Among the ramblings of the
life-adventures of Henry A. Coolidge (born c.1822), can be found a terse
and sometimes painful remembrance of the author's days of youth in Cazenovia.
From 1848 to 1857 Coolidge
was the editor of The Madison County Whig, the village's weekly newspaper,
and he seems to have known everybody in town. Some of his memories
are not at all flattering, but this is the stuff that history is made of!
He went on to be edit the Litchfield Monitor (Illinois) and was the editor
of the Mt. Olive Herald (Illinois) at the time he published this book.
Many pages of items not related to Cazenovia are not copied here.
This book was printed "For Private Circulation Only" but an inscribed copy was given to the Cazenovia Public Library by the author.
(there are no page numbers in the original text but I have added sequential
sheet numbers to this section. There are 27 sheets. I have
made some notation within the text, such as obscure word definitions, expansion
of names, etc., which are presented in square [ ] brackets)
This text is not completely edited from the scan.
INASMUCH as in the rush to
get on in business pursuits, the better, deeper part of ones nature may
be denied aliment or gratification, it is a memorable thing to him, if
once in a strenuous life he can throw off care, and revisit far Cazenovia.
With deep, kind charm, that village occasionally recalls a distant truant
to live over, in winged hours, his vanished years when existence had the
wild freshness and dewy flavor of the morning time.
I had longed to yield to
the allurements to go back. At last fortune and fate relented, and planned
the surprise an opportunity. In idyllic summer days, and through
the noble avenue of the hills and steeps of the "Southern Tier," I was
permitted to reach the upheaved plain where Cazenovia sits in beauty on
the margin of the highest lake whose waters pour northward. My days
there were ilde, glad, occupied, thoughtful, careless, meditative, vacant,
remembering ones. While vibrating between present observation and
inevitable reminiscence, I was asked to mention in a shape for publication,
my impressions of the village of which I had been a citizen, and the modern
Cazenovia, trod by strangers. A compliance can have no grace or value,
beyond fidelity to the impressions and associations of the moment.
And this slender interest will be shared only by the few who, with me,
long since furtively chuckled over the quite forgotten absurdities and
impudence of the "Cazenovia Wax Works".
It is nearly forty years
since, I, a hot-headed, penniless stripling, footsore and nearly spent
with my dusty tramp, lounged, rather than walked, with a shadow a mile
long over on the slope east of the Chittenango, into Cazenovia to seek
a livelihood, a home and an education. I was of frontier stock, and
familiar with the plow, the hoe, the ax and the logging fallow. Not
above thrice, had I stepped <:2> within a private residence worth a
thousand dollars. I never seen a carpeted floor, or a house light,
save a cresset lamp or a tallow candle. Nature or necessity had given
me a spirit to go at obstacles as a cannon ball rides the air at a fortress.
A future was only as the downhill one finds in climbing a mountain.
I had not the wisdom to despair of my purpose nor the time nor patience
to count impediments. Disappointments did not signify. I seized
their instruction and got an access of courage and persistence from obstacles.
Through hopefulness, or conceit, or self- reliance or a habit of perseverance,
I forgot to give up, and in my scheme such character was success.
From that evening, the past
went out of my life, but some of its flavor remained. I had had a
glimpse of a community not wholly bucolic. If no better or more useful
than the one I had known, it seemed to have a far different aim.
There appeared to be a more genial purpose, and a culture not reached by
shelling corn for bread on the end of a shovel, by firelight. I disdained
to be content with an education in the fingers alone, since to one thus
taught a pickpocket's vocation might have a certain element of misdirected
respectability. In my solo programme were many things to be preferred
to gold. High thinking would compensate for toil and plain living
and going on foot.
The following years, I took
there my buffetings, trials, scourgings, teachings and self-disciplinings.
I had need of them. To-day, a thousand miles from her borders, the
recollection of her indifferent, or unfriendly, or, later, her partial
countenance, awakens no unworthy feeling. I can not decide whether
the more is due her favor, or her Spartan discipline. The town was
a stern, just and helpful teacher, and gave me all a man should ask - an
opportunity and fair play. Cazenovia tolerated no curled darlings.
She trained her children as well by reproof, bitter at the time as the
sarcasms of the Adversary when <:3> he would tempt the very elect, as
by positive instruction. I had need of severe correctives.
Dislike did me good. It was something, to be hated for positiveness
of convictions and actions, and Cazenovia abounded in good haters - sturdy
partisans of domineering temper, a sublime will, sleepless self-assertion,
a full allowance of conceit, an ungrammatical directness of speech, and
a decorous, unrelenting wrath, steady as a law of physical energy, which
throve without nursing. But these men were not mean haters.
They hated for the public welfare, and the health of their own finances.
Forgiveness was not in my
list of easy virtues, but forbearance was, and I seemed callous through
the patience of indifference. My sole reliance lay in a line of conduct
that no personal malignity or detraction could assail to any purpose.
It was believed I did not recognize the law of retaliation, but when friends
demanded some word in self-defense, as my silence had been misjudged, there
still lived a few who can remind themselves of the result, and the discovery
that I was an excellent person to let alone. The Cazenovia seasoning
process where it was "claw for claw," as Conan said to the Devil, did not
kill me. I suspect its justice was apparent, and I underwent it quite
gaily, though urtication [stinging like nettles] is not a thing to fall
in love with. At least, I had the recompense of the wounded muscle
whose bruise turns to a pearl, or the compensation of a riven mountain
whose crevices are filled with precious ores. During those sixteen
years, I fail to remember that the village furnished any jail an inmate.
Our fire company - the Haugena - was called to no more than four or five
fires, and at least two of these were out of the corporation.
Those Haugena days!
John Hatch was chief engineer, Ped. Childs [Perry G. Childs Jr.] foreman,
and then Denise Ledyard [Jonathan D. Ledyard Jr.], and when the company
disbanded, Geo. Ledyard [George Ledyard] was chief officer. No man
can be, from his transparent simplicity <:4> of character, harder to
sketch than John Hatch. Quiet, capable, efficient, even in spirts
and temper. and so free from salient human imperfections that his name
was his best praise, and all were his friend, he still lives: hair white,
shoulders drooping beneath his years. But no frost of age, no selfishness,
no decay of hopes, and no morbid feeling of regret, has touched his cheerful
kindness. My congratulations to you, John Hatch, that yours is the
secret of growing old gracefully, and that, year by year, your life is
more and more deeply drenched with the grace and tenderness of an unshamed
manhood.
Ped. Childs [Perry G. Childs
Jr.] went to California, almost an Argonaut. In succession, he has
been miner, speculator, shipowner, clerk, and politician, with a mirage
in his career when he believed in "Jim" Nye. Denise Ledyard [Jonathan
Denise Ledyard Jr.] perished with his wife [Elizabeth Fitzhugh Ledyard]
in the St. Lawrence , twenty-two years since [1857] - a large- natured
man, direct in speech, tender and manly and proud of heart, attached to
his farm, generous, just, and public-spirited; a gentleman in his virtues,
and too, nobly constituted to say, or do, or tolerate anything ambiguous
in courtesy or morals.
Geo. Ledyard [George Ledyard],
though now a stoutish, white- haired man, has, in his useful way, borne
himself so blamelessly and modestly, that he is still "George" to his friends,
and wears undimmed the favor he won in opening manhood.
John Fairchild, the perpetual
secretary, was an exemplar of how to make money in business, by the secret
of intelligence, courtesy, and attention. He did not aspire to be
a leader, and he would be no one's henchman. There was imputed to
him a liberal capacity for being disliked; and that was not hard to understand,
and was to his credit. A thoroughness in whatever he undertook, habits
of method, diligence and economy, were the disguises of a nature, strong
and true, which ripened late. Year by year, he has grown kindlier
and broader and less reticent. I have had occasion to observe the
value and steadfastness of his friendship for the comrades of those days.
<:5> "Vib" Crocker [Viber
Crocker], who lounged along the street as if he had a wager to win a slow
race, and cared he might lose, and Tom Hamblin, he of the easy, slouching,
sidling yet not ungraceful gait, and broad, ribboned hat, set rakishly
on his tumultuous locks, were the pipemen, and proudly magnified their
office. The former long since departed to the Silent Land.
The latter has developed into the shrewd, popular, untiring man of business.
His nature was social, and averse to strife and anger. Find him off
duty, and he will revel in talk of the Haugena days, with a droll relish
for the humor of the pharisaical rebuke administered at an annual village
meeting, to the "fire boys," by a choleric, pompous intermeddler whose
house and stable were a museum of sporting goods for the road, the forest
and the stream, because they once celebrated an election of officers with
an oyster soup and cigar, at the village hotel. Throughout, Hamblin
will preserve the unconcernedness of a remote spectator.
In the ranks were K.N. Guiteau
[Kendrick N. Guiteau], now, and for a long time, cooling his perfervid
temperament, at St. Paul [Minnesota?]. C. Crandall [Charles Crandall],
now lost to sight in a custom house; Jim Alden [James M. Alden], now gray-
headed, a little less than a saint, and contented with his small means,
since he holds that when he is happy, he has a better wisdom, and is as
rich as Astor and pays fewer taxes and can go a-fishing, which Greely could
not; Jim Dodge [James Dodge], wandering for years in sudden darkness, eyes
ruined by the brightness of molten iron. His calamity in middle life,
did not overmuch depress; it could not sour him. He is still glad
"to see the boys" - and he sees with his ears alone - keeps a brave, cheerful
heart, and has the pathetic patience of the hopelessly blind. Perhaps
John Clough and Tom Dodds were in the ranks. Dodds floated back to
the river of unpronounceable name, and Clough ended his life at Denver.
On my arrival in the dusk
of evening, I was, at once, recognized through the lapse and changes of
a quarter of a century. With a mind full of Cazenovia as I left it,
<:6> I began at once a series of rapid inquiries as to various friends
in ante-bellum days. My zeal was speedily rebuked. The replies,
slow, low toned, and tremulous, came, back sad as the responses to roll-call
after battle. Nothing could better hint the dread surprise in store,
or the delusion I had nourished, that time had stood still in that village.
How I got through the evening, it is not pleasant to recollect. The
past held me in thrall.
As I sallied forth in the
morning, a gush of sky filled the upper end of Lincklaen street; purple
flushes streaked the air on the Fenner hills; suggestion of mountains looked
from the blue humps of upland, beyond [New] Woodstock; and near in the
west the Lake quivered in sparkles, and danced clear to the foot of the
broad ridge, behind which the 5 o,clock sun is wont to glide in unshorn
splendor. The streets were expanses of smooth, white dust.
The August air had a chill, as though a Charles Francis Adams [1807-1886,
son of John Quincey Adams, distinguished American diplomatist] was in town.
Smokeless household fires shot quivers of warmth into the sky. A
cadenced movement along sidewalks told that people were astir, and accepted
the new day that was but the echo of yesterday. Folks were moving
about in the decorous, calculated, accented manner of those who bless themselves
with table napkins and soup at dinner. It was as if a Quaker meeting
had just dismissed its congregation.
Across the way from the
hotel [Lincklaen House] - kept by strangers - time had stood still.
Not a building had changed. Each object down Mill street seemed as
familiar as though I had daily gazed down the brief vista. Yet the
Cazenovia I saw, was not the alert, ambitious, hopeful, manufacturing village
of my young manhood. In many regions of town, changes had crept in,
and each change had been deemed an improvement, and it was, if a stranger
can be the same as an old acquaintance, or the mansion stand clothed with
the associations of the little house where one was born, or the sodden
ryefield speak to the tears and hopes and admiration of the world which
converge at Waterloo. Some portion of my former life forced itself
<:7> to be recollected, and in the double consciousness of beholding
the town as it is, and remembering it as it was, I found myself busy re-peopling
the streets with those I had known, and who were present to me, as the
dead and the absent, by illusion, sometimes are.
At once, the search began
for survivors of the remote days when we met in the struggle which tries
victors more mercilessly than it does the vanquished. Time, wiser
than any assembly of sages, had arbitrated between us, and awarded justice
to all. No one of us had fashioned the world according to his ideal
standard. There is still a market for cakes and ale: the bat the
rod and the gun have their votaries: and the thin, senseless jingle of
the piano has not dwarfed the library and bookstore. We had grown
tolerant, as we outgrew our conceit and saw through a long vista of experience
and disillusions, that we were not the only channels of the power which
turns the world.
An early call was made on
Ed. Holmes [Edwin M. Holmes, residence at 100 Albany Street] but he looked
broadly changed from what he was when we, with others, met of evenings
at Capt. Hill's [Milo C. Hill, grocer] to swap fun, and banquet on a handful
of peanuts and a trimmed herring. Saddest of all, he seemed to have
suffered an eclipse of the will, and to have drifted passively on with
open eyes. With motives enough to allure one to fly back from the
jaws of hell, be lacks but purpose and decision to become the frank, cheerful,
hopeful, manly, high-toned man of the days when life was, to him, as delicious
as the opening scenes of a poet's dream of Paradise. In our interview
the native energy and proud disdain of the man flashed out incessantly.
Lew. Hatch [Lewis L. Hatch],
disfigured by rheumatism, sat a prisoner in his workroom chair; but his
a mind clear and active and healthy as of yore. He has a bright word
and glad welcome for a friend. But he would be happier, could he
forget, or put from sight the ashes of his happiness. Capt. Hill
[Milo C. Hill] had, a few weeks before [March 28, 1880], suddenly passed
into <:8> the realms of Sleep's royal Brother. He went down, as
a ship goes down at sea, every sail spread, and no time to fire a signal
gun. He died as he wished, with no interval between health and death,
to be filled with care to his family and suffering to himself.
I found the Recluse in the
languor and weariness of a journey of four thousand miles, undertaken for
the sake of an afflicted kinsman. All who knew him in his sparkling,
ingenuous youth, must be touched by the noble, silent, unselfish patience
with which he endures and waits the rising of some star of hope.
The village was in the midst
of its gala season, but a cold August had abated the rage for a summer
retreat in some climatic Greenland. the town had become the favorite
goal of holiday parties. For a few hours, several days each week,
pleasure- seeking crowds poured along the streets, and provoked a languid
interest, Summer guests imparted a fitful animation, but the complacency
of the citizens was too severe to be ruffled.
A late passion for bow [bay]
windows had been followed by a clamor for porticoes or verandahs of a quite
uniform design which failed to make any account of varying situation or
styles of architecture. A residence, severely plain, rejoices in
a portico of the same type as its ornate mansarded neighbor. The
houses look as new and shining as a gambler's bible, or a modern statesman's
copy of the Constitution. Those of recent construction stared at
me as if they were intruders. The dear, well-remembered Cazenovia
of school days was gone. The town is not the same. A great
change had passed over it, or over me. The neat, plain houses - types
of the frugal, deliberative, painstaking men who planned them - had given
place to homes of a more pretentious and elegant kind. The people
I had known, had nearly all vanished: some to other scenes, but the majority
had been borne to the Cemetery. But, while riding slowly along the
streets, the present seemed only the continuation of the <:9> life wrenched
asunder, ere Buchanan became President [1857- 1861], and the intervening
years disappeared, as though they had not been. By memory and not
by sight, I beheld again the village and its people, as they were.
For the moment the illusion was as vivid and perfect as the reality had
been, and then the present swept it away, and the full contrast between
what was and what is, burst on me. Each change was thus a surprise
and a disappointment. What I remembered with quickened force, was
softened by time, as harsh sounds are, by distance, toned to melody.
It was inevitable that I should inquire as to those so acutely brought
to mind, and the silent response was to drive me to their palaces of rest,
in that shallow basin out on Fenner Street [Evergreen Cemetery].
The scanty acres, thick
planted with headstones where I saw student after student laid with faces
toward Jerusalem, had, by accretions on three sides, grown to a Cemetery,
an epitome of moral didactics, with obelisk and pillar and tablet and memorial
stone, of marble or granite of red, or blue, or gray. Intrusive lichens
are busy at their foul work of effacing the older inscriptions. The
name of the dead is, in most instances, the sole epitaph. For long
as manhood and womanhood are nobler than fame, there will be names in that
Cemetery prouder and yet more honorable than any stone literature of praise
or regret. Trees dispense a grateful shade. Lines of ever greens
insure the privacy dear to the contemplative hour. Footpath and carriage
way give access to all quarters. Patient, trained, loving hands care
for the grounds, and respect for the dead ascends to the sublimity of a
religious sentiment. There, forgotten elsewhere, dwell the pioneers
of the town. There, long resolved into parent clay, are the men of
mental, social, and professional local eminence. There, too, have
slowly gathered masterful men who once gave tone to the village, and drove
into their children an ambition to develop the beauty of the town, and
to see to it that, in their turn, their seats should be occupied by men
and women too worthy for <:10> vulgar pride. Among these were
the stern unsparing, unpitying, yet just teachers of the eager-eyed, headstrong,
restless youth who saw life through the gorgeous veil of his courage, his
hopes and his purposes. They seemed awful beings to him then, and
he will become their Peer not until he lies as cold and still as they -
in a low, green tent with the curtain that never opens outward. Youth
with hopes as warm as creative life; manhood with its robust deeds; childhood
wreathed with graces; old age worn by suffering, borne down by the chill
of hope and thick crowding disappointments; men whose memory is yet green
and revered; women too dear to the living to be named and there a divorce
from all that is human, save sorrow for the dead. In that lovely
valley, and on that beautiful slope, friend and stranger, kindred and benefactor,
lie awaiting their more perfect mortality.
On a winter day and snow
deep over the land, I had left to that Cemetery's awful care, the son,
still dearer to me than aught that lives [I find no evidence of this burial
- perhaps he is in an unmarked grave in the C.A. Coolidge [H.A. Coolidge?]
lot, Lot I 400]. Such is the vivid recollection of that friend and
comrade that, during the intervening long years, his voice has not faded
from my ears, nor the thrill of his caress upon my bosom. The oak
and the vine canopy his grave. His death revealed to me the native
grace and manly tenderness of the Cazenovia folk. At that time, I
could not thank even those on whom I had no claim, lest I should seem to
defile the delicacy of such kindness. This is the late apology for
my silence.
Wherever the Cazenovian
dies, he longs, at the last, to be buried here. Every branch of the
christian church respecting this fond desire, has consecrated the Cemetery
to holy sepulture. In no spot is veneration for the dead more carefully
and modestly expressed. And knowing its development from what it
was to what it is, and what love, and pride of family, and self-respect,
and sensibility to the claims of the dead, and what catholic influences
to surround the living, this embellished Cemetery represents, it is still
but the hallowed monument of LEDYARD LINCKLAEN.
<:11> Trees are everywhere
throughout the village; in rows through the public grounds; in lines along
the streets, and singly or in clumps in lawns and dooryards. From
the turnpike across the lake, the town is invisible; only three church
spires piercing the sea of foliage. Trees I used to clasp with one
hand, now would fill my arms. At night, as street lamps are unknown,
a sidewalk or a highway is a tunnel through blackness. The new houses
depart widely from the cigar-box pattern which formerly gave law to the
village architects. The village is beautiful as a toy. It looks
finished. Change, without its decay, strikes the eye. The reserve
of strength and the repose of good society are over all. I imagined
that the daily dinner rose to the proportions of a family event.
A portion of the people
have wealth, and the majority have a competence. These therefore
cultivate and adorn all social amenities. The returned wanderer is
greeted with a kindly welcome. The hospitalities of elegant, refined
homes are cordially tendered. Attentions are lavished, and he learns
that his brief stay derives its chief value and pleasure from the fraternal
bond, almost dear as a tie of blood, which unites the exile to the dwellers
in that upland village.
My days there were lotus-gathering
ones. I tried not to see beyond what was on the surface, and resisted
conclusions. But trained to antiquated ways, and modes of thought
and observation, it would keep recurring to me that every departure from
what had been, was not necessarily an improvement. The Seminary had
not in all respects been fortunate. Debts had been incurred, and
the interest permitted to accumulate beyond the power to meet the demand.
An inability or a failure to maintain commercial honor in so vital a point,
is a formidable attack on the moral character of any school, and blights
its proper influence. In the choice of teachers sufficient attention
had not been paid to scholarly attainments and pedagogical qualifications.
The traditional idea of education, <:12> its purpose, and in what it
consists, had been put aside in order to introduce special, or professional
course to popularize the school, by professing to teach ingenuous youth
only what is of value to make money with or by. There was a new departure
to teach boys what helps to get rich, and the instruction was entrusted
to Professors who were not scholars, and knew not enough of life to run
a sawmill.
There were and doubtless
are, accessible schools for teaching sciolism [superficial science], boating,
billiards, and the fashion of "hazing" and wine suppers, and making betting
books. Cazenovia Seminary needs not to ape their dubious curriculum.
When Alverson [James L. Alverson, teacher 1840- 1845], Canfield [Alonzo
B. Canfield, teacher 1844-1849], Hyde [Ammi B. Hyde, teacher 1846-1862],
and White [Aaron White, teacher 1853-1855]; - when Hapgood [George D. Hapgood,
principal 1838-1844], and Bannister [Rev. Henry Bannister, principal and
teacher 1844-1855] filled its seats of instruction, its pupils were trained
to study, think, analyze and know. Then the Seminary was a school
that legislates.
I plead inability to attach
any definite meaning to the sonorous phrase - a practical education.
I can not imagine what is practical music, unless it be the sound of the
tin dinner horn. The ladies allow me to understand what practical
painting is, and a tobacconist's sign is the ideal of practical sculpture.
For "practical" appears to signify some thing or quality to get rich by.
If to roll together material wealth, is the measure and end of such education
as is to be looked for in our schools, better use Tweed's Maxims instead
of a treatise on Moral Science, and for school prizes propose a receivership
or purchasing agency of a Western railroad.
The world needs Men more
than it needs Wealth. Potosis have blessed mankind less than one
muniment of human rights. A Marcy was a nobler product than a Daniel
Drew. The Seminary does not well when it neglects the education which
is manhood and character, for the education which is computable in money.
The Lake appears to have
been rifled of its primitive charm. Spiteful steamers have put an
end to dreamy, restful, delicious, uninvaded afternoons in row or sail
<:13> boat. Its silence, its repose, and freshness and privacy
are gone. It has become a ferry between the village and Lake View
[Methodist Camp Meeting Grounds at the north end of the lake]. It
is a water park. Its once careless plain is furrowed by screw or
paddle-wheel. Its inmost coves and shady strand are as public and
thronged as a county Fair. I was in the perverse humor to fly the
strident babble of the hoyden tribe whose delight on its waters, rioted
in unregulated frolic, dissonant cries and snatches of contraband songs.
Yet no one should repine that the Quakers have not extended their dominion
beyond its shore. It is well that the Lake is a pleasure ground for
all, and that it is freely visited with holiday spirits and license.
Its praises have been sung, and it is paying the natural penalty of popularity,
by being a famous summer resort. The man who would have it all to
himself may deplore the changes since Myron Swift, in the interval of winding
his quart cup of watches - most of them would not go but he wound them
each day all the same - harried its waters for bass and pickerel.
But who is willing to leave hope behind by repeating dame Partington's
exploit with her broom, in order to keep to-day under the heel of some
remote yesterday? I care enough for the vanished allurements of the
Lake, but I care far more for those who can be made better or happier for
an hour at least, by a visit to it: who find it to appeal to the unlanguaged
something in their breasts, which is less than reason and more than instinct,
yet is the leaven of our brightest days and a motive for conduct.
The Indian dwelt at its
foot. The pioneer planted his home by its margin. Romance,
deeper and tenderer than tragedy, perfumes its waters. A prosaic
Doctor of Divinity and a very proper Bishop had convulsed the town by their
complaints of the dullness of their boat which, with infinite toil and
vexation, they had, by inches, got a mile down the Lake, having clean forgotten
to take in the grapnel [I do not know the basis of this line!]. Bits
of personal history, and varied recollections were in my mind, and the
cooing of ripples along the shore, was in my ears, while listlessly dipping
<:14> the oar, and I can not tell whether I saw the Lake with the greater
pleasure in my memory, or with my eyes.
If many had faded from the
streets and homes, there still remained a few to whom the buffetings of
their lot had left the recompense of a residence in the fair village.
William Porter continues to pilot a dog about the thorough fares, and walks
an authority in horse pedigrees, racing lore, and fancy chickens.
If you would know the good talk possible about a horse, start him on turf
events and the performances of Belfounder and Lady Moscow. A. Backus
[Azel Backus] forgets, at times, that he is no longer young and the owner
of a bank book. His welcome is as eager and warm and his voice as
clear and ringing as when gaining his livelihood by making Madison County
plows. Joe Brown, ex- fugitive slave, and not ashamed of his ebony,
is unctious and full of rollicking gaiety. When he dies, Cazenovia
will lose a man too humble of estate to have an enemy, and who irradiated
his daily life with a happy face and a cheerful, contented spirit.
I saw for a little space,
A. Dardis [Andrew Dardis], mellowed by time and hopeful, prompt to any
cry of distress, and diligent in business; McCabe [John McCabe], tempting
no ties of "lang syne" to tempt him from his glowing forge; "Nig" Marshall
[Justice W. Marshall], carrying invention into his machine shop and putting
into a seven pound wheelbarrow strong as a mule, more ability than John
Jones did in the "Madisonian"; John Reymon, the one man enriched by trade
in the modern village; H. Groff [Henry Groff] of whom we heard flattering
tales as a salesman in Whig days, a little broader than then and as keen
for bargains: Joe Nichols [Joseph Nichols], more globular, and if it be
possible, busier; measuring cloth and dropping into song, putting his tape
around a customer's chest and effervescing in unctuous laughter; the best
of listeners yet a genial talker, and incapable of thinking evil of any
one; S. Caswell [Sheridan S. Caswell], of whom the report was especially
grateful to my old wishes in his behalf: George Carpenter, big diaphragmed
and white-haired, changed to me beyond recognition <:15> by the hand
that brings wisdom while it brings years, and improves as much by the subsidence
of fervor as by study and experience. Though thirty wintry mile-stones
had been passed since we had met, his eye is yet watching the dawn of that
to-morrow which is to unveil the Land of Promise; B.R. Wendell [Benjamin
Rush Wendell], almost younger than when he became a bank cashier, just
as a man looks younger for a visit to his hair dresser, and is absolutely
younger in the pleasure he derives from studying the happiness of others;
L.A. Eddy [Lyman A. Eddy], finding it well to drop the pastor for an evening,
and talk or listen on the old basis when we held common views and purposes.
He has not grown the slave of his calling, nor has his mind shaped itself
to the exclusive range of the pulpit. He too has made his voyage
of life on no canal [his journey has not been the easiest], and keenly
relishes the society of those not afraid nor ashamed to face unwelcome
facts.
Domine Smith [Rev. Albert
Patterson Smith?, church?] is clerical-bodied, and has manhood enough for
two such bodies. His home welcome and conversation have a racy flavor,
quite certain to delay a transient guest beyond his time. The dignified
Bourbon who learns nothing and forgives nothing, on our meeting made known,
in a clear manner, that he retained the old flavor of his implacability.
It wanted but this encounter, to throw into bright relief the strenuous
past against the faultless welcomes and indescribable greetings of today.
I hope never to live for revenge or the pleasure of hating some one.
The sole vengeance I ever thirsted for, was an opportunity of doing an
ill-wisher a signal kindness. That luxury was mine, in Cazenovia,
and the detractor found it expedient to give over his laborious animosity.
The town is a poem, and
the people are its best lines. Vigor haunts the air: keen, lasting,
instructive delight the landscape. There is a calm steadfastness
in the tone of society. There are reminiscences to be recalled, for
the place has a past older than any inhabitant, and the <:16> grand
lesson that goes deep as to how absence dulcifies the just, stern, exacting
discipline, almost mortal at the time, by which Cazenovia tried and proved
her sons, ere their admission to her inmost franchises.
You, dear K~, will fondly imagine the whirl that evokes such a recall of the past what proud hopes went out in blackness there, and what part was assigned him in the procession of life, when the heart was high and warm, and the day's labor won the day's bread. Was ever sweeter food? His home was long since removed to another regiOn ; the banquet of life's morning is over and when he went back to the deserted hall, the many who sat elate at that garlanded feast of life were dead, or scattered, or changed, as years and duty well done will change men. In the rush and swirl of associations that captured his senses for fitftil, intermittent moments, the dead past came back. [he streets were again tenanteti by the ciCola of those who are hut a memory and dust.
There were the counterfeits, visible only- to Ply sharpened eyes, of Jack Childs, above praise for manly honor and regard for the rights and self-respect of others: the noblest gentleman of nature's own make I liav known Alverson, who taught me to learn a lesson until 1 knew it and knew the knowing of it: Lunkey," full of boisterous fun and broad pranks, glorious with horses, but a mute in polite circles; Elder Hawley, tembly sincere and proclaiming the Gospel which is Love, with pepperness of energy and manner and phrase; Ed. Burhans, equally famous as a teacher and for his imitation of one trait of the fine old English Gentleman: R. Curtis, in the decline of his fortunes, playing the second class clerk-the petty duties not degrading him who was never happier than in doing a kindness, or helping a friend; A. YV, Spencer, snuffed out in a moment by thn overturn of a carriage, and whom men admired for his thrift in business, with a dim suspicion that his humorous grotesqueness of language was a clue to the real fiber of his nature ;(H. Remsen, not forgetting that he had been a cotton king down South, and maintaining his nobility and blamelessness of life, through the darkening down of his day - a gallant gentleman with the remains of delusive enthusiasm which was in part his servant, and in part his master; R. Thomas, the mainspring of his ambition strangely disordered, and himself pitifully hampered by knowledge he failed to turn to financial account, and serving as village clerk, for twenty dollars a year; sexton Dodge, at threescore and ten, superior in agility and prowess to his stalwart sons and, dimly wavering, Gran. Murdoch, who used to run with Lew. Fairchild when the latter's flute playing knew no equal in Central New York ; Boardman, the gentleman in his pulpit and out of it-I always thought of him as a gentleman, and not as a christian teacher; L. Chandler,
quaintly formal according to a by-gone code, and of a precise stateliness of courtesy; Leonard, late home to heaven; Severance, valedictorian in 1842, and too early dead; Hall, of the severe face; Loveless, who can ask no charity kinder than silence ; Hank Allen, who perished on the Isthmus; Lew. Berthrong, the victim of his own impulse [suicide], Dwinelle, whom I saw only in decay and feebleness of advanced years; R. Allen, who cultivated taciturnity, and preserved his social qualities in ice, though cold will blister, and Elder Nickerson, who was a sore trial to the brethren because he was the gentlest of abolitionists.
The persistent illusion exhibited to me Sam. Thomas, smelling of wax and leather, seated in his shop, garnished with woodcuts of the anti-slavery gospel, and talking abolitionism to the high- nosed Bate Borden and the fat grum Sid. Roberts; Tom Bishop making a shilling thirteen cents when he sold, and twelve cents when he paid one out; L.D. Coburn, eager for public days when he could again flourish a drumstick; the two Gilsons, singing songs with voice~s that had lost their freshness; Osburn. sucking his pipe, hinting at politics and longing for an office at Albany; Dr. Potter, looking up an antagonist at draughts; the Anderson Boys and their set, ea~ evening meeting to talk horse; Vic. Dearborn, going about with a tale in dispraise of some one whom he did not like, and such were numerous, and Jim Alden, relating for the fiftieth time, amid irrepressible laughter, how himself and a few others, stationed themselves, in relays, a mile and a half out along the Morrisville road, to halt the father on his return from county convention to ask with feigned solicitude, if his son got the coveted non)j nation for county clerk they knowing all the time that he been ignominiously defeated, and the irascible father, after the third hail, shutting his ears and driving home as though he were going for the doctor.
During my long residence in Cazeno\ a onI5 the few past the late afternoon of life, were cxc ~pt from daily toil. Professional duties, or petty handici Ift% or trade or manufactures, or the care of landed interests exacted from all others steady employment. The villi crc endured no sluggards and no idlers. The inhabitants "crc a bare handed, shirt-sleeved folk. Out of the narrow robustness and the provincialism of their condition, their plain, exact ways, each man stately with the ineffable conceit that lie alone was right, and fiercely bent on converts to his views and practices, issued H. W. Slocum, distinguished in war and Congress, J.R. Hawley of military renown, ex-Governor, member of Congress, and certain to enter the Senate, and perhaps to fill a more exalted place; C.D. Warner, famous in literature; G.W. Allen, who never held an office, but by force of what he is, has long been a power in Wisconsin ; L. Lincklaen, so fertile in influences of a broad, aesthetic character, that he transformed the modest village into a town, lovely and picturesque as a picture by Turner; the Litchfields, who first linked Chicago to the East by railroad, and thus gave the impetus to the wide Northwest, and made it to yield bread to two continents; Charley Fairchild, who as a State Officer refused to lift the law from the incarcerated Tweed D.W. Fisk, a Professor in Cornell, and "Tench" [Fairchild], the erratic boy, whose genius and excesses, triumphs and failures, were alike phenomenal.
If dear Cazenovia has, for her children, the
deep charm of associations, the visitor must carry them with~him, or fail
to find the sacred enchantments. What the village may appear to be,
will depend on the preparation of eye which beholds it, just as one sees
in the mirror's depths only the face of the gazer. In the resuscitation
of memory and the quickened sensibility, on my late visit, the men of a
dead generation were again the notable part of the Cazenovia which sits
a Queen of Beauty and deep, Serenity. The necrology of twenty-five
years was condensed into half a week. In the list, were names I dare
not to mention. There can be no better excuse for the freedom of
this paper tha ii that from its perusal you will glean somewhat of the
ties which knit men of that village together in bonds less selfish than
ties of blood.
Is it not significant of independence of mere
traditions and conventionalisms, that in no town did the influence of the
pulpit depend less on the sermons and more on the high, manly charactens
of the pastors? Their best preaching was by example. With no
exception, they deemed religion a life instead of a dogma, and my intercourse
with them is among my pleasantest recollections. Better than others, they
appeared to understand the people, and to appreciate their character and
their lot.
Rev. Wm. Clark was a rare man. His daily life was purer and more persuasive than spoken sermon. More friend and companion than theorizer, he inclined men to godliness by the contagion of example. In the gospel he preached, he found whatever reforming and purifying agencies men can need.
Rev. E. Bowen was a born leader, of grim, puritanical
uprightness, with as many rights as anybody, fond of his own way, and impatient
of opposition or dissent. Men
named him with bated breath. He was
a compelling christian. It is possible that he laughed-sometim~
but ifa smile was seen on his face after his
ordination, or if there was a moment when he laid aside his majestic dignity,
or his austere robustness of demeanor, the fact was too incredible to be
made public. He must have peeled a potato as if it were a sacrificial
act, and dressed his hair as though deprecating Divine wrath.
Rev. Joseph Cross appeared a diminished copy
of Antinous. He could wear an Indian blanket with a grace to make
it took a robe fit for a monarch. His brilliancy in the pulpit-and
he was brilliant there-was equaled by the simplicity of his manners and
the purity of his life. He was beloved and popular in his church
and out it, without being a leader. He went South, took orders in
the Episcopal Church, and long afterwards drifted into Illinois, and, it
is understood, has returned to the church of his youth-another illustration
of the triumph of earl>' impressions, and that the convictions of young
manhood often prove, as life wears apace, stronger than the piques and
short- lived ambitions of manhood's prime.
Rev. S. Comfort, a studious man, a strong,
patient, logical thinker, knew and revered the Ten Commandments and the
Interest Table. But never did a preacher of undoubted learning and
piety and ability, exclude from his pulpit every grace or pleasing quality
or tone or gesture, with an equally merciless rigor. His amended
sentences, and anti-climaxes, and elocution, were of inimitable badness.
I used to to think his manner was the type of total depravity.
Had others known, as I knew. Rev. Z. Paddock,
he would have been reverenced as the world reverences its martyrs.
In him patience and meek forbearance wrought a perfect work, and he wore
his priestly office worthily.
Oliver Jewell, of the Lincklaen House, raised
hotel management to an art. His table was a study, and the morning
coffee nectar. Col. Seymour, of the Cazenovia
House, shared Col. Ehle's virile adventures,
and added to the fund of gentlemen's stories. The tales may have
been embellished in tile narration, but, in the main, they were as veracious
as the official report of a battle. Yet in his house he was a martinet.
No gossip, and no uncharitable opinions were heard at his table, while
his talk was as clean as my soup at Kasota. I long sat at his board,
and among my fellow gastronomes were Frank Moseley who learned singing
from a rip saw. He wanted his fun ready made. After a prosperous
career as a tradesman, he died in Wisconsin in life's summer. Gay
Charley Hunt devoured by the fascinating study of bar glasses and potables;
and Rev. H. Coxe, about whose lips played the genius offun and humorand
brilliant repartee, Had his head exploded, the country would have
been amazed by a shower of falling stars.
S.H. Henry having drank deep and long from
the cup of retribution; family abandoned, friends gone, property gone,
health gone, and himself miserably cowering over the dead ashes of self-respect,
died, not to soon, in California. Vic. Dearborn, straitened by poverty
not wholly inevitable, and long a-dying of an incurable lesion was warped
into the malignant temper incident to his condition, Somehow, he
failed to maintain the melody of his morning psal~ of life.
Gen. Rough had little of the easy indifference
to dark courses which lies at the root of popularity. He had outlived
the prejudices handed down from early times of anti-masonic tumult,
During my acquaintance, I heard no word, and saw no act not to his honor.
His life was a rebuke to the idle, the vicious and the malignant,
No reformer, he was no corrupter of morals or sound principles. It
was inevitable that he was respected rather than liked.
On the street, Col. Stebbins appeared to be
unconscious of others, and was, in consequence, thought to be unsocial
or proudly disdainful. An accident revealed to
me his glad, prompt, cordial, polished courtesy,
and the transformation when he welcomed a guest. He was able to adhere
to his juvenile purpose to retire from his active profession at sixty,
and at seventy to give no opinion on legal matters. When others talked
to be social, he was still chary of speech. He was only self-poised
and distant, in his ill-understood way. If he had no enthusiasm he
also had no relapse of convictions. Nor would he stoop to brush aside
a specious tale framed to his injury. A chance remark, on the Mississippi,
revealed to me how cruelly he had been misjudged for his fidelity to a
trust. I dimly recall passages in his early life, which hint the grand
moral fiber or will power of the man, by indicating the repression of himself
exerted for half a century. He spoke so seldom that people who saw
him daily for years may never have heard his voice. Really. I would
know what fruits were elaborated by his thinking. A strong, just
man, of spotless character.
John Williams was, above others, the pure
type of the Cazenovia I knew. Strong of build, unmoved, strenuous,
hopeful, accessible, not easily discouraged, quick of decision, if thrown
down falling on his feet, manufacturer, tradesman, politician and an officer
of many corporations, he loved honor and public esteem, family and christian
morality. Under the man of affairs, lay a nature poetical in its
love for the elevated and beautiful in literature. He ~'~s tried by reverses,
and stood the shock, like the master of his own fortunes. He put
success into things. By purse and brain, he carried the Seminary through
its crises, and saw its enlarged halls thronged by ambitious students under
profound scholars, and declined specific compensation, on the wise plea
that he had been repaid by the enhancement of his estate, incident to such
prosperity in the village as could be traced to the presence in its midst
of a school that did well its allotted work.
Major Litchfield's days glided by.in unruffled
quiet He had quaffed deep of life's varied goblet, and fo.undno
pleasure or repose or satisfaction comparable
to the delights of home, the society of his pastor, the sober joy of religious
meetings with the few grey-headed worship-pens whose voices, thin, broken,
and tremulous with age and fervor, informed their songs with a pathos beyond
lyric art. Watching the rising fame of his sons, he was separated
from others, by the serenity of his life and manners. In a way I
could riot analyze, he strongly enforced lessons of kindness, of charity
to human frailty, and the duty of self-control and christian thoughtfulness.
Major Ten Eyck's purse and counsel aided more
than one struggling man to the moderate competence, dearto age. No
rivalry in business, no heated political contest, and no division on local
questions, lost him a friend, or gained him an enemy. He had thrift
without meanness, economy without parsimony, and liberal it;. Without Ostentation.
H is kindness to me will not let me sav more. l4is s~n taught me, as wcll
as I could learn, the value of forgetfulness of injuries, or the wisdom
of remembering without resentment. And my poor capacity for turning
active unfriendliness into a means of self-improvement, was tested more
than once, In the constant good offices to others in which
"Hank" Ten Eyck indulges, it should not surprise him to learn that his
efforts in my behalf and known to me not until years later and he had forgotten
them, were as rich in results as he could have desired. He gave me
courage, and was to me a large section of the best part of Cazenovia,
His efforts in my behalf were not through personal regard one tithe as
much, as because it was his pleasure and habit to yield to the promptings
of his beneficent instincts.
He bears without abuse,
The grand old name of gentleman.''
When a crisis came, W.M. Burr exhibited a
boldness, a courage and decisive action, prompt and daring which might
have taught his neighbors that his caution was but prudence. and his imputed
timidity a love of quiet and a
purpose to shun ostentation. He had
the rare quality or nsing to the occasion, and becoming master of the Sitea.
ation. His mild, passionless words and low, even tones, were, on
occasion, the hand of iron in the glove of velvet. He tasted the secret
of happiness at home, amid his family and kindred. He was kind without
insolence, and rich without pride. By joining other capitalists,
he gave employment to a multitude, and contributed to the early extension
of railways to the west.
S.T. Fairchild is swayed by temporary external
influences to about the same degree that Bunker Hill Monument is by solar
heat. He is hence a leader whenever he wilt accept the stormy honor.
In politics. he believes in men as much as in hl% p~rty. Among my
pleasantest and most instructiy ~\ 5 I count the leisure afternc)on
with him, rockin<~ idh in his boat far out on the lZ~kL, and listening
to h~m on th Philosophy of I~ife, its aims and motives, and the proper
measure of character. 'V later introduction to h15 home library afforded
mean idea of the man, his tastes and reading, quite unlike the oi)e entertained
by' such as estimate him by the standard of the politician, the financier
or the law\'er.
The essential quality of Lewison Fairchild
is thorough-ness. He has great capacity for seeing and knowing so
much on his side of a question; he persists in keeping in mind many things
and facts which other men forget or neglect. He goes beyond outside
facts to the eternal principles. I imagine he made a mistake in not
becoming an avowed chancery pleader, or a real estate lawyer. Some grand,
engrossing pursuit, worthy of him, would have lifted him to higher planes,
or dulled his advocacy of transient local interests. I can talk nearer
and wider and deeper to him than to others. And I brought home the
confidential evidence of his steadfastness to his friends.
Mathematically, he is a "plus" man.
He can not be indifferent or neutral, and has paid the usual penalty for
presuming to be something and spmebody, in a town
where inflexibility of character was one of
the seven deadly sins, and easy flexibility was worse.
John F. Fairchild, the man of granite, severely
straight-forward, plain of manner, a clear, earnest thinker, implacable
and inflexible in his principles, proud in a noble wav, tender and true
to friends, with the courage of strong manhood and the courage of stout
endurance, admired men of a strong, aggressive will, and a high purpose.
Though an editor for nearly forty years, through those dolorous days when
a difference in politics meant social non-intercourse, or positive enmity,
he was intolerant of a politician who would rise by apologizing for vice,
or by traffickng in ths wcaknes5~ or passtons of the people.
As B.T. Clarke and M. Spear men who denied
me tl~c pos£ib~lit~ of friendshi1) to thcm, saw their ambition ex1)irc
in thu l)rLsence of num~, ou~ years, they- retired from. business and striving~
for domination, and threw off th> aspurities whose indul'
d eli~gence hid once filled them with
6ht. But I can not forget the d~5 s
when they thought the sun rose to hear their cocks crow. At length,
the near-sightedness of a passion for exercising inconsistent caprices
in regard to their neighbors' conduct and opinions, gave place to a clearer,
juster, broader vision. Their foes must have seen that, at the bottom,
the bias of temperament was powerless, and, at last, they would be just
in their judgment of others. Their very intensity gave their characters
a wounding angularity and decision. This explains their partisanship and
struggle to direct in local things. They long judged everybody and
everything by themselves. But the effort at supremacy over, it was
seen that they respected and admired the antagonists whose temper they
had tried, and in some instances even gave them their confidence and sought
their friendship.
These were some of the men, the leaders in
trade, in manufactures and finance, in church and society, in politic
and industrial aud commercial enterprises. whose
memory filled riy mind on my late visit.
Through the illusion of sensibility', I fancied them walking the streets
as in the days before Gerrit Smith began to preach his politics on Sundays.
The past came back to me, with a constant feeling and regret not to be
spoken, as clear and passionate as if it were of last week. To exchange
niv visit for this cheat on consciousness, was not altogether the entertainment
I had expected. It was natural, such a necromancer is Time, that
those I had known only a~< children should meet m& with grey' heads,
and repsating their vanished youth in manly sons and daughters blush mg
with dignity and loveliness. I was prone to greet them as John or
Harriet, instead of Mr. Graham or Mrs. Symonds, and they' forgave the impertinence
with a smile half of amusement and half of regret, that we must )av our
youth for wisdom and the graver duties of life.
Not all who began the race with me, have been
successful in getting wealth, or in preserving their modest fortune : for
Cazenovia 25 not a place to get rich easily in. But nearly all have
kept the promise of their early manhood, and have won esteem for what they
ar~ an I not for houses or stocks or lands. They are the bettci for having
lived in Cazenovia, with its high ideal of ch~i cttr its slowly garnered
wealth, its courteous manners it" broad and broadening culture, its refined
hospitality intl its neat cheerful Itomes of beauty and comfort.
\ et the best thing about the village is its people who do not have to
be rich to be somebody. Its social life has grown many-sided and
a genial moralist and educator.
As the days and years which had slipped away,
recalled themselves, and put off their historical character, comparisons
were inevitable. I was put face to face with my old life. The present
Cazenovia can fear no contrast with a previous one; she has forgotten or
put away no former virtue or courtesy or ideals of discipline. The sun
rises on no purer, sweeter homes. It is a good place to be reared in, and
then emigrate from.
One friend whose legal labors mark an era
in State jurisprudence- may he pardon this stolen allusion to himself-gave
his clever, genial, instructive society on my rides during the four days,
and dismissed me to my home, not less gratified by his many courtesies
than by the knowledge df the general testimony that he has nobly redeemed
his morning promise of ability, learning, character and usefulness.
How full to me of kindly ghosts was the air
of the fair old village I could not fill myself with its idle
summer contcnt. My past there put off its historical character.
Mv to-day and my yesterdays were parts of the etc'rnal now. At each step,
attended by recollections to be confessed only to the dead, memory' and
con5c10u' ness of the present, were blended in a perplexing jilUSiOfl.
My thoughts bore me such company', that I was never less alone than when
all alone. In part, this mystification of the senses came from the
isolation which for years had been my pain and refuge, but, in a far greater
degree, it was a seciud of an illness which in one little month, during
which delirium was kind as sleep, made me ten years older and planted deep,
subtle lesions to rob me of strength and courage to face a future grown
suddenly unkind, when it was like going on a forlorn hope to dare the struggle.
That you, to whose intelligence an appeal
~an prudently be made, may know how my life was colored by a residence
in a town which above all others I have known, causes each citizen to feel,
each moment, the vast superincumbent weight of public opinion, I have here
used a household freedom of speech as to some of its present and former
citizens, and have written with exceeding plainness this record of moods
and reminiscence.
Oct., 1879.