Aid from Central New York to Ireland During the Great Hunger

by Harvey Strum, Russell Sage College

Copyright © 2022 All rights reserved by the author.

 

    

“Our only desire being that this little contribution which we are able to make shall be so 
disposed of as to alleviate, to a great extent as it can, the sufferings of our brethren, the 
afflicted people of Ireland,” expressed the hope of the Irish Relief Committee of Utica. In 
1846-47 the people of New York from Erie County to Suffolk County and from Malone to 
the Bowery rallied to the cause of Ireland. Residents of central New York joined in this 
statewide and national movement of voluntary philanthropy as the United States emerged 
as the leader in voluntary international philanthropy. More aid came from New York state 
than any other state, and more ships sailed from the port of New York City carrying food 
and clothing than any other city in the United States. American aid became a voluntary 
people to people movement because President James K. Polk considered foreign aid 
unconstitutional and would not support a bipartisan proposal in the Senate to appropriate 
$500,000 to aid the suffering, Irish. This meant the American people had to take 
responsibility for helping the Irish without leadership from Washington. As a newspaper 
in Norwich, Chenango County argued: “not only in this town, but every other town in the 
county, we hope to see obey the call of humanity” because “hundreds are dying daily of 
starvation in Ireland.” The people of central New York lived up to this responsibility and 
gave their pennies, quarters, and dollars for the Irish.[1] 

Novelist James Fenimore Cooper, chairman of the Cooperstown and Otsego County 
Irish Relief Committee, observed the widespread support of Irish relief: “Widows gave 
their sixpences and shillings, and I never knew a better spirit in the ascendant.” Otsego 
County provided a model of Irish relief efforts in central New York and in the United States during the Great Hunger. Local newspapers published harrowing accounts of the famine in Ireland. According to the Freeman’s Journal, of Cooperstown: “The accounts from Ireland, of the famishing condition of her people, are most appalling.” Readers learned of the dire conditions in Ireland and Scotland. To stimulate action, the press reported on famine relief meetings in other parts of the country and of meetings in Washington and Albany encouraging citizens to organize their own relief committees. [2]  

James Fenimore Cooper and one hundred and thirty-two other citizens of Cooperstown issued an appeal, “Relief to Ireland,” directed “To the Inhabitants of the County of Otsego” notifying them that a preliminary meeting for Irish relief met on 20 February and decided to request the citizens of Otsego County gather at a county meeting on 4 March to aid the Irish. Their appeal emphasized the magnitude of the crisis in Ireland, and the obligation of the American people to help. To push the people of Otsego County to act, Cooper and the others remined citizens of the “great and laudable exertions are making, in all parts of this vast country” to help the starving Irish. Newspapers and public meetings frequently used a combination of competition and shaming to motivate local residents to act. The appeal stressed the bounty of America compared to the want in Europe, a theme repeated across the country in 1847, but Cooper and the others raised an issue rarely mentioned in other city, town, and county meetings that the blessings of philanthropy were worth more than the pride of military victories---a not subtle reference to the Mexican American War. [3]

When the residents of Cooperstown met on 4 March, James Fenimore Cooper assumed the chairmanship of the resolutions committee and gave the major speech about conditions in Ireland. Robert Campbell chaired the meeting, and Charles McLean served as secretary. George Starkweather followed Cooper and addressed the assembled crowd. Resolutions adopted at the meeting stressed the common themes raised around the country. The resolutions voiced concerns about the magnitude of the crisis, the sympathy of the people of Otsego County to the human suffering in Europe, American abundance, and the need to unite to help the people of Ireland. Cooperstown’s residents elected James Fenimore Cooper chairman, George Starkweather secretary, and Henry Scott as treasurer of the Cooperstown and Otsego County Central Committee for Irish Relief. Resolutions recommended the establishment of local committees in each town in the county to collect foodstuffs, clothing, and money. Members of the Central Committee suggested dividing the towns by school districts and sending young men in sleighs or other vehicles to each house to collect donations. The Central Committee recommended food donations of corn, peas, beans, grain, and smoked and salted meat. A separate county appeal stressed American abundance, the scale of the suffering, and appealed to the pride and charity of the residents of Otsego County. Because “hundreds perish every week” and “food is wanting and that we possess in abundance” the American people must help the Irish.[4]

Newspaper editors endorsed famine relief, as they did throughout the United States. According to the editor of Freeman’s Journal: “The Irish Relief Depot, directly opposite our window, is filling rapidly with generous contributions of the humane.” The editor singled out the town of Hartwick “has been foremost in her action, and met a good example, which it is hoped…will be followed by her sister towns.” Editors used a mixture of pointing out good examples of charity, emphasizing competition in good works, and shaming to encourage donations. Similarly, the editor of the Otsego Democrat, reported on the Central Committee sending 125 barrels of grain “for the benefit of the starving Irish. Let the cry be ‘still they come’” Cooperstown’s newspapers published reports of the donations, as for example, “the towns of Maryland and Butternuts, and some other towns, have considerable grain in store, which will be forwarded as soon as canal [Erie Canal] navigation opens.” James Fenimore Cooper collected donations through the middle of July 1847, and like other county chairmen, forwarded the collections to the Irish relief committee in New York City for transportation to the Society of Friends in Dublin for distribution. [5]

Nearby Madison County followed the same pattern. As early as November 1846 residents could read of the “almost want of supply in Ireland, and the increasing destitution in that country, and in some parts of Scotland.” Conditions had not improved by February 1847: :There appears to be no mitigation in the accounts of sufferings by the famine in Ireland.” A circular appeared in mid-February calling upon “the citizens of Madison County to assemble in their respective towns, on Wednesday next, the 24th inst.,----for the purpose of contributing to the wants of the starving people of Ireland.” A local editor encouraged participation: “We hope the call will not be unheeded.” The press played a vital role in stimulating participation in the famine relief drive. A local paper, Madison County Whig publicized the meeting “for the purpose of raising funds for the starving millions of Ireland”[6]

Citizens of the county met on the 24th at the Presbyterian Church in Cazenovia. Banker Jacob Ten Eyck presided at the meeting and resolutions adopted stressed he privations in Ireland, sympathy of the American people, and Americans, “abounding in the surplus of breadstuffs, and all productions of the earth” had a moral obligation to aid the Irish. Unlike the later Know Nothing movement that identified the Irish as the demonic Catholics, in 1847 the people of Madison County portrayed the Irish as “fellow-men” suffering from the destruction of their crops. In 1847, the Irish were fellow Christians. To assist in aiding the Irish the Central Committee established at the meeting created district subcommittees in the village of Cazenovia and urged the creation of town committees in the county to solicit donations. Unlike the Otsego County committee, but in common with most village, town, and county committees in the United States, the Cazenovia and Madison County Committee called upon the clergy to actively solicit contributions in each church. [7]

Contributions came in from throughout the county. In the village of Cazenovia, Jacob Ten Eyck donated $25, the lodge of Independent Order of Odd Fellows,$75, and ‘KJ’s, “an order of young men, $27. Members of the Methodist, Presbyterian. Baptist, and Free Will Baptists collected in church for the Irish. Women donated as well as men, like Mrs. D.M. Pulford who gave $3, Anna Rice donated $1, and Mrs. C. Stone fifty cents. Altogether Cazenovia raised $366, Stockbridge $133, Smithfield $127, Madison $96, and De Ruyter about $76. By far, the largest contribution in the county and in upstate New York came from abolitionist Gerrit Smith of Peterboro, who sent $2,000 to the New York City committee “given to the starving people of Europe.”. People throughout the county, whether Lucretia Fuller with twenty-five cents to Smith’s $2,000 joined in this state and national movement of voluntary philanthropy.[8]

“We ought not to be behind our neighbors in this work of charity,” asked the editor of the Chenango Telegraph. Millions of people faced starvation in Ireland and “is Norwich to do anything in the good work?” Meetings took place throughout Chenango County. At a spirited meeting at New Berlin for Irish relief several speakers discussed the crisis, the audience donated $118, and the town meeting established a central committee to collect donation dividing up the town into school districts to facilitate fundraising. Similarly, led by the Society of Friends in Smyrna, residents sent $60 to New York City for the Irish. The inhabitants of Shelburne sent thirty-nine bags of cornmeal to New York. Town and village meetings provided an opportunity as the most basic level for the people of central New York to express their support for the cause of Irish relief. [9]

Village and town meeting played an instrumental role in initiating famine relief efforts in Tompkins County. Residents of Trumansburg met at the Presbyterian Church on 25 February and formed “a town society for the relief of the poor in Ireland and Scotland.” The audience voted to create an executive committee representing Trumansburg and the neighboring Jacksonville and Waterburgh and established depots for the collection of foodstuffs and clothing. A couple of weeks later Rev. Wilson Walker encouraged members of his Episcopalian congregation at St. Johns Church in Ithaca to donate $62 for Ireland. A local newspaper praised the congregation for its liberality, considering being “few in number, compared with some other denominations among us.” The editor of the Ithaca Journal wanted to start a competition between denominations to aid the Irish. [10]

Efforts by the editor and Rev, Walker pressured the trustees of Ithaca to call a village meeting for Ireland on Tuesday evening, March 16th. As the newspaper suggested: “A general attendance of our citizens is earnestly requested.” Nathan Williams, President of the Board of Trustees, chaired the meeting. After a few remarks by President Williams about the grave conditions in Ireland followed by three other speakers discussing the problems in Ireland and the need for Americans to help. At a second meeting on 30th March attendees established a general committee to collect donations in foodstuffs and money. Village residents divided up the village into three districts to facilitate fundraising and called on towns in Tompkins County who have not previously contributed to hold meetings and send aid to Ithaca for collection. Workers at the Ithaca Falls Woolen Factory sent in their donations for Ireland including $5 from Augustus Atwood, $1 from Thomas Bray, $1 from Eliza Stoddard, and $1 from Margaret Maloney. These donations confirmed that aid for Ireland was a people-to-people movement in 1847 including from the poor operatives, men, and women, at a woolen mill in Ithaca, New York. [11]

Women donated to Irish relief, from Brooklyn to Potsdam, but they could also initiate famine relief as they did in Binghamton, Broome County. In early February 1847, a group of women, led by Mrs. Dr. Andrews, Mrs. D.S. Dickinson, and Mrs. John Clapp, called on the ladies and gentlemen to attend a relief party at the house of Edward White Binghamton’s women established a Ladies’ Irish Relief Committee. The press endorsed this event as a “noble and praiseworthy project, and we hope to see the citizens of Binghamton” give liberally to the cause. Although a severe hailstorm hit that evening the women’s appeal “was responded to with much zeal and real charity by the inhabitants of our village.” Members of the Odd Fellows gave $100. Women raised $427 to purchase cornmeal sent to Dunmunnay and Skibbereen, Ireland. In addition, “ladies whose hearts have been touched with sympathy for their perishing fellow beings in Ireland,” were invited to bring clothes and bedding to the home of Gilbert Tompkins for the Irish. [12]

Spurred on by the actions of Binghamton’s women the citizens of Binghamton met twice in March for Ireland. According to one of the newspapers the first meeting was “to add our mite to the large contributions now being gathered in many of the cities and towns in our country.” Speakers concentrated on the conditions in Ireland and the sympathy of the American people. At the first meeting, few of the wealthy and those with social standing attended and the bulk of the audience showed the “weather beaten faces of the mechanics and Irish laborers.” The meeting raised $200 including $80 from the Irish laborers on the local railroad. An appeal was also made to the towns in Broome County to participate. John Clapp, the treasurer of the Binghamton Irish Relief Committee sent $814 from Binghamton to Mahlon Day of the New York City committee who thanked “thee and all the contributors, in the name of suffering humanity for your benevolent aid.”[13]

H. Montgomery, editor of the Daily Advertiser, in Auburn, Cayuga County, agreed on the need to help suffering humanity, but added the competitive edge, “Auburn and Syracuse, with the people of the counties in which they are located would not suffer themselves to be outdone in philanthropy.” Montgomery became one of the organizers of Irish relief in Auburn, evidence of the advocacy role played by newspaper editors during the first half of the 19th Century. Montgomery signed the broadside for a public meeting “to take into consideration the propriety of sending contributions for the relief of the poor [14]in Ireland, suffering the evils of famine.’ The most prominent signer of the appeal was William Henry Seward, former Whig governor of New York, and future Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln. [15]

Villagers met on 15 February 1847, and the village President, E. A. Warden asked William Henry Seward to chair the meeting. Auburn’s meeting did something unique passing a resolution asking the state legislature to appropriate $100,000 for Irish relief. After adopting several resolutions, a subcommittee drafted an address that appealed for donations due to the calamitous situation facing the Irish people. This appeal identified the Irish not as the “other” but as members of “our race” suffering starvation. As with other meetings in central New York and the United States, the address reminded the villagers that they lived in a land of abundance and had a responsibility to help the Irish. Villagers expressed their support for a Congressional appropriation for the Irish and pledged to work with the state Irish relief committee in Albany The Auburn meeting prompted Cayuga towns to organize their own relief committees. For example, Springport’s inhabitants met on 18 February at the Presbyterian Church for collecting contributions “to relieve the extreme desolation and starving conditions of the poor of Ireland.” Residents established an executive committee to collect funds and foodstuffs for the Irish. Other towns in the county followed sending donations to either the state committee or the New York City committee. [16]

Similar appeals emerged in towns in Onondaga County. In Baldwinsville, the local newspaper reminded its readers that “meetings are being held in all parts of the country and means devised for the mitigation of the distress of the poor peasantry in Ireland and Scotland.” The editor of the Onondaga Gazette recommended that the people of the town of Baldwinsville needed to help: “The people of this county---of this very town, are able in some degree to alleviate this distress by making collections…from their abundance.” Once again, and editor encouraged, advocated, and shamed his readers to help the suffering, Irish. The Baldwinsville editor portrayed the Irish as fellow human beings needing our assistance, not the “other,” a recurrent theme throughout central New York. In 1847, most Americans identified with the Irish as fellow Christians. As in Binghamton and Brooklyn, the editor wanted women to take the lead: “We hope our ladies will take this matter in hand and busy themselves in collecting subscriptions for the famishing.” Women could accomplish more in a week “than any man or set of men in a month.” This was an unusual perspective about the role of women in 1847, although women in towns and cities in New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois played an important role in famine relief in 1847.[17]

Continuing the pressure to act the editor noted: “Another week has passed, and the citizens of Lysander have done nothing---nothing---for the relief of suffering humanity in the old country.” The editor did not believe that his readers “are so given to hardness of heart to turn a deaf ear to the cries of misery and distress” from Europe. Citizens throughout New York held meetings and established committees to raise relief aid. The editor asked: “Then why should we be backward.?” Closer to home he cited the meetings in Salina and Syracuse in Onondaga County. A relief meeting held recently in Syracuse collected $600 and within two weeks rose to $1,000. At the meeting in Salina, a county relief committee was formed with James Lynch, chairing the county executive committee, consisting of representative from Salina and Syracuse. Drafting an appeal to the towns in Onondaga County the committee stressed the magnitude of the crisis, the abundance of the American people, common Christianity, and the need for each town in the county to hold Irish relief meetings. The meeting made clear that “our fellow citizens without distinction of sect or party” joined to alleviate the suffering in Ireland. [18]

Towns responded. Spafford held a meeting for Irish relief on 10th March creating a committee of ten to procure contributions and a local executive committee to receive and forward the donations. In mid-April, residents of Baldwinsville met at the Seneca Hotel to organize relief efforts. The editor argued if you cannot afford to give $20 give $5, and if you cannot afford $5 give $1 or fifty cents, “at least give something---and show you are not entirely destitute of charitable feeling.” Van Buren and Lysander also held meetings in mid-April for Irish relief. Manlius sent twenty-seven barrels of cornmeal aboard James in June to Limerick. The women of the Presbyterian Church and Society of Onondaga Hollow held a fair and collected $63.68 “to the relief of the starving Irish and Scotch.” Cardiff sent $95, Skaneateles $50, Liverpool $51, and Fulton $40. Meanwhile, James Lynch, of the Irish Relief Committee of Salina and Syracuse sent $1,200 as a “first remittance” to Myndert Van Schaick, chairman of the New York City General Irish Relief Committee. Members of the Salina and Syracuse committee preferred that half of their donations be used to send cornmeal to the Irish counties of Cork, Kerry, and Tipperary where they believed “the greatest destitution prevails.” Van Schaick informed the Dublin Quakers of the wishes of the people of Salina and Syracuse. Eventually, Syracuse and Onondaga County donated about $3,000. Separately, Catholic churches in Salina and Syracuse sent $31 and $250, respectively, to Archbishop John Hughes in New York City for the Irish relief committee. Catholic priests split on how they forwarded money donated in church for the Irish, as some sent the funds to their local Irish relief committees, others to the New York City committee, and other preferred to go through Archbishop Hughes. [19]

Meanwhile, a committee of women was appointed in Rome, Oneida County to solicit donations. According to the Roman Citizen’s editor, J.P Fitch, “through them the good people of this place my assist in relieving the terrible distress of the Irish.” The women in Rome “were busy taking subscriptions for the relief of the famishing in Europe.’ Fitch expressed his hope no one in Rome would refuse the women’s request for donations. Responding the appeal that came from the state Irish relief committee in Albany, the citizens of Rome met in mid-February with the village president, Dr. H.H. Pope chairing the meeting. Not surprisingly, editor J.P. Fitch won election as a member of Rome’s Executive Committee, again suggesting how newspaper editors not only publicized local relief efforts but became active participants. Subcommittees were established to divide the town, including Wright’s Settlement, On the Turnpike, and Across the Swamp, to facilitate reaching everyone in the community for donations. To further aid in fundraising, several vocalists from Utica came to town to hold a musical concert for Irish relief. In response to an appeal from the Oneida County Relief Committee in Utica, Rome became one of the two depots in he county for contributions of flour, wheat, cornmeal, and other provisions. By early March, Rome’s committee sent eighty barrels of flour and one bag of peas by the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad to the state committee in Albany. In addition to the town’s donations Roman Catholics, primarily Irish, sent remittances totaling $700 via Father Beecham to family and friends in Ireland. As the Roman Citizen concluded these remittances came from “day laborers…struggling hard against poverty here” In one case, a poor Irish girl sent $10 “who works for five shillings a week. There is a noble vein of humanity in the Irish heart.”  [20]

The main meeting in Oneida County was held in Utica on the 11th of February at the Common Council Room led by Mayor Edmund .A. Whetmore, a Whig, assisted by C.C. Broadhead, and merchant and Catholic activist Nicholas Devereux. After listening to several speeches about the plight of the Irish and the need to help, a City General Committee was elected which included Whetmore, Devereux, Broadhead, and future governor Democrat Horatio Seymour. Other members of the Executive Committee were abolitionist Alvin Stewart and Judge Ezekiel Bacon, a delegate to the 1846 constitutional convention. Francis Kernan, Catholic, a Democratic politician, future Senator, and businessman, was elected Treasurer and ward committees were created to canvass for donations. James Watson Williams, the future Democratic mayor of Utica, served on the third ward subcommittee. Participants in the meeting gave $725. By the time of the second meeting for Irish relief on the 18th of February, the committee had raised an additional $1,194 including $100 from a concert at St. John’s Church and $106.51 from the Lunatic Asylum. Officers, attendants, and patients at the State Lunatic Asylum met on the afternoon of the 18th to discuss the conditions in Ireland. Dr. Brigham chaired the meeting and one of the patients served as secretary. Resolutions approved mentioned the deplorable conditions of the Irish people, the sympathy of Americans, and need to do what they could to alleviate the suffering. While patients offered to donate, only contributions from officers and attendants were considered appropriate. Newspapers throughout New York state devoted space to the Irish relief meeting at the Lunatic Asylum.[21]

The committee in Utica asked the help of the women of the community to collect clothing for the Irish. A resolution moved by Francis Kernan requested “that the ladies of Utica…are hereby solicited to co-operate in this work of mercy.” Also, the Catholic Order of Sisters of Charity, collected clothing. Female participation followed the pattern of social space allowed women in mid -19th Century America. Aiding the Irish appeared a natural extension to men of women’s roles in the home. For women it provided an opportunity to participate in a national voluntary effort and to take a more public role. Historian Christine Kinealy concluded that “women in the United States provided assistance to Ireland in various ways.” As in other communities women joined in donating to the starving. For example, Catherine Condon gave $5 as did Mrs. M. Manahan, Mrs. Regan donated $1, Mary Sullivan and Eliza Walsh fifty cents. While middle class women tended to participate in public meetings or in the publicized clothing drives, as in Binghamton, Rome, and Utica. Working class women contributing to Irish relief, including the operatives at the Ithaca Falls Woolen Factory, contributors in Utica or Cazenovia, or Irish women sending remittances in Rome. [22]

Members of the Utica committee reached out to the towns in Oneida County, like Rome, to hold their own meetings for the Irish or allow visits from committee members to collect donations. In their county appeal, the committee informed the residents of Oneida County about the danger of inaction since “the famine…is sweeping thousands of her people to the gates of death.’” Ireland depended upon American for assistance to survive. American prosperity demanded that neighbors in each town join together to encourage donations and the clergy in each town “take charge of this benevolent effort” calling on their congregations to give money or send flour, wheat, cornmeal, corn, or other provisions to the depots in Rome and Utica. Afterall, the committee argued “let us remember we can carry nothing into the next world except we have given away in this.” Towns responded, for example, Boonville sent $100, citizens of Deerfield asked the committee to send a representative to collect the town’s subscription, and farmers from surrounding towns brought in a large quantity of provisions. In the end the Utica committee sent 500 barrels of kiln dried corn aboard the warship Macedonian and expressed their “hope and prayers that God will stay the ravages of famine.”[23]

The movement in central New York and throughout the United States to help the Irish in 1847 became a people-to-people movement of kindness and generosity by Americans to the starving people of Ireland. Americans repeatedly stressed in central New York and elsewhere that as a people of plenty with abundant harvests Americans had an obligation to help the starving in Europe. Americans saw the Irish in 1847, not as the hated Catholic “other,” but as fellow Christians facing a disaster. The Irish were fellow human beings, brethren, who faced death without American assistance. 

Newspaper editors, like J.P. Fitch in Rome, clergy, and politicians, like William Henry Seward in Auburn pushed their communities to participate in this national cause of international philanthropy. Fitting a pattern of American voluntary action, citizens of towns, like Boonville in Oneida County or Ithaca in Tompkins County, organized temporary relief committees to spur their residents to contribute. Collecting money, food, and clothing, the local committees sent on their donations to county committees or directly to the state committee in Albany or the New York City committee for transportation to Europe. Trusting the Society of Friends in Dublin to be impartial and non-partisan in their distribution of the aid, Americans, whether in Utica, New York or Charleston, South Carolina, sent most of the contributions to the Dublin Quakers. American aid was non-partisan as both Whig and Democratic politicians advocated aid, and members of every religious denomination, including Catholics, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Baptists joined in this national movement of international charity as the United States became the leader in international philanthropy during the Great Hunger in Ireland. Writing to the Utica and Oneida County committee, Dublin Quakers Joseph Bewley and Jonathan Pim, expressed their gratitude to the Utica committee and “the generous efforts of the citizens of the United States.”[24]

About the author: Harvey Strum is a history and political science professor at Russell Sage College in Troy and Albany. His most recent publications include: America’s Mission of Mercy to Ireland, 1880, New York History, 2018; Schenectady’s Jews, Zionism, New York History Review, 2019, 2020, 2021.
                                                      

 

                           

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[1] Irish Relief Committee of Utica New York to Society of Friends in Dublin, 8 May 1847, 

 

Society of Friends, Transactions of the Society of Friends During the Famine in Ireland 

 

(Dublin: Edmund Burke, 1996 reprint of 1852 edition), 241; Norwich Chenango 

 

Telegraph, 24 February 1847.

 

[2] J. Fenimore Cooper to Richard  Bentley, 27 March 1847, James Franklin Beard, ed., The Letters and Journals of James Fenimore Cooper (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968), V, 199; Cooperstown Freeman’s Journal, 20 February 1847.

[3] Cooperstown Freeman’s Journal, 27 February 1847.

 

[4] Cooperstown Freeman’s Journal, 13 March 1847; Cooperstown Otsego Democrat, 13 

 

March 1847;  Another copy of the county resolutions, “To the Citizens of Otsego County, 

 

8 March 1847, from J. Fenimore Cooper and members of the Central Committee, in 

 

Beard, James Fenimore Cooper, V, 197-98.

 

[5] Cooperstown Freeman’s Journal, 13 March 1847; Cooperstown Democrat, 20 March 

 

1847; Cooperstown Freeman’s Journal, 24 April 1847; James Fenimore Cooper to Jacob 

 

Harvey, 22 July 1847, James Cummins bookseller. 

 

[6] Cazenovia Madison County Whig, 11 November 1847, 24 February 1847, 17 February 

 

1847; February 24, 1847.

 

[7] Cazenovia Madison County Whig, 3 March 1847.

 

[8] Cazenovia Madison County Whig 3, 10 March 1847, 7 April 1847; Disbursements, 13 

 

March 1847, “given to the starving from Europe, $2,000” Gerrit Smith Papers, Department 

 

of Special Collections, E.S. Bird Library, Syracuse University Library, Syracuse, N.Y.

 

[9] Norwich Chenango Telegraph, 24 February 1847; Friends, Transactions, 337.

 

[10] Ithaca Journal & General Advertiser, 2 March 1847 for Trumansburg meeting, 10 March 

 

1847 for Episcopal meeting.

 

[11] Ithaca Journal & General Advertiser, 17 March 1847, 7 April 1847. Every worker at the 

 

Ithaca Falls Woolen Mill is listed with their contributions. 

 

[12]Binghamton Courier, 10 February 1847; Binghamton Broome Republican, 10 February 

 

1847; See letter to the editor, 24 February 1847 from the women’s committee; New 

 

Orleans Delta, 17 March 1847;  Norwich Chenango Telegraph, 24 February 1847; 

 

Binghamton Courier, 10 March 1847 for request to donate clothing; “Subscriber P to the 

 

Editor of the Freeman’s Journal,” 17 February 1847, New York Freeman’s Journal, 6

 

March 1847

 

[13] Binghamton Courier, 17 February 1847; John Clapp to the Editor of the Broome 

 

Republican, 9 April 1847, Mahlon Day to John Clapp, 29 March 1847, in Binghamton 

 

Broome Republican, 14 April 1847.

 

[14] Auburn Daily Advertiser, 13 February 1847. 

 

[15]Auburn Daily Advertiser, 15 February 1847 for the public appeal. 

 

[16] Auburn Daily Advertiser, 20 February 1847.

 

[17] Baldwinsville Onondaga Gazette, 18 February 1847.

 

[18] Baldwinsville Onondaga Gazette, 24 February 1847, 3 March 1847.As an example of 

 

an advertisement from the Executive Committee to the towns in the county, see 14 April 

 

1847. For an account of the Salina and Syracuse meeting, Syracuse Daily Star, 17

 

February 1847; For brief accounts of meetings Syracuse Religious Recorder of Central 

 

and Western New York, 18, 25 February 1847, 11 March 1847.

 

[19]Baldwinsville Onondaga Gazette, 24 March 1847; 14 April 1847; Syracuse Religious 

 

Recorder of Central and Western New York, 11 March 1847 (3:45); M. Van Schaick to 

 

Joseph Bewley and Jonathan Pim, 16 March 1847 in General Relief Committee, Aid to 

 

Ireland (New York: General Relief Committee, 1848), 82-83 for reference to the letter from 

 

James Lynch of the Salina and Syracuse committee and 37, 40 for Syracuse donations. 

 

Also, for funds raised in the towns in Onondaga County and final results, see Syracuse

 

Daily Star, 17 August 1847. Copies of the Star kindly provided by the Onondaga County 

 

Public Library in Syracuse. 

 

[20] Roman Citizen, 12 February, 19 February, 26 February, 5 March 1847. Also, for the role 

 

of women as fundraisers in Rome, see Albany Argus, 16 February 1847.

 

[21] Utica Daily Gazette, 12 February, 13 February, 18 February, 20 February, 22 February, 

 

1847;  As examples of the distribution of the story on the Lunatic Asylum, New York 

 

Freeman’s Journal, 27 February 1847, and Binghamton Courier, 17 March 1847. As an 

 

example of collections, see $25 subscription for Irish relief to Francis Kernan, Treasurer, 

 

5 April 1847, Francis Kernan Papers (part of the Kernan Family Papers), Special 

 

Collections, Carl Koch Library, Cornell University, Ithaca. 

 

[22] Utica Daily Gazette, 6 March, 9 March 1847; Christine Kinealy, Charity, and the Great 

 

Hunger in Ireland: The Kindness of Strangers (London and New York: Bloomsbury 

 

Academic, 2013), 161.

 

[23] Roman Citizen, 5 March 1847; Utica Daily Gazette, 20 February 1847,  6,  23 and 27 

 

March 1847; Irish Relief Committee of Utica New York to the Society of Friends in Dublin, 

 

8 May 1847, Transactions, 241.

 

[24] Joseph Bewley and Jonathan Pim, secretaries, to Edmund Wetmore, et al, 7 November 

 

1848, in Utica Morning Herald, 18 November 1848. The Utica committee issued a brief 

 

final report of the donations sent to Ireland. Also, published Utica Daily Gazette. A copy 

 

of this report kindly provided by the Oneida History Center in Utica.

The Secret Agent, or The Voice from the Shadows…

                                    Your thoughts I have at my command!
                                    Yet, you do not know where I stand…
                                    I can track you through the air.
                                    I can follow you anywhere!
                                    Soldier, spy, pilot and cop…
                                    my work for good does not stop.
                                    Crooks I pursue, to bring justice to them…
                                    then I vanish and I do it again!
                                    I have eagle eyes and I see into your heart!
                                    But I am not noticed for my arcane art…
                                    Ciphers and crimes to me involve
                                    being a twilight witness in all I solve.
                                    I am a friend to those in need,
                                    knowing fruit of the bitterest breed!
                                    Trouble is afoot, when my ring glows…
                                    and evil is vanquished…The Shadow knows!
 
                                    ---Michael Mauro DeBonis, 03-03-21.

 
***The Shadow is a registered trademark of Conde Nast Publications Inc., copyright 2021, all rights reserved.
                                    
 
About the Poet:  Michael Mauro DeBonis is a poet and a historian from Long Island, New York.  A graduate of Suffolk County Community College (A. A. Liberal Studies) and SUNY at Stony Brook (B. A. English Literature) Michael’s work first appeared in the Brookhaven Times newspapers.  Michael latest work may be found in The New York History Review (poetry and prose) and The New York History Blog (prose only). Mr. DeBonis is dedicated to studying and to learning the history of the great State of New York.
 

                                    

 

                                     

From The Shadow into Light: The Visionary Life and Times of Walter Brown Gibson

by Michael Mauro DeBonis
Copyright ©2021 All rights reserved by the author.

Walter B. Gibson, circa 1965. 

Photo courtesy of William V. Rauscher

Walter Brown Gibson was an American literary dynamo, and he was a man of unquestionable artistic creativity, vision, and immense versatility. And so it was Gibson who forged the modern world's first great superhero, called The Shadow.

Master stage magician, top-notch true crime reporter, and word-puzzle expert and mystery writer, par excellence, only give a vague description of who the perennially brilliant Gibson was. Gibson's origins, achievements, and life deserve special attention to properly note his incredibly complex story. Gibson was, after all, a very cagy and competent illusionist. And so we must be careful, as students of history, to sharply look with eagle eyes beneath the veneer of a man (whose persistent modesty) always obscured the giant of who he actually was. Let us remove for your eyes the crafty clouds shielding the genius of Walter Brown Gibson. Let all who inhabit our twenty-first century know Gibson, as man and artist…let our show begin!

The curtains first opened for Walter Brown Gibson on the stage of life on September 12, 1897, at 2 PM (Shimeld, 11). Gibson's mother, May Whidden Gibson, gave birth to her son Walter at the family's somewhat lavish two-story Tudor style house, located at 707 West Philellena Street, in Germantown, Pennsylvania (Shimeld, 11-12). May Whidden Gibson's paternal family lineage and history could "…be traced as far back as the flight of the Pilgrims to America on the Mayflower…" (Shimeld, 8). Gibson's father, Alfred C. Gibson, had served as a young soldier and clerk in the Union Army during the American Civil War (Shimeld, 9-10). Walter Brown Gibson's grandfather, Joseph Gibson, also served honorably in the Union Army's 71st Pennsylvania Infantry Division during The War Between the States (Shimeld, 10). It is a point of the ongoing historical debate about Walter B. Gibson's father's genealogical origins. They (the Gibsons) appear to have been migrants from Great Britain to North America, sometime before the Nineteenth Century, and they were ardent followers of the Episcopal Christian Church. When Gibson's ancestors exactly left the British Isles for America is still unknown, but it is presently a matter of much historical probing, as mentioned earlier in this paragraph.

Lorenzo L. D. Tanner

 by Richard White

Copyright ©2021 All rights reserved by the author.

An African loving fanatic in Marathon, Cortland County, has sent a letter to the President, asking that he issue a “Compensation Proclamation,” giving to the negroes freed by the Emancipation Proclamation land in the South, all of which this lunatic says by right belongs to the freedmen. Tanner probably would like to be President, and this is a bid for the negro vote.

This was the opening “Editorial Sentiment” in Binghamton’s racially virulent Democratic Leader on March 29, 1872, regarding a petition authored by a long-time abolitionist from central New York to President Grant provide confiscated acreage in the South to the former slaves freed in 1863 by President Lincoln. “Compensation” and similar proposals such as land redistribution and agrarian reform were not new ideas. In fact, in 1862, President Lincoln signed two Compensated Emancipation Acts ended slavery in Washington, DC, and allowed former slaves to petition for reimbursement for their value. In 1865, the well-known slogan, “40 acres and a mule,” was popularized but never gained traction in Congress, and certainly not with President Johnson, whose viewpoint favored property restoration instead of compensation. In his classic The Struggle for Equality (1964), James McPherson explained Johnson’s amnesty proclamation in 1865. Subsequent pardons restored property rights to most rebels who would take an oath of allegiance. Still, he also points out that “abolitionists continued to work ”(410) for racial justice as Reconstruction developed as they had in the pre-War period.

Such a person was a little-known public-spirited resident who lived in the Marathon-Freetown-Galatia region of Cortland County, Lorenzo D. Tanner. L. D., as he was called, moved to this rural region of central New York from Oneida County in 1835 and practiced a variation of citizen advocacy. In a look back at his life, The Cortland Democrat, on March 16, 1934, stated that he “was an impressive figure [who] wrote letters to the newspapers on all public questions. In the slavery days, he was an uncompromising Abolitionist, and his opponents nicknamed him ‘Nigger’ Tanner.” For example, Cazenovia’s The Liberty Press on July 18, 1843, discussed L. D.’s participation at the village’s anti-slavery meeting and stated that “our excellent friend…L. D. Tanner of Freetown, moved the resolutions” condemning the inhumanity of enslavement.

Even before the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, Tanner’s activism spurred him to travel to a nearby village to rally against slavery, not because he was “lunatic,” but because of his prime belief in racial equality and freedom for African Americans. At the rally on September 2, 1850, at Freetown’s Baptist Church, Tanner attended and was asked to co-write the assemblage’s resolutions.

According to Cortland’s The Whig on September 26, the rally’s first purpose was to validate “the inalienable right to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as a paramount principle of America.

The second was to support the imprisoned William L. Chaplin, an agent of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society, who was jailed for helping two slaves trying to escape bondage in Maryland. As the rally neared its closing, seven resolutions were formulated and presented, and three were specifically about Chaplin’s incarceration. One insisted “that in that as much as the friends of slavery claim the right to extend it into the territories now free, we in our turn demand that the U. S. Constitution shall be amended by striking out those clauses which are claimed as its compromises.” Tanner’s style as a proponent of impartial freedom was quiet and “uncompromising,” and it presented itself through the tumultuous pre-war and war years.

His approach to Reconstruction issues remained dramatically solid and unaltered in his work for civil rights. In 1870, for example, L. D. challenged a prominent neighbor and future two-term Assemblyman, D. C. Squires, to debate the freedmen’s immediate future at the Union school house in Lapeer to the west of Marathon. On June 3, The Cortland Democrat captured the complexity of their first debate months earlier and its aftermath. While the paper did not estimate the length of the first face-off or the audience’s size, it did note that there was no formal decision regarding who won the debate and later published L. D.’s challenge to Squires to debate on the pages of this newspaper which Squires did not answer.

Two years later, an issue concerning the future of the Freedmen prompted Tanner to write to President Grant but, despite it being a petition to the President of the United States, there was limited reportage on this letter which was published in The Marathon Independent, which reprinted on March 26 an article originally appearing in the Cortland Democrat. In it, Tanner asked Grant “to issue a compensation proclamation in behalf of the freedmen. He asked that the President shall give the negroes their ‘forty acres and a mule’—at least he wants them to have the land they used to till for their masters.” While a letter from one constituent might impact a President, in this case, Grant’s mind was already made up. In his book, Grant (2017), historian Ron Chernow succinctly states the President’s stance on compensation. “Grant opposed land redistribution, which had excited so much hope among freedmen….On the other hand, he urged the continuance to safeguard black rights (565).” Yet even if Tanner were aware of the President’s view, he would not have been deterred in writing his letter.

In the mid-1800s, Lorenzo Tanner's efforts in support of freedom and justice has endured for more than empirical reasons. He was not a firebrand or a  charismatic, but he stands tall in New York State history. The offensive nickname-- both then and now--"Nigger Tanner"-- provides a powerful picture of the resilient racism that Tanner challenged.

About the author: Richard White's articles have appeared in Civil War History, The Journal of Negro History, and other publications.

New York’s 1810 Election

By Harvey Strum of The Sage Colleges
Copyright ©2021 All rights reserved by the author

New York’s 1810 elections showed the importance of foreign policy issues in local and state politics. The foreign policies of President James Madison dominated the interaction between the Federalist controlled Assembly and Republican Governor Daniel Tompkins. Federalists and Republicans debated foreign policy during the summer of 1809 and in the November Common Council elections in New York City. Madison’s foreign policy became the main issue used by Federalists and Republicans in the spring 1810 state and congressional elections. Republicans called the Federalists Tories, lackeys of the British, and claimed they sought to drag the county into war with France. Their opponents viewed continued Republican rule as a disaster that would lead to more embargoes and war with Great Britain. The 1810 elections in revealed the connections between foreign policy and local and state politics. Foreign policy played a crucial role in local and state politics from 1807-1815.

David Erskine, British Minister to the United States, negotiated an understanding with the United States in 1809 offering to withdraw the 1807 Orders in Council and settle the Chesapeake/ Leonard Affair of 1807 creating a dramatic improvement in Anglo-American relations. President James Madison proclaimed an end to the embargo on trade with Great Britain. News of the Anglo-American accommodation pleased New York Federalists who hoped, as Robert Troup noted, that it would lead to a new treaty "whereby all future misunderstandings will be prevented, and a solid foundation laid for a lasting peace." Federalists welcomed the Erskine agreement because the "unhappy differences" between the two nations had "proved highly injurious to… trade." For landholders in western and northern New York, the Erskine agreement would spur settlement and Troup expected his agency would probably "take a more prosperous course.”[i]

The agreement might also encourage the Republicans to take more decisive action against the French. Congressman Herman Knickerbacker expected the President to support non-intercourse against France. Federalists believed the Republicans were "throwing off the Gallic Yoke of French Influence." In fact, Republican John Nicholas recommended the President and Congress authorize the arming of merchantmen and if necessary, engage in an undeclared naval war with France. If the French refused to stop their violations of American neutral rights, Federalists favored declaring "war against them, and it must be war interminable and exterminating." In the wake of the Erskine accord Republicans and Federalists wanted the President to adopt bolder policies toward the French.[ii]

Letters of Chaplain Thomas K. Beecher - 141st New York Volunteer Infantry

By George R. Farr

Copyright © 2021 All rights reserved by the author.

 

Rev. Thomas Beecher of Park Church and Congressman Alexander Diven came together with other prominent citizens of Chemung, Steuben, and Schuyler counties to raise an infantry regiment in the summer of 1862. Diven, along with Congressman Robert Van Valkenburg had been asked by President Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward to go home and raise such a regiment. As a result of this effort, the 107^th NY Volunteer Infantry was raised and sent off to Washington in August with Diven as it's Lieutenant Colonel and Congressman Robert Van Valkenburg as its colonel.

The raising of the 107^th had resulted in having an excess of 400 men that could not be included in that regiment. As a result, recruiting efforts continued, and a second regiment was raised, the 141^st, and sent off towards Washington in late September with Beecher as its Chaplain.

The 107^th participated in the battle of Antietam on September 17 and by the time the 141^st arrived it was camped at Maryland Heights near Harper’s Ferry. The 141^st, on the other hand, went into camp near Laurel, Maryland almost directly north of Washington and some distance from the camp of the 107^th. Diven and Beecher would not see each other again until October when Beecher visited the camp of the 107^th NY on Maryland Heights.

During the time Beecher was chaplain of the 141^st he wrote letters to Charles Fairman for publication in the Elmira Advertiser. He wrote often and the letters were long and full of goings-on at the camp and Beecher’s personal feelings about many facets of camp life. The following are excerpts from those letters.

Visitors to his tent:

My tent flap is my front door, and a very dirty door it is getting to be. At least fifty times a day when the door is closed and tied on the inside, a pair of sunburned hands part the opening and an honest face looks in.

“Say helloa! Is this _____” Beecher cuts the man off in mid-sentence. “Shut that door”,   says the Chaplain abruptly.

“Did you knock?”

“Didn’t know the rules sir. Sorry.”

“All right call your name and wait for an answer, and never enter a tent until you have leave. Now come in.”

Let any man go through this dialogue forty times a day and toward the end it begins to get funny.

And he went on to write.

I should be mortified if you suppress my letters as unworthy to print. So then dear Fairman, if you ever get a stupid letter from me, too stupid too print, just insert an item; “We have received a long letter from Chaplain Beecher, which after reading, we conclude not to print.

Sunday in Camp:

Shall I tell you of our Sunday? At first dawn you may easily hear that ‘tis Sunday for the camp is far quieter than usual, even though a soldier’s duty does not cease on any day. Indeed, a duty that begins with a solemn enlistment oath may well be counted a religion and have its place even upon the Lord’s day.

At quarter of ten our adjutant forms parade while the Chaplain fixes a box pulpit out in a neighboring meadow. Then the battalion marches out and forms in front of the Chaplain—close compact and attentive. A short prayer of invocation—a hymn—a passage or two from the articles of war –a short lesson from scripture, with very few words of explanation or reminder—a prayer—and the song doxology complete a catholic regimental service.

Our Sunday is over—the Drum Major has executed what he calls a “Flammer doodle” to call the Companies into line for roll-call. I hear a half-dozen Orderlies calling names and men answering. This finishes the daily duty. In a little time, the lights will be out and the camp dark, all but the officer’s tents.

‘Tis past ten. The walls of our tents are black with flies, driven in by the cold. We may have our first frost by morning. We three tent-mates will have to snug up close together and keep warm as little pigs do, for we have no extra blankets. The whole camp is dark, save the light of the guard’s fire. Let me hasten to fold this sheet, put out my candle, shut my eyes and see the procession of my dear friends at home, and pray for them as they pass. God bless and keep you—keep you strong and single-minded.

Swearing:

Will you ask the clergy of Elmira to send me a recipe, a good moral tonic to cure swearing? There’s not a man in the regiment, but is willing to quit. I’ve read the commandment of God by Moses and the general order by Colonel Hathaway. One of our guards said to the colonel the other night after trying to stop swearing two days faithfully, “Just wait a bit colonel, give me some time to get some other words handy like and I’ll get done swearing at all, I will by God I will.”     

Now you have to understand that the humor in this story is that “I will by God I will” was considered swearing.

The Experiments:

Being of an investigating nature, I’ve been looking experimentally into the subject of beds. Laying aside all traditions and prejudices, I began with first principles and have this night finished my round of experiments. Shall I report? Our soil here is a stiff light-yellow clay with a few gravel stones mixed in. There was a grass stubble on its surface.

My first experiment was to lay a sheet of rubber down, then a blanket double, then the Chaplain and over him shawl and blanket. Sleep was good, but crickets peopled the grass and made bad noises and crept with prickly feet up and down the flesh. Grass not good, clean it out.

Exp. 2. Drive three stakes in a line, set up a narrow board on edge, throw straw between the board and tent wall. Rubber sheet, blanket, chaplain, $c., as before. Result,--pleasant sensation at first reminding one of beds at home, but by and by the chaplain feels like meat boiling in too little water; raw and cold above the straw, moist and steaming in the straw. Throw out straw, clean up tent.

Exp. 3. Bare, hard dry ground, blankets, chaplain, as in the last experiment. Slept well, except dreams of bridge building and strength of materials. One’s body touches at three points—head, thighs and heels. The trunk presents a fixed arch, the limbs a drawbridge. The strain is too great, the abutments crush and settle. Sleep is good, but not much rest. 

Exp. 4. Take axe and spade and make up a bed by artificially moulding the ground to the form of the Chaplain. Consider a well used hog wallow recently deserted, and how nicely it fits and welcomes the occupant’s return, and you have the archetype of the chaplain’s fourth bed. Result satisfactory, perfectly so, except that an old man campaigner says that the ground is unhealthy.

Exp. 5. A Manilla hammock such as the natives sling up between two trees, and swing in the wind therein, held the chaplain for four nights. Slung between two tent poles the slack was excessive and the narrowness oppressive. One seems to shorten at both ends, and to be perpetually “dressing on the center.” When first tucked in, the reminding is of a mummy or a patient in pack at Watercure. Fault—one cannot turn over, nor get out of bed without help. Send back the hammock to the courteous Colonel.

Exp. 6. A sacking bottom, well stretched, blankets, chaplain, &c. as in Exp.’s one, two and three. Result—very cold. Wind sucks under and blows up through. Mem.—Plan a good one if one can have five blankets and a shawl. Otherwise very bad in cold weather. Last night water froze a quarter inch at my tent door.

Exp.7. The floor, the modelled ground a la hog hollow. To this I return from all my experimenting. The ground—the bare ground. Bring me the axe and the spade, let me make my bed. Lie down chaplain, make your mark. Friend Bailey scrape away where he touches, copy the curves,--ease off that lump—pick away that stone,--there that fits. The wallow is perfect. In five minutes more it will hold.

Visiting the 107^th NY at Maryland Heights near Harper’s Ferry:

There have been twenty-two or twenty-three deaths in the 107th and sick ones in far larger numbers. In my judgment the sickness has been due to over-marching and over-eating combined. Few men know the ravenous appetite that is bred by an outdoor life. And fewer still are ever wise enough to “stop hungry.” But experience is a very faithful teacher, and if God please, the Chaplain will discourse good counsel tomorrow morning, touching the same subject. (Beecher was not aware of the fact that the ground on which the camp was situated was in fact almost solid rock and adequate latrines could not be established. This fact was responsible for the spread of disease in the camp and the resulting in the deaths of many soldiers.)

This afternoon in company with Dr. Beadle, the chaplain experimented with Col. Diven’s black horse a riding. I insist that equestrianism is a most unnatural and semi-barbarous accomplishment. —It is a shame to “put upon” a dumb beast such duty, and a greater shame to put men to such uses. —Call the “human frame divine” a log, the horse a wedge and mother earth a beetle or maul, and you have the essentials of horseback performances. —Had man been intended for such performances, he would have been created with an angle iron to withstand the strain. But war creates necessities, and necessities are their own law. Round these mountain roads men must ride who never road before. —And so, behold the chaplain wandering forth in search of the 64th regiment.

We found it and many times the chaplain had to stop his horse and chat with unexpected friends. He found that to stop one’s horse is easier than to stop one’s self. The rider is apt to gone on after the horse is halted dead. If he goes on too recklessly, he is sure to go off. I overheard the chaplain asking Dr. Beadle how he looked and whether anybody was laughing.

I am now sitting on a stone wall amid the ruins of Harper’s Ferry. An hour or so I was by the graveside of Marcus Dawson of Co. D. There upon a point commanding a view of the Shenandoah valley for miles lies the graves of fourteen men of the 107^th fallen by fever now at rest. I know nothing of Dawson save as a Christian I have assisted in burying him. But I saw in the hospital the body of a young man, three days dead, whom I myself enlisted. I have his name in one of my old books, as I looked upon his blanket shroud, I earnestly tested myself, was I right in telling him to enlist. I called to mind my speeches and my pleadings and my statements of July. Thank God I have not one word to repent of.

Reverend Beecher was also something of a poet as the following lines of free verse illustrate. While visiting the camp of the 107^th NY that overlooked the village of Harper’s Ferry from Maryland Heights he made the following observations.

 

Scenes of waste everywhere, everybody on the move and nobody knowing anything or able to tell you anything.   Through the elegant cast iron sash of the arched windows is seen the long drawn vacancies of the old armory buildings burned with fire.  Deserted, doorless and sashless houses.  Horses eating hay in parlors. Enterprising photographers set up their cameras in ownerless houses.  Aetna insurance plates stand over doors long since burned.  Sutlers peddle soft bread, tobacco and sausages from deserted dwelling houses where children played, hospitals fill with sick breaths rooms where beaux have visited and sweethearts charmed.   Cavalry horses gnaw in the young orchards.  And over all floats and clings the grime and dust where 10,000 feet each day do the pulverizing and constant winds the distribution.   

Spelling:

There’s a need of schoolmasters in the 27^th District still. Shall I give you specimens of what I daily read in the shape of literary murder of captain’s names? Captain Tuttle figures as Tuthill, Tutil, Totel, Tuttell.  Your friend Captain Baldwin, and by the way camp agrees with him better than your office. He is plumping rapidly enough to suit a Fejee gourmand. Where was I, oh yes! Captain Baldwin is written down on letter backs as Balden, Bawlding and Bolden. Captain Logie is transmuted into Loga, Logy and Logah. And Captain Claugharty is the worst. A man with such a name ought to live bachelor and afflict none of the next generation with such a name to misspell.  

Chaplain’s Duties:

The readers of your paper have had rest long enough. It is time that Chaplain’s drill should begin again. By the by speaking of Chaplain reminds me of Fred Burritt, your correspondent, and his private letter about chaplains. Abating something for the easy style of the letter, I wish to say amen to the general sentiment, as to the uselessness of chaplains in military service. Of work properly belonging to a chaplain there is not enough in six regiments to employ one man. I should not work two hours, if I confined myself to my proper official duties.

Much more I might add, but I do not purpose an essay upon army religion. I intended at first merely to say that in my judgment the army would gain by dismissing all chaplains and trusting to the voluntary acts of officers and men. I would this day prefer to have my commission revoked and my stay with the regiment, and my support made to depend upon my military parish.

And yet even while enjoying the most advantageous social position in my regiment of any chaplain of whom I have yet heard of, I am clearly persuaded that as a chaplain I am nearly or quite useless. Were it not that there has been a world of other work, I should long since have relieved the regiment of my presence—and the treasury of my support.

This letter went on and on in the same vein, and it was obvious that Beecher had become uncomfortable with his position as chaplain of the 141^st.

He had a falling out with Colonel Hathaway most likely over his brother’s James’ recent appointment as Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment His appointment was viewed as having been unduly influenced by the chaplain and had resulted in the current and popular Lieutenant Colonel William E. Bonham leaving the regiment. 

It was during this period that Beecher wrote to Hathaway’s superiors and accused him of trying to overthrow the government. This type of activity ultimately resulted in his resigning from the regiment on January 10, 1863. His brother James remained for a short while, but was rescued from his predicament by his sister who helped him obtain an honorable discharge from the army shortly hereafter.  

This article was taken from the letters published in the Elmira Advertiser

About the author: George R. Farr grew up in Horseheads, NY, and presently lives in the town of Elmira (West Elmira). He is a graduate (1957) of Upsala College and also studied at Rutgers U., Seton Hall U., Elmira College, and Corning Community College. He has lectured extensively on the American Civil War and local history.

Jews of Troy, 1850-1950

by Harvey Strum, Sage Colleges
Copyright ©2021 All rights reserved by the author

Creating a Community

“Mechanic Benjamin Fivel, a member of Company B, 105th Infantry, who was severely wounded during the Hindenburg line drive, has received his honorable discharge and returned to his home in Troy.”(1) From World War I, this story is one of the forgotten accounts of Jewish immigrants living in small towns and midsize upstate New York cities, especially in the Hudson Valley. Looking at the experiences of ethnic and religious minorities who settled in upstate New York can provide us with a fuller understanding of the immigrant experience and the problems and opportunities available to ethnic and religious minorities populating in upstate communities. How did these immigrants identify with America, and how did they adapt and change to their new environment? How did immigrants, especially the Jews of Troy, express their desire to maintain or reject the values and experiences of Jews in Europe? To what degree did they create institutions that preserved their ethnic and religious identity as distinct from the Anglo-American Protestant majority, and to what degree did they shed their customs, spiritual practices, and identity to fit in as “real Americans?” Did Jewish immigrants and their American-born descendants feel obligated to help Jews abroad? To what degree did Troy's Jews identify with Zionism as either the Jewish people's nationalist movement or as a refuge from persecution for the Jews of Russia, Romania, Poland, and Germany?

Ever since the first Jews arrived in New Amsterdam in 1654, Jews grappled with the same questions---how to maintain Jewish identity in an overwhelmingly Christian society and cling to separate ethnic, religious, cultural, and social values to navigate between their Jewish identity and Americanization. The repeated problems of relatives and co-religionists in Europe raised other questions---was the solution for the European hostility to Jews mass migration to America or the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine? In looking at these questions, historians have focused on Jewish immigrants' experiences in New York City or in Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia. Local Jewish historians partially filled the gap and researched the experiences of Jews in midsize cities in the Hudson Valley and upstate New York. (2)