Pioneer Irish of Onondaga (about 1776-1847)

Preface

THE story of the Pioneer Irish of Onondaga was begtin at the request of Dr. John Van Duyn for the Onondaga Historical Association, to be one of a series of records of the different nations who settled within the County.

Any addition to the early history is most desirable, for in the scanty records of former days, the share of any one nation is scant indeed. The notes that refer to those of Irish birth or descent have been collected to become part of this record. The usual guide has been the name. The many names shared by the Irish and those of other nationalities are generally excluded, but if, occasionally, one is erroneously claimed, it is outnumbered by the many loyal Irish excluded because they bear names that are not characteristic.

Often good old surnames are found with singular Christian names in the children of an Irishman and his wife of another nation. In corresponding marriages, the history of Irish mothers is nearly always lost.

Many names lack proper classification because of errors in spelling, entailing double work in research. Again in many records the Irish ancestry is ignored. Some names, though associated with

VI

Preface other nations, are borne by native Irishmen who disclaim alien blood.

The original part of these notes was collected through interviews with early settlers or their descendants. Rarely have family records been available. Only a few of the great number who came to Onondaga in its first half-century are here represented. To record the history of these Irish Pioneers has been the motive of this work.

The arrangement of the material is approximately chronologic in that portion of the work that is devoted to Salina. In the case of the other eighteen towns of the County, where the population before 1847 was small, where nearly all the records before 1830 are lost, the extracts from the bibliography are transcribed without system. Further original research in these towns seemed profitless. Syracuse was second to Salina in importance until 1848.

The story of Onondaga's Irish in the American Revolution and other historical data have been used with a hope of arousing further interest in the historic wealth of this County.

The narratives and anecdotes interspersed sum up certain racial experiences during the social development of Onondaga.

The general conditions under which the pioneers lived, phases of which are revealed in the life stories of the individuals considered in this volume, were varied and made possible a re-

Preface

Vll presentative development of Irish character and temperament.

The labor of collecting the material for this record has been made more easy by the kindness of the families interviewed. For other encouragement and assistance, acknowledgment is here made; and this acknowledgment is extended as freely to those who warned and sought to deter. For sustained interest, critical attention, and ready support in the production of this work during the past four years, thanks are due Daniel L. Doherty, T. Frank Dolan, and Edward Ryan.

Contents

PAGE

Introduction

I

CHAPTER

I. — Salina

II. — Syracuse

III. — Onondaga . . . .

. 167

IV. — Geddes

. 205

V. — Dewitt . . . . •

VI. — Lysander . . . .

. Q2e

VII. — Spafford . . . .

qqS

VIII. — Skaneateles .

. 231

IX. — Marcellus

• 237

X. — Lafayette

• 247

XI. — Camillus . . .

. 251

XII. — Elbridge ....

. 253

Xlir.— Otisco ....

. 255

XIV.— TULLY ....

. 258

XV. — Pompey ....

. 260

X Contents

CHAPTER

PAGE

XVI.— Fabius ....

. 265

XVII.— Clay ....

. 267

XVIII.— Cicero ....

. 271

XIX. — Manlius

. 272

XX. — Van Buren .

. 278

XXI. — Scotch-Irish .

. 285

XXII.— Yarns ....

. 288

Index .....

. 301

BIBLIOGRAPHY

{i)''Baldwinsville Gazette, newspaper, Semi-centennial Souvenir Edition, Baldwinsville. Onondaga County, N. Y., 1896.

(2) Beauchamp, The Rev. William M., S. T. D., Past and Present of Syracuse and Onondaga County from Prehistoric Times to the Beginning of IQ08. The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, New York and Chicago, 1908.

(3) Bruce, Dwight H. (Editor), Onondaga's Centennial, Gleanings of a Century. The Boston History Company, 1896.

(4) Chase, Franklin H., Onondaga's Soldiers of the Revolution; Official Records Compiled. Published by the Onondaga Historical Association, Syracuse, N. Y., 1895. Pamphlet.

(5) Cheney, Timothy C, Reminiscences of Syracuse. Published first in the Syracuse Daily Standard, and later compiled by Parish B. Johnson. Moses Summers and William Summers, Publishers, 1857. Pamphlet.

(6) Clark, Joshua V. H., A. M., Onondaga; or Reminiscences of Earlier and Later Times; being a Series of Historical Sketches Relative to Onondaga; with Notes on the Several Towns in the County, and Oswego. Syracuse, N. Y., 1849.

(7) Clayton, W. W., History of Onondaga County, New York. Syracuse, 1878.

(8) Collins, George K., Spafford Mortuary Records, with Genealogical Notes. Manuscript, 1900. Syracuse Public Library. — Spafford, Onondaga County, New York. Manuscript, 1902. Syracuse Public Library.

(9) Haltigan, James, The Irish in the American Revolution and Their Early Influence in the Colonies. Patrick J. Haltigan, Publisher, Washington, D. C, 1908.

(10) Hand, M. C, From a Forest to a City; Personal Reminiscences of Syracuse, New York. Syracuse, 1889.

(11) Hewitt, William P. H. (Editov) , History of the Diocese of Syracuse, Established 1886; with an Introduction by the Rt. Rev. Mgr. James S. M. Lynch, S.T.D., M.R.; Stories of the xii Bibliography-

Parishes, 1615-1909. Catholic Sun Press, Syracuse, N. Y., 1909.

(12) Joyce, P. W., LL.D., A Concise History of Ireland. Longmans, Green & Co., New York, 1903.

(13) Leslie, Edmund Norman, Skaneateles; History of Its Earliest Settlement and Reminiscences of Later Times. Press of Andrew J. Kellogg, New York, 1902.

(14) Mac Geoghegan, The Abb6, The History of Ireland, Ancient and Modern. Taken from the Most Authentic Records and Dedicated to the Irish Brigade. Translated from the French by Patrick O'Kelly, Esq. New York, 1848.

(15) Parsons, Israel, M.D., The Centennial History of the Town of Marcellus. Delivered in the Presbyterian Church of Marcellus, Onondaga County, N. Y., July 4, 1876. Pamphlet. 1878.

(16) Reunion of the Sons and Daughters of the Old Town of Pompey, Held at Pompey Hill, June 2g, 1871; . . . also, A History of the Town, Reminiscences and Biographical Sketches of Its Early Inhabitants. Publication Committee. Pompey, 1875.

(17) Scisco, Louis Dow, Early History of the Town of Van Buren, Onondaga County, New York. Baldwinsville, New York, 1895. Pamphlet.

(18) Smith, Carroll E., LL.D., Pioneer Times in the Onondaga Country. Compiled by Charles Carroll Smith. Syracuse, 1904.

(19) Strong, Gurney S., Early Landmarks of Syracuse. 1894.

(20) Van Schaack, Henry C, A History of Manlius Village in a Course of Lectures Read before the Manlius Literary Association. Fayetteville, New York, 1873.

INTRODUCTION

ONONDAGA, where moved the Great Spirit in the form of Hiawatha, where kindled the council fires of the Five Nations, could not fail to attract the attention of the paleface. The Jesuit "Relations" show the journeys of the French to the territory of Onondaga County. Later the English came. In the armies of both nations were the Irish, nearly half a million of whom gave their blood to France in half a century. A fragment of the Irish Brigade was at Niagara. Other Irishmen were in military service along the river to Quebec and with the English in the valley of the Mohawk. Some of these penetrated to the land of the Onondagas during the military operations. Among the first Irishmen to visit Onondaga were the Revolutionary soldiers. Their history has been written. Some of them came back here and estabhshed their homes.

In the partition of the military lands the Irish soldiers drew many lots but little of all the tract was occupied by the original owners. Speculators bought up claims, and litigation was long and stormy. Lots were relinquished by the discoiiraged or the reckless for mere trifles.

In the meantime, before the organization of

Pioneer Irish of Onondao^a the County, the Irish were boihng salt in Salina and clearing land in every township. They saw the birth of the County, fostered its infancy, and have enjoyed its full development.

The Irish Pioneers came to Onondaga from various parts of the Union. They came directly from Ireland. They came from Canada and other countries to which they had previously emigrated.

They came for the same reasons which have always influenced mankind to a change of habitation — the desire of new things, the love of adventure, the pain of shattered hopes, the loss of possessions, the need of political and religious freedom, the search of opportunity for labor and wealth. In addition they were drawn to the land which had won independence from their own old enemy.

In Onondaga they found the Indian in the wilderness. There were the hardships of pioneer life where swamps sent forth pestilence and death to alternate with winter's storm and rigor. There was the unrest of a new government, the lawlessness of a new community. Their neighbors like themselves were provincial in the extreme. The mingling of nations was a strange experience, arousing mutual hostility, mistrust, and prejudice. Difference in temperament, in religion, in social customs increased the discord.

Nevertheless they found contentment. They had their share of Nature's bounty, and op-

Introduction 3

portunity to woo her favor. The land they cleared became their own, the virgin soil gave abundant harvest. They had freedom, which their race had helped to gain; for of those who came to America the Irish, most of all, were politically free. They repudiated allegiance to the government under which they had lived, by which they had been oppressed. They burned their bridges behind them. They stood or fell by their own acts, for there was no national consul to whom they could appeal with hope founded on past experience. They were ready to be part of the new order of things. Their innate love of liberty, cherished in defeat, flamed full in the Revolution.

To Onondaga the Irish brought their manv virtues and their few vices. They brought the Catholic faith and morals, which they had ever kept as their greatest treasure, which they still keep to the despair of their rivals. They celebrated the Christian holidays and gradually leavened Puritanism. By a happy combination of temperament and religion they were armed against the insolence of their neighbors; for whereas the neighbors looked upon them and their religious exercises with hostility and contempt, the Irish in turn prayed for them as for benighted heathen.

The graver crimes were unknown among these pioneers of Onondaga — murder, blackmail, degeneracy, lust. Women and children, the unprotected and the weak, were safe even in the rudest times.

They brought the sanguine temperament, the loyalty, the courage, the gayety, the humor and warmth of their race. They brought health — splendid health — and strength for their pioneer labors. Their blood was pure, their vigor unimpaired by toil in the kindly climate of their native land. They came as parents with their young, or as youths to build for the future. They gave to the County its greatest wealth — children, God's hostages.

Their vices were nearly virtues. Their lawlessness was picturesque. It had the effect of law upon its objects. Their county quarrels were simply exaggerated patriotism. Their appeal to fists was a primitive virtue. Their share in the contests of the rival gangs of early days was normal in men of superabundant energy, with local pride, fraternal loyalty, and the inborn love of combat. There are few Irish mollycoddles.

The splendid strength of these pioneers was exerted in every field of activity. The forests bowed to their swinging blows, the noisome swamps became fruitful gardens under their hands. Hills were levelled and roads made smooth by their strong arms. They dug the canals which opened the County to commerce. They manned the boats freighted with the salt they themselves had boiled. The living rock sprang from its bed to be fashioned for their

Introduction 5

dwellings. The stream left its channel to grind their corn. They entertained the traveller in their taverns at the crossroads. They taught school and administered justice. In village and city and State and Union they represented the wish of the community, voiced the opinion of the majority.

The Pioneer Irish of Onondaga were more content to work than to record. It is a kindred pen which here unites the scattered fragments of their story.

THERE are pages in the history of Onondaga for those who would read of the Indian's Hfe in the forest, of the war-whoop of hostile tribes, of the peace pipe of the paleface. There are tales of romance and adventure, of the retreat of the wild creatures of the woods, of buried treasure, of fire and sword. From Onondaga to Quebec is a trail alive with interest ; so, too, from Brewerton to the valley of the Mohawk.

The claim of Sir William Johnson to Onondaga Lake and the Salt Springs gives him a place among the Irish Pioneers. A native of Ireland, a British officer, he shared the councils of the Five Nations at Onondaga. General John Sullivan and General James Clinton directed military operations within the limits of Onondaga, while Colonel Van Schaick's expedition to the County brought IMajor Robert Cochran and Captain Thomas Machin. In these detachments of the Revolutionary army were other soldiers of Irish blood, some of whom were among the few pioneers of Onondaga.

Salt Point, or Salina, where the salt springs known to the Jesuits led to the great industry of salt manufacture, must ever be the centre of historic interest in Onondaga. J. V. H. Clark describes the country and incidentally introduces a few Irish Pioneers. He says:^

The country about Onondaga Lake up to the year 1800 during the summer season was extremely unhealthy. Fevers began to appear early in July and cases followed each other in such quick succession that oftentimes there were scarce well persons enough to minister to the necessities of the sick, and it seemed as if man and beast were alike afflicted with the same dread scourge. Numbers of the inhabitants perished during the sickly season.

Patrick Riley

In 1793, there were but thirty persons at Salt Point all told, and nearly every one was sick at one time, except a man named Patrick Riley, a generoushearted fellow who carried on Mr. Van Vleck's salt works. He drew his own wood for salt-block, boiled salt every day and half the nights, and every alternate night watched with the sick, for a period of two months, without a single night of intermission.^

It does not require much imagination to call up the figure of this brave and tender-hearted Irishman. It is not unreasonable to assume that in the small colony of thirty people at Salt Point there were other Irishmen, his friends and fellow-

' Clark, vol. ii., p. 141. 'Ibid.

workmen, whom the deadly disease had laid low. Patrick Riley in charge of the salt works was in a position to befriend his countrymen who came into the wilderness to find employment.

John O'Blennis Kate O'Blennis (Born Van Vleck)

Clark says^: "John O'Blennis made salt at Green Point in 1794," and in the preface, he says:

The names of Mrs. O'Blennis, of Salina, and Mrs. Wood, of Onondaga Hollow, should not be omitted, both of whom have resided in the county from its earliest settlement, and whose vigorous minds are stored with an almost unlimited stock of valuable information.

Mrs. O'Blennis, a daughter of Mr. Isaac Van Vleck, had an Indian name, Jo-an-te-no.^

There is no record of the courtship of the Irishman and the daughter of the Dutch pioneer but the name of Kate O'Blennis was a household word for half a century or longer in Salina and the surrounding country. She was the mother of an only child, a son, but she was the friend of all mothers in their hour of need. The wife of an Irishman and the adopted daughter of the Indians, she attended the birth of hundreds of both these and other races in the capacity of doctor and nurse. She is still a vivid picture in the minds of those who in their childhood held their breath while she majestically passed. She was called Aunt Kate.

Kate was very high tempered, shrewd, and bright, says Mr. Jefferson Leach. She was a member of the old Presbyterian church. It was customary to toll the bell when a member died, but Kate O'Blennis was the last to whom that tribute was given.

Christopher Colles

The construction of the Erie Canal, which led to the foundation of Syracuse and the development of Onondaga County, was for many years the subject of thought and labor of an Irishman. Clark thus gives credit saying':

It was a matter that began seriously to attract and engross the attention of sagacious, enlarged, and liberal minds from 1784 to 1800. Christopher Colles, a native of Ireland who settled in New York before the Revolution, was probably the first man who started suggestions with respect to canals and inland improvements in Western New York. DeWitt Clinton himself declares this fact, saying: "He was an ingenious mathematician and mechanician. His memorials to the Legislature were presented in 1784-85, and met with a favorable report, although some thought his scheme visionary. The Legislature appropriated one hundred and twenty-five dollars to enable him to prosecute his examination of the Mohawk River." He

' Clark, vol. ii., p. 51.

again appeared before the Legislature and the public with a proposition to form an association to improve the inland navigation between Oswego and Albany. Although these propositions were sensible and well founded, yet no public action crowned his efforts. He published a pamphlet in 1785, entitled "Proposals for the speedy settlement of the frontier of Western New York, by which the internal trade will be increased, the country will be settled and the frontier secured." As an earnest of what was contemplated, the Legislature of the State of New York passed an act, etc.

The agitation and work produced by Christopher CoUes resulted in the construction of the Erie Canal.

, DeWitt Clinton

Haltigan gives this family history*:

Charles Clinton was born in County Longford, Ireland, 1690. His wife was Elizabeth Denniston, an intelligent and accomplished Irishwoman. These were the founders of the Clinton family in America. They had four sons: Alexander, physician; Charles, physician; James, Major- General; and George, first Governor of State of New York for twenty-one years. James, son of Charles and Elizabeth Clinton, married Mary DeWitt of Holland ancestry. They had four sons: Alexander, Charles, and George, all distinguished lawyers, and DeWitt, Governor of the State of New York and projector of the Erie Canal.

The Erie Canal developed Onondaga.

• The Irish in the American Revolution.

Salina ii

William Connor

According to Clarke*

The first school kept at Liverpool was by a man named Connor, in his salt works, and the scholars were taught while he carried on the business of making salt. His school was then considered the best in the county, and was denominated "the high school," and was patronized by the inhabitants of Salina and Onondaga Hollow.

Chase writes^:

In the records of the Revolutionary soldiers of the town of Salina is the name William Connor, who when an act of Congress established a pension, appeared in court according to law:

William Connor appeared in court in 1820 and said he was sixty-two years old; that he enlisted in the spring of 1775 in the regiment of Colonel Van Cortlandt and joined the army at Valley Forge. He was in the battle of Monmouth and was discharged in Ulster County about February i, 1779. Except his clothing his entire property consisted of a pair of spectacles which he valued at fifty cents, and a tobacco box of like value. At that time he was very much disabled by age and infirmities.

The old school-teacher and salt boiler was the Revolutionary soldier. A. H. Crawford wrote and published in the East Syracuse News a series of articles on "Old Days in Liverpool. " He received

much of his information from Kesiah Folgar Lee, then an old lady, who in her youth had gone to school in the salt works of the old soldier Connor. An extract from a letter to the Syracuse Weekly Journal, Sept. ii, 1869, from the Hon. Alvin Bronson: "My wife was born at Salt Point in 1797, the daughter of Captain O'Connor, a Revolutionary soldier, who settled at Oswego but was obliged to retreat to Salt Point in the winter to escape famine."

Thomas McCarthy

A young Irishman with dark hair and white skin set out from Salt Point to follow the blazed trail to Brewerton. Everything was strange to him for he had just come into the wilderness to make his home and now he was on the way to meet his mother. At a cabin in a clearing he asked for a drink of water and was given milk and the friendly gaze of a woman. Wondering at the fair skin of the stranger, which contrasted so strongly with that of the Indian and the bronzed pioneer, she asked him if the sun ever shone in the land he came from. He probably answered with courtesy and wit as became an Irishman and from that hour Thomas McCarthy has held his place in the history of the County.

His mother was at Brewerton with his step-father, Edmund McSweeny. They had come first to Brooklyn and then to Brewerton.

Thomas was the son of Thomas and Elizabeth

Stack McCarthy and when a boy about fourteen, according to the custom of the country, he was bound out until he was twenty-one. He went to Dublin and there learned the draper's trade, which he and his descendants exercised for more than a century in this County. Under the conditions of apprenticeship in Dublin, the apprentice entered the family of his employer and worked in the latter's shop, for which privileges the apprentice's father paid the employer a certain number of pounds sterling a year. Whether it was the father or step-father of Thomas who paid the fees, the term of apprenticeship had not expired when his mother came to America. When at last he was free he invested his savings in merchandise and with his brother John came to join his mother. John settled in Canada and Thomas at Salt Point, where he opened a small store and also began the manufacture of salt. The store has been represented as a log cabin but there were no log cabins at Salt Point at any time. It was a small frame house and when the business of the general store had increased, was replaced by a two-story building. His salt industry was at first limited to two salt kettles, and while he attended to the store, he hired men to boil his salt. In time he had fifty kettles and every one knows to what great proportions the little store grew.

Thomas McCarthy came when the County was young and grew into its life and history with the other men of other races who came and left their mark on the County's character. He was a valuable acquisition to the colony. Young and vigorous, well educated and thoroughly well trained by his long apprenticeship in the business life of a beautiful city, with an inheritance of Celtic humor and Catholic piety, he held within his hands the guiding lines of the pioneer life. Twice a year he journeyed to New York to buy goods, stopping at Utica to visit the Devereaux, reaching Albany by any conveyance possible, and navigating the river by boat or raft or craft of any sort, returning with his stock, which must answer the needs of six months. Sometimes his goods were exchanged for labor or wood for his salt works or for his home. A general store must have seen many strange exchanges where money was scarce, in the wilderness.

But Thomas McCarthy grew rich and influential socially and politically. He led the movement for the first Catholic church in the County and saw it completed, for he knew and felt the need. Priests were few and had widely scattered missions and rarely came here. Catholic men were without the spiritual ministrations of their priests for years at a time so that many joined their neighbors in different churches and gradually lost their ancient faith. The marriage ceremony, often for a marriage with a non-Catholic, was performed by a Justice of Peace and the other sacraments of the Church languished in the barren soil of disuse. Thomas McCarthy met the priests on his travels to New York, but years passed before his legal marriage received the benediction of the Church and his children its baptism.

His home brought together all those of his faith. When a priest penetrated to this old mission of the Jesuits, word was sent far and wide and those who wished came to their minister, tramping long distances through the forests, often deep in snow. Many remained over night to attend Mass in the morning and to carry back with them the spiritual store for perhaps many years. It was like, in some respects, the stations of their native land when for a time a farmhouse became a chapel and the neighbors attended the religious exercises and then indulged in feasts and games. As the avenues of travel became more open, the population increased and the spiritual needs of the people were more easily supplied. The noble untiring bishops of those days came to Salina to their people. The table or bureau was transformed into an altar in the McCarthy home and when Percy, the wife and mother, was too ill to leave her bed, Mass was celebrated within her view. Children were baptized, marriages blessed, instructions given, all in the short space of time the busy priests could give as they passed on to other fields.

On one of the trips to New York Thomas Mc- Carthy met James Lynch at the home of the Devereaux in Utica, and persuaded him to try his fortune at Salina. So the two men became firm friends and followed the same line of business^ dividing their part of the patronage of the colony and sharing in the recorded history of the Coiinty. With other Catholics they founded St. John the Baptist Church, receiving subscriptions in Utica, Albany, and New York. Both reared large families, which have branched out into many States of the Union. Both hold a permanent place in the memory of posterity.

Extract from a newspaper clipping :

Thomas McCarthy died in St. Augustine, Florida, January 30, 1848, in the 626. year of his age. This was briefly announced in our paper of Tuesday. In 1812 he was among the first to march to the northern frontier to defend his adopted country against an invading British army.

He was one of the originators of the Bank of Salina. He was a worthy and highly esteemed citizen, respected for his industry and strict integrity.

He left for Florida Nov. 226. for his health, suffering from some bronchial trouble. He was taken ill at dinner and died in a short time.

Thomas McCarthy had two half-sisters, Joanna McSweeny who married Kane, and her sister. The daughter of Joanna married Francis Connelly.

It is said that while Thomas McCarthy was in Florida, a letter was sent to him from Syracuse offering him the nomination of mayor, the first, of the new city. The letter arrived there after his death.

Percy Soule formed the acquaintance of Thomas McCarthy while she was visiting her sister, Mrs. Stewart, in Syracuse. Mrs. Stewart was the mother of Captain WilHam Stewart of the packet-boat and afterwards of the Syracuse House. Percy Soule came from Wilberham, Massachusetts, and traced her ancestry back to the Mayflower.

Percy McCarthy was a gentle wife, a kind hostess, and the idol of her children. Long periods of illness only increased the gentleness of her nature and the love of her family and friends. Her daughter Mary took upon herself the many cares of a large household, directed and counselled by the gentle, invalid mother. The religious life of the family centred at her bed and the formal ceremonies of the Church were within view from her pillow. Bishop DuBois of New York came there to perform the marriage ceremony of her daughter Eliza and Colonel Silas Titus. With him was a young priest who was destined to be a cardinal. Father M'Closkey. He baptized the youngest child, Agnes McCarthy, and the records of these two ceremonies are said to be the first Catholic records in this County; for, when the Bishop asked for the records, there were none, and he started them.

Thomas McCarthy's first wife was Percy Soule of Wilberham, Massachusetts. Their children are: Dennis, who married Millicent Carter; Robert, who married Eliza Pierce, Boston; Eliza, who married Col. Silas Titus; three who died young; Mary, who married Matthew Murphy, Utica; William, who married Mary E. Kearney, Rochester; Ellen, who married Richard Eliot, Detroit; Sarah, who married Daniel Bryan, Utica; Agnes, who married William Lalor, Utica; John, who married Elizabeth Toole, Syracuse.

Thomas McCarthy's second wife was Mrs. Anna Cronly Toole, the widow of Thomas Toole, Jr., of New York, and her daughter Elizabeth married his son John the next year.

Dennis McCarthy, son of the Salina pioneer merchant, Thomas McCarthy, was bom in Salina March 19, 18 14, and after his education joined his father in the drygoods business.

Upon the father's death he was joined in business by his brother John. Later Dennis McCarthy bought out his brother's interest and continued in the business, which was developed from a small beginning until its sales amounted to two million dollars annually. He possessed keen discernment in business affairs, was at all times reliable and trustworthy, and carried forward to successful completion whatever he undertook. He became recognized as one of the prominent leaders of the Republican party in New York.