F 129 
 .K2 J4 
 Copy 1 
 
 // 
 
 
 
 JUDGE WM. H. ROBERTSON— THE KATO- 
 NAH POST-OFFICE— THE WILLETT SWIN- 
 DLE—AND THE HARLEM BRIDGE. 
 
 ^.'^ •^^." . 
 
 To THE Editor of the Eastern State Journal, 
 
 W/nteplains, Wedchester County^ N. Y. 
 
 Sir,— I have to thank you for your attention in sending me, 
 at my request, a copy of your paper containing an editorial 
 headed "Tlie Katonah Post-office — Mr. Jay triumphant," 
 which I received this morning. 
 
 I find in tliis article three statements Avhich I tliink render 
 it proper I should reply to it, and as I cannot reply as briefly 
 as I could wish, I fear I shall trespass on your cQ,urtesy if I 
 ask the use of your columns for the purpose. 
 
 The three points to which I refer arc these : 
 
 First — Your reference to the post-office dispute as a per- 
 sonal one between Judge Robertson and myself. 
 
 Second— Xowx declaration that % abolitionism and radical- 
 ism have at last prevailed in this controversy as they have in 
 shaping the policy of the administration in the conduct of the 
 war, and that Africa carries ofi' the palm." 
 
 And, Thirdly— Yom announcement that " Judge Robertson 
 is not disposed to give it up so, but will, at the proper time, re- 
 commence operations with renewed vigor and determination." 
 
 This announcement, I may remark, is confirmed by reports 
 that Judge Robertson, and his cousin, the Hon. Hezekiah D. 
 Robertson, of the Senate, are now engaged in bringing influ- 
 ence from other parts of the State to assist them in again 
 removing Mr. Benedict; and in view of their new "operations" 
 
nz^ 
 
 to overpower, a second time, the wishes of the people of the 
 Katonah district by political wire-pulling, threatening as they 
 do not only the harmony and integrity of the Republican par- 
 ty, but what is vastly more important, the foundation principle 
 of our Republican institutions, it becomes proper that the x^eo- 
 ple of Westchester, and the public generally, should be advised 
 of the true character of the movement from the beginning to 
 the end. 
 
 The Katonah case, from the length of the contest, with its 
 varying phases, its ramifications extending from Albany to 
 Washington, with its side issues branching off into the Church, 
 the Bar, the Board of Supervisoi-s, and the CoUectorship of 
 Internal Revenue, has become a part of the political history of 
 Westchester county, and its influence is not yet, perhaps, fully 
 developed in determining the fate of politicians and the policy 
 of parties. 
 
 I shall endeavor the more carefully to state the facts with 
 accuracy for the reason that the malignancy with which I have 
 been treated may naturally be supposed to have impaired my 
 impartiality. There liave been, I admit, a good many lies 
 written about me in the matter, some of which I may, inci- 
 dentally, correct ; and even if my object were to revenge 
 personal griefs, instead of righting a great public wrong, I 
 would have the same motive to avoid exaggeration, for I re- 
 cognize as strictly applicable to this case the pointed epi- 
 gram — 
 
 Lie on, andjny revenge shall be 
 To tell the very truth of tliee. 
 
 Originally the contest for the post-oflice, between Mr. J. 
 B. AVhitlock, Jr., and Mr. Moses S. Benedict, who are brotliers- 
 in-law, was a fair and friendly one. Mr. Benedict was recom- 
 mended for the post in April, 1861, by the Hon. Arnell F. 
 Dickinson, Jared D. Powell, Walter S. Lyon, and others of 
 our most respectable citizens ; and my preference for Mi-. 
 Benedict was chiefly owing to the fact that, in his shop the 
 post-oftiee would l>e disconnected from the sale of liquor. Judge 
 Robertson asked nie (Aug. 31, 1861), as a favor to him, to sup- 
 port Whitlock ; and I replied, " If Mr. Benedict consents, and 
 
8 
 
 Mr. WJiitlock will give iip the sale of liquor, I will, with 
 pleasure, assist to procure his aiDpointinent. My objection to 
 iiim has been founded on this alone ; but it is an objection 
 which he alone can remove. It is based on mj conviction of 
 what the public interest requires, and it is, therefore, one which 
 I cannot waive, even to do you a personal favor." 
 
 On the 2rth Sept., 1861, Judge Robertson wrote to me— 
 " My Dear Sir,— Benedict has been appointed postmaster. I 
 could not prevent UP This was the first announcement to me 
 of Benedict's success, and I wrote to him as follows : 
 
 " I congratulate jou on your appointment as postmaster, 
 and trust you will fulfill its duties with great exactness and with 
 constant regard to the convenience of tlie public. I would like 
 your post-office to be a model office in all particulars. ^ * 
 I hope that you will not allow what has passed to interrupt, in 
 any degree, the harmony that has existed between you and 
 Messrs. Whitlock and Eobertson ; and I would like to know 
 that good-will is restored on all hands." 
 
 Mr. Benedict did proceed immediately to make his office a 
 model office, and was himself recognized as a model post- 
 master. 
 
 Regarding Judge Robertson's note to me as a frank an- 
 nouncement that the contest was ended, I gave myself no 
 farther trouble about it until, on the 22d December, at Mr. 
 Benedict's suggestion that there was some plotting against him, 
 I wrote to the Department, and was informed, in reply, on the 
 4th January, that before the receipt of my letter Mr. Bene- 
 dict had been removed, at the wish " particularly of Judo-e 
 Robertson." 
 
 I immediately took measures for suspending the issuing of 
 the commission, and on the 9th Jan., 1862, 1 addressed to Judge 
 Robertson. the following letter : 
 
 Sir, — Considerations connected with the friendly feelino-s 
 entertained for you by my father, and those my family aiid 
 myself have entertained for you, induce me to address to you 
 this note. 
 
 I am advised, by a letter from Mr. Kasson, the Assistant 
 Postmaster-General, that yoa have succeeded in inducino: the 
 
Department to remove Mr. Benedict from the post-office at 
 Katonali, and to appoint Mr. "Wliitlock in liis place. 
 
 The contest l)ctween these candidates, before the removal of 
 Mr, Gregory, was a long one. You did 3'our best to defeat Bene- 
 dict, and I found no fault with your efforts, and I said as much 
 in a letter I wrote at your request. » 
 
 After Mr. Benedict was appointed tlie contest should have 
 closed, or, if renewed, it should have been done openly. 
 
 To procnre the removal of a public officer, who is faithfally 
 performing his duty, from personal motives, and to procure his 
 removal, from such motives, hy ex jyarie means, I think doubly 
 wrong — a wrong to the officer who is displaced and whose 
 cliaracter is subjected to suspicion, — a wrong to the Govern- 
 ment whose dignity is impaired by its being under the instru- 
 ment of private motives, — and a wrong to the country at large 
 whom that Government represents. 
 
 For these reasons I disapprove of the removal of Mr. Bene- 
 dict, and I shall, if it becomes neccessary, use my best efforts 
 to have him restored. 
 
 I am aware, as you probably know, that Mr. Wliitlock did 
 not care for the office, for he frankly told me so himself. I am 
 aware also that your hostility to Mr. Benedict arises from his 
 having voted against you in 1859, for I have it under your own 
 hand, each line emphaticall}" underscored. 
 
 As to Mr. Benedict's restoration to his office, of that I have 
 not tlie slightest doubt. It involves a principle of justice and 
 propriety that is of interest to the whole country, and which our 
 Republican Government cannot ignore or trample on. 
 
 The effort may involve more or less of labor and trouble, 
 but the result is certain. How far such a contest will be of 
 benefit to your judicial reputation, your personal character, and 
 your future prospects, may be a question for your considera- 
 tion. 
 
 Before entering upon that contest, I think it proper to say 
 that I shall enter upon it with reluctance, and on your account 
 I am desirous, if possible, to avoid it. 
 
 The immediate issuing of the commission is probably stopped ; 
 but whether this be so, or not, if Mr. AVhitlock, who is guided 
 by your advice, will at once decline the appointment, leaving 
 Mr. Benedict undisturbed, it will save me, and perhaps your- 
 self, from a good deal of trouble. 
 
 Judge Robertson declined the pro]Dosition, and the contest 
 recommenced ; and from that moment it assumed, on his part, 
 the character of personal hostility to myself, to which you re- 
 fer; and this hostility has been carried to an extent which, I 
 
believe, is regarded by Tiepublicans and Democrats, alike, as 
 without precedent and without apology. 
 
 So far as Mr. Benedict was concerned, the people of Kato- 
 nah, of all shades of party, embraced his cause with an una- 
 nimity rarely exhibited ; and their published memorials, 
 proceedings, and resolutions were marked by a propriety, a 
 moderation and a dignity that showed their clear understand- 
 ing of the just limitations to political influence, and their convic- 
 tion that they, as the clear majority of citizens interested in 
 the post-office, were not asking a favor, but demanding a 
 right. Their committees did the work entrusted to them with 
 a fairness and exactness that left nothing to be desired ; as, for 
 instance, Avhen 101 names attached to a petition for Mr. 
 Whitlock, and to which I shall again refer, was submitted to 
 Messrs. H. F. Wood and Mark Harris for an examination of 
 the signers, they reported facts showing that 54 of the names 
 M'ere entitled to no weight, embraciug persons out of the dis- 
 trict or unknown in it, several boys under age, men unable to 
 read or write, habitual drunkards, one Avho had been in jail, 
 another from the House of Refuge, a third who liad committed 
 an assault on Whitlock in his own store, and a fourth wliose 
 name had been added without his knowledge or consent. 
 
 At Washington an examination ©f the papers in the "Kato- 
 nah case " disclosed to me the entire modus operandi adopted 
 by Judge Robertson. Senator Harris and Mr. Haight had 
 each filed letters written to them by the Messrs. Robertson and 
 the members of the coalition — Republicans and Democrats — 
 which had been organized to accomplisli the job. 
 
 This inner view of the conspiracy — I know no better name 
 for it — was not without interest, and I made many curious ex- 
 tracts from tliat extraordinary correspondence, with which it is 
 unnecessary now to encumber your columns, but which, as 
 illustrating the character of the writers, are not without their 
 value. 
 
 I confess that I was slightly disappointed in not discovering 
 more evidences of ability either in the scheme itself or in its 
 general management. I found neither genius nor talent, unless 
 
under those heads are to be classed an unsurpassed facility in 
 lying and an unlimited power of brag. 
 
 The petition for Mr. Whitlock, recouiniending his appoint- 
 ment — the same to wliich more than half the signatures were 
 bogus — contained this paragraph : 
 
 " We are aware that Mr. Moses S. Benedict desires this 
 office, and that his leading supporter is unwilling that any 
 preference should be expressed for any person other than Mr. 
 Benedict without subjecting tlie person expressing such pref- 
 erence to the most unjust, uncliaritable and unchristian denun- 
 ciation. Believing, however, that we have the right to express 
 such preference, and unintimidated by any threatened abuse, we 
 boldly urge the appointment of Mr. Whitlock." 
 
 To this was appended, among others, the name of " AV. H. 
 Robertson." 
 
 As my course had not afforded the faintest apology for such 
 a charge, and as at a public meeting at Ivatonah, in reference 
 to the post-office, a short time before, at which Judge Robert- 
 son was present by our invitation, he had openly admitted that 
 my treatment of him had been fair and courteous, I found it 
 difficult to believe that this charge was intended to apply to me; 
 but the fact became clear on reading the letters of the 
 Messrs. Robertson and their friends, which all pointed to me as 
 " the chief supporter of Mr. Benedict," whose character was to 
 be destroyed in advance, as the first step to their success. 
 
 Accordingly, on my return I called upon Judge Robertson 
 to avow, at Katonah, in open da}", the charges that he had 
 secretly insinuated to the Post-office Department, and I in- 
 vitea him to meet me for the purpose at a public meeting, on 
 the 27ih March, at Putney's Ilall. I referred in my letters to 
 the extraordinary credit M'hich the Judge had claimed in the 
 petition for speaking " boldly," and I hardly imagined tliat 
 thus reminded he would be willing to admit by his silence 
 that he shrank from meeting me face to face, and that he lacked 
 the manliness to support in public the cliarges he had not 
 hesitated to insinuate in secret. I said, "If I am the supporter 
 of Mr. Benedict whom you, clothed as you are with the high 
 dignity and solemn responsibilities of a judge, have thus ar- 
 raigned and denounced to the Department at Washington, I 
 
deny the truth of the charge, and I propose to afford you ample 
 opportunity to prove or justify it." 
 
 The meeting was convened, but the Judge appeared neither 
 in person, by letter, nor by counsel ; and his fellow-townsuien 
 there assembled deliberately resolved, by an unanimous vote, 
 that the charges contained in the Petition were " malevolent 
 and false." 
 
 Among the genuine names attaclied to the petition M-ere 
 those of some of my most respectable neighbors, and, on in- 
 quiring of several of these gentlemen on what authority they 
 had brought such an accusation, I found that they had been 
 led to believe they were lending their names simply to a re- 
 commendation of Mr. Whitlock, and that they had been kept 
 in ignorance of the contents of the document for whose libel- 
 ous charges they were made apparently responsible. 
 
 The following notes from one of the signers show the man- 
 ner in which the bad faith exhibited by Judge Kobertson 
 towards myself was extended to those whose unsuspicious 
 friendship he was successfully invoking for his own candidate. 
 
 [mK. KNOX TO MR. JAY.] 
 
 IvATONAH, Jan. 25, 1862. 
 Mr. Jay : Dear Sir,— I did not sign a petition like the one 
 you sent me this morning. 
 
 Respectfully, yours, 
 
 John Knox. 
 
 [mR. KNOX TO MK. JAY — ^D NOTE.] 
 
 Katonah, Jan. 25, 1862— P. M. 
 Mr. Jay : Dear Sir, — I beg leave to correct my statement 
 of this morning in regard to that petition. I find, on incpiiry, 
 that a petition of that kind was put at the head of a sheet that 
 I signed. I did not see the petition, but did not suppose it 
 read as it does, or had any charge in it against your honorable 
 
 self. 
 
 Respectfully, yours, 
 
 John Knox. 
 
 Thus tlie petition that appeared so formidable resolved it- 
 self into this : that its charges were " malevolent and false ;" 
 that more than half the signatures were " bogus ;" and that, of 
 
8 
 
 the rest, a portion liad been procured by a method akin to 
 forgery. 
 
 I do not propose to examine at length the strange assertions 
 that are bound up in the Katonah case, nor the wonderful 
 laudations heaped upon Judge Robertson in the letters of his 
 satellites, which however never exceed the estimate which the 
 Judge puts upon himself, — as, for instance, when he Avrote to 
 Senator Harris, Jan. 1, 1862: "For John Jay I have the 
 greatest resj)ect, but politically— I do not say it boastingly — he 
 has never done one-thousandth part for the Republican party 
 that I have." 
 
 But, omitting the abuse of myself, the disrespect towards 
 my family, and in one case a wanton insult to my father's 
 memory, that characterize the correspondence, I will quote some 
 brief extracts illustrating a charge that, as your editorial shows, 
 is still believed in the country, although it possesses not a sylla- 
 ble of truth. Judge Robertson had written to Senator Harris 
 that " all who receive letters at this post-office (Katonah) would 
 acquiesce in AVhitlock's appointment, but for Mr. Jay." Upon 
 this text one of the Judge's assistants — it is unnecessary at pres- 
 ent to quote their names — enlarged as follows : 
 
 " Perhaps it would be well to mention that the opposition 
 to Whitlock proceeds from tlic abolition M'iug of the Repub- 
 lican party." 
 
 Another put it, if possible, in a stronger light, and said: 
 
 "John Jay, the celebrated abolitionist, and his folloAvers, 
 want Moses S. Benedict." 
 
 After thus converting the entire force of Mr. Benedict's 
 friends into my abolition followers and the abolition wing of the 
 Republican party, it seems to have been thought expedient 
 to make the matter doubly sure by inventing a motive for my 
 supporting Mr. Benedict; and Mr. Benjamin I. Ambler, of 
 Bedford, speaking with as much positiveness as though he 
 were declaring a thing within liis own knowledge, crowned 
 the pyramid with the assertion : 
 
 " Mr. Jay desires to retain Benedict on account of his be- 
 ing an abolitionist.'' 
 
 Upon this accumulation of falsehoods was based an argu- 
 
raent that the conservative sentiment of Bedford would be 
 turned against the administration if Mr. Benedict were retained 
 in office. These immoral efforts of the coalition thus formed 
 by Judge Robertson were successful, and the sincerity of their 
 affected anxiety to strengthen the Government was curiously 
 illustrated soon afterwards by their securing the election of Mr. 
 Benjamin I. Ambler as the first Democratic supervisor elected 
 in Bedford since the Republican party came into existence. 
 The support he received from professed Republicans of the 
 Robertson and Whitlock faction was the quid pro quo for his 
 meddling with the affairs of the people of Katonah, and writing 
 as he was bidden without the smallest regard to truth. Mr 
 Ambler has since, as a member of the Board representing our 
 ancient town, which should be the first to honor my father's 
 memory, done an act, which he may live to regret, in voting 
 with those who would have removed from its place in the court- 
 house the portrait of Judge Jay. 
 
 But to return to the declaration, repeated to the echo, and 
 which, from the tone of your article,! suppose is still partially 
 believed, that the friends of Benedict were " my abolition fol- 
 lowers :" the fact was — and Judge Robertson knew it right 
 well — that so soon as it was known that Mr. Benedict had been 
 removed on his ex parte representations, the peojDle of the dis- 
 trict, with extraordinary unanimity, protested against the re- 
 moval and the manner in which it was accomplished, without 
 reference to party ; and that, from the beginning to the end of 
 the controversy touching the removal, it was a local question 
 of public convenience, of public propriety, and of common in- 
 terest, absolutely distinct from national politics. '•' 
 
 Some of the most prominent and influential of the Democrats 
 near Katonah, sucli men, if I mistake not, as Alex, S. Haight, 
 Abram Bedell, Justice James Parent, Trueman Clark, David 
 Putney, Daniel Tucker, Joshua Putney, Joel Miller, Mark Har- 
 ris, and John Chadeayne, demanded that Mr. Benedict should be 
 retained. And such substantial and conservative Republicans as 
 the Hon. Arnsell F. Dickinson, Jared H. Powell, the ven el-able 
 Walter S. Lyon, Oliver Green, James Hoyt, Benj. Mead, Dan- 
 iel Smith, Dr. Shove, Jared H. Green, Alfred Wood, Harvey 
 
10 
 
 "W. Smith, the venerable John Honeywell, 'J^.lfred Cox, Charles 
 E. Wickware, Ezra "Wa^hbiirne, David Newman, Lewis Ferris, 
 and a large number of others of similar respectability, heartily 
 joined in that demand. 
 
 When you style me " an original abolitionist," I readily ad- 
 mit the name, if you mean that I have inherited from my 
 father the anti-slavery sentiments originally taught by Wash- 
 ington, Franklin and Jefferson, and so gloriously reduced to 
 practice in this great State under the lead, some fifty years 
 ago, of our own Tompkins. Nor do I object to your terming 
 me " a radical Republican," although I have no fondness for 
 the term, if you mean that I am earnest for preserving our 
 territorial integrity and our national unity against all traitors 
 either at the South or at the North, and for cutting up this 
 infernal rebellion by the roots so thoroughly that it will never 
 sprout again. 
 
 But apart from my own views, whether they be rightly 
 styled radical or conservative, I mean to say that, when I went 
 to Washington with the Katonah protest, I went as the rejjre- 
 sentative, not of abolitionists, nor of radicals, nor of any one 
 class in our community, but as the representative of a large 
 majority of those interested in the post-ofiice — farmers, mer- 
 chants, and citizens generally, of every variety of political 
 principle, and without a shadow of reference to part}^ lines. 
 
 Your article intimates also tliat the two wines of tlie 
 Republican partj^ in the State were ranged on opposing sides 
 of the Katonah question. In this, also, I think that you are 
 almost equally mistaken. At all events, among the men who 
 upheld Mr. Benedict on the one ground that he was the choice 
 of the i^eople, side by side witli George Opdyke and Hiram 
 Barney, were Moses H. Grinnell, Richard M. Blatchford, and 
 E. Delafield Smith, who united in denouncing Mr. Benedict's 
 removal as "an act calculated, if not intended, to impair confi- 
 dence in the administration." 
 
 Some of the State Senators, who recently warmly supported 
 Gov. Morgan for the Senate, wrote as follows : "• Whatever 
 assurances may be given to the contrary, we are convinced 
 that the removal of Mr. Benedict against the earnest remon- 
 
11 
 
 strances of his district, and his replacement by a liquor dealer, 
 to serve the purpose of local politicians, will find no sympathy 
 with the people at large, nor with the friends and earnest sup- 
 porters of the administration." The President himself, then 
 lauded to the skies by Democratic journals as "our conserva- 
 tive President," on examining with care a remonstrance from 
 the women of Katonah, endorsed upon it his deliberate convic- 
 tion that Benedict ought not to be removed. 
 
 You will see, sir, from these facts, that you have unwit- 
 tingly done injustice to the administration in supposing that 
 the decision of the Department, on their recent review of the 
 Katonah case, was guided by the motives you have assigned, 
 or that Africa had any more to do with the result than Europe, 
 Asia, or ISTew Holland. 
 
 The Post-office Department, in removing Mr. Benedict, 
 committed an error, which Mr. Haight has frankly admitted, 
 and which is now repaired. The triumph which you attribute 
 to me belongs to the citizens of Katonah, and it is not the 
 triumph of any party, nor of any party wing. Democrats and 
 Republicans, alike, may be proud of the firmness with which 
 tlie people of that neighborhood have, quietly but firmly, 
 maintained their ground against a political coalition more 
 powerful and more unscruj)ulous than ever before attempted 
 to intermeddle with the people of a rural district, to deprive it 
 of the postmaster of their choice and the post-office of their 
 selection. All honest men should unite to honor a community 
 tliat, in bravely maintaining its own rights, has strengthened 
 tlie principle of American institutions and vindicated the dig- 
 nity of the American character. 
 
 Your announcement that J udge Eobertson proposes to re- 
 commence his operations, with renewed vigor and determina- 
 tion, naturally recalls the character of the operations which, as 
 accessory to the post-office, he has conducted personally against 
 myself. His successful feat, accomplished by the aid of his 
 confederates, of introducing his political quarrel into the 
 Church of St. Matthew, controlling the vote of the congrega- 
 tion, and excluding me from the vestry which he assisted to 
 
12 
 
 elect, is already well known to the public; as is also his further 
 success in securing my non-appointment as a delegate to the 
 Diocesan Convention, although I was promptly returned to my 
 accustomed seat in that council by the generous action of St. 
 Philip's. 
 
 Another procedure, hardly known beyond the limits of Ka- 
 tonah, and of which I am not aware that Judge Robertson 
 openly avows himself the author, was an attempt, through a 
 town assessor, holding also the office of deputy sheriff, to raise 
 the tax rate of the Jay Farm beyond the rate of the adjoining 
 farms, and to a point some ten or fifteen thousand dollars higher 
 than this very assessor had himself recently placed it, under oath. 
 The conduct of this individual, after my ajjpeal to the board, 
 was so utterly violative of every principle of justice and j^ro- 
 priety, that I was not surprised to learn that it was warmly 
 commended by Judge Robertson, and that to reward his at- 
 tempt under color of law, to injure and insult me, the Judge 
 had obtained for him the place of deputy collector, by threat- 
 ening the collector of internal revenue, Mr. Abram Hyatt, 
 with the loss of his office, unless the appointment should be 
 made. 
 
 The last ojteration, growing out of the Katonah post-office, 
 which the public but too well understands, was the recent at- 
 tempt, in the Board of Supervisors, to remove from the court- 
 house and to return to me the portrait of my father. 
 
 The spontaneous indignation of the people of the county 
 at that audacious insult to the pure memory of Judge Jay, 
 compelling, as it did, the mover of the resolution, Mr. Alsop H. 
 Lockwood, to withdraw it, leaves me at liberty to dismiss the 
 matter with no expression l)ut of gratitude to those who saved 
 my father's memory from the perpetration of so gross an out- 
 rage. 
 
 AVhat the new and extensive operations arc to be that Judge 
 Robertson proposes to institute, may be matter of speculation; 
 but after the exhibition already given of the sort of political 
 Avarfare invented and practiced by the county judge, the 
 community will hardly be surprised at any schemes yet to be 
 
13 
 
 developed, however strangely at variance they may be with 
 the dignity and purity that once belonged to the ermine of 
 Westchester. 
 
 Whether new charges are to be forged against my character, 
 or new frauds resorted to to give them a semblance of substan- 
 tiality ; whether, again, it shall be thought expedient to invade 
 a church, and to embroil a parish ; whether, once more, 
 the point of attack shall be an Episcopal chancel at Easter, 
 or a recent grave in the adjoining church-yard ; whether 
 my pocket is to be slily attacked by a convenient tool in the 
 shape of an assessor, or the feelings of my family wounded by 
 another, in the form of a supervisor; whether the war is, 
 for the future, to be waged on the living, or whether it shall be 
 deemed safer and more congenial to continue it by insults to the 
 dead, — all these are questions that, in view of the official char- 
 acter of Mr. Robertson, as the elected judge and representative 
 of the county, concern the public nearly as much as tliey con- 
 cern myself. 
 
 If, as it would seem, he has resolved to proportion his hate 
 for the future by the memories of the past, and to multiply the 
 insults he is to offer, until they equal the courtesies he has re- 
 ceived, long years may elapse before the account, even in such 
 coin and such installments, is fairly balanced, either with " all 
 the Jays above ground," as he sneeringly designates the family 
 to whose circle he was admitted when they supposed him to 
 be a friend and mistook his character, or with the venerable 
 jurist that sleeps in the church^^ard, under whose pictured 
 gaze — " mirrour of antient truth'' — I am not surprised that he 
 sits uncomfortably. 
 
 Having taken the measure of this judge intellectually and 
 morally, — having gauged his veracity and regard for justice, 
 his self-respect, his sentiment of gratitude, his ideas of honor, 
 and his sense of decency, — it is to me a matter of indilference, 
 now that the insult to my father's memory has been so signally 
 rebuked, what may be his next strange step in the Katonah 
 game — whether a reflection on the principles of my grandfather, 
 or, to vary the monotony of the programme, an assault on the 
 character of my grandsons. 
 
14 
 
 in the meanwhile there are two matters of far more pro- 
 found interest to the people of Westchester than the vexed 
 question of the Katonah post-office, since they affect the pock- 
 ets of every tax-payer in the county. I refer, of course, to the 
 
 WiLLETT SWINDLE and THE HaRLEM BRIDGE. 
 
 Three years ago this very montli Mr. William A, Ilall, of 
 Greenhurgh, discovered, during the negotiation of a loan on 
 certain securities offered by the friends of Mr. Willett, that 
 there was something wrong in the accounts of the county 
 treasurer, and, regarding the county judge as the proper 
 guardian of the rights and honor of the people of the county, 
 he sought Judge Ilobertsou, advised him of the reasons of his 
 conviction that the treasurer was a defaulter, and asked him 
 who were the sureties of Mr. Willett, and if they were suffi- 
 cient to protect the county from loss, suggesting that the defal- 
 cation should be forthwith submitted to the Grand Jury and 
 to the Board of Supervisors. The judge expressed no surprise 
 at Mr. Hall's announcement, but promised to inquire into the 
 matter. The extent of the defalcation when Mr. Hall made 
 his appeal to Judge Robertson, is believed to have been less 
 than fifty tliousand dollars. Mr. Willett is now, as it is said, 
 an absconding defaulter to the amount of more than one 
 
 HUNDRED AND THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS, wllicll is SUppOSCd tO 
 
 have been distributed among his political and personal friends, 
 and which the people will probably be called to pay for the 
 second time. 
 
 As Judge Robertson's judicial duties leave him, as it would 
 seem, abundant leisure for the prosecution of his private 
 schemes, personal and political, the tax-payers of AYestchester 
 may like to learn what steps he took after he was officially 
 advised by Mr, Hall, either with the Grand Jury, the Board of 
 Supervisors, or the suruties themselves, to avert the storm of 
 dishonor and disaster that then threatened and that has since 
 overtaken us ; and possibly he may be able to enlighten the 
 public, on what has become a question of very general interest, 
 who were the confederates of Mr. Willett, that concealed his 
 guilt and shared the plunder. 
 
 At the same time time the people of Westchester would 
 
15 
 
 like to be informed by Jiidge Robertson, as one of tbe commis- 
 sioners of the new Harlem bridge — Mr. Alsop H. Lock%yood, 
 the mover of tlie portrait resolution, being the other — what 
 steps he has taken in that capacity, to protect our citizens from 
 being robbed by loose estimates, extravagant contracts, cor- 
 rupt jobbery, dishonest favoritism, and endless commissions. 
 
 There is a growing uneasiness in the public mind as to the 
 extent to which our citizens, who will rarely see the bridge ex- 
 cept from the windows of the Harlem cars, are to be victimized 
 in this transaction ; and a deepening conviction that, if left to 
 its present management, it will impose a debt upon the coun- 
 ty to which the Willett swindle, large as it is, will prove but a 
 flea-bite in comparison. 
 
 However pleasant it may be for those who boast themselves 
 the leaders of the county to parcel out among themselves the 
 public jobs and offices — judicial, legislative, and executive — 
 that, with ingenious management, may be made to pay ; and 
 however pleasant they may have found it to see their bank 
 balances steadily increasing, to the amazement of their simple- 
 minded neighbors, who have no inner view of caucuses and 
 are innocent of the mysteries of the lobby ; it is becoming clear 
 that this game of grab has ceased to be amusing to the tax- 
 payers of Westchester. Our citizens who live by their honest 
 industry find their taxes, which are every year growing more 
 burthensome, suddenly doubled by a wholesale swindle, in 
 which the friends of the treasurer divide the spoils, and they, 
 at the same time, are regaled by a vision of taxes for the Har- 
 lem bridge extending far into the distant future, under the 
 management of a joint commission that originally included 
 William H. Robertson and Fernando Wood. How far the 
 burthens already imposed on the county can be lightened, may 
 be a question ; but, it is certain that, with ordinary vigilance 
 on the part of tax-payers, the game of plunder may be made 
 too dangerous for the rogues to play. 
 
 Here, one would suppose, is a common ground on which, 
 in reference to county offices. Democrats and Republicans may 
 meet harmoniously, as did the people of Katonah in regard to 
 their post-office. A common grievance, felt in the pockets of 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 16 014 109 251 
 
 all alike, and felt more sensibly at this time, from the sacrifices 
 demanded by our country, and cheerfully rendered by all loyal 
 Americans, should lead our substantial citizens, without ref- 
 erence to party lines, to unite in a common and stern resolve 
 that, henceforth, Westchester politics sliall not be left in the 
 hands of political sharpers bent only on advancing and enrich- 
 ing themselves ; but that in all future nominations for offices 
 of trust, regard shall be had to the public vrelfare, and a 
 character for integrity be deemed, as of old, an indispensable 
 essential. 
 
 I am, sir, 
 Respectfull}'^, your obedient servant, 
 
 JOHN JAY. 
 194 Fifth Avenue, 
 New York, March 31, 1863. 
 
is^«SS 
 
 iVllPV* '"»''' 
 
 014 109 2510 
 
 HoUinger 
 
 pH 8.5 
 
 Mill Run F3.1719