey the summons. 
 
 Mr. Stephen O. Shepard said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Bar : The shadow of 
 death has again cast sadness over the rapidly diminishing circle of 
 our professional cotemporaries. One by one the plumed knights 
 who long have led the contests of the bar and the forum, as well as 
 those less conspicuous, have lain down upon the field to rest. Some 
 in physical weakness and with that decay of powers which the 
 years so certainly entail, wearied with the strife and the tumult, 
 have sunk quietly and naturally to earth, as the summer ripened 
 flower shrivels and falls in the chill wind of the autumn. Others 
 in the heyday of life with - the impress of their armor ineffaced, 
 with hand upon the hilt of the yet unrusted blade, and with the 
 battle-cry still lingering upon the lips, have been stricken suddenly 
 down to take their place in the dread bivouac of the dead. And 
 now another, Grenville Tremain, has been summoned to obey 
 that relentless roll-call which no mortal yet has ever evaded. He 
 has been summoned at a time when, though yet in his early man- 
 hood, he had fairly won an enviable reputation in a laborious 
 profession. He has been summoned at a time when the honors 
 and emoluments of that profession were most freely tendered for 
 his acceptance. He has been summoned at a time when social 
 intercourse, and family, and friends, and home entered largely 
 and liberally into the happiness of his life. He has been sum- 
 moned at a time when the roughness of the highway had been 
 partially traversed, and when stretching immediately before him 
 in beauty and in promise lay the future of his life. It is the old, 
 old fashion of death, the history of our humanity so frequently 
 repeated, but which, alas, when repeated in a form like this, dispels 
 
UTemoritil of (dheiifnllc Ercmaiit. 13 
 
 not the clouds which sometimes lower so darkly around this great 
 mystery of life. God reigns and this only solves our doubts. 
 
 But while we are tlvus forcibly reminded of our own mortality, 
 it is fitting that we should pass this public tribute to our dead 
 friend. For it is an ill omen when society permits those who have 
 attained fairly and filled well positions of prominence to pass alike 
 with the unworthy and the ignoble unnoticed into forgetfulness. 
 
 And yet it seems almost superfluous to stand here and portray 
 to his professional associates, his professional standing, while the 
 atmosphere of his presence is still so freshly around us. It is 
 enough, perhaps, to say, that Grenville Tremain, though young 
 in life, was an accomplished lawyer and an eloquent advocate, and 
 that he combined in fair proportions those qualities which insure 
 professional success and professional eminence. He was manly 
 in his bearing, courteous in address, quick in perception and fear- 
 less in action. In fact, his professional position was conceded. 
 
 But he possessed grander and broader elements in his constitu- 
 tion than these, which enabled him simply to fill the niche, which 
 the profession always holds open to those who are able to 
 occupy it. 
 
 Grenville Tremain was an estimable citizen, always found 
 upon the side of law and order and good morals, and earnestly and 
 thoroughly identified with every enterprise projected in the cause 
 of benevolence or for the common good. He was a true and 
 loyal friend, and affluent in his resources in behalf of those he 
 loved. He was a kind and considerate neighbor, an honored and 
 almost worshipped father and husband, and as a son how loved 
 and how loving, words uttered here cannot tell. 
 
 Thus did Mr. Tremain faithfully and honestly bear himself in 
 all of the relations which he sustained to his fellows. And as we 
 look more closely into the constitution of our friend we find 
 underlying all, as a cardinal element in his religious belief, the 
 great fact of his unquestioning recognition of his personal moral 
 responsibility. His faithfulness and conscientious perforrhance' 6f 
 
14 |$temorial of fenbilic fumaiit. 
 
 duty were but the natural outgrowth of his belief. In his estima- 
 tion moral theories possessed no value as matters of individual 
 faith only as they exhibited efficacy in an upright and honest 
 life. 
 
 But the accomplished lawyer, the eloquent advocate, the esti- 
 mable citizen, the loyal friend, the loved husband, father and son, 
 has passed suddenly and swiftly out from the activities of life with 
 which he was so prominently identified, so suddenly, that we pause 
 astounded, for the moment, at the abruptness of his departure. 
 The dead form of this young athlete, cast lifeless in the amphi- 
 theatre, in whose contests he had won a name so fair, brings tears 
 to the eye and sadness to the heart. But yesterday, replete with 
 life, brimming with hope, and love, and energy, and action ; to-day, 
 stark and stiff in the grasp of death, voiceless, motionless and as 
 inanimate as the bier in yonder home upon which his form reposes 
 in its dread stillness before removal to its place of sepulture. 
 Among us, his professional associates assembled here to commem- 
 orate his name, as in this community with whose interests he was so 
 closely identified, Grenville Tremain has become a thing of the 
 past. He has crossed the dim line of that border-land where, we 
 believe, burdens are laid down, and where the cross is superseded 
 by the crown. His nights of sleepless agony, his days of pain, 
 the sorrow of parting with those he so dearly loved, the shadow 
 which seemed so prematurely to fall upon his life, are with our 
 friend but things of memory, unsubstantial as the " winged dreams 
 of morning." But his memory will survive, and, thank God, will 
 survive without a shadow to obscure it. The record of his pro- 
 fessional life is without a stain. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, swiftly in succession are these blows which are 
 falling upon our profession, and each passing year only widens the 
 great breach which death so persistently effects in our ranks. 
 Within a few short years we record the loss of Peckham and 
 Harris and Hill and Cochrane and Reynolds, and a host of 
 others who have shed lustre upon our profession, and now 
 Grenville Tremain has passed forth from among us. 
 
Ptmorial of efrenfaille Erotism. iS 
 
 But in the words of another : " While it is fitting that we should 
 pause and drop the tear of friendship over a fallen comrade, it 
 becomes us also to close up the broken ranks, buckle more tightly 
 the armor and wage on the battles of life as best we may until 
 the time of our discharge shall come." 
 
 Col. Hale Kingsley said : 
 
 Mr. President : — • I feel such a profound sense of personal 
 bereavement and loss in the death of him whose memory we have 
 met here to honor and cherish, that I scarcely can trust my heart 
 to give voice to its sorrow, and yet I could not forgive myself if I 
 remained silent here, even among those more eloquent and gifted 
 than I am. And I feel that, although many years his senior, and 
 that to the younger members of the profession more particularly 
 belong the control of these proceedings, yet I am no intruder 
 here. 
 
 Grenville Tremain dead ! I shall never forget the icy chill 
 which almost stayed the beating of my own heart when the dread 
 announcement was made. 
 
 We have met here to-day, the young and old of an honorable 
 profession, of which he was a member, to do him honor. And 
 yet what can we say that has not been truly and justly already 
 said? The press of our city, with a justice and feeling that does 
 it honor, have spoken of the great loss the public has sustained. 
 
 His comrades, in military and political circles, his associates in 
 the discharge of public official duties, have all eloquently testified 
 to his great personal worth, high character and winning social 
 qualities. 
 
 His brethren in the church, to whom he was as the sunshine 
 and the flowers, add their testimony to his character as a true 
 Christian gentleman. 
 
 It remains for his professional brethren to lay their garland of 
 respect and admiration upon his early grave. 
 
 No eulogy that I could pronounce would be fulsome. His 
 
1 6 Unmoral of feitMlle femmit. 
 
 high personal character, his honorable and upright manhood, his 
 splendid personal presence, his native ability, fine culture, schol- 
 arly attainments and legal knowledge for one so young, combined 
 with tact, judgment and skill, together with success already 
 achieved, gave promise of a lawyer in the future who should win 
 renown for himself and bring honors and fame to the bar of our 
 city and State. But alas! how different was the decree of the 
 Father of us all. Suddenly cut down in the very bloom of life 
 and professional fame. 
 
 My own relations with him were so intimate and pleasant, that 
 I cannot trust myself to speak further. I admired and I loved 
 him. But I have one consolation, and that is that being dead, he 
 yet speaketh to the younger members of the profession particu- 
 larly. All may not be gifted as he was, but they will honor them- 
 selves and his memory by emulating his true Christian manhood, 
 his upright professional conduct, and his personal purity in public 
 and private life. 
 
 Mr. William Loucks said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman: — There are times when words seem to have no 
 meaning, when language utterly fails to express the sorrow and 
 anguish of a stricken heart. I need not say, gentlemen, that this 
 occasion is one. Death has come among us and extinguished the 
 brightest light, among the younger members of our profession, has 
 removed forever from our midst one of our noblest and best asso- 
 ciates. Words are useless and unavailing to express our grief and 
 bereavement. We can only weep at his, to us, untimely depart- 
 ure. To those of us who for years have known Grenville Tre- 
 main intimately, all eulogy seems vain and empty, to demonstrate 
 that deep and lasting love and friendship which we had for him. 
 It was my good fortune to know Grenville Tremain, not only as 
 a professional brother, but also in the intimate and brotherly rela- 
 tion of college class-mates. We entered Union College together 
 
PraiDnnl of <f nnbilLc femaht. 1 7 
 
 on the same day, we spent four years together in the same class. 
 And when on Commencement Day, he was awarded the highest hon- 
 ors, there was not a member of the class of '66, that did not proudly 
 and heartily applaud the choice, and openly acknowledged that 
 Grenville Tremain deserved, above the others, those honors so 
 fittingly bestowed. And the tears will fall from the eyes of each 
 and every member of the survivors of our class, whosoever they 
 may be, when the sad tidings reach them that Grenville Tremain, 
 their beloved class-mate, is dead, and gone from them forever. 
 And I think I see them as with bowed heads and tearful eyes, 
 they recall the sweet associations of their college life, with him 
 whose loss they never can replace. It was only a little over a 
 year ago that those of us that are left of our class gathered together 
 in the halls of our Alma Mater, and recited briefly the short his- 
 tory of our lives since leaving her kind protection ; and I remem- 
 ber how modestly our deceased brother related his history. 
 There was no air of triumph or undue elevation over a success in 
 the profession, which we know to be unusual and remarkable, in 
 so short a time. It gives me great pleasure and satisfaction to 
 testify to the fullest, to the pure and noble character which our 
 friend bore all through his college course. He was a leader in his 
 class, but his leadership was always toward that which was true 
 and manly, and in all the college sports and excitements which 
 attach to college life, nothing was countenanced or assisted in by 
 Grenville Tremain, which his father or mother could not have 
 been an approving witness. Although one of the youngest in his 
 class in years, he was our brilliant example in energy, honor and 
 manly virtue. You who have known him professionally, and can 
 testify to his noble character and brilliant attainments, let me add, 
 that that character was known and honored by his brothers in 
 college, and only became the more lovely and illustrious, by inti- 
 mate association. After graduation we attended the Albany Law 
 School together, and there, as everywhere, all paid homage to his 
 brilliant intellect and noble qualities of mind and heart. I am 
 
1 8 Ujltmorial of (Urtnbtlk (trcmahr. 
 
 aware that it is customary, on occasions like this, to extol the vir- 
 tues of a departed professional brother, sometimes perhaps, beyond 
 what is just to his memory or his life deserved. But in the case 
 of our departed friend, whose loss we, and the whole community, 
 so sincerely mourn, I do not believe we can say too much in 
 praise of his noble, manly character as a friend, a citizen and a 
 professional brother. I have alluded to his college career, and his 
 purity of life then, because I believe it to be high praise of any man 
 that we can say of him that he resisted all evil associations and 
 temptations, which surround young men, away from the influence 
 of home and family. I know of no stain upon the grand record of 
 his life — no blot to mar the purity and beauty of his character. 
 Always genial, unselfish and sympathetic, it was impossible that 
 he could have an enemy deservedly. He was a radical, but in the 
 right Brave to encounter difficulties in the pathway of honorable 
 success. Ambitious, but only to attain that which was worthy. 
 Would that the character of such a man could be seen as in a 
 mirror, and held up for all young men to copy after and emulate. 
 He has been taken from us in the strength and beauty of early 
 manhood. Snatched from us by death's icy fingers, seemingly 
 with cruel haste, but not before he had attained a high and lofty 
 station in the profession of his choice. Many by an ordinary life- 
 time of effort have not attained a more honorable position in our 
 profession, than that of our friend, in the few years that were allotted 
 to him. Had he been permitted longer to labor in the field that 
 he selected, great and glorious must have been his reward. But 
 he did not live in vain. He lived long enough to show us the 
 power of his mind and the beauty of his character. Long enough 
 to place before us an example of a mighty intellect, guided and 
 controlled by all the nobler impulses of a loving heart. We 
 lament and mourn his early death, but we rejoice that he lived 
 such a grand and noble life. 
 
HUmorial ai §xmbxlk fenram. 1 9 
 
 i l ' 
 ACTION OF THE COURT OF APPEALS AT ALBANY, 
 MARCH 19, 1878. 
 
 Hon. Matthew Hale and S. O. Shepard appeared 
 before the court and presented the resolutions in rela- 
 tion to the death of Grenville Tremain, adopted at 
 the meeting of the bar of Albany county, Mr. Hale 
 speaking as follows : 
 
 May it please the Court : At a very full meeting of the bar of 
 Albany county, held on Saturday, the 16th inst., upon the occasion 
 of the sad death of Grenville Tremain, the resolutions which I 
 hold in my hand were adopted, and Mr. S. O. Shepard and 
 myself were appointed a committee to present them to this court. 
 In performing my part of this duty I do not propose to attempt 
 to add any extended remarks of my own to the tribute which his 
 brethren of the bar, with one accord and with free hearts, have 
 in these resolutions paid to the memory of our departed brother. 
 He was young in years but old enough to have won a place in the 
 front ranks of the profession. He had distinguished himself more 
 at nisi prius, by the careful preparation and thorough trial of 
 causes, and by his ready and persuasive eloquence than by argu- 
 ments before the court in banc. This resulted, however, more 
 from the fact that he had always been associated with older and 
 distinguished counsel than from any want of capacity for the dis- 
 cussion of legal principles, for on the occasions when he has 
 appeared, either in this court or at General Term, he has acquitted 
 himself well. Had his life been spared none can doubt that he 
 would have distinguished himself in every department of the pro- 
 fession. To his many virtues and the purity and excellence of 
 his private life I will only allude. It is enough to say here that 
 he had endeared himself to all his associates at the bar, and that 
 in his death they feel the loss, not only of a promising lawyer; but 
 
20 Pemorial of (ireufrille Summit. 
 
 of a cherished and noble friend and an active and public spirited 
 citizen. 
 
 In behalf of the Albany bar, therefore, I respectfully move that 
 the resolutions which I present may be entered on the minutes of 
 this court. 
 
 The motion was granted. 
 
 ACTION OF THE GENERAL TERM OF THE SUPREME 
 COURT, HELD AT BINGHAMTON, MAY 7, 1878. 
 
 At the opening of the court, Mr. N. C. Moak 
 presented the resolutions in relation to the death of 
 Grenville Tremain, adopted by the Bar of Albany 
 county, and spoke of the character and professional dis- 
 tinction of Mr. Tremain. The court received the 
 Resolutions and directed that they be entered in full 
 upon its minutes. 
 
 ACTION OF THE CIRCUIT COURT, AT ALBANY, 
 MARCH 18, 1878. 
 
 On the convening of the Circuit Court, Messrs. J. 
 Hampden Wood and Wm. Lansing, the committee 
 appointed by the bar, presented the resolutions adopted 
 at the meeting of Saturday, and they were ordered to 
 be spread in full on the minutes. Both gentlemen in 
 presenting the resolutions made graceful and feeling 
 allusion to the deceased, and Judge Westbrook, in 
 granting the motion, spoke as follows : 
 
HHtmorial of dunbrllt fomain. 21 
 
 When on. Thursday last the sad intelligence of the death of our 
 young friend was communicated, its truth seemed impossible. 
 About two weeks ago he had been seen at the Ulster special term 
 at Kingston full of life and vigor. Apparently, every promise of 
 a long, brilliant and useful career, and we could not, when his 
 departure was announced, believe that he had really gone, and 
 that his genial smile and eloquent tongue should no more be seen 
 or heard among the scenes in which he has been a prominent actor. 
 
 The court, with the bar, mourns his loss, and with them tender 
 to the stricken family its sincere sympathies. 
 
 Well do we remember his first appearance, a few years since, at 
 the General Term of this Court. He had just been admitted to 
 practice, but though young in years, he stood at once a peer among 
 his fellows. There was, even then, a clearness of statement, a 
 fullness and richness of language, an ability to learn, and a grace 
 and elegance of manner, which at once arrested attention and 
 commanded respect. The future years have not belied the early 
 promise. He grew in intellectual and professional stature, and as 
 to-day he lies in his early grave, it can with truth be said he had 
 reached a position at the bar which but few attain after long and 
 weary years of work and toil. 
 
 He was, too, more than an eminent and successful lawyer ; he 
 was, in addition, a well-rounded and developed man. He was a 
 warm friend, a genial companion, an upright citizen, a loving and 
 tender husband and parent, and a dutiful and affectionate son. 
 
 To-day, as we recall his virtues and cherish his memory, it is our 
 glad privilege, as we turn to the sorrowing ones whom he has left, 
 to bid them to look to Him who is their and our only stay and 
 support. May He bind up their wounds, and more than supply 
 the place of him who has gone and now watches their coming. 
 
 But, brethren, is there no lesson to-day for us ? We are here at 
 
 this instant ; where shall we be at the next ? Ever in the hands 
 
 of the Great Infinite, it becomes us to ask, is He our friend and 
 
 father, or angry sovereign and judge ? When we stand, as we must 
 
 3 
 
22 Ptmorial of (Brenbille femtrm. 
 
 each for himself in His presence, shall we have an advocate there ? 
 One proffers to us His services now, shall we accept them? God 
 enables us, one and all, so to do that the cause of each of us may 
 thus have a successful issue. 
 
 In conformity, as I suppose, with the wish, the resolutions read 
 will be entered upon the minutes of the Court. 
 
 ACTION OF THE VESTRY OF ST. PETER'S CHURCH. 
 
 At a special meeting of the vestry of St. Peter's 
 Church, held March 15th, 1878: Present, the Rector, 
 Messrs. Pumpelly, Cooper, Pierson, Weaver, Kidd, 
 Judson, Martin and Tillinghast. 
 
 Mr. Henry R. Pierson presented the following 
 resolution, which was accepted, ordered placed on the 
 minutes, and a copy sent to the family of the deceased : 
 
 We meet as a vestry of St. Peter's Church to perform a sad 
 duty — to make record of a great sorrow. 
 
 Grenville Tremain — the youngest of us all, the flower of 
 the Vestry, the fragrance of whose good deeds will hang around 
 us while we live, and whose memory is in all our hearts, ever to 
 remain — is dead. 
 
 Other men, in other places, may well speak of his genial, social 
 merits ; of his faithful and brilliant professional ability and great 
 promise ; of his loyalty to friends, and unswerving fidelity to 
 duty; of his generous and genial hospitality; but what shall we 
 say — we, with whom he was so true in the discharge of every 
 Christian duty ? 
 
 We make this record — 
 
 He, the youngest, always a peer, discreet, dignified, careful to 
 decide, firm in conviction, hopeful, cheering, prompt and invig- 
 
Ulemorial of (fmitolle Sremmiv. 23 
 
 orating, broad and catholic — he was the sunshine of the vestry, 
 and the hope of every heart for long life and active usefulness in 
 every Christian work. 
 
 From our hearts we sympathize with that devoted wife, so early 
 a widow; with those bright little orphan children — God bless 
 them ; with that noble father, so sick and so afflicted ; with the 
 tender-hearted stricken mother, whose sorrow cannot be com- 
 puted ; with all his family, to whom he seemed a necessity like a 
 centre around which stars revolve — to all we give words of 
 tearful sorrow and pledges of enduring Christian sympathy ; and 
 let this record be entered in full on our minutes and a copy sent 
 to the bereaved family. 
 
 ACTION OF THE COMMON COUNCIL. 
 
 At a meeting of the common council of the city of 
 Albany, called to take action with reference to the 
 death of Grenville Tremain, the following resolu- 
 tion was presented and unanimously adopted. 
 
 Whereas, The members of this Board have heard with the 
 deepest sorrow of the death of Grenville Tremain ; and 
 
 Whereas, His recent efficient and honorable services to the 
 city in the discharge of the duties of the responsible and 
 important position of Corporation Counsel are entitled to the 
 highest commendation, and marked and especial public recogni- 
 tion is due to his memory from the city ; and 
 
 Whereas, A special meeting of this Board has been this day 
 convened in view of this afflictive event, for the purpose of 
 signifying its sense of the great loss which this city and the 
 public have sustained ; therefore 
 
 Resolved, that in the death of one so gifted, so zealous, and so 
 enterprising in the very beginning of his useful career, this city 
 and the public at large have sustained an irreparable loss. 
 
24 Pimorial of fonbille Srtmain. 
 
 Resolved, That as counsel for the city, his services were of the 
 highest order, and that in the performance of the duties of that 
 office he exhibited traits of mind and character which rendered 
 him a safe and reliable adviser and a firm and prudent officer, 
 who united quick perception with a sound and logical discrimi- 
 nation on all legal subjects presented for his decision. 
 
 Resolved, That in private life and character, he was as manly 
 and honorable as he was zealous and efficient in public life. 
 
 Resolved, That these resolutions be entered on the minutes of 
 this Board, and that a copy of them be presented to the family of 
 the deceased and published in the public press of the city. 
 
 ACTION OF THE ALBANY ZOUAVE CADETS. 
 
 At a meeting of the Albany Zouave Cadets, A 
 Company, Tenth Regiment, N. G. S. N. Y., held at 
 their Armory, Friday evening, March 15, 1878, the 
 following resolutions were ordered entered upon the 
 minutes of the company, and a copy sent to the family 
 of the deceased. 
 
 The Albany Zouave Cadets unite their tribute with that of all 
 who knew him to the memory of Grenville Tremain. In 
 reverence, we solemnly recognize the Inscrutable Wisdom which 
 removes a noble manhood from our midst, and adds another to 
 the bright constellation of names this company is proud to honor. 
 
 His manly form, his generous cheerfulness of disposition which 
 warmed and elevated all spirits which came in contact with him, 
 his highly gifted intellect which he always used as a sacred trust, 
 his courage which never flinched when called to speak or to act 
 for his convictions, and his purity of life which no breath of 
 enmity could tarnish with the faintest shadow of reproach, 
 
HUmorral of #r«»failk fomaiit. 25 
 
 together formed a man and comprised a character whose memory 
 will be cherished by us as long as true knighthood is. honored. 
 
 To his family whose grief is peculiarly sacred, we, as a com- 
 pany, respectfully and mournfully tender our sympathies, and 
 will attend his funeral as a parting tribute to our comrade. 
 
 JOHN H. REYNOLDS, 
 
 Captain and Chairman. 
 Frank S. Niver, Secretary. 
 
 ACTION OF THE UNCONDITIONALS. 
 
 Friday Evening, March 15, 1878. 
 
 The former members, honorary and active, of the Uncondi- 
 tional Club of the city of Albany, upon receiving the sad 
 announcement of the death of Grenville Tremain, Esq., at his 
 residence in this city on the 14th day of March, 1878, desire to 
 record their high appreciation of his personal character, their 
 sincere sorrow over his early death and their deep sympathy for 
 his family, his friends and this community in a common bereave- 
 ment. 
 
 Upon the organization of this club in the stirring Presidential 
 Campaign of 1868, Grenville Tremain was unanimously 
 chosen its first President. His attention, exertions and personal 
 popularity drew to its membership many of the leading young 
 men of this city, and contributed in no small measure to its high 
 early record and continued reputation. Upon the reorganization* 
 of the club, in 1872, Mr. Tremain was compelled to decline a 
 similar selection for the leadership, owing to pressing professional 
 duties, but his interest in the club and in all public or political 
 questions never wavered or declined. It was not, however, in 
 the sharp and hotly contested controversies of political life, but 
 in the more quiet, though exciting and exacting contests of a 
 busy and laborious profession, and still more in the retired and 
 
26 Ultmorial of fentolk fetnahr. 
 
 cheerful intercourse of social life that the many virtues of our 
 lamented friend shone conspicuously, and won for him strong, 
 numerous and lasting friendships and an enviable record. We 
 sincerely mourn the removal of one so promising, so generous 
 and so true. 
 
 As a further proof of our deep sorrow, be it 
 
 Resolved, that the secretary of this meeting be requested to 
 enter these proceedings in full upon the minutes of the club, and 
 forward a copy, duly attested, to the family of our late fellow 
 member, and to the city press for publication, and that we attend 
 his funeral in a body. 
 
 DAVID A. THOMPSON, 
 
 Chairman. 
 
 RICHARD T. LOCKLEY, 
 
 C. W. MEAD, 
 
 J. B. BRAMWOOD, 
 
 Committee. 
 James R. Post, Secretary 
 
SERMON 
 
 DELIVERED BY REV. WALTON W. BATTERSHALL, D. D., 
 
 Rector of St. Peter's Church, 
 
 \mi\ trf fcmtifib ¥ratrak 
 
 " For He is not a God of the dead, but oi the living; for all live unto 
 Him." — St. Luke, xx : 38. 
 
 When the Sadducees came to Jesus with a frivolous question, 
 designed to entangle him in some absurdity regarding the doctrine 
 of the resurrection, our blessed Lord in the first place reproved 
 their unbelief, declaring that they knew not the Scriptures, nor 
 the power of God. He then adduced an argument for the doctrine 
 of immortal life. And what do you suppose that argument was ? 
 It was one of the strangest and seemingly the most inconclusive 
 that man could conceive. Christ did not quote the prophets or 
 the Psalms, where he could find authoritative affirmations of this 
 doctrine ; for the Sadducees acknowledged only the Pentateuch. 
 It is in the Pentateuch, therefore, that He finds his proof. " Now 
 that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he 
 called the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and 
 the God of Jacob." Is this a proof? Does it sound to our ears 
 like a conclusive argument ? Is it any thingmore than a dialectic dex- 
 terity, and apiece of Rabbinical logic ? Why, then, did not those 
 Sadducees answer as unbelievers of to-day have answered : " Why, 
 
28 gfcmorhtl of feitfrtlU fematit. 
 
 all that is meant in this passage is that God presented Himself to 
 Moses as the same God who aided and protected his fathers while 
 they were alive, and who would, therefore, aid and protect him 
 during his life." This is all that the passage seems to mean on its 
 surface, but Jesus, when he quoted it, gave a divine glance beneath 
 the surface, and those Sadducees, with their quick Eastern intel- 
 lect, understood that glance. They apprehended at once the force 
 of those words in which Christ gave explicit force to his argu- 
 ment : " For He is not a God of the dead, but of the living ; for 
 all live unto Him." 
 
 I desire this morning, while our thoughts are thronged with the 
 memories of that vanished life which yesterday was among us, to 
 bring before you this argument adduced by Christ for the doctrine 
 of immortality. It is in truth one of the strongest and most 
 cogent arguments for that doctrine, and nowhere is it stronger 
 than when it is adduced as I adduce it this morning, in the pres- 
 ence of death 'and at the portal of the grave. The argument may 
 be stated thus : God has called himself the God of certain indi- 
 vidual human souls. He created in those souls capacities for 
 intercourse with Himself; He made them capable of loving Him 
 and worshipping Him, and obeying Him ; He entered into a pecu- 
 liar covenant relation with them. Those souls, at the appointed 
 term of human life, passed from the sight of men. On earth they 
 became simply a memory and a name. Years after they passed 
 away, after their bodies had long since dissolved into their ele- 
 mental dust, God declared "I am still the God of these souls." 
 What does He mean ? That He is the God of something which 
 once lived and has now passed into nothingness ? That He, 
 whose eternal delight is in life, and motion, and beatitude, names 
 Himself the God of a nonentity ? That He has suffered a nature 
 which He made capable of the sweetest interchanges of love, of 
 the sublimest achievements of virtue, of the most exquisite rap- 
 tures of pleasure ; a nature with which He allied Himself in gra- 
 cious fellowship, and which He taught to cry out from its measure- 
 
Pomona! of drnrfnlie fomaiir. 29 
 
 less depths of need and aspiration: "Thou art my God; my 
 heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God ;" that He has suf- 
 fered this cunningly-fashioned and divinely-endowed nature, with 
 all its immortal longings and unfulfilled possibilities to slip into 
 dust and ashes? Does God in the declaration, " I am the God of 
 Abraham," mean simply to say that He is the author and protec- 
 tor of some human dust that lies sealed in the cave of Macphelah, 
 or waves in the foliage of the oaks of Mamre ? It is impossible ; 
 reason and nature and the profoundest intuitions of our soul cry 
 out, in those words of Christ : " He is not a God of the dead but 
 of the living." To disbelieve in immortality is to disbelieve in a 
 living God. This is the argument which Christ adduced to those 
 ancient Sadducees, and this is the argument with which the relig- 
 ion of Christ meets the Sadducees of to-day. 
 
 It is impossible for me this morning to follow out this argument 
 in detail. I can only throw out a few thoughts, by which you 
 may discern its bearings and measure jts force. We are conscious 
 of life, we are conscious of an individual personal life ; behind 
 this apparatus of the senses we are conscious of an intellectual 
 and emotional and moral life. Each of us knows that behind all 
 that he thinks and feels and does, there is a living soul and that 
 living soul is the something which he calls himself. There are 
 some who tell us that the soul is nothing but the subtle product 
 of the animal organism ; that a man has a certain thought, or a 
 certain emotion, or a certain desire simply because a certain atom 
 of phosphoric acid has been released from some tissue of the brain. 
 Now, there is no question that the soul strikes its roots far and 
 deep into its material organism. We know that it is separated 
 from the body only with a wrench like that with which you pull 
 a deep rooted plant from the soil. But we know, too, that 
 the soul is something distinct from the body. You do not have 
 to weave a subtle web of metaphysics in order to demonstrate the 
 soul. The soul demonstrates itself, just as the sunbeam or the 
 raindrop demonstrates itself. It is simply a fact of our conscious- 
 4 
 
3° glntrorial of #rentrille Cromrm. 
 
 ness, or rather it presents a world of facts to our consciousness, 
 and no dissection of the nerves or study of the chemic elements 
 of the blood, will account for these facts. Well, this life of the 
 soul which ranges the kingdoms of thought; which throbs with 
 passionate loves; which reaches out with infinite yearnings — this 
 life by virtue of which a man forms ideals of duty ; crushes back 
 some impulse of sense in loyalty to some eternal law of righteous- 
 ness ; this life by virtue of which a man hopes and loves and 
 aspires and worships — is beyond question the highest type and 
 manifestation of life. It is the noblest of all the myriad activities 
 that pulse through the universe ; and it expends its grandest 
 energy, it thrills with its most exquisite phases of pleasure when 
 it flows out in fellowship and interchange with God. The spirit 
 indeed loses its sense of orphanage only in the communion of the 
 Father of Spirits. Its highest ideals, its ultimate possibilities are 
 hid in the infinite bosom, and this unrest and yearning, and strug- 
 gle which we call life are only the efforts of the soul to attain its 
 ideals and unfold its possibilities. It finds fulfillment and repose 
 only as it is clasped to the embrace of the infinite bosom. 
 
 The question now arises, will God fling all his wealth of energy 
 into nothingness? Will God, the exhaustless fountain which 
 pours forth the torrents of life that flow through the universe, do 
 nothing to cherish that type of life which is so akin to His own ; 
 which yearns to fulfill itself in His own inextinguishable and uncre- 
 ated life ? Did God put all these hopes, and capabilities and pos- 
 sibilities in the human soul to strangle them in an eternal death ? 
 Let us gather the issue into a focal point. Let us select a single 
 figure of history — the man Christ Jesus, that human soul that 
 blossomed on the hillside of Nazareth ; that unfolded its heroic 
 manhood and threw out the tokens of its stainless purity and its 
 moral grandeur through thirty-three years of human history. 
 What has become of it ? What has become of that spiritual 
 grasp, and moral energy and those burning depths of love, and 
 those capacities of self-sacrifice which were in the human heart 
 
Hymenal of fenbtlLe femattr. 31 
 
 of Christ ? Have all these forces, the energies of that peerless 
 soul been blotted out of the universe ? Have they slipped into 
 nothingness ? It is impossible. Reason starts up and says, if 
 there be a God, it is impossible. And what is true of the peerless 
 humanity of the son of God is true of the stained and broken 
 humanity which belongs to the race whose nature He assumed. 
 
 We can talk glibly of the lack of scientific demonstration of the 
 doctrine of immortality. We can class the immortality of the soul, 
 according to the dreary sarcasm of Huxley, among questions like 
 that of the politics of the moon ; we may even commit ourselves 
 to theories which imply the death of what we call the soul, when 
 its fleshly tent falls asunder ; but let one be stricken down whose 
 life was interlinked with ours, let a loved form be borne over our 
 threshold, let us know the intellectual power, and the moral force, 
 and the sweet loves, and the tender reverences, and the aspira- 
 tions after truth, and light, and holiness that once lodged in that 
 form — shall we not ask what has become of this fragment of soul- 
 life with the image of God upon it ? 
 
 Is this world such a riddle, is our nature such a falsehood that 
 all this is lost, dropped out of the universe of being ? Was all 
 that force of thought, and will, and emotion, that sense of person- 
 ality, that conviction of duty, that inner vision which saw God — 
 was it all cast up from the abyss of nothingness ; and after its 
 little spasm of life, is it all absorbed into the abyss of nothingness ? 
 Nay; the heart flings back the falsehood, and to the end of time 
 the heart of man will fling back the falsehood which despoils life 
 of its beauty, and robs us of our immortality. 
 
 This, my friends, is the high argument which we recite in the 
 presence of that shadow of death which lies athwart our prayers, 
 and anthems, and meditations, to-day. 
 
 Never does man so defiantly assert his heritage of immortality 
 as when he bears some form, sacred by the memory of its vanished 
 life, to the door of the sepulchre ; and never has this argument, 
 in which the capacities of our nature and the righteousness of 
 
32 Dfrmorial of di'cnMIlt (Tremahi. 
 
 God are pledged for our immortality, come to me with such per- 
 suasive power and potent demonstration, as when I think of the 
 quenched flame of that brave young life whose sweet memories 
 throng upon us at this holy hour. Bear with me a moment. 
 Others, venerable in years, and by virtue of that ampler fee, a 
 trained and ripened character ; others, with lordlier honors, and 
 with the rich harvest of a completed and rounded life, have gone 
 down from this house of prayer to the sepulchre. But he, in the 
 flush of his beautiful youth, with the colors of the dawn yet upon 
 his life, with so much of suggestion and promise and possibility 
 stretching out within the vales of the future, seems as if he were 
 one of those, who stand like broken columns of a rare and costly 
 sculpture, to teach the world the lesson of immortality by the 
 incompletion and the unfulfillment that haunt the beauty of mortal 
 things. 
 
 There is no need that I should sketch, even in faintest outline, 
 those traits of character which won him the laurels of his profes- 
 sion and the applause of good men. The great contemporary 
 statesman who gave the secret of Sir Walter Raleigh's marvel- 
 ous achievements when he said, " I know that he can toil terribly," 
 wrote at once the eulogy and the epitaph of that young lawyer, 
 who poured his rich forces of brain and heart into the accomplish- 
 ment of a large and honorable career. But that of which I am 
 thinking this morning, that which makes him seem to us a living 
 thing, even while we bury all that we can see of him in the bosom 
 of the earth, is that vitality of soul ; that fine and rare enthusiasm ; 
 that full, rich pulse of generous life. Above all else he was a 
 knightly spirit, full of sweet and gentle courtesies ; tender and 
 loyal and true ; believing in the good of men rather than the evil ; 
 nourishing that which was best within him, by earnest faiths, and 
 placid trusts, and lofty ideals of conduct. As I think of him, thus 
 he comes before me — a soldier, like his brother ; a knight, by the 
 mystic accolade of God, which made him a chivalrous soul ; and 
 falling, like his brother, in the onset of life, in the bloom and glory 
 
Ptmorial of If rnUnlle fenrniii. 33 
 
 of his dawning manhood. And as I think of him, there comes to 
 me that vision of Sir Galahad in the verse of our great poet : 
 
 " My good blade carves the casques of men, 
 
 My tough lance thrusteth sure, 
 My strength is as the strength of ten, 
 
 Because nry heart is pure. 
 I muse on joy that will not cease, 
 
 Pure spaces clothed in living beams, 
 Pure lilies of eternal peace, 
 
 Whose odors haunt my dreams ; 
 And, stricken by an angel's hand, 
 
 This mortal armor that I wear, 
 This weight and size, this heart and eyes, 
 
 Are touched, are turned to finest air." 
 
 And all this is gone ! Beneath spring skies, with sunbeams 
 pulsing through the air, and the tender buds pressing upwards 
 through the sod, all this has passed out of being ! Is it so ? Does 
 nature lose her most precious product, a human soul, and make no 
 sign ? It would seem, as that bereaved and stricken father, sitting 
 this morning in his desolated home, told me the other day, as if the 
 earth should shake, and lightning should leap from the skies, and 
 all nature should bear witness to this great woe that is being 
 wrought in a human life. Thus does the soul seek to find some 
 echo of its sorrow in the voices of the physical universe. But, 
 no ! the sun shines, and the vernal air sweeps about us with its 
 sweet prophecies of flowers ; meanwhile, a soul has vanished from 
 the realms of light. Nay ; believe it not ! Nature does not so 
 squander her wealth of life ; she is calm because she is trustful 
 and patient, and God works behind her laws. He is a living God, 
 and He treasures the life that He has begotten, forevermore. He 
 is our God — a God that reveals Himself in promises and cove- 
 nants ; and by that Divine Life which He once suffered to pass 
 through the portals of the tomb we know that the sweet faces which 
 
34 Psmorial of fettbille femaht. 
 
 have faded from our sight, the dear forms which have been snatched 
 from our fireside, the lives that, to our dim vision, seem to have 
 been cloven to the root in their first early bloom, are not lost, 
 but rather gathered more closely to that bosom where they shall 
 be nourished to a grander and more blissful energy. 
 
 Yes, he is gathered to his God, as we trust ; as in the certainties 
 of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ we know. But is the only 
 lesson of that young life smitten to the ground, that of our immor- 
 tality ? Nay ; there is in it a warning to prepare for our immortality. 
 
 How sudden was the stroke ? So quick, so noiseless and so 
 terrible. But yesterday he leaped up to grasp our hand. To-day 
 we carry him to the city of the dead. Oh ! how close to us, 
 behind what thin veils, does that dread angel stand who summons 
 us to our immortality. Shall we not live so as to be prepared for 
 his beckoning finger ? Not without purpose has this stroke fallen 
 upon us in the midst of our Lenten solemnities. " In the midst 
 of life we are in death. Of whom may we seek for succor but of 
 Thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased." 
 
" EHEU ! QUANTO MINUS EST CUM RELIQUIS VERSARI 
 QUAM TUI MEMINISSE." 
 
 Oh ! friend ; Oh ! brother of my heart ! 
 
 The 3'oung, the strong, the tried, the true ! 
 The tears with which from thee I part, 
 
 Forever shall thy grave bedew. 
 
 How closely in our boyish days, 
 
 Together hand in hand we clung ; 
 Together walked in Learning's ways, 
 
 And dreamed of honors to be won ! 
 
 Thine image stands before me now, 
 
 Each trait so long and fondly known ; 
 
 The stately tread, the noble brow, 
 
 The joyous laugh, the tender tone. 
 
 Before our youthful barques had met 
 
 The turning tide of Life's glad stream 
 
 Thy-brilliant star has swiftly set, 
 And left to us the lonely gleam. 
 
 ... The lonely gleam but yet how bright, 
 
 How stainless was thine early fame. 
 In yon far distant worlds of light 
 
 'Mid angel bands, I read thy name. 
 
 Hush ! Hush ! No more — be mute, be still, 
 Oh ! heart by waves of sorrow tost ! 
 
 We bow beneath our Father's will, 
 
 And leave with Him our loved, our lost. 
 March fjth. 
 
 Note. — Written on the death of Grenville Tremain, by an early friend. 
 
gstvaxts fxam tttje grass. 
 
 Albany Evening Times. 
 
 (March 15, 1878). 
 
 There has never been more general regret expressed and felt in 
 this city, than over the early death of Grenville Tremain. 
 Handsome in person, gifted in intellect, possessed of high powers 
 of eloquence, he was the beau ideal of the young advocate, and 
 exhibited powers that would have placed him yet higher than in 
 the high rank of the profession that he illustrated and adorned . 
 He was the Bayard of the profession, without fear and without 
 reproach. In all his legal and forensic contests he was never 
 accused of taking an undue advantage, or of delivering an unfair 
 blow. No one can recall in all the activity of his life a cruel or 
 an unkind word, a slur or innuendo, or an insinuation that would 
 tend to throw even a shadow upon a rival reputation, or wound 
 the tenderest heart. He had all the strength of the strongest 
 man with the sweetest sensibilities of the most delicate woman. 
 There was about him a freshness and naturalness from which the 
 roughest contact with the world never took the bloom. Nomina- 
 ted by a great party for the high office of Attorney-General, nomi- 
 nated without hint or asking from himself; his nomination was 
 received by his own party with glad acclaim, and hundreds of the 
 opposite party, those who knew him, marked their appreciation of 
 his honesty, his ability, and his fitness for the place, by giving him 
 the votes that carried him ahead of his fellows on the same ticket . 
 He was a patriot, not only from cool judgment, but with the warm 
 enthusiasm that loved his country even as his mother; and as his 
 
Htmnrial of fettbilk fomain. 37 
 
 elder brother gave his life for fatherland, so Grenville would have 
 been ready to sacrifice his, had his country called ; to him, patriot- 
 ism was a belief, and a sentiment that is stronger sometimes than 
 a belief, all this crystallized into the golden sentences dropped by 
 his silver tongue in the matchless oration pronounced by him at 
 the laying of the corner stone of the Williams monument. And 
 the great concourse gathered there declared that never did Web- 
 ster give birth to more fitting discourse — for the audience were 
 moved by the manly beauty and entranced by the noble eloquence 
 of the orator. This effort was perhaps the most complete, schol- 
 arly and rhetorical, of the many speeches of his busy life. 
 
 To the endowments that Mr. Tremain possessed in person and 
 voice and intellect, was added an untiring industry that was un- 
 doubtedly the cause of his death. Possessed of so fine a physique, 
 he never seemed to think that the keen blade could wear out the 
 strongest scabbard ; he gave himself no rest ; night and day he 
 labored at his professional duties, and when in his last hours his 
 mind wandered, it wandered into those professional paths where 
 had been won his early garlands and his youthful fame. At such 
 a time as this, it is not so much the genius of the man or his ability, 
 the strength or grasp or shrewdness of his intellect, that recurs to 
 the minds of his friends — these things but increase the already 
 intense sense of loss by magnifying its greatness — but those attri- 
 butes of the deceased that, while they add a new pang, sweeten 
 the bitterness of the calamity — his perfect manliness, his truth- 
 fulness, his high, clear sense of honor, his love of the true and the 
 right. He leaves to his family, to his widow and his children, the 
 proud, the blessed memory and inheritance of a name kept un- 
 stained and unsullied through the fierce turmoil of professional 
 and political contests, and a faith as clear and simple and as hon- 
 est as that of a little child — one of those little children "whose 
 angels do always behold the face of the Father which is in 
 Heaven." 
 5 
 
38 Uttmorial of fcnbiU* tinman. 
 
 Albany Evening Journal. 
 
 (March 15, 1878.) 
 
 The sad announcement in our last edition of yesterday — 
 coming as it did without a warning to any save a very few of the 
 nearest friends — conveyed a shock to this entire community, and 
 carried a deep sense of personal loss to many hearts. There is 
 something peculiarly touching in the sudden death of a young 
 man of robust form and bright promise at the very threshold of a 
 brilliant career. When a man of long years and wide fame passes 
 away, a deeper impress may be left ; but in the loss there is also 
 a feeling that his opportunity has been given and his mission well 
 advanced, perhaps altogether accomplished. But when one of 
 rich talents and noble character and honorable ambition is cut 
 down in the very dawn of youth, just as the full radiance of his 
 promise was throwing its light over the pathway of his shining 
 future, it adds the sorrow and the pathos of an opportunity 
 denied and a work unfulfilled. It is like the blight of winter 
 falling upon the early glory of summer. 
 
 Grenville Tremain was only in his thirty-third year. The 
 second son of Lyman Tremain, he inherited much of the ability 
 and many of the characteristics of his honored father. Trained 
 at Geneva, graduating at Union in 1866, and next winning the 
 diploma of the Albany Law School, he engaged at once with 
 ardor and enthusiasm in the profession whose severe tests and 
 worthy prizes stimulated the highest impulses of his nature. He 
 joined the firm to which two of the most eminent members of the 
 bar had given distinction, and both the names of Peckham and 
 Tremain were well sustained by those who inherited them. 
 Young Tremain leaped immediately to the front. He had great 
 aptitude and admirable qualifications for his profession. He loved 
 the science of the law and faithfully mastered its principles. His 
 mind was acute, penetrating, fertile in resources and ready in 
 action. With these fine intellectual attributes he united rare gifts 
 
P^monal of fetttrtlk femaht. 39 
 
 of speech. He was fluent, graceful and forcible; his bearing was 
 dignified and impressive while at the same time winning and un- 
 assuming ; and the sense of honor, candor and truth which 
 stamped all that he said and did, added the weight of character 
 to the force of logic. Indeed, he combined in an unusual degree 
 the qualities which adorn and strengthen his profession and mark 
 the possessor for sure distinction. 
 
 With this excellent equipment of natural gifts and acquired 
 accomplishments, Mr. Tremain achieved immediate success. He 
 prepared many important cases and participated prominently in 
 their trial. So early and unmistakably had his abilities been 
 shown, that when Mayor Judson appointed him Corporation 
 Counsel, the fitness of the selection was universally recognized. 
 His administration fully vindicated the public confidence. He 
 reduced expenditures, took the work on his own shoulders, cut 
 off extra counsel, successfully defended the city in many suits 
 and effected a large public saving. Throughout his service he 
 was impelled by a deep and conscientious sense of public duty, 
 and when he retired it was with the sincere and cordial respect of 
 all his fellow-citizens. Less than ten years at the bar, he had yet 
 acquired such a standing that the Republican State Convention 
 last fall unanimously presented him for the high office of Attor- 
 ney-General — a very marked tribute to so young a lawyer. 
 During the progress of that canvass these columns contained a 
 statement of some of the more important work which he had 
 done in the law, and it was a record which few men of his years 
 could equal. Though devoted chiefly to his profession, Mr. Tre- 
 main's sympathies and activities were not confined to it. He felt 
 a warm interest in the higher range of politics and public ques- 
 tions, and was a favorite on the political rostrum. Occasionally 
 he turned aside from the exacting demands of law to woo the 
 muse of literature. Perhaps his most notable address of this 
 character was that which he delivered at Schoharie on the dedi- 
 
40 Humorist! of tonbillt Crnrain. 
 
 cation of the monument to one of the captors of Major Andre — 
 an address which attracted wide attention. 
 
 Mr. Tremain united the highest personal attractions with intel- 
 lectual grace and moral strength. There was manly beauty in his 
 form and manly virtue in his character. He was clean, pure, 
 generous and ardent. No unworthy instincts debased the moral 
 symmetry of his being. His manner was kindly and sincere ; his 
 words were gentle and persuasive ; his whole individuality won 
 the honor and esteem of all who knew him. He had a frankness 
 and nobility of character with which only honorable aspirations 
 could be associated. And with it all there was so much vitality, 
 so much of virile life and strength, that he seemed the very picture 
 of ideal manhood. How closely the blow strikes to those who 
 were identified with him and counted him among themselves ! 
 We can hardly realize that he is gone — gone in the very flush of 
 early life — gone within the few days since his hand was grasped. 
 Always thinking of him as he stood before us, we may say of him 
 as Mr. Curtis said of another who also in the morning of life 
 " moved forward," and who was not unlike our departed in stain- 
 less beauty of character and vigorous buoyancy of manhood — 
 the brilliant Theodore Winthrop : " Such was the electric vitality 
 of this friend of ours that those of us who followed him could only 
 think of him as approving the funeral pageant, not the object of 
 it. We did not think of him as dead. We never shall." In the 
 bright, spring morning, " he was alert, alive, immortal." 
 
 Albany Argus. 
 
 (March 15, 1878.) 
 
 It is with sorrow unfeigned and deep, that we announce to our 
 readers this morning the death of Mr. Grenville Tremain, which 
 event occurred at his residence in this city yesterday afternoon 
 about two o'clock, after a brief illness. He was the son of Hon. 
 
HUmorial of fenfeillt fonrahr. 41 
 
 Lyman and Mrs. Helen Tremain, and he inherited many of the 
 talents of his most distinguished father. He was born in the little 
 village of Durham, Greene county, on the 19th day of April, 
 1845, and was consequently in the thirty-third year of his age. 
 At an early period of his life, his father removed from Durham 
 to this city, and entered into partnership with his old friend, the 
 late Judge Peckham. Grenville was the second son, his brother, 
 the late Lieut. -Col. Frederick Tremain, who was killed in the last 
 year of the war, being his senior by two or three years. Young 
 Grenville was educated at the school of Dr. Reed, in Geneva, in 
 this State, and from that institution entered Union College, where 
 he graduated with high honors. He then entered as a student 
 the law office of Peckham & Tremain, and also attended the 
 Albany Law School and graduated from that institution ; and then 
 further pursued his studies in the office, until in 1867 he became 
 a partner in the firm of Peckham & Tremain, and from that day 
 until the day of his death he was an active and useful member of 
 that firm. Mr. Tremain early displayed at the bar the qualities of 
 an able, learned, eloquent and accomplished lawyer. He entered 
 at once into the litigations with which his firm was connected, and 
 scarcely a case was tried by either member of the firm at Albany, 
 that was not prepared by him, and that did not receive the benefit 
 of his indefatigable industry and painstaking research. He very 
 early acquired the confidence of his clients, and he was soon 
 engaged as attorney and counsel in many important litigations. 
 He had the entire respect and confidence of the bench, and no 
 judge ever listened to Mr. Tremain's statement of the facts of a 
 case without an entire trust in the substantial accuracy thereof. 
 
 When Mr. Judson was elected Mayor, no other name than that 
 of Mr. Tremain was thought of for the important and laborious 
 position of Corporation Counsel, and from that day to the time of 
 his death it can be truly said that he knew not a leisure moment. 
 No one who has not occupied that office is aware of the 
 engrossing nature of its duties when properly performed, and no 
 
42 Ptmnrial of (Snttbilk femaiir. 
 
 one of his able predecessors ever brought to their discharge 
 a more conscientious determination to perform them fully and 
 properly than did Mr. Tremain. No department of the city 
 government hesitated to call upon him for advice and assistance 
 at all times, and no city official ever left him without being satis- 
 fied that he had received from Mr. Tremain the counsel which 
 he desired, and which resulted from a most painstaking and exhaust- 
 ive examination of the subject submitted to him. When his term 
 of office expired, he kept on in the discharge of his professional 
 duties without rest, recreation or interruption. 
 
 The delicate health of his father at this time left the firm to 
 grapple with something of a large practice, and Mr. Tremain took 
 his full share of the labor and responsibility of active professional 
 life. Last year about this time, upon the failure of certain insur- 
 ance companies in New York, and the appointment of a receiver 
 for them, he was retained as counsel for such receiver, and from 
 that time on he was busy, literally, night and day. The business 
 called him frequently to New York, and he shrank from no labor 
 that the human frame could endure, in order to faithfully and 
 ably discharge the duties of the high trust that had been commit- 
 ted to his care. And it was melancholy in his last illness, when 
 the hand of death was on him, and his mind wandering, to hear 
 from his incoherent speech, how firmly his thoughts were fixed 
 upon the discharge of his professional labors. 
 
 Last fall, at the Republican Rochester Convention, without the 
 suspicion of a request from him to any man, unsought and wholly 
 unsolicited, the high honor and compliment of a nomination, by 
 acclamation, for the office of Attorney-General of the State,. was 
 accorded to this young man, then standing in the very front rank 
 of his profession among the younger members of the bar. Though 
 suffering the fate of his ticket, it was most gratifying to him and 
 his friends to see the way in which he was appreciated by those 
 in whose midst he had grown up and passed the whole of his pro- 
 
Ptmnrial of <f rea&iUe f ttmmn. 43 
 
 fessional life. His vote in Albany county was many hundreds 
 greater than that received by the rest of his ticket. 
 
 Thus he stood but yesterday, as brilliant and eminent a lawyer 
 as any one of his age throughout the length and breadth of the 
 State. To-day he is at rest. 
 
 To those who knew Mr. Tremain socially, his loss will be irre- 
 parable. There was a manliness in his carriage, a frankness and 
 tenderness of character about him, that charmed with the irre- 
 sistible force of a pure, generous and loving heart. He leaves a 
 wife and five small children, and he died on the birthday of his 
 only son, who is, alas ! too young to feel the loss of as generous, 
 loving and tender a father as son ever had. 
 
 He rests from his labors, and may he rest in peace. His stricken 
 family have the profound sympathy of this community in this their 
 hour of dire distress, and there is no heart but goes out in pity 
 for the sorrow which this terrible calamity brings upon his suffer- 
 ing father. 
 
 Schoharie Republican. 
 
 (March 21, 1878.) 
 
 At Albany, yesterday afternoon, at about two o'clock, Gren- 
 ville Tremain died ! When before did the announcement of 
 the death of a private citizen bear such a weight of sorrow? 
 When before did the death of one so young produce so intense a 
 sadness ? When, if ever, did the death of a comparative junior 
 in the profession so thrill and paralyze the Bar of New York ? 
 
 Grenville Tremain dead ! Alas, alas, the inadequacy of 
 words to give the soul's emotion voice, and chant the requiem it 
 would pen ! 
 
 Prepared by the equipment of academic life, he entered upon 
 the study of the law with rarest qualifications for the mastery of its 
 
44 Penwkl of fetifrillt feroaht. 
 
 principles and the application of its doctrines, and when ad- 
 mitted to minister at the altars of her inner sanctuary, 
 
 "Where Strength, and Beauty, all are allied," 
 
 its grandeur neither overwhelmed nor daunted, but, as if his 
 natural brilliancy and genius " had grown colossal," he at once 
 grappled with and mastered its subtleties, and took position 
 among its advocates rarely equaled — never excelled. 
 
 But not for this alone do we eulogize his memory and deplore 
 his early death. His genial and generous nature, kindly sympa- 
 thy, warm friendship, earnest interest, constancy of devotion ; and, 
 above all, his high and keen sense of honor, purity of principle 
 and integrity of purpose, alike in public and private relations, 
 as well where only the eye and voice of conscience as that of the 
 public could see and criticise, endeared him to all who knew him ; 
 enshrining him in their heart of hearts as among the truest of 
 friends — the manliest of men. 
 
 Proud of his professional attainments and forensic powers as 
 were his brethren at the bar, that was equaled by the admiration 
 and esteem in which he was held by scholars and litterateurs for 
 his achievements in the field of letters. His chasteness of style, 
 beauty of language, clearness of strength and elevation of senti- 
 ment gave him their chaplet of honor, and twined his name 
 among those to whom the world might safely look for cheer and 
 instruction. 
 
 But yesterday, standing on soil consecrated by patriot blood, 
 beneath the shadow of that battle-scarred venerable pile — " The 
 Old Fort," — was heard the resonant notes of his silvered elo- 
 quence, proclaiming the honor of the State to the humble Patriot ; 
 glorifying the fealty to trust in whatever sphere, and so inciting a 
 reverence for the memory of those to whose devotion the nation 
 owes its existence ; appealing to all to hold as sacred the liberties 
 bought at so fearful a price : — To-day he "sleeps the sleep that 
 knows no waking " — to-morrow his cold remains will be borne, 
 
Utraurrial of <® ratfrilk fcnrant. 45 
 
 not to that " temple of silence and reconciliation where the 
 enmities of twenty generations lie buried," but to that place — 
 holier than Westminster's " long drawn aisle," where affection 
 gently deposits its departed — where nature's fragrance floats, 
 where weeping hearts shall come, and loving hands scatter the 
 emblems of love, and so shed upon his resting place the aroma 
 of Faith and Trust. 
 
 Sleep, Brother, sleep ! Ours the legacy of thy noble deeds 
 and worth, which shall remain to cheer " while memory holds a 
 seat." 
 
 New York, May i, 1878. 
 
 My Dear Pierson : One of the regrets I have in going to 
 Europe this summer is that I cannot attend the Union Alumni 
 meeting. I hope some notice will be taken of those who have 
 died during the year. Appropriate references and records should 
 be made every year. 
 
 You know how much I admired and loved Grenville Tremain. 
 I know of no words which can be written opposite his name more 
 fitting than those he himself spoke of another, once, who died 
 young. They are these : 
 
 " Wherever loyalty and valor are respected; wherever steadfastness and 
 manly devotion are admired; wherever youth, ambition, intelligence and 
 beauty combined command interest and win affection, there will his char- 
 acter be cordially and truly appreciated." 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 
 Hon. Henry R. Pierson. 
 
ORATION. 
 
 Delivered by Grentille Tremain on the Laying of the 
 
 porner-stone of pavid williams' /w.onument, at 
 
 Schoharie, September^ 23, 1876. 
 
 Mr." President and Fellow-Citizens — In that temple of 
 silence and reconciliation where the enmities of twenty generations 
 lie buried, in the tender and solemn gloom of that venerable abbey 
 wherein is gathered the honored dust of England's bravest and 
 best, surrounded by " royal sarcophagus and carved shrine, and by 
 fading banners which tell of the knights of former time ; where the 
 Chathams and Mansfields repose, and where orators and poets lie," 
 is a conspicuous monument, bearing this inscription : 
 
 " Sacred to the memory of Major John Andre, who, 
 raised by his merit at an early period of his life to the 
 rank of Adjutant-General of the British forces in Amer- 
 ica, AND EMPLOYED IN AN IMPORTANT BUT HAZARDOUS ENTER- 
 PRISE, FELL A SACRIFICE TO HIS ZEAL FOR HIS KING AND 
 COUNTRY." 
 
 By command of England's king, George the Third, was this mon- 
 ument raised in Westminster Abbey. The sculptor, true to the 
 historical fact, has pictured and perpetuated the singular sense of pain 
 and grief entertained by those who were the foes of him whose name 
 is thus prominently carved in the temple of fame. Contemplating, as 
 it were, with bowed head this rare homage of a great nation to her 
 dead, the spectator is moved to inquire more minutely into the 
 events of this life so grandly immortalized. What has won so 
 much in a career of only twenty-nine years ? In this sacred mauso- 
 leum of England's mighty dead, where, 
 
 Through long-drawn aisle, and fretted vault, 
 
 sweep memories of those who have enriched the language, ennobled 
 the human intellect, elevated humanity, or perpetuated in immortal 
 verse the emotions and passions of men, on every side are names, 
 the very utterance of which is an era, an army, an anthem, an em- 
 pire. To associate with these mighty dead, how incalculable the 
 
ISltmoriuI of feuttllc Swmain. 47 
 
 honor ! How indelible the record here engraven ! How immortal 
 the fame here perpetuated ! 
 
 And yet this man thus wept by his foes and immortalized by his 
 country was an enemy to American liberty, a foe to republican- 
 ism, whose death was ignoble, and whose ashes reposed for forty 
 years under the free soil of our own land, marked only by a tree 
 whose fruit never blossomed. That monument to the memory of 
 John Andre would never have been raised, no such inscription 
 would ever have been written, and that grim irony would not have 
 marred the greatness of Westminster Abbey, but for the critical act, 
 the crucial conduct, and the incorruptible honor of him whose name 
 is upon every lip and in every heart here to-day. 
 
 The minute details of the story and the life that are brought to 
 mind by the ceremonies of this day will be wrought out by another 
 and more competent hand. The expression of the thoughts and 
 emotions suggested by the accepted facts connected with the 
 memorable event of September 23, 1780, and a mere outline of the 
 occurrence, are more appropriately within the province of the duty 
 assigned to me. In the contemplation of the performance of that 
 duty I am sustained, buoyed and strengthened by a belief in the 
 leniency of judgment and the charitable consideration of thos e 
 whom I address. 
 
 To us, living when the nation's life has spanned a century, when 
 her greatness and her power are recognized in every clime and 
 upon every ssa, when the rich blessings of civil and religious lib- 
 erty accompany every heart-throb and every breath — to us the 
 page that records the fidelity and the transcendent honor of David 
 Williams, John Paulding and Isaac Van Wart, is serried with lines 
 of the deepest interest, and glorious with letters that can never 
 fade. 
 
 We open to-day the book that perpetuates the history of revolu- 
 tionary times, that tells how our country was baptized with fire and 
 blood ; how, through toils, and labors, and sacrifices, and sorrows, 
 and prayers, this last hope of republicanism arose ; and we know 
 that the " red rain of her slaughtered sires has but watered the 
 earth for the harvest of their gallant sons." We turn to the chapter 
 blackened by the only traitor that disgraced the revolutionary pe- 
 riod, to find that his treachery was defeated and the infant nation 
 saved by the'providential presence and the memorable act of him to 
 whom we this day erect with pageant and with pride this monu- 
 mental tribute . 
 
 That Andre's was an important but hazardous enterprise is now 
 more fully appreciated than even when the stirring events of that 
 period were being enacted — nay, than during the first half century 
 
48 Ipmtorial of feitfrilk % rtmahr. 
 
 of the nation's life. The true nature of that enterprise as well, 
 thanks to the unerring adjustment of time, has become fixed and 
 certain wherever intelligence and judicial fairness prevail over pas- 
 sion or sentimentality. I would not if I could, and certainly I could 
 not if I would, mar the charm of that picture which the character 
 and personality of Major Andre presents. Dissociated from the 
 terrible consequences which would have resulted from a successful 
 termination of that enterprise, and independent of the attempt made 
 in certain quarters in England to cast a shade upon the spotless 
 character of Washington, we cannot contemplate the fate of Andre 
 without emotions of the profoundest pity. Wherever loyalty and 
 valor are respected, wherever steadfastness and manly devotion 
 are admired, wherever youth, ambition, intelligence and beauty 
 combined, command interest and win affection, there will the char- 
 acter of Major Andre be cordially and truly appreciated. But these 
 very qualities of heart and mind were the underlying causes of his 
 connection with the enterprise. Considered with all the surround- 
 ing circumstances, however, 1 have no hesitation in saying that, in 
 comparison with the high noon glory that surrounds the distin- 
 guished service, lofty firmness and untarnished honor of our own 
 Nathan Hale, the conduct of Andre pales into a glimmering twi- 
 light. He who by corruption and bribery seeks profit and renown, 
 has no place beside him who for love of liberty, considers his own 
 single life but an insignificant offering upon the altar of his 
 country. 
 
 The method of Andre" s death was an inseparable accompaniment 
 of the act and of the offense. The laws of war and of nations 
 have inexorably imposed the penalty, and its infamy cannot be 
 lessened in the world's estimation by the fact that his brother was 
 invested with the honors of knighthood. Vattel, the great expos- 
 itor of the laws of nations and of war, while he recognizes such 
 enterprises as not contrary to the external law of nations, denies 
 that they are just and compatible with the laws of a pure con- 
 science, and says: "Seducing a subject to betray his country; 
 suborning a traitor to set fire to a magazine ; practicing on the 
 fidelity of a governor — enticing him, persuading him to deliver up 
 a place, is prompting such persons to commit detestable crimes. 
 Is it honest to incite our most inveterate enemy to be guilty of a 
 crime? * * * It is a different thing merely to accept the offers 
 of a traitor, but when we know ourselves able to succeed without 
 the assistance of traitors, it is noble to reject their offers with de- 
 testation." 
 
 At this distance of time, then, we view the act of Andre - with that 
 
Hlmtorial of (frtiiMIk fenmhr. 49 
 
 calmness and repose of judgment that does not err, and which is 
 
 not warped by 
 
 " Titles blown from adulation." 
 
 This is the darker side of the picture essential to its completeness ; 
 but there are lighter shades to attract the eye and warm the heart. 
 Let us examine them. 
 
 Stand with me upon that historic spot, hard by Tarrytown, in the 
 county of Westchester, where thejdark blow that was aimed at the 
 life of the young nation was arrested. There the zealous Andre 
 sees visions of future glory and honor, kingliest rewards, within 
 his very grasp. There, as he rides along his solitary path beyond 
 the American lines and on the very verge of safetv, he knows that 
 his heel is upon the throat of American freedom and independence. 
 Within sight the great artery of trade and commerce flows majestic 
 to the sea, unconscious that on this hapless morning of September 
 21, 1780, its bosom is vexed by the Vulture laden with the fate of 
 nations and of centuries. The giant mountains, sentinels of the 
 centuries, stand and see the beginning and the tragic ending of the 
 hellish plot which includes the destinies of the nation, and the 
 sacrifice of the precious life upon which those destinies hang. 
 Standing at this point of observation, the magnitude of the service 
 of David Williams is more fully seen, is more fully comprehended. 
 In the rusty garb of a reduced gentleman the solitary horseman, as 
 he approaches, is now the central figure of our view. And who is 
 he ? Major John Andre, adjutant-general of the British forces in 
 America. He has left the *' Mercuries reclining upon bales of goods, 
 and the Genii playing with pens, ink and paper." Mercantile glo- 
 ries crowd no longer upon his fancy. An " impertinent conscious- 
 ness " has whispered in his ear that he is not of the right stuff for 
 a merchant, and the picture of his beautiful and beloved Honora 
 has lost the talismanic power to lighten toil and inspire industry. 
 Accomplished in the lighter graces of music, poetry and painting, 
 graceful and cultured in literary expression, fired with a zeal for 
 glory : 
 
 " Yearning for the large excitement 
 
 that the coming years would yield, 
 
 Eager-hearted as a boy, 
 
 when first he leaves his father's field," 
 
 he has turned his glowing nature toward the profession of his heart. 
 In the words of his biographer, few men were more capable than he 
 of winning a soldier's reward. A prisoner at the surrender of St. 
 Johns, we see him clinging to the picture his own hand had painted 
 of the loved Honora; promoted for merit and fidelity to a position 
 far above his years and experience, winning the confidence and af- 
 
50 Ulrmorial of feuMUt fanmht. 
 
 fection of his chief, Sir Henry Clinton, he is now commissioned for a 
 service of which the King- of England did not hesitate to say that 
 "the public never can be compensated for the vast advantages 
 which must have followed from the success of his plan." 
 
 Up to that critical moment, nine o'clock on the morning of the 
 23d of September, there had been no special lack of discretion on 
 Andre's part. He had been borne along by fates that were propi- 
 tious, so far as human ken could see, though in fact perils were ap- 
 proaching from sources called accidental, perils which to him were 
 entirely unforeseen. For more than a year he had, without expos- 
 ure or suspicion, conducted a clandestine correspondence with 
 the traitor Arnold. The treason had been hidden under the 
 phrases of the mercantile profession. Arnold, under the feigned 
 name of '' Gustavus," had communicated much valuable, and often 
 highly important information to Andre whom he addressed as John 
 Anderson . Sir Henry Clinton, the commander of the British forces, 
 had soon suspected the true rank and person of Gustavus. Several 
 attempts at a personal interview had miscarried, but the infidelity of 
 Arnold had never been suspected. He had by importunity at last sue ■ 
 ceeded in obtaining from Washington command of West Point with- 
 out causing the slightest shade of suspicion to cross the sagacious 
 mind of that watchful commander. There his plottings were renewed- 
 Even the overture which had come in response to his communica- 
 tions, and borne by the ominous Vulture up the Hudson to within 
 fourteen miles of Arnold's quarters, near West Point, had been 
 shown to Washington in the presence of La Fayette, with a brazen 
 boldness that extinguished all doubts of Arnold's honor. " I had 
 no more suspicion of Arnold than I had of myself," said the chief 
 in relating this. On the 20th, Andre had boarded the Vulture in 
 the highest spirits, confident of success. The details of that mid- 
 night voyage of twelve miles, from King's Ferry to Teller's Point, 
 and back from the Vulture to Long Clove, are known to all. With 
 oars carefully muffled in sheep-skins, the flag-boat, so called, be- 
 neath a serene and clear sky, approached in silence the place of 
 meeting, where the archtraitor was hid among the firs. 
 
 From this point occur a series of trivial circumstances, insignifi- 
 cant in themselves but yet big with fate. The refusal of the boat- 
 men to return to the Vulture that night, necessitated the journey to 
 the Smith house, some three or four miles distant, the consequent 
 disguise assumed by Andre" to escape detection during the return 
 by land, and as well the possession of the papers found under Andre's 
 stockings, which led his captors to the knowledge of his true char- 
 acter. Without that disguise and without those papers, while the 
 conspiracy might not have been defeated, the life of Andre" would 
 
P*moriaI of fenHIle feniahr. 5 1 
 
 have been saved. But the memorable act of Col. Livingston is 
 still more remarkable. At day-break, on the morning of the 22d, 
 the Vulture still lingered with impudent audacity in the vicinity of 
 the American fortifications. Her presence had so outraged the 
 spirit of Livingston and the troops that he had applied, but without 
 success, to Arnold for two heavy guns. Nothing daunted by the 
 treasonable refusal of Arnold, he had carried a four-pounder to Gal- 
 lows Point, a lesser promontory of Tellers, and with but a scant 
 supply of powder, he commenced so active a cannonading upon her 
 that she was obliged to drop down the river beyond range. In 
 this manner all means of access to her by water was cut off from 
 Andre\ But for the American grit and perseverance of Livingston, 
 Andre would doubtless have found some means of again boarding 
 the Vulture, carrying with him the instruments for the destruction 
 of West Point and her dependencies. Upon such apparently trivial 
 and accidental incidents does the fate of nations frequently depend. 
 From the window of Smith's house Andre saw with impatience 
 the Vulture withdraw, but he knew not that she carried with her 
 all his hopes of future glory and renown. All that morning after 
 Arnold's departure, which occurred at ten o'clock, he chafed with 
 impatience to depart. But the jealous, prying, gossip-loving guide, 
 in whose care Andre had been left, proved too timid, weak and pro- 
 crastinating for the part assigned him. Toward the last of that 
 ill-omened Friday, the return was begun, with Andre's spirits sunk 
 deep in gloom and sadness. And well might they be. The bargain 
 had been made by which, for gold, an officer, high in the esteem of 
 Washington, had sold his birth-right and his honor. During that 
 long night he had been breathing the foul atmosphere where treason 
 was hatched, had been looking into a face wrinkled with perfidy, 
 into the blood-shot eyes of a debauched and worthless traitor. And 
 he, the soul of honor, " the pet of the British army," had been bar- 
 tering with devilish coolness for the soul of a fellow-man. Involved 
 in that midnight conference were the lives of men who had never 
 done him injury, and the happiness of innocent women and chil- 
 dren who had never crossed his path. He, the hero, who had been 
 fired by a desire to win renown by heroic bravery and distinguished 
 service for his country, was skulking inside the enemy's lines like 
 a common thief in disguise, the companion of a petty tool and his 
 negro, and with his stockings stuffed with an ill-gotten booty, 
 bought with the price of another's dishonor. Is it any wonder 
 that his mind settled into gloomy forebodings ? 
 
 He crossed King's Ferry at the northern extremity of Haver- 
 straw bay and took his way, under the dictation of his over-cautious 
 companion, northward, to disarm suspicion. Here another trivial 
 
52 Pumoriul of feiujillc famahr. 
 
 circumstance interposed itself with unerring fatality. Smith, the 
 willing tool of Arnold, insisted upon remaining over night on the 
 way. Fatal error ! In the darkness and silence of that night there 
 were hidden forces at work, which would block the morrow's path 
 with a wall more impregnable than Fort Putnam. The honor and 
 incorruptibility of David Williams was a part of its masonry. 
 
 All night the restless Andre tossed upon an uneasy bed, side by 
 side with the miserable creature whose easy virtue had yielded to 
 the persuasions of Arnold. Is it wonderful that both should have 
 been robbed of sleep ? Is it strange that at daylight and without 
 breakfast they should hasten on in the path that was to lead Andre 
 to the feet of his sovereign, to receive a grateful country's homage 
 and reward ? 
 
 And now we approach the place and the act in commemoration 
 of which, by the tardy favor and justice of our State, we are assem- 
 bled here to-day. 
 
 The three captors of Major Andre, whose names have become 
 renowned, would in all likelihood have remained unknown to future 
 generations, had Smith, as he agreed, accompanied Andre to White 
 Plains, below Tarrytown. But yielding to his pusillanimous fears, 
 he refused to go further than Pines Bridge. 
 
 From this point, then, our solitary horseman approaches the 
 place where we stand. To the west of the road was the river ; to 
 the east, the Greenburgh Hills, in whose bosom lies the world-re- 
 nowned vale of Sleepy Hollow, with its old church founded by the 
 Philipse family, and the ancient bell with its legend, Deus pro nobis, 
 quis contra nos. In front of him as he passes, a few rough logs laid 
 side by side, furnish a passage over a rivulet, which rises in the 
 neighboring swamp and finds its way westward into those broad 
 waters of the Hudson known as the Tappaan Zee. 
 
 Here on the south and west side of the path, concealed among 
 the bushes, are David Williams, the eldest of the party (he being 
 about twenty-two years old), John Paulding and Isaac Van Wart, 
 yeomen. Not freeholders under the rank of gentlemen, but Ameri- 
 can citizens of humble birth, two of whom had already risked their 
 lives in the service of their country and in the cause of the colonies, 
 against whom the breath of slander from sentimental or compas- 
 sionate lips, had not yet breathed a shade of suspicion ; represen- 
 tatives of that " Peasant Patriotism of America — the conquering 
 power of the revolution — the essential element then, as now, and 
 evermore, of American greatness and American freedom ! " 
 
 Springing to their feet, with presented muskets, they bid the 
 stranger stand and announce his destination. Surely the darling 
 of the British army, who, by sagacity, prudence and bravery, has 
 
PltmoriBl of <§u«iAJk famaiti. 53 
 
 been elevated to the rank of adjutant-general of the British forces 
 in America, is possessed of sufficient caution to disarm this brist- 
 ling trio ! Not so. Although armed with Arnold's pass to guard 
 him against the only real enemies he has cause to fear, and which 
 has already put to sleep the awakened suspicions of the wary Cap- 
 tain Boyd, some overruling Providence leads him to make that 
 fatal answer, " My lads, I hope you belong to our party." The re- 
 ply comes quick, ''What party is that?" "The lower party," he 
 answered. '' We do," is the reply. ''Thank God, I am once more 
 among friends," he cried, deceived by the rude simplicity of the 
 men, and recognizing a British military coat upon Paulding's back, 
 a coat in which (in lieu of his own, of which he had been despoiled) 
 Paulding had escaped from the enemy, in whose hands he had 
 fallen some five or six days before the capture of Andre'. " I am 
 glad to see you, I am a British officer ; I have been up in the coun- 
 try on particular business, and I hope you won't detain me a min- 
 ute," confidently continued Andre. 
 
 The long agony was over ! That mine which had been set for the 
 overthrow of the citadel of American freedom and independence, 
 whose train it had taken months to lay, was now exposed and harm- 
 less, unless 
 
 "The jingling of the guinea 
 That helps the hurt that honor feels." 
 
 can successfully assail the virtue of Williams, Van Wart and Pauld- 
 ing. This vast assemblage, these ceremonies, the projected monu- 
 ment over the remains of David Williams, but above all that waving 
 symbol of the power and greatness of this nation, tell with unmis- 
 takable and an unanswerable emphasis of the incorruptible integrity 
 of these simple rustic men. 
 
 The State of New York has honored herself by making the ap- 
 propriation necessary to commence this monument over the remains 
 of the only one of that immortal three, whose grave remains to this 
 day unhonored. In 1827 the city of New York erected a monument 
 over the remains of Paulding near Peekskill, bearing this significant 
 inscription : 
 
 " On the morning of the 23d of September, 1780, accompanied by two 
 young farmers of the county of Westchester (whose names will one day 
 be recorded on their own deserved monuments) he intercepted the British 
 spy Andre. Poor himself, he disdained to acquire wealth by the sacri- 
 fice of his country. Rejecting the temptation of great rewards, he con- 
 veyed his prisoner to the American camp ; and by this act of noble self- 
 denial the treason of Arnold was detected, the designs of the enemy 
 
 7 
 
54 Htnjtortal of (foitfrilk fetnain. 
 
 baffled, West Point and the American army saved, and these United 
 States, now, by the Grace of God, Free and Independent, rescued from 
 most imminent peril.''' 
 
 At Greenburgh, near Tarrytown, on the spot where the remains 
 of Isaac Van Wart lie buried, the citizens of the vicinity erected, in 
 1829, a suitable monument, with the following inscription engraven 
 thereon : 
 
 " Fidelity. On the 23d of September, 1780, Isaac Van Wart, accom- 
 panied by John Paulding and David Williams, all farmers of the 
 county of Westchester, intercepted Major Andre on his return from the 
 American lines in the character of a spy ; and, notwithstanding the 
 large bribes offered them for his release, nobly disdained to sacrifice 
 their country for gold, secured and carried him to the commanding officer 
 of the district, whereby the dangerous and traitorous conspiracy of 
 Arnold was brought to light, the insidious designs of the enemy baffled, 
 the American army saved, and our beloved country free.'' 
 
 On the memorable site where the capture occurred, the young 
 men of Westchester county, in 1853, built a cenotaph in honor of 
 the captors. How appropriate, then, that in this beautiful valley 
 and in this county, where the survivor of the three lived for twenty- 
 six years, and where he died and was buried, there should rise an 
 enduring mark of the gratitude and appreciation of this people ! 
 
 It does not become the time nor the occasion to enter upon any 
 extended discussion of the mooted questions surrounding the pur- 
 poses and motives of Andre's captors. It is too late a day to reverse 
 the judgment of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, of 
 Congress and the Legislature of this State, all pronounced at the 
 time. Besides the united testimony of a host of their neighbors 
 and acquaintances, the sworn statements of Paulding and Van 
 Wart, and the solemn asseverations of Williams seven months before 
 his death in 1831, all unite in bearing down, with an unanswerable 
 weight of testimony, the eleventh hour statement of Col. Tallmadge 
 thirty-seven years after the capture. To all this we may add the 
 critical analysis, by Henry J. Raymond, of the whole testimony 
 bearing on the subject. That acute publicist dismissed the slander 
 to the reprobation it deserves, and the almost universal judgment 
 of the American people confirms the verdict. For myself, I may be 
 permitted to add, that in my judgment, when examined with fair- 
 ness, and tested by the rules of common sense and common justice, 
 
UTtmorral of feiujille femaht. 55 
 
 every candid mind must inevitably conclude that the overwhelming 
 balance of proof is upon the side of the incorruptible honesty and 
 purity of their motives. Nothing more reliable than rumor and 
 suspicion arising from statements made solely by Andre", stand upon 
 the other side, statements, it must never be forgotten, which sprang 
 from a heart sorely dejected, chagrined and mortified by his own 
 lack of common prudence ; made, too, at a time when his mind, sunk 
 beneath a weight of woe almost incalculable, was seeking for relief 
 in the contemplation of what might have been. It is our duty to 
 guard the reputation of these humble patriots against this misty 
 testimony rising out of such a cauldron of self-interest. It must 
 always be borne in mind that the British would not concede that 
 true virtue was a feature of character belonging to Americans ; and 
 Andre, fresh from a field where he had witnessed the debased char- 
 acter of a high officer, was in no condition of mind to stem the tide 
 of opinion that flowed within the English lines. The virtue of these 
 men, under such circumstances, could not be, and evidently was 
 not comprehended. In the words of Lt.-Col. Fleury, written from 
 Newport, on the 5th of October, 1780: " How great, compared to 
 Arnold, are those peasants who refused the bribe of Andre. Let 
 this be remembered in favor of the poor." 
 
 I may be permitted to express the hope, that somewhere upon 
 this projected monument to David Williams will appear these 
 notable words of Washington in his letter to the President of Con- 
 gress : "The party that took Major Andre * * acted in such a 
 manner as does them the highest honor, and proves them to be 
 men of great virtue, * * their conduct gives them a just claim 
 to the thanks of their country." 
 
 Perhaps the true nature of this conduct is more eloquently and 
 luminously told in the words of Alexander Hamilton, in the Laurens 
 letter, where he says : " Arnold's conduct and that of the captors 
 of Andre", form a striking contrast. He tempted them with the 
 offer of his watch, his horse and any sum of money that they should 
 name. They rejected his offer with indignation, and the gold that 
 could seduce a man, high in the esteem and confidence of his coun- 
 try, who had the remembrance of past exploits, the motives of 
 present reputation, and future glory to prop his integrity, had 
 no charms for these simple peasants leaning on their virtue 
 and an honest sense of their duty. While Arnold is handed down 
 with execration, posterity will repeat with reverence the names of 
 Van Wart, Paulding and Williams ! " 
 
 I owe it to the occasion, to you and to myself, to present some 
 considerations in support of the constantly recurring thought 
 throughout this discourse, of the grave importance of Arnold's 
 
56 Unmoral 0f fenAMle Snmatir. 
 
 plot. I have already alluded to the estimate of its advantages to 
 the British government pronounced by King George the Third. 
 From the abundant materials furnished by those in the English 
 service at the time, I will only add the following from the memoirs 
 of Sir Henry Clinton, commander of the British forces in New 
 York. In speaking of the arrest of Andre, he says : " I was ex- 
 ceedingly shocked, as may be supposed, by this very unexpected 
 accident, which not only ruined a most important project, which 
 had all the appearance of being in a happy train of success, but 
 involved in danger and distress a confidential friend for whom I had 
 deservedly the warmest esteem." 
 
 Creasy, in his " Decisive Battles of the World," has succinctly de- 
 scribed the great and pivotal victory of the Americans at Saratoga, 
 on the 7th of October, 1777. He has conclusively shown the plan 
 of operations which the English attempted in that year, and which 
 the battle of Saratoga defeated. The English had a considerable 
 force in Canada, which had been re-enforced for the purpose of 
 striking a vigorous and crushing blow against the Colonies. It 
 was intended that the force thus collected should march southward 
 by the line of the lakes and thence along the banks of the Hudson 
 river. The British army in New York was to make a simultaneous 
 movement northward up the line of the Hudson, and the two ex- 
 peditions were to meet at Albany. In this manner all communica- 
 tions between the Colonial army in New England, and the principal 
 army under Washington, which was watching over Pennsylvania 
 and the South, would be cut off. The army from Canada was under 
 command of Burgoyne, and that in New York under Sir Henry 
 Clinton. The plan was ably formed, and was defeated only by the 
 consummate skill of Gen. Gates, and the unprecedented bravery 
 "of his men at Saratoga, aided by the delay caused by the fortifica- 
 tions on the lower Hudson, the key of which was West Point, which 
 fortification hindered the prompt co-operation of Sir Henry Clinton 
 with Burgoyne. Clinton, in fact, reached Kingston, where, hear- 
 ing of Burgoyne's surrender, he burned the place and returned to 
 New York. 
 
 What the capture of West Point would have been to the British 
 will be more fully appreciated by an illustration familiar to all. It 
 will be remembered how the country was stirred to its very centre, 
 on the 4th of July, 1863, by the glorious tidings that Vicksburg 
 had fallen, and that " the great Mississippi swept unvexed to the 
 sea." What that meant was soon known. Surrounded, like West 
 Point, with fortifications, redoubts and bastioned forts, it held 
 within its iron grasp the control of the great Mississippi. When it fell, 
 that great artery through which ran the life-blood of the Southern 
 
Ptanorial of (Srinbille femmir. 57 
 
 Confederacy was absolutely within the power of the Federal army. 
 The Rebellion had been cut in twain. In the language of Sherman, 
 "the reduction of Vicksburg made the destruction of the Rebellion 
 certain." What Vicksburg and her dependencies were to the 
 Mississippi in 1863, West Point and her dependencies were to the 
 Hudson in 1780. 
 
 What had been lost, at Saratoga by open force, would have been 
 regained, had West Point and its dependencies fallen by means of 
 the secret plottings of Arnold. '' This was the great object of Brit- 
 ish and American solicitude," says Irving, in speaking of West 
 Point " on the possession of which was supposed by many to hinge 
 the fortunes of the war." And again he says, "the immediate result 
 of this surrender, it was anticipated, would be the defeat of the 
 combined attempt upon New York, and its ultimate effect might be 
 the dismemberment of the Union and the dislocation of the whole 
 American scheme of warfare. 1 ' From the mass of American testi- 
 mony at hand, the following additional proofs are selected. Lafay- 
 ette wrote to his wife, October 8: "A frightful conspiracy has been 
 planned by the celebrated Arnold ; he sold to the English the fort 
 of West Point which was under his command, and consequently 
 the whole navigation of the North river.'' 
 
 General Greene issued a general order on the 26th of October, 
 from which the following is taken ; 
 
 "Treason, of the blackest dye, was yesterday discovered. Gen- 
 eral Arnold, who commanded at West Point — lost to every senti- 
 ment of honor, of private and public obligation — was about to 
 deliver up that important post into the hands of the enemy. Such 
 an event must have given the American cause a deadly wound, if 
 not a fatal stab. Happily this treason has been timely discov- 
 ered to prevent the fatal misfortune. The providential train of cir- 
 cumstances which led to it affords the most convincing proof that 
 the liberties of America are the object of divine protection. At the 
 same time, though the treason is to be regretted, the general cannot 
 help congratulating the army on the happy discovery. Our ene- 
 mies, despairing of carrying their point by force, are practicing 
 every base art to effect by bribery and corruption, what they cannot 
 accomplish in a manly way. Great honor is due to the American 
 army that this is the first instance of the kind, where many were to 
 be expected from the nature of the dispute ; and nothing is so bright 
 an ornament in the character of the American soldiers, as their hav- 
 ing been proof against all the arts and seductions of an insidious 
 enemy. * * * His Excellency the commander-in-chief has ar- 
 rived at West Point from Hartford, and is no doubt taking proper 
 measures to unravel fully so hellish a plot." 
 
58 Pxmorial of feitfitik ferasthr. 
 
 It must be borne in mind, that had the "hellish plot" succeeded, 
 it would have involved the captivity of Washington himself. The 
 following remarkable letter of Governor Wm. Livingston to Gene- 
 ral Washington so entirely expresses the emotions of the hour, that 
 it is inserted in full : 
 
 Trenton, 7 th October, 1780. 
 Dear Sir — I most heartily congratulate your Excellency on the 
 timely discovery of General Arnold's treasonable plot to captivate 
 your person and deliver up West Point to the enemy, of which the 
 loss of the former, had his infernal machinations succeeded, would 
 have been more regretted by America than of the latter. The re- 
 markable disposition of Providence to frustrate the diabolical con- 
 spiracy, will inspire every virtuous American with sincere gratitude to 
 the Great Arbiter of all events ; and I hope that no true Whig among 
 us will ever forget the memorable era when we were, by the peculiar 
 guardianship of heaven, rescued from the very brink of destruction. 
 
 I have the honor to be 
 
 your very obedient servant, 
 
 William Livingston. 
 
 Is it any wonder, then, that with pomp and circumstance, and 
 with grateful hearts, we assemble to perpetuate with enduring gran- 
 ite, here under the broad sky, and upon the free acres of our beloved 
 country, that transcendent act and that renowned virtue of these 
 captors of Andre ! 
 
 Though neglected, he whose ashes lie buried here was not abso- 
 lutely forgotten by his country, and it is proper that allusion should 
 be made to the rewards which a grateful country has bestowed upon 
 him. 
 
 By authority of congress, in 1780, a silver medal bearing the in- 
 scription of " Fidelity " and the legend " Vincit Amor Patria " was 
 presented to each of the captors, and at the same time an annuity 
 was authorized to be paid to each of $200 in specie. In addition, 
 congress granted to each the privilege of locating any confiscated 
 lands in the county of Westchester to the amount of $1,250 or of 
 receiving that sum in cash. The legislature of the State of New 
 York granted to each a farm, reciting in the act as a consideration 
 " their virtue in refusing a large sum offered to them by Major 
 Andre" as a bribe to permit him to escape." In the fall of 1830 the 
 corporation of the city of New York invited David Williams (the 
 survivor of the three), by special messenger to be present in that 
 city at the celebration of the French Revolution. He was drawn, 
 with other heroes of '76, in a carriage at the head of the procession 
 and attracted much attention. He was presented with a silver cup 
 
Memorial ai (frm&HIe fenraht. 59 
 
 at one of the schools and at another with a silver headed cane, the 
 stem of which was made out of a chevaux de frise used near West 
 Point during the revolution. His widow obtained a continuation 
 of his pension, which ceased at the time of his death. Forty-five 
 years ago, amid a concourse of honoring friends and countrymen, 
 he was buried at Livingstonville, in this county. His remains have 
 been removed by consent of his descendants to this place. 
 
 Here in this locality, made memorable by the ruinous invasion of 
 Johnson about the time when the events we have described were 
 transpiring near Tarrytown — here near the place where the 
 " peeled log " of the enemy left its mark upon the old Dutch 
 church — here where brave men and braver women stood with un- 
 daunted courage in the midst of conflagration, ruin and death — 
 where the red men showed no mercy, and where patriots never 
 flinched — let his ashes lie. Not in the midst of royal sarcophagi 
 or carved shrines, but surrounded by the veneration of untold 
 generations of freeborn Americans ; not wholly unhonored, as here- 
 tofore, but graced and adorned with a permanent token of our re- 
 membrance and esteem. For at last, thanks to the interest and 
 sense of justice of many good men and true, the legislature of the 
 State, by making an appropriation for the monument, has removed 
 the stain which the neglect of forty-five years had fastened upon us. 
 
 Standing where we do to-day, as it were upon the apex of a pyra- 
 mid, we look back over the way the nation has so grandly trod. 
 In the beginning we perceive the toiling multitudes, who, regard- 
 less of personal sacrifice, conscious of their own rectitude and 
 relying upon the favor of God, wrought out the greatest empire of 
 freedom the world has ever seen. In that great work, so full of 
 the richest blessings for us and for our children, let it be 'remem- 
 bered, that the part performed by the humblest, was often as im- 
 portant as that of the greatest. The cause of the colonies was near 
 to the hearts of the people. That was the security of the nation 
 then, and it cannot endure without it now. 
 
 '■ Oh ! if the young men of our time would glow with a healthy 
 pride of race ; if they would kindle with the inspiration of patriot- 
 ism ; if they would find annals wealthier in enduring lesson, and 
 bright with the radiance of a holier virtue than ever Rome em- 
 braced or Sparta knew, let them read their own land's history." 
 Then may we be hopeful for the future. Then may the story we 
 rehearse here to-day be borne to future ages along with the grow- 
 ing grandeur of this mighty nation which was built upon the 
 devotion, and will be sustained by the bright example of the 
 Revolutionary Patriots.