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MY R O N H O L L E Y ;
AND
WEIAT HE DID FOR
LIBERTY
AND
...He knew to lead and to provide,
~~-f
who showed us how to Do and died.
1SS2 :
PR IN T E D F O R T H E A U THO R.
P. O. Box 109, BosTON.



Copyright secured by Elizur Wright.
A copy of this book, which three leading publishers, though guar-
anteed against loss, have declined to publish, either with the author's
name or without it, will be sent postpaid on the receipt of $1.50
addressed to ELIZUR WRIGHT, Box 109, Boston. Or ten copies will
be sent, free of freight, on the receipt of $10.00.
If any profit should accrue from the sale, it will all be paid to the
descendants of Myron Holley, till such time as the State of New York
shall have paid the just debt it owes them.


C O N T E N T S.
INTRODUCTORY. Condition and prospects of the country sixty
years ago. Use of biography,
CHAPTER I.
ANCESTRY. The telescope. Newton. Edmund Halley.
“Fixed '' Stars in motion. The leavens firm. An Or-
derly comet. The magnetic poles,
CHAPTER II.
BIRTH AND EDUCATION. Tahkannuc and Housatonic. Lu-
ther Holley and Sarah Dakin. College. A true father’s
educational letter. Boy friends. Law Studies,
CHAPTER III.
CANANDAIGUA. Who settled it, and whem. The pioneer of
parlor civilization,
CHAPTER IV.
CHOICE OF PURSUIT. A man too good for the legal profes-
sion. A wizard defended. Bookseller; County Clerk;
Philanthropist; Legislator, ſº e o º e e
Page
13
16
2
9

4 - CONTENTS.
CHAPTER. V.
MARRIAGE. Sally House. Her Methodism. Her father.
Her children. Her beauty. Her wifehood,
CHAPTER VI.
CHURCH CONNECTION. Outgrown, and how. Religious tol-
erance held as criminal. The word of Elkanah Watson,
CHAPTER VII.
ERIE CANAL. The wilderness. Geddes. Early emigration.
*-* Colles. Gov. Clinton. Gouverneur Morris. De Witt
Clinton. How Nature had begun it at the Irondequot, .
CHAPTER VIII.
EXPLORATION of 1810. The commissioners. Clinton's diary.
Navigation of the Mohawk. Outfit. Fourth of July.
The ballot-box in 1809. A tavern. Navigators on foot.
Literature, Ethics, and Oaths. Little Falls. Price of
stockings. Baggs and Billinger. Clinton's jocosity. The
salmon. The scarlet tanager. Alexander Wilson. Wood
Creek. Malaria. Medicine. A woman 100 years old !
A camp-meeting. Queer names. A glimpse of free trade,
CHAPTER IX.
EXPLORATION OF 1816. Holley the motive and executive
power. His close estimate of cost. Middlesex Canal.
The marvellous Work of One year, . - e e º
CHAPTER X.
THE FINANCIAL PROVISION. Backwardness and opposition.
Borrowing of the banks, provided the State would put in
circulation their little borrowings. The risk and burden
of this thrown on Mr. Holley. His cxecutive wisdom and
justice, e © º e e tº - tº e o
Page
36
39
41
49
69
73


CONTENTS.
5
CHAPTER XI.
THE DIGGING. Ceremonial beginning. “The era of good
feeling.” Contemporaneous facts relating to the Indian
and African races. Enthusiasm in the digging. Wheel-
barrow improved. Trees pulled up by the roots. The
dentistry of stumps. “Peter Ploughshare,” and how he
was ploughed under, and lost to history. Holley's letter
to O’Rielly. De Witt Clinton’s testimony,
CHAPTER XII.
EconoMY, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE. Detail of personal ex-
penses in public service. Figures that fit, º e e
CHAPTER XIII.
EMBARRASSMENT. Ease of getting rich on public works.
How Mr. Holley's noble honesty and patriotism pre-
vented it in his case. His explanation and claim. His
heroic exposure for the sick. The legislative meanness.
The puzzle to Jefferson. Holley's faith in the future.
His admiration of La Fayette. Cotemporary facts in
France, o e º g © e º e g º
CHAPTER XIV.
AT HOME WITH HIS FAMILY. His picture of his home.
What he thought of Mary, Queen of Scots, * º º
CHAPTER XV.
THE WEDDING OF THE WATERs. The maker of the match,
though he was not allowed the honor of giving the bride
aWay, Was not Small enough to withhold his attendance
at the wedding. The details of its magnificence, .
Page
77
97
101
124


6 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER, XVI.
THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE. It lasts till 1828. He stands
up like a man. Makes no concession to bigotry. No
rancour against enemies. Friends cannot make a pauper
of him. Congratulates his wife on recovering his home.
Death of De Witt Clinton. Mrs. Clinton. Birth of the
railroad system. The relation of canals to it, .
CHAPTER XVII.
HoRTICULTURE. Gives quince-trees to Jesse Buel. Founds
a horticultural society. Tribute to Nebuchadnezzar.
Virtues of gardening and qualitics of a gardener,
CHAPTER XVIII.
ANTI-MAsoNRY. Shrinkage of the Order. Its causc. His
masonic friends. Origin of free-masonry. Alliance
with sacred history. Its foolish boast. Murder of Wil-
liam Morgan. Concealment overdonc. The revelation
complete, and incontrovertible. Knights Templars of Le
Roy. Conventions, State and National. Holley's ad-
dresses. Political action. Chicf Justice Marshall. Re-
vivalists coming to the rescue of the free-masons. Hol-
ley proof against their arts. An anti-masonic editor.
His salutatory. Attacked by the politicians with ca-
lumny. His grand defence. Indubitable proof of his
claim. Whitney's confession to Thurlow Weed,
CHAPTER, XIX.
RESIDENCE IN HARTFord. Society in that city. Holley's
support under persecution. His conception of Deity. His
family discipline. The insane retreat. Writes a commit-
tee report on the masonic oaths, with a bill. Home sick-
ness. How he honored Bolivar,
Page
130
144


CONTENTS.
7
CHAPTER XX.
LIBERTY PARTY. Slavery, how abolished in word but not
ON
in deed. Holley dug the ditch that led to its burial.
Mobs and church opposed to abolition. Garrison the
moral pioneer of practical liberty. His logic and his lim-
itations. Franklin’s confession. The constitution's fault.
Holley plants the acorn in 1840. Its growth. His anti-
slavery career begins in 1837. Startled in 1839 by the
speech of Henry Clay. His Fourth of July address. His
attempt at Cleveland. He carries a nomination at War-
saw. How it was confirmed at Albany. How it was
criticized,
CHAPTER XXI.
THE STUMP. Origin of the phrase. Rochester Freeman.
Prophesied that slavery would be abolished in twenty
years. Self-depreciation. Great labor and small pay.
Pain in the breast. Want of sleep. Character of his elo-
quence. Alvan Stewart, Wendell Phillips, Theodore D.
Weld, Angelina Grimké, as orators, . - - te º
CHAPTER XXII.
HIS HOMEs. The value of their memory. What homes are
Worthy to be forgotten. Beauty of Lyons. His home in
a fruit-orchard celebrated by a Canandaiguan poet.
Woodman, Spare the elms. “Grandeur” of the Canal,
and its music. As a mourner for his children. His defi-
nition of religion. Letter to his little boy, Bolivar. Sale
of his farm. His last letter. His last home. How the
abolitionists adorned his grave. The eulogy of Gerrit
Smith. The ode of John Tierpont,
226
276
2S5
CONTENTS.
/
/
)
f - CHAPTER, XXIII.
HIS CHARACTER. Family the ultimate test. The reverence
of his daughters. He was no pharisee. As a purveyor
of vegetables. Was called an “infidel.” His praying.
His horror of revivalism. As an employer of labor. His
method with tramps. His sleep, food, drink, and refine-
ment. Delight in children. Justice. Picture by “Grace
Greenwood.” Delight in dancing. His last words. Col.
Stone's testimony to his public character. What the
State of New York owes his heirs. The Rochester Demo-
crat's Obituary, . e & º e º º © e
Page
305

INTRODUCTORY.
SixTy years ago the interior of this vast, well-
knit republic was a wilderness, the home of wild
beasts, hunted by almost wilder men. Seemingly
interminable rivers traversed interminable forests;
but no railroad, no canal; no common wagon-road
which did not end at some forlorn-looking log
hut. Scattered along the Atlantic coast were
states almost strangers to each other, differing
widely in manners and customs. At the north
was close-fisted, hard-drudging industry, with an
insatiable appetite for traffic, and getting the best
of a bargain. At the south was prodigality, in-
dolence, and chattel slavery. The only bond of
union was, that all had together rebelled against
the dominion of a mother-country, and achieved
by common effort and suffering a costly independ-
ence. That such a string of states would long

- A , -
10 / MYRON HOLLEY.
A e
i
g
hold together there was almost no reason to ex-
pect. Morally, geographically, ethnographi ally,
f everything was against it, except the storms of the
Atlantic and the absence of steam-power, which
had made independence possible. The infancy
of the national republic had been precarious,
stormy, and full of narrow escapes frominglorious
wreck. It emerged from the war of 1812 pretty
evenly divided into two political parties, bitterly
hostile to each other on some comparatively unim-
portant questions, but both about equally under
the domination of the slave-holders of the South
on the vital question of personal liberty. Any-
thing then more unlikely to happen than that the
shores of the great lakes and the northern valley
of the Mississippi would be peopled in thirty years,
or that slavery would be abolished in sixty, could
not well be conceived.
Among the moving forces which have conspired
to bring about the wonderful events we have lived
to see, there must be many men and women whose
lives are worthy of the most precise history and
careful preservation for the benefit of posterity.



INTRODUCTORY. -- \ 11
Not always the men who get the highest place in
the cotemporary record have the best right to be
there. The most prominent at the time are not
always the most effective. Some are inscribing
their names, while others are quietly doing the
work. It is of the utmost moment to posterity to
know what manner of men they were who did the
best work, whether in giving direction to the phy-
sical or the moral forces of the people. These
forces, always intimately related to each other,
must conspire and act in a certain concert to pro-
duce any great nation, any upward movement of
the race.
It is the ambition of this slight monograph to
point my countrymen, and especially my country-
women, of this generation, to one who died before
most of them were born, and whose memory de-
serves to be forever decked with the greenest
wreaths and the loveliest flowers; to a man whose
modesty never allowed him to spend a thought on
the place he was to occupy in history, but who yet
did more perhaps than any other one man to con-
vert our great central forest into a garden, and

12 ,' MYRON HOLLEY.
/
then gave his life to make the continent one nation
in which justice should reign.
Christianity in paying divine honors to its al-
leged founder traces, or pretends to trace, his
lineage back to a remarkable king of antiquity, so
the purpose of this sketch cannot be most effect-
ively accomplished without going back to a very
royal personage in the history of Science, a gene-
alogy which can be easily verified by any one who
doubts.


ANCESTRY. 13
CHAPTER I.
ANCESTRY.
IN 1656 there was born in London, as son to a
wealthy citizen, one who, before the age of nine-
teen, had provided himself with Gallileo’s instru-
ments to watch the stars. Newton, a posthumous
baby, born so small that a “quart mug would
have contained him,” was 14 years his senior.
This youth of nineteen who was questioning the
heavens with his own telescope nine years after
Newton had conceived the idea of the law of grav-
ity, and eleven years before that abnormal man
published his immortal PRINCIPIA, was named
EDMUND HALLEY, a name which his descendants
in this country spell Holley. Edmund Halley
was a stalwart, scholarly, profound, self-sacrific-
ing, comprehensive philosopher, who filled with
his labors a life of 86 years, for 29 of which he
was secretary of the Royal Society. Determined
from the start to know what was going on, and by
what law, among the “fixed stars and planets, he
first delved into the dim records of the ancient


14 MYRON HOLLEY.
º astronomers to find the relative positions of heav-
enly bodies in their days, and then by the most
laborious application to his telescope, discovered
that these bodies were none of them “fixed.” He
discovered those motions of the star-suns, and
- those perturbations of the planets and their satel-
lites, which Newton, Leibnitz, La Grange, La
Place, and other mathematicians, have since gained
immortality by explaining. His genius laid the
foundation of modern astronomical discoveries.
He gave his name to a comet which had for thou-
sands of years been frightening mankind at inter-
vals, by so carefully observing it in 1681 as to
successfully predict its return in 1759. It came
back again according to prediction in 1835, and
will probably make another appearance about
1913. Halley’s discovery of the “fixed " stars in
motion, and the perturbation of the planets at first
frightened even philosophers for the stability of
our system. It might be crushed by and by. Even
the genial and hopeful poet, Dr. Erasmus Darwin,
w grandfather of the immortal evolutionist, wrote,
probably about 1760, −
“Star after star from heaven's high arch shall rush,
Suns sink on Suns, and systems systems crush,
IIeadlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall,
And Death and Night and ChaoS mingle all !

ANCESTRY. 15
Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form,
Mounts from her funeral pyre on Wings of flame
And soars and Shines, another and the Same.”
La Grange and La Place had not then mathe-
matically demonstrated the stability of the heavens,
a demonstration which subsequent observations
have confirmed to the extent of showing that our
moon, even, is not approaching the earth, if at all,
at an average rate of more than one fourteenth of
an inch a month. Halley himself seems to have
kept perfectly calm regarding the sublime motions
and perturbations lie had discovered as nothing
but an orderly dance, or as a French mathemati-
cian has expressed it, nothing but the swinging of
“the pendulums of etermity, which beat ages
while ours beat seconds.”
Edmund Halley was not a mere star-gazer, but
a warm-blooded man of the world, who looked
shrewdly into the life of our own planet, travers-
ing oceans in two long voyages to find the mag-
netic poles. To him we owe it, that the mild,
contemplative, absent-minded, and rather super-
stitious Newton, was encouraged, or almost com-
pelled, to publish his Principia, rather than to
waste all his time in interpreting the scriptural
prophecies.
16 T MYRON HOLLEY.
CHAPTER II.
BIRTH AND EDUCATION.
MYRON Hol.I.EY, a lineal descendant of the
great Royal Astronomer of the previous chapter,
was born in Salisbury, Connecticut, April 29,
1779, and died in Rochester, N. Y., March 4,
1841. He had the advantage of spending his
early years in one of the loveliest spots on this
or any continent, where the cloud-capped Tah-
kannuc and its gaily wooded attendant moun-
tains see themselves in many embowered lakes,
and listen to the uncoasing farewell of a river
that has lingered, lovingly, in the intervening
valley till it is obliged to overleap its marble bar-
rier and make haste to the sea. It was here that
Nature had done her best, and she found a true
worshipper in young Myron. It was in the
groves of this paradise that he saw the choicest
birds build their nests. It was from its rock-
ribbed mountain walls that he saw marble hauled
slowly away by oxen to build great cities. It
DIRTH AND EDUCATION. 17
was from the glowing furnaces and forges where
the evergrowing wood of the mountains met the
red ore from underneath the hills, that he saw go
the great anchors to hold our ships in every har-
bor of the world. And his father, Luther Holley,
had before the revolution been one of the wood-
choppers to feed these furnaces.
It is at the mention of this LUTHER HOLLEY,
that one feels almost irresistibly tempted to stop
and write a book. He was a model American,
not only for his own but for future ages. A
man with no nonsense about him. An independ-
ent, self-centred man, who despised no church,
and belonged to none. A man always of the
laboring class, too wide for anything narrow, and
charitable equally to the poor and the rich.
Luther's great-grandfather, coming from Eng-
land, settled first at Stratford and then at Stam-
ford, Ct. His grandfather came up the Housa-
tonic into the wilderness as one of the first settlers
of Sharon, adjoining Salisbury. His father, John,
was a prosperous farmer there, till a fire consumed
his house and all its contents, reducing him to
poverty, which was followed by the total loss of
his health. Two older brothers "having already
left home to make their way in the world, the

18 MYRON HOLLEY.
Whole burden of the farm and support of a
sick father fell upon Luther, a lad of sixteen,
aided only by his mother and sisters. In this
lad’s old age he wrote to his distinguished son
Horace, a very graphic sketch of his early life, in
which he says: — "I worked hard during the day,
and at night had to go after doctors and medicine.
As doctors were then scarce, I had often to go
eight or nine miles, when I was so weary that I
have fallen asleep on my horse and rode for miles
without knowing where I was, contriving to bal-
ance, however, so as to keep my seat.”
In mending a plough he inflicted a cut on his
knee, by which he lost twelve weeks of time and
narrowly escaped losing his leg. While disabled
from work by this accident he qualified himself to
teach school, having nover attended school but
five days himself. In this he was successful,
earning seven dollars a month by teaching in the
winter, and working on the farm in summer as
well as his stiff leg would permit. Bad crops
and the death of a horse, for which he was partly
in debt, did not discourage him, and he finally
achieved the highest proof of honest manhood in
paying for that horse in full. And at the same
time he naively writes to his son, “I was, not-

T}IRTH AND EDUCATION. 19
withstanding, actually negotiating with your
mother, and in the following October we were
married.” This mother was Sarah Dakin, the
daughter of a Calvinistic Baptist preacher, a very
religious woman, but of whom it is recorded, that
“she never could be persuaded to believe that her
own child would suffer endless torments on ac-
count of a point of faith.” ” By fair dealing and
industry, which seems never to have given him
time more than to take a little rest in a church,
the husband became a man of comparative wealth
in Salisbury, and the wife the mother of a large
family, of whom John Milton, Myron, Horace
and Orville L. made their marks in the world.
The first owed his name to his father's admiration
for the poet of Paradise Lost, a work which he
could repeat from memory, and which with a
universal History composed most of his library.
Like most self-educated men, this Luther
Holley no sooner found himself possessed of sons
and means than he was disposed to devote a good
deal of the latter to what is called the liberal
education of the former. Three of his sons,
Myron, the subject of this memoir, Horace, the
* Notice the importance of that fact in regard to the educa-
tion of her Son.

20 MYRON HOLLEY.
President of Transylvania University, and Orville
L., were college graduates, – Myron, like the late
James A. Garfield, graduating at Williams Col-
lege in 1799, Horace at Yale in 1803, and
Orville Luther at Harvard. But the father by no
means entrusted the education of his sons wholly
to the colleges, as the letters from him which
they preserved abundantly show. One of them,
addressed to Horace, in 1802, makes one wish
this rustic Luther had been president of a college
himself. It is a nugget of native gold, and
worthy of a place in the Bible of Humanity when-
ever that book comes to be canonized. It must
be quoted nearly entire before entering on the
life of the greatest of the three college-bred sons.
SALISBURY, March 21st, 1802.
DEAR HORACE :— After several attempts, which have
been interrupted, I hope soon to be able to finish and
send you a letter. There would be no difficulty in
writing if I had nothing to say out of the common way.
But without further preface, I shall proceed to the sub-
ject which will occupy the principal part of this sheet.
I have long since viewed you as possessing talents
above the common level, and several pieces of your Own
composition, which you read when last at home, more
fully confirmed my opinion ; yet with all your activity
and good sense, I feel some degree of anxiety on your
account. Are you not too much inclined to domination,

BIRTIH AND EDUCATION. 21
and, though honest and upright in disposition, prone
to consider the common class of mankind with too
little attention ? I have not time to be very particular,
but would not a fair and candid investigation give you
different ideas, and be of use to you in your future
course ?
Look round, my son, and carefully examine the
causes by which the United States are thus rapidly
increasing in wealth and improvement. Is it not
because we are habituated to, and not ashamed of
labor?
When you view the highly-cultivated fields, the towns
and villages, the useful as well as the more elegant
arts; nay, when you are conveniently dressed, and
comfortably fed, are you not led to say : These are the
productions of labor ; and for these am I beholden to
the hard hand of industry 2 Why then should we not
say, The laboring class, though less informed in science,
and perhaps less entertaining in conversation, are yet
the most meritorious citizens?
If we look for men most necessary in times of immi-
nent danger, where are we better furnished than by
applying to those who are inured to hardship, like Cin-
cinnatus and Gideon of old, the former called from the
plough, the latter from the threshing-floor. General
Lincoln, I am told, cultivated his farm with his own
hands. General Greene was not only a farmer, but a
forger of iron. General Putnam, we all know, was a
laborious man, and, although rough in manner, was a
good commander. Once more, I am informed that the
battle of Bennington, which first checked the victorious
army of Burgoyne, was fought by an intrepid band of
farmers. Many people think that the time is approach-

22 MYIRON IIOLLEY".
ing when the great cities and commercial towns of the
United States will be ingulfed in luxury ; and inevitable
ruin must ensue, but for the yeomanry, who, scattered
Over the country, simple in their manners and living,
bold and hardy from the habits of labor, will, it is
hoped, form a wall of defence.
My intention, however, in writing, is not to damp the
ardor of your mind, or to discourage in you that laud-
able ambition, which you so handsomely and ingeniously
distinguish and describe in your letter to Milton, but so
to direct you that your conduct may not only be digni-
fied, but tempered with that becoming modesty which
helps much to regulate the entrance into life, and to
assist in placing a just value on every object. The
most pleasing thing in nature must be, to be able to
converse with the wise, to inform the ignorant, to pity
and despise the intriguing villain, and to compassionate
and assist the poor and unfortunate.”
If this could be treasured in the mind and heart
of every young man, in college and out, the World
would owe more to Luther Holley than to Martin
Luther. Such was the father of Myron Holley.
The son lived what this excellent father taught.
A picture of the childhood and boyhood of My-
ron Holley, as they passed blithely away in the
* In 1708 Luther Holley resided in Dutchess County, N. Y.,
and it is much to the credit of his fellow-citizens there that
they clected him to represent them that year in the General
Assembly of their State.

BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 23
valley of the lovely Housatonic and among the
green hills, with their singing brooks, that stretch
over to the Hudson, would be grateful to the
reader. But time has left no record of his early
morning. We only see it beaming still in his
sweet, manly face, as painted by Aimes. Yet a
remarkable reflection of it has been preserved by
one of his daughters in a number of letters writ-
ten to him by four or five of his boyish friends
before he went to college, while he was at college
in Williamstown, at the law-school in New Haven,
and in the office of Judge Kent in Cooperstown.
Never was a young man so worshipped by his boy
friends. They were in love with him. His father
had lived a while at Red Hook, and afterwards
at Dover, N. Y., while Myron was fitting for
college, at the age of sixteen. Addressed to him
at the latter place, a letter from a boy friend in
Red Hook is a fair sample of the way he was wor-
shipped. It is written in a strong, bold hand,
and signed “Birch.”
RED IIook, 20th Oct., '95.
DEAR MYRON, - We had quite a dance of the first
magnitude last night at a Mr. Holmes's, who has lately
put up a public house in this town. There were Ladies
and Gentlemen from forty and fifty miles distance, and
all of the Beau Monde. I heard of its having been de-
24 MYRON HOLLEY.
, termined to be a very genteel one, and so I thought I
would just walk over to Mons. Holmes's to learn polite-
ness. There were a good many of them ; the Ladies were
dressed very rich, and the Gentlemen tolerably so. But
you may poultice my eye with a turnip, if I thought I
saw anythingterrible in their manoeuvres. I thought them
nothing but mortals, and that perhaps one of them did
not know the sweets of friendship ; so I walked home
again, with as little satisfaction as you please. Believe
me, Myron, I had rather have one Squeeze by your hand
than to dance fifty times with all the high-lifed things
in the world.
Make my love to your brothers. Forgive the maim-
ing of this thing, as the man is a waiting who is to carry
it. º
God bless you !
BIRCH.
After his graduation at Williams College in
1799, Myron seems to have directed his studies
towards the law. I find a letter addressed to him by
a classmate, Peter Starr, Jr., from Westfield, Mass.,
as "law student in the office of Judge Kent, Coop-
erstown, State of New York,” and dated June 23,
1800. This long letter of personal friendship
winds up with a glimpse of the politics of that
period, which will have some interest to those who
know what has been the political history of West-
field ever since. “Politicks,” says Mr. Starr, “are
very little talked of here, the people being gener-

BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 25
ally united. While the federalists in this quar-
tor stand in awful dread for the event of the ap-
proaching election of President and Vice President,
the Jacobins triumph in the assurance of having
Mr. Jefferson for the supreme magistrate of our
nation. Certain it is, that the industrious and
influential Jacobins, in this quarter, as well as in
other parts of the United States, have succeeded
to an unparalleled degree in corrupting the public
mind. Their success has indeed been proportion-
ate to their endeavors; which can he measured by
nothing but the industry of the devil in working
the destruction of the original parents of man-
kind.” It is not to be supposed that young
Holley, whatever his political bias may have been,
shared this intensity of prejudice. Possibly he
may not have been studying law at Cooperstown
in 1800, for he says in a letter to his son Samuel,
in 1834, speaking of New Haven: “I was delight-
ed with seeing it, after an absence of thirty-three
years ; for perhaps you know that in my early man-
hood I lived a year at that place, studying law,
and was admitted to the bar there in 1801.” One
of his fellow law-students there was Professor
Benjamin Silliman. In 1802 he seems to have
essayed the practice of law in Salisbury, his native
26 MYRON HOLLEY.
place. But there he could not long have remained,
for he is recorded as having settled in Canandai-
gua, N. Y., in 1803, and as having been married
to Sally House of that village in 1804.
CANANDAIGUA. 27
CHAPTER III.
CANANDAIGUA.
A more fortunate selection of locality he could
not have made. For though Canandaigua, or
Canadarque, as it was then called, was but an
insignificant village in the bosom of a vast wilder-
ness, it had among its inhabitants a number of
men of transcendent ability and the highest
culture in the country, who seem to have con-
spired to select for themselves the best and most
beautiful spot in the Empire State. It was from
the start the focus of intellect, enterprise and
wealth for Western New York, and though but
ten years from its first log hut,” sat, already look-
ing forth from its fair gardens over its crystal
lake, like the queen it is ever to be. But in
* When Myron Holley settled in Canandaigua before his
marriage, he, together with Peter B. Porter, Augustus Porter
and J udge Howell, boarded with a Mrs. Sanbourn, who nearly
ten years earlier had traversed the Wilderness between Utica.
and that place on horseback, following an Indian trail, with
no company but her infant, which she carried tied up in her
apron, When she had occasion to use both hands,

28 MYTON HOLLEY.
acquiring young Holley, the place was even more
fortunate than the man. As long as that great
home of gardens lasts, the spot on its broad,
grandly shaded, main street, where his unpreten-
tious home stood, will be pointed out with pride
by every citizen to every admiring stranger. The
house, directly opposite the old Ontario Bank, is
still the same as that in which he lived, though
its exterior has been a little brushed up. Other
homes in Canandaigua, as of the Greigs and
Grangers, had an air of magnificence without as
well as within, as they still have, but that of
Myron Holley was all glorious within, in the
intellectual hospitality of the man and the charm-
ing presence of his beautiful wife and happy
children. The grey-headed men of the place, and
of many others, recount with delight how they
spent an evening with Myron Holley and listened
to his wonderful reading and conversation. He
was, in fact, the pet artist of Canandaigua in that
line. Without knowing it, he seems to have been
the founder of the “Parlor’’ as the School of civi-
lization.

CHOICE OF PURSUIT. 29
CHAPTER IV.
CHOICE OF PURSUIT.
THE question arises why a young man full of
natural eloquence, carefully educated to the law
under the best masters, and not specially enam-
ored of literature as a profession, should not have
devoted himself to the practice of law. That he
would have become a great ornament of the bar,
and still more of the bench, is quite certain from
the fact that he was always resorted to as an arbi-
trator, and generally proved satisfactory to both
parties. His commanding presence, wonderful
equanimity and ready flow of words, seemed to
fix his destiny for the legal profession, but hap-
pily for his country, he never entered beyond the
threshhold. A tradition, given by one of his
sons, seems to let in some light on the question :
indeed, so much that I endeavored in vain to
verify it by searching the records of the Court.
It may nevertheless be correct, for the custodian
of these records was of opinion that such a fact
would not have been noticed in those very meagre

30 MYRON IHOLLEY.
minutes if it had occurred. The story is, that
Mr. Holley was, for his first brief in Canandaigua,
assigned by the Court to defend a man indicted
for murder. He visited and conferred with his
client in the jail, and becoming thoroughly con-
vinced of his guilt, immediately on coming into
court next morning resigned his brief, and never
after appeared as an advocate. However this
may be, certain it is from his after life, no man
ever cherished a profounder regard for truth and
justice. He had an instinctive aversion to all
crookedness. Whether he held that this disquali-
fied him for a profession in which nothing is more
indispensable to pecuniary success than a faculty
of suppressing the truth and making the worse
appear the better side, I find no record. One
success, as a lawyer, he had achieved in his native
town of Salisbury, Ct., which is well worthy of
record as showing the character of the man and
the age. On a mountain over which passes the
road leading from the iron mines to the furnaces,
lived in a hut by himself a solitary wood-chopper
who had acquired the reputation, not so uncom-
mon in that day, of a wizard. He was supposed
to have power over the teams that hauled the ore
across the mountain. Heavy loads and bad roads

CHOICE OF PURSUIT. 31
were not sufficient in the minds of the drivers to
account for the balkiness of the horses, and the
poor old wood-chopper had to bear the blame and
the curses. One day a stalwart Dutchman, whose
team stopped half-way up and refused to stir,
determined to try what he had heard to be a sov-
ereign charm or exorcism in such cases, to wit, to
draw blood on the wizard. So ascending the
mountain he seized the poor man and with his
jack-knife cut a frightful gash across his fore-
head, and left him bleeding. Returning to his
horses, which by this time had rested themselves,
he was confirmed in his superstition by their
readily taking the load up the hill. Young law-
yer Holley brought an action for damages against
the Dutchman and obtained judgment in favor of
the innocent wood-chopper.
Having given up the practice of the law, without
much loss of time he married, bought the stock
of a bookseller named Bemis, became the literary
purveyor of the county town and surrounding
country, and devoted himself to the creation of a
happy home. His books, his garden and his
children occupied his time. For about four years,
between 1810 and 1814, he was County Clerk,
and the voluminous records of the titles of real

32 MYRON HOLLEY.
-
estate in his faultless manuscript attest his in-
dustry. The years 1812 and 1813 were very
gloomy for the people of the lake frontier, for the
War had burst upon them entirely unprepared.
What they suffered is well set forth in a letter
addressed to DeWitt Clinton, then mayor of the
city of New York, and to Col. Robert Troup,
Gen. Clarkson, John B. Coles, Thos. Morris,
Moses Rogers, Robert Bowne and Thos. Eddy,
distinguished citizens. It was written by Myron
Holley, and because it is highly characteristic of
him, and of the situation of the country immedi-
ately before his grand public life commenced, I
give it here entire. It had an immediate effect,
not only in calling forth large private donations,
but $3,000 from the city, and $50,000 from the
State.
CANANDAIGUA, 8th January, 1814.
GENTLEMEN, - Niagara county, and that part of
Genesee which lies west of Batavia, are completely de-
populated. All the settlements, in a section of country
forty miles square, and which contained more than
twelve thousand souls, are effectually broken up. These
facts you are undoubtedly acquainted with, but the dis-
tresses they have produced, none but an eye-witness can
thoroughly appreciate. Our roads are filled with peo-
ple, many of whom have been reduced from a state of
competence and good prospects to the last degree of
want and sorrow. So sudden was the blow by which

CHOICE OF PURSUIT. 33
they have been crushed, that no provision could be
made either to elude or to meet it. The fugitives from
Niagara county especially were dispersed under cir-
cumstances of so much terror, that, in Some cases,
mothers find themselves wandering with strange child-
ren, and children are seen accompanied by such as
have no other sympathies with them than those of com-
mon sufferings. Of the families thus separated all the
members can never again meet in this life, for the same
violence which has made them beggars, has deprived
some of their heads and others of their branches. Af-
flictions of the mind, so deep as have been allotted to
these unhappy people, we cannot cure. They can pro-
bably be subdued only by HIs Power who can wipe
away all tears. But shall we not endeavor to assuage
them? To their bodily wants we can certainly ad-
minister. The inhabitants of Canandaigua have made
large contributions for their relief, in provisions, cloth-
ing, and money. And we have been appointed, among
other things, to Solicit further relief for them from our
wealthy and liberal-minded fellow-citizens. In pur-
Suance of this appointment, may we ask you, gentle-
men, to interest yourselves particularly in their behalf 2
We believe that no occasion has ever occurred in our
country which presented stronger claims upon indivi-
dual benevolence, and we humbly trust that whoever is
Willing to answer these claims will always entitle him-
self to the precious rewards of active charity.
Signed, W.M. SHEPARD, THAI). CHAPIN,
MOSES AT WATER, N. GoRIIAM,
Z. SEYMOUR, THos. BEALs,
MYRON Holley, PIIINEAs P. BATES.
Committee of Safety and Relief.



34 MYRON HOLLEY.
In 1816 his fellow-citizens had the wisdom to
discover his fitness for vastly more difficult duties,
and from that date the materials for his biography
are only too abundant, for they include a great
deal of the history of the country for thirty-five
years.
Of the previous twelve years of his life, there
would not have been left a vestige at this day, but
for the remarkable fact that in his long absences
from home, while on public business, he carried
his family in his heart, and at a time when mails
were few and expensive, deluged his children with
letters, many of which a heroic daughter has piously
preserved. A man of extensive reading, excel-
lent taste, and the most fascinating conversational
powers, he was by no means an artistic writer.
Like all other natural orators, his eloquence on
paper is rather long-winded, or at any rate, its wit
does not consist in its brevity. There is clear day-
light, no clouds, no lightning, no fog. He is all
the while turning his soul wrong side out, and
there is a vast deal of it. IIe is never ambitious to
make you admire himself, but to make you under-
stand his subject. IIe is no iconoclast, no grum-
bler, no detractor, but wide, genial, hopefully pro-
gressive, sympathetic with all, yet marching in

CHOICE OF PURSUIT. 35
the front rank with the best. The front rank at
that day, it must be remembered, was not far in
advance of the mass. Where he stood almost
alone in 1840, millions stand now.

36 MYIRON HOLLEY.
* .
*
-
CHAPTER V.
MARRIAGE .
IT was on the 4th of December, 1804, that Mr.
Holley, then twenty-five years and eight months
of age, was married by Rev. Timothy Field, the
first Congregational minister of Canandaigua, to
Sally House, the daughter of Capt. John House,
one of the earlier settlers of the place. She was
a remarkably comely and well-developed person,
eighteen years and four months of age, having
been born in Schenectady in 1786. Her father
was one of the patriots who volunteered to serve
his country in the war of 1812, and fell at last in
the battle of New Orleans, fighting under General
Jackson. She was a Methodist in her religious
faith, and so continued till she died at Buffalo in
1868, aged 82. That Mr. Holley had no reason
to regret his choice, is quite certain, for she made
him the father of six daughters and six sons, and
in the darkest hour of his adversity, twenty years
after their marriage, he addressed to her the fol-


MARRIAGE. 37
lowing lines on the occasion of his leaving home
for Albany. It is almost the only time we find
him indulging in verse, and as it was only for
her, the critic has no business with it. But here
is the heart of the man at a time when he had
given the Empire State its Erie Canal, and made
"himself poor by it –
“For thee, dear wife, as age advances,
Affection’s light still cheers my heart,
And twenty years with thee enhances
My bosom’s pain whene'er we part.
When first in youth thy pleasing form
Filled all my soul with fond desire,
And holiest vows had lent their charm
To cherish love's umceasing fire,
'Twas then the joy that filled thine eye,
The roseate hue upon thy cheek,
The auburn curls that waving high
Thy polished forehead did bedeck,-
'Twas thy soft smile and winning air,
The dance alert and figure's grace
Which made me hold thee Clearer far
Than all things else in time's long race.
Dut all these charms may fade away,
Thy eye may sink, thy cheek turn paie,
Thy locks may bleach, thy limbs decay,
And age thy figure's graces steal.
Still thou Wilt be more dear to me
Than all these causes e er would prove thee,
For all thy truth, from youth to age,
Compels me more and more to love thee.”
The beauty of Miss House had, in fact, turned
the heads of most of the young men in Canan-

38 MYRON HOLLEY.
daigua and thereabout, and it was a very happy
thing for her that she found a husband who could
See and appreciate the sterling worth that lay
beneath it, and by his own abundant culture
supply her lack of it.


CHURCH CONNECTION. . 39
CHAPTER VI.
CHURCH CONNECTION.
MYRON Holley, without a particle of bigotry,
was always religious, in the higher and better
sense of that word. He had a profound reverence
for human nature, and an intense desire to pro-
mote the dignity and happiness of the race.
Socially attractive, he seems to have drawn the
religious people of his day in Cananduigua up to
himself rather than to have been drawn down to
them. By the records of the First Congregational
Church, I find that he, with his mother-in-law,
Elizabeth House, joined that body April 30, 1815,
and that they with six of his children were bap-
tized that day. Some of the present members of
that church, when inquired of as to his religious
views, said he was a Unitarian, and others said he
was a Universalist, but all expressed their sur-
prise at the fact above stated, and some their
incredulity. The sequel will explain this curious
phenomenon.


40 1MYRON HOT,LEY.
Religious or rather denominational prejudices
fade with exceeding slowness, but they do fade.
Religious tolerance was considered almost a crime
by most people in the first two decades of this
century, no matter how religious or useful the per-
son might be who indulged in it. Elkanah Wat-
son, the founder of the Berkshire Agricultural
Society, and who began agricultural shows in 1807
by exhibiting two merino sheep, shocked a great
many good people and earned hard epithets, by
the following passage in his agricultural address,
delivered Sept. 24, 1811 :
“It is as ridiculous, as impertinent, for a man to
quarrel with another for not thinking as he thinks, as for
not looking as he looks. Two centuries ago Europe
was deluged in blood, on the score of religious intoler-
3,1] CG. - -
In these enlightened days, as we are pleased to call
them, we look back with astonishment and disgust at
the folly of men in those days. Will not our descend-
ants have equal cause to regret the folly of the present
age? How can we Americans boast of our freedom,
when we are all combined to enslave each other's opin-
ions, – whereas the freedom of the mind is the most
powerful attribute of freemen, and the most valuable
prerogative of human nature.”

15RIE CANAL. 41
CHAPTER VII.
ERIE CANAL.
THUS in accord with the influential Society in
which he lived, and in reality its favorite, when
Canandaigua wished to do its utmost to promote
the great enterprise of connecting Lake Erie with
the Hudson River by a canal, it sent him, then in
the prime of his manhood, at the age of 37, to
represent it in the General Assembly at Albany,
in 1816.
With the present means of locomotion and trans-
portation, the Erie Canal has almost dropped out
of sight. If you spin through the State of New
York in an express train, by daylight, you see
large barges, seeming stationary, in a meadow.
Otherwise you see nothing of an achievement which
half a century ago was the pride of America, and
the envy of Europe. But to appreciate the tri-
umph of its accomplishment you must conceive of
the American wilderness as it existed up to 1816;
you must conceive of the general poverty and bit-

42 MYRON IHOLLEY.
ter political strife of that era, and in fact you must
have traversed the State of New York in a canal
packet after having made the journey repeatedly
through mud so execrable as to make the prehis-
toric corduroy bridges of round logs laid side by
side in the mud, a relief. In those days there
were but two ways for New Englanders to get into
the great wilderness of Ohio. One was over the
Pennsylvania mountains, by the most ridiculous
apology for a road, the other was through the
swamps of New York and along the southern
shore of Lake Erie. Either took a pilgrimage of
about forty days, and never a family but had acci-
dents by precipice, mud or flood to recount for
years afterward in its log cabin. In comparison
with this, either as to danger, toil, or expense,
emigration to the states west of the Mississippi
to-day is nothing. Then all the roads in the new
countries were Indian trails without bridges.
Emigrants with wagons had often to cut their way
through the woods, by the pocket compass for the
last day or two. At the rate the great wilderness
was settling previous to the opening of the canal,
it would have been mostly a wilderness to this day,
for as soon as his new farm yielded a surplus, the
farmer discovered the impossibility of getting it to

ERIE CANAL. 43
market. The vast region of the upper lakes was
cut off from the sea coast by the sublime cataract
of Niagara, and Mr. Geddes, the first canal sur-
veyor, incredible as it may seem, found no wagon-
road from one lake to the other on American
soil.
Up to 1816 the 353 miles between the Hudson
and Lake Erie, stretched through a wilderness
largely of swamps, with only here and there a vil-
lage. Where the great and splendid cities of Syra-
cuse and Rochester are now, bears and wolves
were more at home than men. Emigrant families
were toiling laboriously with ox-teams along the
rough, miry, and wild roads, bound for the
country south of Lake Erie, in the face of remi-
grants, shaking with ague, and looking like
ghosts.
Doubtless enthusiastic travelers had dreamed,
even before the revolution, of peopling the inte-
rior of the continent. But the beginnings were
exceedingly small, and the progress hardly ex-
ceeded the regress. As long ago as 1784 one
Christopher Colles memorialized the New York
legislature for the removal of obstructions to the
navigation of the Mohawk. A committee to which
his memorial was referred reported that if Colles


44 MYIRON HOLLEY.
would undertake it himself, he and his assigns
should be allowed to take toll, but the State
should be at no expense. No Act passed. Colles
applied again in 1785 and got an appropriation of
$125 (!) to enable him to make an “essay ” and
report his success to the next legislature. He re-
ported in 1786, but nothing was done and Colles
subsided. After a silence of five years Gov. Clin-
ton [not De Witt, but his uncle, brought up the
subject, and an appropriation of $250 was made,
and the Land Commissioners were authorized and
instructed to make surveys of the Mohawk and
Wood Creek. From this resulted a company
which slightly improved the navigation of the
Mohawk, locking around Little Falls and connect-
ing that river with Wood Creek by a canal,
through which boats could pass into Oneida Lake,
and down its outlet to the Oswego River which
falls into Lake Ontario, but is too rapid for navi-
gation. The improvement enabled the boats to
ascend the Seneca River into Cayuga and Seneca
Lakes. *
With this improvement the great idea of con-
necting Erie with the Hudson,” if it existed at all,
* The dream of a river running from Lake Erie to the Hud-
son is said to have existed in the brain of Gouverneur Morris,

ERIE CANAL. 45
slept in embryo till 1807 or 8, when Jesse Haw-
ley, an enterprising Yankee, who as the fashion
was in that day had contrived to get himself into
jail in Ontario County as a debtor, and lived out
on the “jail limits,” very distinctly set it forth in
a stirring pamphlet and communications to the
newspapers. The grand idea, coming from such
a source, perhaps aroused more prejudice than
favor. But it pleased Gouverneur Morris, and
possibly awakened De Witt Clinton. The former,
with great political ability, was a magnificent
dreamer, and among his dreams was that of
connecting Lake Erie with the sea-board by
an artificial river, running down a gently in-
clined plane, without a lock ' The latter was a
born politician of the most pronounced type, an
aristocratic democrat. Inheriting wealth and dis-
tinction he hated the federalists of his day with a
perfect hatred. And yet he was destined to come
in conflict, practically, with his own party in its
even in his waking moments, as early as 1802. It can hardly
be called an idea. He was a very pleasant gentleman and a
fine scholar, dressing also in powdered wig, small-clothes and
knee-buckles, and probably thought it as easy for water to run
up hill as down, or at any rate that labor enough could keep
it from running to Montreal. When the canal is again
enlarged it will be as good as a “river.”

46 MYRON HOLLEY.
hour of victory. Neither side ever gave him a
Support Suited to his ambition. This caused him
to retire from politics in disgust, and he is said to
have fallen almost a hopeless victim to the god of
the vineyard, when some of his personal friends,
in the hope of rousing him to manhood, sug-
gested that he should make himself the leader of
the great scheme so attractively set forth by the
impecunious debtor of Ontario County. Exceed-
ingly fortunate this for New York on many ac-
counts. With talents and culture fit to have made
him one of the grandest Presidents of the United
States, De Witt Clinton was reserved for some-
thing more important. He seized the new oppor-
tunity. The great State of New York began now,
as if an inspiration had struck it, to act in earnest,
though it relied almost wholly on the Federal
Government to provide the requisite funds. It is
needless to detail the efforts it made to interest Con-
gress in the matter. Nothing could have been
more hopeless. Besides the natural jealousy of
rival states, there was the bitter feud of factions
and the struggle for sailors' rights which was soon
to culminate in the war of 1812. The nation was
then poorer than any state, and to have helped the
richest of the old states to an advantage over the


ERIE CANAT, . 47
rest, would have been a miracle of magnanimity.
If there had been any national action then, it
would have been exactly in the wrong direction.
The same opposing forces, only a little less in-
tense, existed in the State of New York itself, so
that all that could be done before the war came to
suspend action altogether, was to appropriate
$600 for a survey in 1808, and appoint a board of
commissioners to make more thorough explora-
tion in 1810. Mr. James Geddes, a very thorough
and painstaking engineer, went over the route in
1808 and made so favorable a report to Simeon
De Witt, the Surveyor General, that he was
allowed 75 dollars beyond the appropriation for
his labor, all of which he certainly earned and
much more. Mr. Geddes of course did not find
any such state of the surface as would allow the
dream of Gouverneur Morris to be realized, but he
did find, to his intense delight, a singular provis-
ion of nature to aid in carrying the intended canal
over the deep Valley of the Irondequot without
locking down, only to lock up again. An enor-
mous natural embankment, almost complete and
just where it was needed, he looked upon as an in-
terposition of Divine Providence in favor of the
undertaking, though he confessed that when he



48 MYRON HOLLEY.
made the discovery he little expected to live to
see boats running on the top of that embankment.
It was as if he had discovered the ruins of an
ancient canal which was waiting to be repaired.



EXPLORATION OF 1810. 49
CHAPTER VIII.
EXPLORATION OF 1810.
The Board of Commissioners appointed in 1810
consisted of Gouverneur Morris, Stephen Van
Rensselaer, De Witt Clinton, Simeon De Witt,
William North, Thomas Eddy and Peter B.
Porter. They were instructed to explore the
route from the Hudson to Lake Erie, examine the
navigation and make such surveys as they should
think proper, and report in regard to further
improvements. Nothing beyond exploration re-
sulted, and the war so set everything back that
even the exploration had to be done over in 1816.
But of this first exploration De Witt Clinton kept
a careful private diary, which was not published
till 1849. It gives a better idea of the nature of
the enterprise and the situation when Myron
Holley devoted himself to its practical accom-
plishment, than can be found elsewhere.
It is impossible to set forth the work done by
any great man of the past without taking into
50 MYPON HOLLEY.
view the obstacles he overcame and the people
among whom he worked, so I shall make no
excuse for quoting largely from Mr. Clinton's racy
diary of this exploring expedition. His brief and
pithy notes, jotted down as he went along, do
great credit to him as a careful and comprehensive
observer, and it is a pity he did not in his lifetime
publish in full all that he saw and thought on that
interesting trip.
On Saturday, June 30, 1810, Mr. Clinton left
New York city on board a steamboat — of which
there were then only six in North America — and
arrived in Albany Monday morning, July 2. The
Commissioners met there that day. Morris and
Van Rensselaer concluded to go by land; the other
four as much as possible by water.
Under date of July 2 the journal says: — “We
employed ourselves in laying up the necessary
stores for our voyage, having previously drawn
from the Treasury $1,500 in favor of Mr. Eddy.
A mattrass, blanket and pillow were purchased
for each Commissioner; but we unfortunately
neglected to provide ourselves with marquees and
camp-stools, the want of which was sensibly felt.”
The following extracts from the 178 pages of
this journal, covering the time to Aug. 23, when



EXPLORATION OF 1810. 51
Mr. Clinton returned to New York, will serve,
perhaps, better than any condensation of it, to
show the character of the country and its popula-
tion at that period :
“On the 3d July we set out in carriages for Schenec-
tady, and put up at Powell's hotel. We found that Mr.
Eddy had neglected to give directions about providing
boats, and that Mr. Walton, the undertaker, who is
extensively engaged in transporting commodities and
merchandise up and down the river, had notice of our
wishes only yesterday. He was very busy in making
the requisite preparations. He had purchased a
batteaux [what French || and had hired another for
our baggage. It being necessary to caulk and new
paint the boats, – to erect an awning against the rain
and Sun, and to prepare a new set of sails, we had no
very sanguine hope of gratifying our earnest desire to
depart in the morning, although we exerted every nerve
to effect it.
“July 4th. On consulting with Mr. Walton about
our departure, he informed us that this being a day of
great festivity, it would be almost impracticable to drag
the men away. We saw some of them and found them
willing to embark as soon as the boats were ready, and
we therefore pressed the workmen with great assiduity.
“The true reason of this anxiety, was the dulness
of the place. Imagine yourself in a large country
village, without any particular acquaintance, and desti-
tute of books, and you will appreciate our situation.
Schenactady, although dignified with the name of a
city, is a place of little business. It has a Bank, a
52 MYRON HOLLEY.
College, and a Court House, and a considerable deal of
trade is carried on through the Mohawk; and all the
roads which pass to the westward on the banks of that
river necessarily go through this place. A great portion
of the crowd that visit the mineral springs at Ballston
and Saratoga also visit Schenactady. With all these
advantages it does not appear pleasing, and we en-
deavoured to fill up the gloomy interval between this
time and our departure, by viewing the pageantry which
generally attends this day.
“There were two celebrations and two sets of
Orators — one by the city and one by the college.
The feuds between the burghers of Oxford and Cam-
bridge, and the students of those Universities, appear
to be acted over here. In the procession of the stu-
dents, we saw a Washington Benevolent Society, re-
markable neither for numbers nor respectability. The
President was a Scotchman, of the name of Murdoch,
and certainly not a warm Whig during the war.”
“On receiving information that our batteaux were
ready, we embarked at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Our
boat was covered with a handsome awning and curtains
and well provided with seats. The Commissioners who
embarked in it, were De Witt, Eddy, Porter and myself;
and the three young gentlemen before mentioned also
accompanied us. The Captain’s name was Thomas B.
Clench, and we were provided with three men, Free,
man, Van Ingen, and Van Slyck. In our consort were
the captain, named Clark, three hands, three servants
and about a ton and a half of baggage and provisions.
We called, ludicrously at first, our vessel the Eddy, and
the baggage boat the Morris. What was jest became
serious, and when our batteaux were painted at Utica,

EXPLORATION OF 1810. 53
these names were doubly inscribed on the sterns in
legible characters.
“A crowd of people attended us at our embarkation,
who gave us three parting cheers. The wind was fair,
and with our handsome awning, flag flying, and large
sail, followed by another boat, we made no disreputable
appearance. We discovered that our mast was too
high, and our boat being without much ballast, we were
not well calculated to encounter heavy and Sudden gusts.
These boats are not sufficiently safe for lake navigation,
although they frequently venture. A boat went from
this place to the Missouri in six weeks. The river was
uncommonly low. Goods to the value of $50,000 were
detained in Walton’s warehouses, on account of the dif-
ficulty of transportation. After sailing a couple of miles
a bend of the river brought the wind in our faces. Our
men took to their poles, and pushed us up against a
rapid current with great dexterity, and great muscular
exertion. The approach of evening, and the neces-
sity of sending back to Schenactady for some things
that were left, induced us to come to for the night at
Willard's tavern, on the south bank of the river, and
three miles from the place of departure.
“This tavern is in the 3d ward of the city of Schen-
actady. In the election of 1809, the first after the
establishment of the county, a great disproportion was
discovered between the Senatorial and Assembly votes,
which could not be accounted for on fair principles. A
greater number of persons testified that they had voted
for the Republican candidates. than there were ballots
in the box ; and there could not be the least doubt, but
that Republican tickets had been taken from the box,
and Federal ones substituted. This tavern was located


54 MYRON HOLLEY.
as the scene of the fraud. The boxes were kept here
One night, and, it is said, locked up in a bureau, left
there for the express purpose, as is supposed. The
tavern-keeper and some other accomplices perpetrated
the atrocious deed. The present incumbent looks as if
he were capable of any iniquity of the kind.”
“The south road leads in front of the house. While
here, we had an opportunity of seeing the pernicious
effects of these festivals, in the crowds of drunken,
Quarrelsome people, who passed by. Among other dis-
gusting scenes, we saw several young men riding Jehu-
like to the tavern, in a high state of intoxication, and
their leader swinging his hat, and shouting ‘Success to
Federalism.’ A simple fellow handed me a hand-bill
containing the arrangements for the procession, and
was progressing in his familiarities with the rest of the
company, when he was called off by the landlord, who,
in a stern voice, said, ‘Come away, Dickup ; ’ and poor
Dickup, alias thick head, immediately obeyed.”
So this charming explorer and representative
American goes on, giving bits of history on every
old house he passed, noticing the larvae of bees in
the dried mullen stalks, and the muscle shells on
the banks of the river. Under date of July 7th
he gives a glimpse of the literature of the day,
just springing up under freedom of the press.
They started that morning at five o’clock, and to
facilitate the passage of their boats up a difficult
rapid, they walked on shore a mile and a half.
After getting on board he says: —
IEXPLORATION OF 1810. 55
“In order to furnish as much amusement as possible,
we put our books into a common stock, or rather into a
trunk, and appointed one of the young gentlemen
keeper of the library. The books, which were most
extraordinary, were a Treatise on Magic, by Quitman
(this I purchased at Albany), and a pamphlet on
Religion, by Mr. D. L. Dodge, a respectable merchant
in New York, with an answer by a Clergyman (these
were furnished by Mr. Eddy.) Quitman’s Treatise is a
labored argument against magicians, and to disprove
their existence. Dodge’s work is principally levelled
against war, breathes a fanatical spirit, and is complete-
ly refuted by the adversary’s pamphlet. As a speci-
men of his reasoning take the following: — ‘If a good
man does not resist an assailant and submits to be
killed, he will go to heaven. On the contrary, if he
kills the assailant, he may probably send a soul to hell,
which if spared, may be converted and saved to life
everlasting.’ DCdge’s pamphlet, weak as it is, has
given him a great name among the Quakers; and,
through their recommendation, he is now a trustee of
the New York Free School.”
This homest confession by De Witt Clinton of
the weakness of “ Dodge's pamphlet” reads
strangely by the side of his own Address at the
Anniversary of the Bible Society in 1823. In
that address, to be sure, he only hypothetically
admits that the Bible is a revelation from God.
But with all the eloquence of which he was master
— and he was master of much — he contends that
56 MYRON HOLLEY.
the belief of the future heaven and hell is the
foundation of good government. For example,
he says: —
“The codes of men and the laws of opinion derive
a great portion of their weight from the influence of a
future world. Justice cannot be administered without
the sanctity of truth , and the great security against
perjury is the amenability of another state. The
sanctions of religion compose the foundations of good
government ; and the ethics, doctrines, and examples
furnished by Christianity exhibit the best models for
the laws of opinion.”
Mr. Clinton here plainly assumes the “ethics”
and “ doctrines " of Christianity to be inseparable,
and unless his views of the latter had changed
since 1810, he was telling the Bible Society that
false doctrines are essential to good government.
If he had lived till to-day, he would probably
have discovered that the doctrines which contra-
dict the ethics had better not be relied on as a
bulwark against perjury; that a future heaven and
hell depending not wholly on personal character
and conduct, but on faith in vicarious obedience
and imputed righteousness as well, are destruc-
tive of the sense of moral obligation, rather than
otherwise.
EXPLORATION OF 1810. 57
The navigators of the mighty Mohawk reached
Little Falls on the 8th July, a village “built upon
rocks of granite, containing about thirty or forty
houses and stores, and a church, together with
mills.” Here their “batteaux’’ were lifted through
the rude locks of the “ Inland Lock Navigation
Company,” incorporated in 1792; and he notices
that its tolls there, from 1803 to July, 1810, had
been $62,789.23, and that in the previous three
months 242 boats had passed. Here says our
prudent explorer, “ The rainy weather induced me
to procure thicker stockings; for a pair of coarse
worsted I paid 11s., and for two pair of cotton
half stockings, 6s. 6d. each.” [Probably $1.37;
for the worsted, and 814 cents each for the cotton,
in Federal money..] An old style of reckoning
money changes almost as slowly as an old style of
theology.
Another laborious day brought the voyagers to
Utica, at ten o'clock in the night, and the journal
says: —
“Morris and Van Rensselaer having pre-occupied
Baggs’ tavern, where we intended to quarter, we
put up at Billinger's tavern in Utica.”
That bag has grown bigger since two travellers
could pre-occupy it. “Utica,” continues the
58 MYRON HOLLEY.
journal, “is a flourishing village on the south side
of the Mohawk; it arrogates to itself being the
capital of the Western District. Twenty-two
years ago there was but one house ; there are now
three hundred. * * By the census now taking,
it contains 1,650 inhabitants. Two newspapers
are printed here.”
Morris and Van Rensselaer, the two aristocratic
Commissioners, continued to journey by land, and
the navigators overtaking them at Rome, a meet-
ing of the Commission was held there on the 12th,
of which Mr. Clinton is so cruel as to place this
on record : — "At this meeting the Senior Com-
missioner was for breaking down the mound of
Lake Erie, and letting out the waters to follow
the level of the country, so as to form a sloop
navigation with the Hudson, and without any aid
from any other water.” Every party politician
should know that his absurdities will be enjoyed
by the opposite party.
The Commissioners adjourned to meet in Ge-
neva, and the navigators proceeded on their voy-
age by a canal of one mile and three-fourths,
connecting the Mohawk with Wood Creek, an
affluent of Oneida Lake. While on the latter the
EXPLORATION OF 1810. 59
journalist mentions dining “on a salmon caught
at Fish Creek, about eight miles from Rome.”
De Witt Clinton, as a worthy pioneer of civil-
ization and “internal improvements,” had a sharp
eye for both the beauties and utilities of nature,
as the following extracts will show. What a pity
it is that those who have followed him should
have made so much waste both of the utilities and
the beauties |
“The Mohawk is barren of fish. It formerly con-
tained great plenty of trout— it now has none. The
largest fish is the pike, which have been caught weigh-
ing fourteen pounds. Since the canal at Rome, chubb,
a species of dace, have come into the Mohawk through
Wood Creek, and are said to be plenty. A salmon
and black bass have also been speared in this river,
which came into it through the canal. It would not be
a little singular if the Hudson should be supplied with
salmon through that channel. The falls of the Cohoes
oppose a great impediment to the passage of fish ; but
the Hudson is like the Mohawk, a very sterile river in
that respect.
“We saw great numbers of bitterns, blackbirds,
robins, and bank swallows, which perforate the banks of
the river. Also, some wood-ducks, gulls, shell drakes,
bob-linklins, king-birds, crows, kildares, small snipe,
woodpeckers, woodcock, wrens, yellow birds, phebes,
blue jays, highlholes, pigeons, thrushes, and larks. We
also saw several kingfishers, which denote the presence
60 MYRON HOLLEY.
of fish. We shot several bitterns, the same as found
On the Salt marsh. The only shell fish were the
Snapping turtle and muscle.
“We saw a bright red bird about the size of a blue-
bird. Its wings were tipped with black, and the bird
uncommonly beautiful. It appeared to have no song,
and no one present seemed to know its name. I saw
but three besides in the whole course of my tour, one
on the Ridge Road west of the Genesee River. It is
therefore a rara, avis.”
De Witt Clinton was a subscriber to Alexander
Wilson's great work on Ornithology, but as the
second volume in which the Scarlet Tanager is
described was only published in 1810, he prob-
ably had not seen it. But from Clinton's descrip-
tion it was doubtless that bird. “Among all the
birds that inhabit our woods,” says Wilson,
“ there is none that strikes the eye of a stranger,
or even a native, with so much brilliancy as this.
The depth of the woods is his favorite abode.
There among the thick foliage of the tallest trees,
his simple and almost monotonous notes chip,
churr, repeated at short intervals, in a pensive
tone, may be occasionally heard ; which appear to
proceed from a considerable distance, though the
bird be immediately above you ; a faculty be-
Stowed on him by the beneficent Author of


EXPLORATION OF 1810. 61
Nature, no doubt for his protection, to compen-
sate in a degree for the danger to which his
glowing color would often expose him.”
“On the banks of the creek,” proceeds the journal,
“was plenty of boneset, the Canada shrub, said to be
useful in medicine, and a great variety of beautiful
flowering plants. Wild gooseberry bushes, wild cur-
rants, and wild hops were also to be seen. The goose-
berries were not good ; the hops were said to be as
good as the domestic ones. In the long weeds and
thick underwood we were at first apprehensive of rattle-
snakes, of which we were told that there are three kinds
— the large and the small, and the dark rattlesnakes.
But neither here nor in any part of our tour did we
see this venomous reptile. The only animals we saw
on this stream were the black squirrel and the hare, as
it is called in Albany, a creature white in winter, of the
rabbit kind, although much larger.”
As descriptive of the country through which the
Erie Canal was to pass, and in which Mr. Holley
was to be occupied in all sorts of weather for seven
years, nothing can be truer to life than the account
Mr. Clinton gives of his observation and experi-
ence along Wood Creek.
“We passed, on the north side of the creek, the ap-
pearance of an old fortification, called Fort Bull. The
remains of an old dam, to impede the passage of a hos-
tile fleet, and to assist the operations of the fort, were also



62 MYRON HOLLEY.
to be seen. Although there is now a road on that side
of the creek, yet in those days there could have been
no marching by land with an army. The transporta-
tion of provisions must have been impracticable by land ;
and, indeed, the general appearance of the country
exhibits a sunken morass or swamp, overgrown with
timber and formed from the retreat of the lake.
“We rose early in the morning and breakfasted at
the Oak Orchard, six miles from Gilbert’s, on the south
side of the river. The ground was miry, and in step-
ping into the boat my foot slipped, and I was partly
immersed in the creek. The Captain assisted me in
getting out. The dampness of the weather, and the
sun being hardly risen, induced me, for greater precau-
tion, to change my clothes. This trifling incident was
afterwards magnified by the papers into a serious
affair.” ---
The exploring party descended the outlet of
Oneida Lake to Lake Ontario, and returning as-
cended the Seneca, through the Cayuga marshes,
as far as Geneva, hauling their boats around the
falls and rapids. The effect of such a damp wil-
derness on human health could not well escape so
close an observer and frank describer as De Witt
Clinton, and we get a very correct view of the
perils of supervising the construction of a canal
through that region in what he says at the comple-
tion of their voyage, under date of July 24th.
EXPLORATION OF 1810. 63
“Having now concluded our voyage and intending to
proceed from this place by land, it may not be amiss to
look back and reflect upon the means which we took to
guard against sickness during a voyage of twenty-one
days, through the most insalubrious waters, exposed to
the alternations of heat and rain, the miasmata of
marshes, the exhalation of swamps, the fogs of rivers,
the want of sleep, and frequently of good water.
“In the first place, we were well provided with good
victuals. Our appetites were generally good, and Our
principal drink was port wine, which was recoramended
to us by the Senior Commissioner.
“In the second place we took medicines when we
found ourselves indisposed. Dr. Hosack had provided
us with James's Fever Powders, Elixir Proprietatis,
Bark and Emetics; and we had got at Albany Lee's
Anti-bilious Pills—pills recommended by Mr. G. Mor-
ris, and some mentioned by Ellicott, when he was Com-
missioner to run the boundary line between the United
States and the Floridas. He says in his Journal that it
was given to him by Dr. Rush, and that as long as his
stock lasted he was free from fever, but as soon as he
quit the use of it he was seriously attacked. The
receipt is as follows: “Two grains of calomel with half
a grain of gamboge, combined by a little soap.”
These pills we used liberally, and found them very effi-
C8, ClOllS.
“In the third place : although we passed through
places where people were taken down with fever, and
although one of our captains was seriously sick, and
from the aspect of the land and water it appeared to be
impossible for a stranger to escape their deleterious in-
fluence, yet we maintained a uniform flow of good

64 MYRON HOLLEY.
Spirits. The song and the flute, the jest and vive la
bagatelle, more than our most powerful medicines, were
the best antidotes to sickness.”
How high the party kept up their “good spirits”
is indicated by a number of practical jokes set
down in the journal. For example: “We dined
in the woods, ten miles from Columbia, on the
north side, and at the head of Cross Lake. Visit–
ing an adjacent house, and seeing three lusty
women at the Washtub, none of whom was older
than forty, we thought we would involve the Com-
modore (Eddy) in a scrape, through the medium
of his curiosity, and told him there was a woman
at the house 100 years old, with grey eyebrows,
and that her faculties were remarkably good. He
immediately left the boat in a great hurry, and
passed with uncommon rapidity through a hot sun,
to the house, and inquired with great earnestness
for a sight of the old woman. Instead of meeting
the fate of Orpheus, he was received with laugh-
ter, and returned completely hoaxed.”
The residue of the exploration to Buffalo hav-
ing to be performed by wagons, gained very little
information of the swampy route which the canal
was destined to pursue ; indeed the commissioners
do not seem to have added anything of practical
EXPLORATION OF 1810. 65
value to the report previously made by Mr.
Geddes. They simply had an interesting trip,
and their report gives us a graphic view of a rich
wild country and the condition of its sparse and
uncultured people. A few extracts from the last
pages of the journal will give glimpses of the
character of the early population. Here is his
account of a
CAMP MEETING .
“On our return, a mile from Lyons, and a mile from
the road in a thick wood, we stopped to see a camp
meeting of Methodists. The ground was somewhat
elevated ; the woods were cleared, and a circle was
made capable of containing several thousand. The
circle was formed of wooden cabins, tents, covered
wagons, and other vehicles. At one end of the circle
a rostrum was erected, capable of containing several
persons, and below the rostrum or pulpit was an
orchestra fenced in. We arrived at this place before
the meeting was opened, and we found it excessively
damp and disagreeable from the heavy rains. Here
eating and drinking was going on ; there people were
drying themselves by a fire. In one place, a man had
a crowd around him, to listen to his psalm-singing ; in
another, a person was vociferating his prayer. And
again, a person had his arm around the neck of another,
looking him full in the face, and admonishing him
of the necessity of repentance; and the poor object of
his solicitude listening to his exhortations with tear-
suffused eyes. At length four preachers ascended the

66 MYTON HOLLEY.
pulpit, and the orchestra was filled with forty more.
The people, about two hundred in number, were called
together by a trumpet, the women took the left and the
men the right hand of the ministers. A good-looking
man opened the service with prayer, during which
groans followed every part of his orisons, decidedly
emphatical. After prayer he commenced a sermon, the
object of which was to prove the utility of preaching
up the terrors of hell, as necessary to arrest the atten-
tion of the audience to the arguments of the ministers.
And this was undoubtedly intended as a prelude to
terrific discourses. Capt. Dorsey, who was a member
of the Assembly last session, and who is a devout
Methodist, was kind enough to show us seats, and to
invite us to breakfast in the morning, at his house ; but
the dampness of the place and the approach of night
compelled us to depart before the sermon was com-
pleted, which we did singly, so as to avoid interruption.
We were mortified at the conduct of our drivers in
turning the carriages, so as to draw off the attention of
the people from the sermon. We sent our apology for
it to Capt. Dorsey, they were expressly directed to do
this on our arrival. As far as we could hear, the voice
of the preacher, growing louder and louder, reached our
ears as we departed, and we met crowds of people going
to the sermon. On the margin of the road we saw per-
sons with cakes, beer, and other refreshments for sale.—
Life and Writings of De Witt Clinton, page 106.
The following observations from Clinton's jour-
mal, though having only a remote connection with
the canal, are interesting :–

EXPLORATION OF 1810. 67
August 1 (at Ithaca).-‘‘It was pleasing to see all
over the country advertisements of machines for
carding wool.
“Mr. Gere has finished, for $2,300 in stock of the
Ithaca and Owego Turnpike Company, three miles of
that turnpike, from the 10th April to the 10th July,
with eight men, four yoke of oxen, and two teams
of horses. Scrapers are a powerful engine in making
roads. He is also building an elegant frame hotel,
three stories high, and 50 by 40 feet, with suitable out-
buildings and garden. The carpenter's work was con-
tracted for at $1,500 ; the whole will not cost more
than $6,000. Travellers from New York, Philadelphia,
etc., will find this a much nearer route to Geneva,
Genesee, the Lakes and Upper Canada than by Albany,
and the road very accommodating when the Ithaca and
Geneva turnpike is made. Gere is a very enterprising
man, and vastly superior to his brother-in-law, Judge B.,
who appears to have exhausted his genius in giving his
children eccentric names, as Don Carlos, Julius Octa-
vius, Joanna Almeria.”
[Here we, perhaps, have the source of that eccentricity
of names for which the State of New York is remark-
able.] -
‘‘ Fourteen miles from Ithaca, in the town of Spencer,
Tioga County, is a settlement of Virginians called Speed;
they are Federalists. An old man by the name of Hyde
belonging to it, spent at least five hours in the tavern
to-day, and went off so drunk that he could hardly
balance himself on his horse. Behind him was a bag,
containing on each side a keg of liquor, and his pock-


68 MYPON HOLLEY.
ets were loaded with bottles. In the bar-room he
abused Jefferson, Madison and a number of other lead-
ing Republicans.
“Does it make any essential difference to the com-
munity where its produce is sold if sold to profit? If a
bushel of wheat can be carried to Baltimore for six
Shillings less expense than to Albany, ought not this
to be encouraged 2 Here the profit to the farmer com-
petes with that of the merchant. But the importing
merchant is not injured ; the money is carried to New
York and expended in merchandise, and more is
expended in consequence of the increased price of the
commodity. How does this doctrine bear on the Mon-
treal trade 2 This idea deserves further reflection.”
De Witt Clinton had been ardently fostering the
canal policy, partly in order to divert the Montreal
trade to New York. Here he seems to have begun
to doubt the validity of one of his arguments, and
to let down a bar towards the doctrine of free
trade.


EXPLORATION OF 1816. 69
CHAPTER IX.
EXPLORATION OF 1816.
THE war of 1812 was no sooner over than the
project of the Erie Canal revived with some dimi-
nution of political if not physical obstacles. The
need of easier communication with the west had
been demonstrated at any rate. The powerful
eloquence of Myron Holley in the Assembly of
1816 produced the appointment of another Board
of Commissioners, on which Mr. Holley himself
had a place.
He became, in fact, the executive power, with-
out which the great enterprise would have proved
a failure in more senses than one. It was his
practical wisdom, energy and utter self-sacrifice
that carried it through in eight years in the face
of powerful and unrelenting opposition, with an
economy quite unparalleled in the history of public
Works. Never was a republic prouder than New
York when the cannon thundered from Buffalo to
Albany to announce the wedding of Lake Erie to
the Hudson ; and, alas ! never was one more un-
70 IMYRON HOLLEY.
grateful. It remains for History to right the
enormous wrong, by showing posterity its true
benefactor, and shedding upon coming ages the
benign light of his glorious example. Posterity
will be enriched by his living in their hearts, and
that was his life’s aim.
The first year's work on the canal was one of
Survey and calculation. Competent engineers were
employed, and under the careful and constant per-
sonal supervision of Mr. Holley, nearly every
separate mile of the route was the subject of a
thorough and close estimate of the expense. The
report of this work, drawn up by Mr. Holley and
submitted to the legislature on the 17th of Feb.,
1817, is a model document of 74 pages, culmin-
ating in the following estimate of distances and
expense. Never was a work of such magnitude
so thoroughly laid out in so short a time, nor with
so close a prophecy of its actual cost.
DISTANCE. COST.
Miles. Chains.
From Lake Erie to 11 miles up Tonne-
Wanda, - e - & - tº 27 - $250,877
From Tonne Wanda to Seneca, . . 136 23, 1,550,985
From Seneca to ROme, & - s 77 - 853, 186
From Rome to Scoharie, . - e 71 27 1,000,603
From Scoharie to Albany, . - º 42 - 1, 106,087
General expenses, e g - º - - 75,000
Total, . . . . . . 353 29% $4,926,738

EXPLORATION OF 1816. 71
As a preliminary of this survey Mr. Holley and
two other commissioners had visited and carefully
examined the Middlesex Canal in Massachusetts,
a water-way of 27 miles connecting the Merrimac
with Boston harbor and which, constructed by pri-
vate hands, under a charter, had cost, with only
three-fourths of the depth, or a capacity to pass
a boat of 14 tons instead of one of 100, like the
Eric, the sum of $528,000. It had several wooden
aqueducts, which were beginning to rot in 1816.
Considering length and section, if the Erie Canal
had been as costly, it would have cost $13,000,000
instead of $5,000,000.
The Middlesex Canal was projected and char-
tered in 1789 by a few patriotic citizens of Boston
who do not seem to have expected to make it
very profitable. The stock was divided into 800
shares, to be assessed as money was needed for
the work. On 96 shares nothing seems to have
been paid. The first surveyors were ludicrously
incompetent, for they made the summit level, 22
miles from Boston, only 68% feet above tide,
whereas it was 104; and 16 feet above the Merri-
mac, While it was 32. The company suspected
the incompetence and sent to England for Mr.
Weston, an experienced engineer, who reported

72 MYIRON HOLLEY.
in 1794, and a boat passed from the Merrimac to
Boston harbor in 1803, though the work was not
entirely completed. In fact, assessments contin-
ued till one hundred had been paid, making the
outgo on each share, counting interest at six per
cent, $1,455.25 before any dividend was paid, the
whole income up to 1819 being expended in im-
proving the navigation of the Concord and Merri-
mac rivers. Thus the property stood the proprietors
in $1,164,200 before it began to pay anything.
From 1819 to the opening of the Boston & Lowell
Railroad in 1835, the dividends were good, but
the income fell off one-third the first year after
that, and continued to go down till 1843, when
the company made a desperate effort to sell the
Concord River to the city of Boston as a water
supply for drinking purposes. At last the Rail-
road bought the franchise and the canal was aban-
doned. In 1816 the tolls on that canal were
$30,000. It cost 8 cents a cord to carry wood
through a single lock.
The Middlesex Canal perished before the rail-
road system, because the navigable capacity of the
Concord and Merrimac is nothing compared with
the Lakes beyond Buffalo. The Erie Canal sur-
vives, with a greatly enlarged channel, and Will
long continue to if the State of New York is wise.


THE FINANCIAL PROVISION, 73
CHAPTER X.
THE I'INANCIAL PROVISION. +
IN the face of this grand report the various in-
terests opposed to the work were not strong
enough to defeat it. They only prevailed so far
as not to commit the state irrevocably to the com-
pletion of the whole line. The commissioners
were authorized by law to complete the section
from Rome to the Seneca River, and funds were
provided only sufficient for that purpose. This
satisfied those who thought their interests would
suffer if Lake Ontario were left out, and who de-
nounced a ditch of nearly 200 miles through the
swamps, parallel with that lake, as a piece of
superfluous folly. The western landholders had
made large donations of land for the canal, and it
readily occurred to the legislature that the people
in the immediate neighborhood of the canal could
be specially taxed on the betterment of their
estates, but these resources were only prospective.
Ready money must be had, and for this recourse

74 MYRON HOLLEY.
Was had to the banks, from which a loan of
$400,000 was authorized. The banks were will-
ing to loan at a lower interest, provided their
paper circulation might be extended by the dis-
bursement of small bills to the workmen; and by
accepting this condition the state saved, first and
last, over $80,000. But to Mr. Holley, who,
Without any extra salary or compensation, acted
as Treasurer to the Canal Commissioners, this sti-
pulation worked a grievous woe, and all the more
So from the just, generous, and economical policy
he pursued with his contractors, whereby, beyond
doubt, the state saved some millions. It will be
apparent to any one who has the slightest acquain-
tance with business, that the disbursement of large
sums in small bills, to a multitude of contractors,
scattered through some hundreds of miles of unin-
habited wilderness, where numerous subordinates
must be trusted, and the accounting bureau must
be on wheels or horseback, camping in shanties or
the open air, must be exposed to chances of consid-
erable loss. No man with his eyes open to these
chances, and to his own individual safety, would
have taken this responsibility without an extra
compensation or commission sufficient to secure
himself against loss. The very least would have

THE FINANCIAL PROVISION. 75
been as much as the state saved. Mr. Holley, be-
yond doubt, understood the nature of the risk he
incurred, but so profound was his sense of the
value of his object, and so little in its presence
did he think of himself, that he would not for a
moment imperil it by insisting on his own security.
He silently took the additional labor and responsi-
bility; and the result, considering all the circum-
stances, was as much of a financial success as
would have been the nautical one of crossing the
Atlantic in a dug-out, to be swamped in the break-
ers of the last mile. But this will be explained in
its proper place. -
By the Act of the legislature the sum of $75,000
was appropriated for the purchase of tools by the
commissioners, but Mr. Holley was wise enough
to see that it would be far more economical to
have his contractors use their own tools than those
of the state, even if the state had to advance
money to purchase them, and he acted accordingly.
In his report of Jan. 31, 1818, he thus describes
his master-stroke of policy in preferring small
contracts to large ones, – “It will be perceived
that the length of the line embraced in the several
contracts for excavation and embankment varies
from forty rods to three miles. The contracts,
76 MYRON HOLLEY.
generally, were made to embrace less than would
otherwise have been necessary, in order that men
in moderate pecuniary circumstances might be
enabled to engage in the work, provided they
could procure the necessary security. And al-
though this multiplication of the contracts created
much more trouble and labor for the Commission-
ers than a contrary course would have done, – as
On every job it was necessary not only to draw and
execute a contract, but also a counterpart thereof,
so that each party might have one in his posses-
sion,-yet this was obviously more just and equita-
ble than, by a diminution of the number of
contracts, to have put it in the power of a few
wealthy individuals to have monopolized the whole,
and to have made sub-contracts at reduced prices
with the laboring part of the community.” Fifty-
eight miles had been put under contract in this
way, before the formal and ceremonial commence-
ment of the work, and the same just and enlight-
ened policy was pursued throughout. It is plain
enough how much this enhanced the risks of the
disbursing commissioners.

THE DIGGLNG. 77
CHAPTER XI.
THE L)|IGGING .
As considerable work had been done on the
American revolution before July 4th, 1776, so
there had probably been some digging on the canal
before July 4th, 1817, but it was resolved to do
some at Rome, solemnly and ceremoniously, on
that auspicious day, and it was done. But it
seems to have been an affair of only local interest,
for I find no record of it in the leading newspa-
pers of New York. DeWitt Clinton was not
there to wield the spade, for he was that day
escorted to the municipal celebration of the city
of New York by the " Washington Benevolent
Society,” of which he wrote so disrespectfully in
Schenectady in 1810.
But I do find some other things worth noting
just here, and especially about a “ peculiar institu-
tion” whose grave began to be dug that day.
It was “the era of good feeling,” for President
Monroe was then making his tour of New Eng-
78 MYRON PHOLLEY.
land, and was that day in Boston. The newspa-
pers of the country were occupied with addresses
to him, and his felicitous replies. Boston merch-
ants, who had almost rebelled at the protection of
Sailors by the destruction of their trade, were now
in exuberant good humor by the prospect of profits
On cotton. Everything was lovely, at least on
the outside.
A Cincinnati newspaper of July 4th, 1817, had
the following curious piece of “ship news":
SINGULAR ARRIVAL. — Arrived at this port on Mon-
day morning last (June 30th), a small schooner-built
boat of about six tons burthen, 30 days from Rome, on
the Mohawk river, State of New York | The boat was
conducted by Capt. Dean and four Indians; passen-
gers, two squaws and an Indian boy. It was a hand-
Some model, painted in neat style, with two masts, and
sails, and an appropriate flag. They sailed hence on
the afternoon of the same day for the Wabash. Their
avowed object is to enter lands on behalf of their tribe,
and then to ascend the Wabash to its source, Cross over
with the boat to the Miami, and return by the way of
Lake Erie. This boat left Rome on the first of June,
passed into Lake Ontario by way of Wood Creek,
Oneida Lake, and Oswego river, and after navigating
the greater part of the southern coast of the lake, was
conveyed around the Falls of Niagara on wheels, eleven
miles; then by way of Buffalo, across the end of Lake
Erie, to the mouth of the Cataragus Creek, and up it to
a portage of eight miles and an half, across to the head

THE DIG-GING. 79
waters of the Alleghany river. It arrived at this place
after passing two portages amounting to nineteen miles.
During this time they were detained nearly ten days by
head winds and rains.
These descendants of the forest, now wearing the
habiliments and appearance of civilization and industry,
manifested in their deportment that ingenuousness and
dignity of mind which have characterized, in many in-
stances, the savage of the forest, improved in a consid-
erable degree by the hand of civilization. While
gratifying the curiosity of several of our citizens, by
taking them on board, and with a gentle breeze, sailing
a considerable distance up and across the river, the fol-
lowing characteristic and appropriate toasts were given
by one of the Indians, accompanied by the firing of his
gun; while on the Kentucky side, “ The patriotism and
bravery of Kentucky;” while on the Ohio side, “Free
trade and no slavery.”
This Indian seems to have remembered how
some hundreds of Kentucky volunteers had to
make foot-paths through the wilderness of Ohio,
after Gen. Hull's surrender. And what a pity it
was that he had not been in the convention that
drew up our present Constitution, to advocate
direct taxation, by which trade might have been
made free, if not all men.
It is a little significant that the foregoing “ship
news " was copied entire into the N. Y. Com-
mercial Advertiser and National Intelligencer.
80 MIYRON HOLLEY.
But the Columbian Centinel, of Boston, in copy-
ing it, left out the last sentence, the most interest-
ing of all. -
On the same day appeared in the N. Y. Spec-
tator (the weekly issue of the Daily Commercial
Advertiser) the following communication : —
NEGRO SLAVERY. — The kidnapping of a number of
negroes the last week, with an intention of transporting
them to Georgia, demands public attention. The ex-
tent to which this has been carried on from this and
other middle States, exceeds the belief of many who
have not made it a subject of inquiry. Particularly has
this been the case within the last two years. The high
price which the productions of the South have com-
manded since the peace, has induced many to engage
in planting. This has made slaves in higher demand.
Prime negroes have been sold for eight hundred dollars
and upwards.
To give a better idea on this subject, the following
is extracted from the journal of a young gentleman who
visited the Southern States during the last winter : —
AUGUSTA, Feb. 3rd, 1817.
“Last night my attention was attracted by a number
of fires on the opposite side of the river. On enquiring
this morning, I found them to be at the stalls of negroes
exposed for sale. A land that boasts its freedom . A
land of high-toned democracy, where human beings,
like dumb brutes, are driven to market, and, instead of
dying by the hand of the butcher, die a lingering death
of slavery and bondage
THE DIGGING. 81
“Immediately after breakfast, I resolved to visit this
camp of human misery. On my arrival I assumed the
character of a planter’s son wishing to purchase slaves.
The camp consisted of nearly three hundred ; and the
keepers, thinking they had a good customer, exerted
themselves to shew their property to the best advan-
tage. They took me from tent to tent, until I had seen
the whole. With more brutality than Turks they
cracked their lashes, and Ordered about these miserable
beings to make them appear to the best advantage.
“These poor creatures, bought in the States of
Maryland and Virginia, and driven across, in a few
days, what would require for an army weeks to traverse,
were beseeching some one to buy them, that they might
have a home. Once I was addressed by a child, who
could hardly speak, “Master, won’t you please buy me
and my mamma, that we may have a home º' Looking
round, a miserable object presented itself to view. A
woman, with an infant not three days old, and which
first saw the light on the ground, where it then lay, was
the mother of the boy who so feelingly addressed me.
In silence I turned away ; astonishment made me
dumb. -
“The exportation of slaves from Virginia to Georgia,
since the abolition of slave trade, and more especially
since the peace, has yielded great profits. Wealth is
power, and power is the object at which mankind aim.
To acquire this what will not man attempt? What has
he not attempted 2
“More than twenty thousand slaves, if we may be-
lieve those who best know, have been imported into
Georgia within the last two years. Legislatures have
attempted to put a stop to this barbarous traffic ; but

82 MYRON HOLLEY.
such is the debasement of many of the people where
slavery exists, that it will require the united efforts of
the virtuous in every country to stop this horrid prac-
tice. Were I to make laws, death should be the pun-
ishment of him who sells a man.”
Thus in the latter half of the summer of 1817 a
beginning had been made in the vast enterprise,
and such an enthusiasm enkindled in a large
body of contractors and workmen that the frost
and snow of winter could hardly stop them. And
when it was no longer possible to dig, they took
advantage of the easier transportation through the
swamps when frozen to haul to the line the stores
that would be needed the next summer. Unfor-
tunately the next spring was so exceedingly
wet that no work could be done till June, and
then under great disadvantage. But the system
and energy with which the work was pressed for-
ward by Mr. Holley after it did begin, encouraged
Gov. Clinton to make his mightiest effort at the
session of 1819 to have the legislature commit it-
self to the completion of the whole work; and in
spite of able and determined opposition he suc-
ceeded. In his message to the legislature he
stated a fact which now, sixty years later, seems
almost incredible, and serves to show the magni-


THE DIGGING . 83
tude of the obstacles which stood in the way of
what its opponents then called the “Quixotic
canal policy.” “At the present period,” said
Gov. Clinton, “a ton of commodities can be con-
veyed from Buffalo to Albany, by land, for one
hundred dollars, and to Montreal, principally by
water, for twenty-five.” And he predicted that
as soon as the canal was completed a ton could be
carried from Buffalo to Albany for ten dollars. It
is now carried for two
In his report to the Assembly of 1819 Mr.
Holley says: “The avidity with which great num-
bers of respectable citizens sought contracts was
highly gratifying, and afforded a sure pledge of
the energy which has since been displayed in their
execution. Many applications for every section
were always made immediately after and often be-
fore the returns of the engineer had been received,
so as to render it proper to let them out. A very
few of the contractors are foreigners, who have
recently arrived in this country; but far the great-
est part of them are native farmers, mechanics,
merchants and professional men, residing in the
vicinity of the line ; and three fourths of all the
laborers were born among us.” -
With such men, set to work to make the great


84 MYRON HOLLEY.
water-way through a dense forest, the giants of
which bound the earth with their interlacing roots, it
was to be expected that some mechanical ingenuity
would be evolved. The calculations of cost had
been very close. If the contractors were to be
held within them, and were to work only with
axes, mattocks and spades, they would make little
or no profit. And accordingly we find that new
implements and processes at once sprang into ex-
istence. Even the wheelbarrow was wonderfully
improved, so that its oldest friends hardly knew
it.* Trees had no longer the honor of being
chopped down. Living and breathing, they were
pulled up by the roots. When old stumps stood
in the way, they too were pulled up, with as little
ceremony as if the contractors had been dentists.
Oxen and scrapers made the excavations and
embankments.
In his report, Mr. Holley gave some glimpses
of the inventive talent which the grand enterprise
developed, exceedingly interesting as the first
skirmish line of the great battle which has trans-
formed a continent.
“ Machinery has hitherto been used with most suc-
# The new one-wheeled vehicle was called the Brainard Wheelbar-
row, in honor of Jeremiah Brainard, of Rome, the improver.
THE DIGGING . 85
cess in the heavy business of grubbing and clearing.
By means of an endless screw connected with a roller,
a cable, a wheel and a crank, one man is able to bring
down a tree of the largest size without any cutting
about its roots. For this purpose the means are all,
except the cable, combined in a small but very strong
frame of wood and iron. This frame is immovably
fastened on the ground, at a distance of perhaps one
hundred feet from the foot of the tree, and to the trunk
of which, fifty or sixty feet up, one end of the cable is
secured, the other being connected with the roller.
When this is done the man turns the crank, which suc-
cessively moves the screw, the wheel and the roller, on
which, as the cable winds up, the tree must gradually
yield, until at length it is precipitated by the weight of
its top.”
Every one who has travelled much through
American forests must have noticed how mature
herself has sometimes made roads, everything but
removing the prostrate trunks. She simply com-
bined the force of the whirlwind with that of
gravitation. Art, imitating the lateral force of
wind, effected a vast economy of force over the
use of the axe in making a road for the Erie Canal
through the then almost unbroken forests of west-
ern New York. But wherever the land was
already cleared, the stump of every departed tree
at that period stood firm, and gravitation could
86 MYRON HOLLEY.
afford no aid for its removal. Of this obstacle
Mr. Holley said : —
“There is no grubbing so difficult and expensive by
the common methods as that of sound green stumps;
and as our citizens west of Utica are every day multi-
plying these evidences of their industry, it was desira-
ble to discover some easier method of eradicating them.
Such means have been found ; but the cost of the
machinery, in which they partly consist, would forbid
the use of them in ordinary cases. Two strong wheels,
sixteen feet in diameter, are made and connected to-
gether by a round axletree twenty inches thick and
thirty feet long ; between these wheels, and with its
spokes inseparably framed into this axletree, another
wheel is placed, fourteen feet in diameter, round the
rim of which a rope is several times passed, with
one end fastened through the rim, and with the other
end loose, but in such a condition as to produce a revo-
lution of the wheel whenever it is pulled. This appar-
atus is so moved as to have the stump, on which it is
intended to operate, midway between the largest wheels
and nearly under the axletree ; and these wheels are so
braced as to remain steady. A very strong chain is
hooked, one end to the body of the stump, or its princi-
pal root, and the other to the axletree. The power of
horses or oxen is applied to the loose end of the rope
mentioned, and as they draw, a rotary motion is com-
municated through the smallest wheel to the axletree,
on which as the chain hooked to the stump winds up,
the stump itself is gradually disengaged from the earth
in which it grew.”

THE DIGGING. 87
The cost of such a machine, he says, was $250.
They had also invented a plough with a sharp-cut-
ting edge of steel, which, running its long nose
under the roots, with its razor edge turned up-
wards, and making a narrow furrow, so chopped
them into small pieces that they were easily swept
away by the scraper. Mr. Holley was remark-
able for stating in his reports all the difficulties met
with, so that his candor could never be impeached.
He rather hoped than promised, and the public
was never disappointed by him, except favorably.
The Act of April 7, 1819, authorized borrowing
$600,000 and completing the canal from Seneca
River to Lake Erie. But to gain this the friends
of the canal policy were obliged to extend equal
favor to the eastern end and the Champlain Canal.
And now all its enemies combined their energies
to defeat the western section, and to stop the great
ditch at Oswego. The whole work as authorized
by the legislature they said would ruin the state,
and a ditch of 200 miles through a swamp parallel to
a lake, was idiotic. As the hands of the commis-
sioners were so full with work not completed, it
was hoped that public sentiment might be aroused
against it before anything was done on the western
section, and to this end a very able writer was
88 MYRON HOLLEY.
employed, who, under the name of “Peter Plough-
share,” stirred up the jealousy of the eastern farm-
ers and all the people of the Ontario Lake ports.
The obstructive ability of this pamphlet can hardly
be realized at this day. It is probably weli for
the writer, obviously a man of talents and culture,
that his real name, if it ever was known, has been
thoroughly forgotten in New York, for a more
despicable piece of demagogism was perhaps never
clothed in good English. It was addressed to the
Members elect of the Legislature of the State of
New York, and dated Jefferson County, July 20,
1819. It was printed in Utica and probably sent
to every farmer in the eastern part of the state.
It was entitled, " CONSIDERATIONS AGAINST CON-
TINUING THE GREAT CANAL WEST OF THE SEN-
ECA.” “ Facts are stubborn things” was its motto.
To the future legislators it said :
“As the representatives of the interests of a free,
great and growing people, it undoubtedly becomes you
to examine thoroughly before you decide a question of
such vital importance — to be morally certain, before
you strike a blow which must affect unborn ages, that
its effects are to be beneficial — &c., &c., and finally to
beware lest you load the present generation with a
grievous and real burden, for the sake of a distant and
problematical benefit to posterity.”

TELE DIGGING . 89
Turning to the farmers, with a humility worthy
of Uriah Heep, and which doubtless accounts for
the occultation of the real name of the writer, the
pamphlet proceeds : —
“With these impressions, a plain farmer — accus-
tomed, as every farmer ought to be, to think for him-
self on subjects that concern his own interests and the
interests of the community, but unused to the display
of his thoughts in public — now takes the liberty to
address you ; not with the presumptuous hope of being
able to produce conviction by the powers of rhetoric or
the wiles of sophistry ; but with the humble expectation,
by a candid statement of facts, to excite inquiry, rend
from a subject of immense public importance the veil of
political intrigue and self-interested ambition in which
it has been shrouded, and present to your consideration
and the view of the public the naked question of
expediency which it involves.
“I think, indeed, my brother farmers, east of the
Seneca to the Hudson, thence down that noble river to
the vicinity of New York — embracing at least a moiety
of the farming interest of the whole State — may
rationally doubt whether the completion of a work
which has for its avowed object the bringing of the
whole western world to compete with them at their own
market, can be beneficial. That they will naturally
ask themselves: Why should I be taxed to effect a plan.
which, if effected, places the farmer at the head of
Lake Michigan in a better situation than myself, and
reduces the value of my surplus produce exactly in the
same ratio in which it increases the quantity brought
to my natural market?”
90 MYRON HOLLEY.
After working this vein sufficiently, the writer
argues with great ingenuity, that transportation
from the West would be cheaper by Lake Ontario
than by the canal, trusting, doubtless, that his
brother farmers would see that Western produce,
Once afloat on the lake, would be as likely to go
somewhere else as to thread the canal into their
“ natural market.”
But for the wisdom and energy of Mr. Holley,
this astute pamphlet would have had a most disas-
trous effect. With such a man at the helm of the
great enterprise, it defeated itself, for it stirred
him up to get a large portion of the Western
section under contract and in process of construc-
tion before the session of the legislature, which
otherwise he would not have done. He saw that
the best answer to such a pamphlet was to say to
the legislature, “It is too late. You ordered the
work; it is begun, and cannot be stopped without
immense loss.” How this mighty “I’loughshare”
movement was defeated, Mr. Holley modestly
tells in a letter to Henry O’Rielly, dated Roches-
ter, Dec. 18, 1837.
From the beginning of our great System of canal
improvements a strong party existed in the state, who
favored the project of passing from the middle section to
THE DIGGING . 91
Lake Erie, by way of Oswego and a lateral cut around
the Falls of Niagara. This party offered no strenuous
resistance to the opening of the canal from the Rome
summit to Montezuma ; but, after that portion of the
line was contracted for and nearly finished. exerted
itself with ingenuity to accomplish its object. Its views
required that the Canal Commissioners should be
restrained by the legislature from making contracts for
work on the line west of the middle section. It was in
the winter of 1820 that the crisis arrived between the
party in question and the friends of the inland route.
At a late day of the session of the previous winter
authority had been given to the commissioners to extend
their operations over the entire lines not previously sur-
veyed and let out, of both the Erie and Champlain
Canals, under a limited but liberal appropriation. This
extension of authority had been earnestly opposed, but
not very vigorously, because full concert of action had
not been secured between the opponents of the whole
canal policy and the friends of the Oswego route ; and
because it was deemed impracticable by the public for
the commissioners, during the season next after it was
granted, to do much more than to complete the middle
Section and make some preliminary surveys on the
Other sections.
At this time Mr. Seymour and myself were acting
commissioners on the Erie Canal. Early in the season
we directed Engineer White to enter upon the surveys
between the Seneca and Genesee Rivers. The facts
previously understood, with the knowledge soon acquired
by Mr. White, left no room for doubt or hesitation as to
the general location of the line between Montezuma and
92 MYRON HOLLEY.
Rochester; and this latter place was perceived to be a
necessary point on the line.
Under these circumstances, and with a special refer-
ence to the approaching crisis in legislative action, in
July, I directed Mr. White to proceed to Rochester and
ascertain carefully where the Genessee could best be
crossed, and thence to lay out the line easterly as far as
he could, marking its dimensions by stakes, and dividing
it into suitable sections for actual contract. To these
directions he industriously conformed.
In October, 1819, the Canal Commissioners held a
meeting at Utica. Well aware of the progress of Mr.
White, I moved the board at that meeting to pass a resolu-
tion that all the line east from Rochester, located and pre-
pared, should be, as soon as practicable, let out to
contractors and put in the course of actual construction.
This motion was resisted by Mr. Seymour, but was
adopted by the votes of Messrs. Clinton, Van Rens-
selaer and myself, Mr. Young not being present.
Under this resolution about twenty-six miles of
canal, from Rochester to near Palmyra, were let out
previously to the meeting of the legislature, and a large
amount of money justly earned upon them.
In January, 1820, the legislature met. It soon
appeared that the friends of the Oswego route were
determined to prosecute their views with increased zeal
and pertinacity. Both in the legislature and out of it,
they were numerous and active. An intelligent canal
committee was raised in the Assembly, with Gen. Hun-
tington, of Oneida County, for its chairman ; and to
them were referred the canal interests for that branch of
the legislature.
The doubters and opposers of the canal policy had
THE DIGGING. 93
early proposed to lay a local tax from the vicinity of the
line adopted, to assist in defraying the cost of the works.
A resolution in favor of this proposition was introduced,
and referred to the committee. But the great measure
of the friends of the Oswego route was a resolution
introduced to confine all canal expenditures to the eastern
section of the Erie Canal and the Champlain Canal till
they should both be completed. This resolution was
also referred to the canal committee.
The adoption of the last resolution by the legislature,
it was plain, would constitute an essential modification
of the state policy. The subscriber was thoroughly per-
suaded that such a modification would be vitally mis-
chievous, and labored with much zeal to avert it. The
committee requested the views of the Canal Commission-
ers on the two resolutions. In answer to this request,
a letter was drawn up by me, with great labor of inquiry
and anxious consideration, and submitted to the
board. A majority of the board approved it, signed it,
and sent it to the committee. Messrs. Young and Sey-
mour witheld their sanction from it. The committee
reported so in favor of the views presented in the letter
as to advise against interfering with the plans of the com-
missioners. Their report was opposed with much warmth
and persistency, but prevailed, and the legislature
upheld the policy, which led to the speedy completion
of the canals, and has already issued so happily for the
interests and honor of the state.
The motive under which Mr. Holley acted so
vigorously and efficiently was a vision of the
future, well expressed in a sentence of his subse-
94 MYRON HOLLEY.
quent answer to the cunningly hypocritical “ Peter
Ploughshare.”
“When they [the canals] are complete, the wealth
of every island and every lake, of every continent and
every ocean which is visited by the light of heaven,
will contribute to weary their waters with commerce.”
The facts as stated by Mr. Holley in regard to
this decisive blow were never questioned by the
Opponents of the canal.
About two years after this grand practical
victory, De Witt Clinton, under the pseudonym
of Tacitus, brought forth in pamphlet form prob-
ably the ablest production of his pen, under the
title,
“The Canal Policy of the State of New York, de-
lineated in a letter to Robt. Troup, Esq.
“‘Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice.”—Shakespeare.
“Albany : Printed and published by E. & E. Hos-
ford, 1821.”
On page 45, he says:
“Mr. Holley and Mr. Young were authorized to
make contracts, and to the judicious and indefatigable
efforts of those gentlemen, too much credit cannot be
ascribed.”

THE DIGGING . 95
And it is greatly to the credit of De Witt
Clinton himself that he did not content himself, so
far as Mr. Holley was concerned, with this
sentence, but adds in a note on the same page : —
“Mr. Holley was a member of the legislature when
the initiatory canal law was passed, which he advocated
with the whole force of his talents. This gentleman is
a member of a numerous family distinguished for genius.
His mind is improved by reading, reflection and conver-
sation, and is distinguished for extensive research, and
acute discrimination. He has devoted his whole time
and attention, mind and body, to the canal; and some
of the most luminous reports and communications have
proceeded from his pen. Whatever he touches he
adorns, and whenever he speaks or writes he instructs.
His mild and conciliatory manners, his elevated charac-
ter, his spotless integrity, and his indefatigable business
talents, have rendered his services as an acting Canal
Commissioner invaluable.”
Every year of Mr. Holley's after life confirmed
and emphasized this noble testimony to his char-
acter. The way in which he pushed the great
work forward, shouldering responsibility himself
when the state failed to meet the contracts it had
authorized him to make ; the way he bore himself
when this self-sacrifice had thrown him into embar-
rassment; his uncomplaining sedateness of temper
when he met the cold ingratitude of a republic

96 MYRON HOLLEY.
enriched by his sublime foresight and toil; the
power, dignity and wisdom with which he admin-
istered his part of that rebuke which taught secret
societies their place in the republic ; his opposition
to fanatical revivalism ; and, above all, his grand
and practical energy in making the ballot-box the
safeguard of human liberty, all established his
title to be remembered, as an example of virtuous
manhood, by the remotest ages of the future.

ECONOMY, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE. 97
CHAPTER XII.
ECONOMY, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE.
THIS is the proper place to notice a trait of
Myron Holley’s character to which he owed the
suffering which he bore with a heroism more un-
common than the suffering. It is not uncommon
for men who are enthusiastically engaged in public
service to forget their own individual interests; but
they are apt, at the same time, to be rather care-
less of economy for the public. In Mr. Holley's
management of the public business his economy
was most exemplary. His fault was that he
guarded its interests more carefully than he did his
own. This cannot be better illustrated than by
the report in regard to canal expenses.
The Act of April 17, 1816, appropriated $20,-
000 for preliminary expenses. The comptroller at
the call of the Assembly, reported April 2, 1817,
that the expenses under this appropriation up to
that date were $16,930.29. The Commissioners at
the same date reported their expenses, included in



98 MYTON HOLLEY.
the above, as $2,478.17. This report, signed by
Clinton, Holley, and Young, is exceedingly inter-
esting as showing the economy of public service
at that period.
After an apology for not making the report
earlier, the document proceeds :
“The expenses of the commissioners include the
expenses of travelling at various periods — of their
visit to the Middlesex Canal — and of their superintend-
ence of the whole route of both canals — of their meet-
ings at various times, and are brought up to their first
meeting, the present session of the legislature.
They consist of the following sums : —
Expenses of commissioners’ meeting, 17
May, 1816, in New York, including the
expense of going there, of stay there, of
two commissioners, with two engineers,
going to view the Middlesex canal, stay
there, and return home, tº e . $515 00
Expenses of commissioners in meeting at
Utica on the 15th July, while there, while
exploring the route of the western canal,
and returning home, . e º . $1,080 12
Expenses of the commissioners in exploring
the northern canal, and directing Opera-
tions thereon, * e e e . $679 19
Expenses of commissioners in meeting at
Albany in November last, and returning
home, . © º º º e . $193 86
The whole of the items amount to . . $2,468 17
ECONOMY, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE. * 99
Considering that upwards of 313 miles on the western
canal, besides that part of the route south of the moun-
tain ridge and west of Genesee River, and more than 60
miles on the northern canal, have been explored, Sur-
veyed and levelled; that the routes of the canals have
been actually laid out, that perspicuous maps and pro-
files have been made, and that full reports have been
presented, it is believed that no operation so extensive,
so complicated and so important, has ever been per-
formed with more economy of expenditure.
A sum not exceeding $4,000 will be required in
addition to that part of the appropriation which is
unexpended, to complete the payment of the engineers
for their services; to defray the expenses of printing,
engraving and stationery, to pay the expenses of the
meeting of the commissioners and their attendance on
their duties during the present session of the legislature;
to satisfy some demands not yet presented, and also to
make a reasonable compensation to the secretary and
treasurer of the board, whose time since the first meet-
ing in May has been almost exclusively engrossed in
discharging these trusts, and in attending to their general
duties as commissioners.”
The report might well boast that so much and
so important work had never been done for $24,-
000. And the credit of it was mainly due to Mr.
Holley, who himself was treasurer of the board,
for which extra service from 1816 to 1824 inclu-
sive he never received a cent of pay.
During that year Holley and Young were the

100 MYIRON HOLLEY.
only acting commissioners, the former acting as
treasurer, and the latter as secretary. They were
allowed by the Board $2,500 a year and expenses.
The other commissioners were only allowed ex-
penses. In 1819 the state fixed their salary at
$2,500 and expenses, which in 1820 was reduced
to $2,000.

EMBARRASSMENT. 101
CHAPTER XIII.
EMBARRASSMENT.
Out of this exceedingly meagre compensation
— meagre even at that time for a labor and
responsibility so vastly important — Mr. Holley
managed, in company with two friends, to secure
a small tract of land at Lyons, on the line of the
canal, where he built a plain, substantial and
convenient house, planted fruit trees, and made
himself a home. A man of his calibre, looking
out for himself, could easily have secured terri-
tory, which, by the inevitable rise of real estate
in favored spots on such a work, would have
made him rich. He no more did that than he
thought of fortifying himself against the extra
risks of having to disburse such large sums of
money for the state.
Hence it was, that after the success of the great
work had become triumphantly assured, after
boats were traversing 280 miles of it, and it was
certain that it would be completed without much

102 MYRON HOLLEY.
exceeding the original estimate, with aqueducts
of stone where wood had been contemplated, Mr.
Holley, on his own motion and to the astonish-
ment of friends and enemies, reported to the
legislature that he found a deficiency of vouchers
of about $30,000 to account for the two and a half
millions of the public money which he had had to
disburse, and he most reasonably asked the
legislature to allow him a commission on that
sum, which would, at least, make him square.
Inasmuch as, by the dilatoriness of the state, he
had often, to keep contractors at work, been
obliged to raise funds on his own credit, which
had enhanced the risk of his treasurership, and
considering what the state had saved by obliging
him to circulate small bank bills instead of paying
his multitude of contractors by check, this seemed
to many then, and must to all now, a reasonable
request. The legislature's refusal to allow this
commission, obliging him to make good the
deficiency out of his slender property, is perhaps
the meanest piece of ingratitude ever chargeable
against a republic. The State of New York is
convicted of this by its own documents. For an
investigating committee, representing Mr. Holley's
enemies as well as his friends, unanimously
* Tº . . . . . . -
* - * 7-ºl- '... '"
EMBARRASSMENT. 103
acquitted him of having applied a single dollar of
that deficiency to his own use. With the excep-
tion of the ignorant, there was not one of his
opponents base enough to make that charge
against him publicly till, when, years after, be
was a candidate of a party which grew out of the
murder of William Morgan.
The request which Mr. Holley made to the
legislature on the 30th of March, 1824, is too
characteristic of him to be omitted here. His
words were :
“To the performance of my official duties
I have now, for eight years, devoted the
best faculties of body and mind, under all
vicissitudes and apprehensions, with con-
stant, persevering and lively zeal. I have
been withdrawn from the education of my
children, have relinquished the enjoyments
of domestic life, have encountered, without
flinching, all the dangers of sickness, in
seasons and situations eminently unhealthy,
whenever and wherever my duties have
required, and have labored with effect in
promoting the Object of my appointment.
* * * At the first meeting of the Canal
104. MYRON HOLLEY.
-º
Board, on the 17th of May, 1816, I was
appointed treasurer of the Canal Commis-
sioners, and have ever since performed the
duties of that office, and have always
thought myself entitled to a reasonable and
adequate compensation therefor. This com-
pensation I have not asked of the Canal
Commissioners, because a majority of that
Board are so situated as to render prefer-
ring such a claim to them for decision,
indelicate. But I perceive no such indeli-
cacy in preferring it to the legislature.
And of you I ask to be paid one per cent.
upon the amount of monies received and
disbursed by me towards the construction
of the canals. With the aid of this allow-
ance I can immediately make arrangements
to pay up fully my accounts with the
Comptroller. And this claim commends
itself to my sense of justice, in consideration
of the extra expense, service and hazard,
which the receipt and payment of this
money has involved.”
EMBARRASSMENT. 105
Why he did not prefer this claim to the legisla-
ture earlier, need hardly be said. His patriotic
zeal to avoid giving the watchful enemies of the
great work any pretext for stopping it, outran his
personal discretion. He sacrificed himself for the
future of his race, trusting it would do him justice.
It is not too late for this generation to do it.
What he told the legislature of his exposure to
the danger of sickness, “in seasons and situations
5
eminently unhealthy,” was no idle boast. In
1820, between the months of July and October,
not less than one thousand men employed upon
the canal between Salina and Seneca River were
prostrated by malaria. To the sick, Holley was
always a ministering angel, a friend in need, and
as such he was long gratefully remembered by
individuals who had experienced his kindness.
The writer received the following illustration of
this trait in his character from his daughter Sallie,
so well known as a teacher in the colored school
in Lottsburgh, Va.
“My father's benevolence was like an overflowing
fountain, especially toward the poor and helpless. One
of the very earliest illustrations of his kind nature,
outside of our own family (that I can remember)
occurred in 1832. A solitary case of Asiatic cholèra
in Lyons, our village, resulted in the death of the poor

106 . MYRON HOLLEY.
Woman, living near the canal locks. The panic-stricken
neighbors all fled. Nobody could be found who dared
to go near to bury the body. As soon as my father
heard it, he at Once volunteered his services, and asked
the next prominent citizen to aid him in carrying the
body to the grave, which they did, to the wonder of the
villagers. Such an example did more to restore tran-
quillity to the excited community than medicine or
preaching.”
Though Mr. Holley had conducted this arduous
and dangerous business of constructing the canal
through a region of deadly malaria, with an unselfish
devotion and a democratic spirit which attached
to him the humblest laborers, as will be touchingly
shown by and by, the moment he had so honorably
confessed this comparatively slight deficiency in
his accounts, some of the bitter and defeated ene-
mies of the canal policy anonymously raised a
howl against him through the press as a criminal
defaulter. This howl even terrified his political
friends of the Whig party, so that they dared not
do what they knew to be just. And the Demo-
crats, who in spite of their leader, Martin Van
Buren, had mostly opposed the canal, made all the
political capital they could out of the humiliation
of a man who had enriched his state by being a
genuine democrat. As the legislature did not
EMBARRASSMENT. 107
see fit to grant his most reasonable request, Mr.
Holley resigned his commissionership and made
over his property to the state to satisfy a defi-
ciency which arose from no fault of his. This
property was appraised at $18,000, though its
prospective value was doubtless considerably
more. Its alienation left Mr. Holley with a large
family and no resources outside of himself. His
little property was finally restored to him by the
state, not as a gratuity, but as a debt — interest
and costs not included.
Mr. Holley's temper and patience during the
four years in which, for his family's sake, he was
seeking this simple act of justice, while he had
such an overwhelming claim on the generosity and
gratitude of not only the state but the whole
world, is something more to be admired than any
miracle recorded in history. Whether Hercules
went through any such experience after the valu-
able labors for which he was deified, history does
not inform us. It is of more importance to the
people of our great republic to know how our
modern Hercules bore the ingratitude of the Em-
pire State than how he led the pathway of com-
merce through her Serbonian bogs.
It has already been detailed how, on the 20th of
108 MYRON HOLLEY.
October, 1819, Mr. Holley struck the decisive
blow which gave his great enterprise its assured
success and New York her glory as the leader of
our mighty march of internal improvement. We
can better realize what the whole country owed
him by considering what Thomas Jefferson wrote
to De Witt Clinton, Dec. 12, 1822.
“New York,” said the Sage of Monticello, “has an-
ticipated by a full century the Ordinary progress of
improvement. This great work suggests a question,
both curious and difficult, as to the comparative capa-
bility of nations to execute great enterprises. It is
not from greater surplus of produce, after supplying
their own wants, for in this New York is not beyond
some other States; is it from other sources of industry
additional to her produce 2 This may be ;-Or is it
a moral superiority? — a sounder calculating mind,
as to the most profitable employment of surplus,
by improvement of capital, instead of useless consump-
tion ? I should lean to this latter hypothesis, were I
disposed to puzzle myself with such investigations.”—
Dr. Hosack's Life of Clintom, page 348.
Whoever will weigh the facts, and especially
those that immediately follow, will see that the -
“moral superiority’ of a single individual had a
great deal to do in solving the riddle which puzzled
Mr. Jefferson. º
Immediately on Mr. Holley's calling the atten-
EMBARRASSMENT. 109
tion of the legislature to the deficiency in his
accounts, about one-half of which consisted in
outstanding notes signed by himself, on which con-
tractors had drawn money from the banks, the
other active commissioners, Seymour, Young,
and Bouck, who had disbursed money from the
state, demanded that their accounts should be
examined, so that their own party, the demo-
cratic, should not suffer from the storm apparently
rising against Mr. Holley. The same committee
which vindicated them in 1824 * did not thoroughly
* Though Mr. Holley was treasurer of the Canal Commis-
sioners, by their own appointment, neither they nor the state
seem to have recognized him as such, for they individually
received money of the state which was entrusted to and
charged to them individually, without regard to their treas-
urer. Hence it may have happened that packages of paper
money, charged and transmitted to Mr. Holley for the use of
the canal, fell into the hands of some other commissioner
engaged in disbursement. The fact that every other com-
missioner could show vouchers of disbursement for every
dollar charged to him individually, was no proof that this
did not happen. When one of the commissioners, by no
means on account of poverty,+some years after shot himself
in his own back-yard, the defect in the financial arrangements
between the state and the Canal Commissioners became ap-
parent to some thoughtful persons. The mistake of Mr.
Holley was, that being treasurer of the Canal Commissioners,
he did not oblige them and the state to recognize him as such,
and so keep his accounts that he could not be held responsi-
ble for money which he did not receive. It is not safe to
trust eV Glm a State.



110 MYRON HOLLEY.
vindicate Mr. Holley, but reported that his prop-
erty in Lyons was worth only $16,000 or $18,000,
and said: “It appears that it was made a condi-
tion in the canal loans that the bills of the banks
that made the loan should be circulated on the line
of the canal, and this consideration, as appears by
a Statement of the cashiers of the State and Me-
chanics' Banks, has caused a saving to the state
in the negotiation of certain loans.”
A committee was ordered to investigate further
during the recess. It did not find Mr. Holley
guilty of any embezzlement whatever, and so re-
ported. As the bondsmen could not be held
responsible, the legislature passed an act, March 7,
1825, to pay the notes, amounting to $15,808.58,
and April 21, 1825, and an act authorizing the Canal
Commissioners to settle with Mr. Holley and take
the real estate conveyed by him, but not to pay
any percentage on his disbursements. This action
was by no means up to the report of the commit-
tee, which set forth that by reason of Mr. Holley's
meritorious and valuable services as Canal Commis-
sioner, the great difficulties by which he had been
surrounded in disbursing moneys in one, three and
five-dollar bills, amidst woods, swamps, and new
settlements, constantly exposed to mistakes, some
EMBARRASSMENT. 111
of which had been ascertained, and others rendered
highly probable, &c., &c., the committee recom-
mended that the state accept a conveyance of Mr.
Holley's real estate (reserving thereout Mr. Hol-
ley's house, lot, and improvements, in Lyons,
worth $3,000), and discharge him and his sureties
altogether. The bill to this effect was considered
as making Mr. Holley a donation of $3,000, and by
a rule of the Assembly must have a two-thirds
vote. It passed the Assembly 72 to 38, thus
wanting two votes to become a law, to the disgrace
of the state. Hardly anything could be conceived
more pitiful. A man who could command his
temper under such provocation, who could appeal
his cause to future intelligence, from a legislature
so beSotted with stupidity and meanness, must be
no ordinary mortal. But Mr. Holley’s faith in
human nature did not fail, for total depravity was
no part of his creed.
Myron Holley knew that his services would
be appreciated in time, and whether they were or
not, he knew he was the benefactor of those who
most railed at him. As he was an advocate of
free speech and the equal representation of all
classes, he could listen with composure to the un-
just judgments of the ignorant, or even be amused
112 MYRON HOLLEY.
at them. His daughter relates how he used to
laugh at the speech of a partially intoxicated dem-
ocrat in the Assembly, who said he had “frequently
rode by Mrs. Myron Holley’s bleach-yard in Lyons
and seen three thousand yards of linen lace
bleaching, — that the family bought oranges by
the bushel — made no more of 'em than he did of
praties — and drove about in the most elegant
coach of the country,” — alluding to an old stage-
coach which Mr. Holley had taken for a debt. His
daughter also says of this period : “I have often
heard my father speak with emotion of a little cir-
cumstance that occurred in Albany at the height
of his accusation. One day as he was walking by
Gourley's, the hotel where all members of the
legislature and many other gentlemen stopped, the
front piazza was thronged with a great crowd of
these gentlemen, when the Presbyterian minister
came out from among them all, and most cordially
and warmly seized my father's hand in both of his,
and in the tenderest tone possible remarked : ' Mr.
Holley, I know you are an innocent man, for no
one else could wear the look of your countenance
I ask you to be my friend, as I am truly yours.”
Mr. Holley had a most charming and lovely
family, - sons and daughters, blooming and bud-



EMBARRASSMENT. 113
-<---
i.
º-
.º
º
-:
ding;- and conscious of his own honest and tri-
umphant service of the public, his heart turned to
them with all the fervor of health and hope. The
black cloud gathering over his affairs and threaten-
ing to leave him houseless, only intensified his
affection for those he loved best, and for his whole
country as well. His grand old father, Luther
Holley, was still living in Salisbury, Connecti-
cut. Released from the canal service, previous to
the legislative action already related, he visited
the place of his birth. And now, instead of the
rumbling old stage coach, was the delightful canal
packet, -which, even in these days of parlor cars,
old people look back to with some regret. Here
are, in full, two of the letters he wrote on this
trip, one to the second of his daughters, and the
other to his father at Salisbury, after his return
from that place.
ON BOARD THE PACKET SAMUEL You NG,
13th August, 1824.
MY DEAR CLARISSA, - Our passage thus far has
been altogether convenient and agreeable, the boats
having been not overcrowded, and the passengers
having been many of them intelligent and agreeable.
There have come on board the boat, from Utica to
Schenactady, six young ladies and gentlemen, who
have been on a tour of curiosity and pleasure, to visit
THREE MILES BELOW. UTICA, {



114 MYRON IIOLLEY.
the Falls of Niagara, the Falls of Trenton, and several
other places between New York and Niagara River.
They seemed to have belonged to two parties, who
separated at Utica on their way out, and have met at
the same place on their return. And the gratification
of witnessing their cordiality, and hearing their gay
and animated remarks on the several occurrences
which have interested them since their separation, is
lively. They have been well educated and accustomed
to genteel association, and feeling and exhibiting, as
they do, the ardor and liveliness natural to young and
happy travellers through a country abounding with
many beautiful, novel and magnificent objects, their
conversation is not only charming to themselves, but to
all who listen to it. One of the most interesting asso-
ciations which necessarily connects itself with it in my
mind, belongs to my own dear daughters and sons. I
hope one day to see you more accomplished than either
of them, and happy as they appear to be. And I know
you will not lose the opportunity, offered to you at
Geneva, of qualifying yourself to sustain the elegant
and interesting part which the young ladies above
alluded to are playing here, but also to discharge with
propriety and self-satisfaction, the more important part
belonging to the most serious duties of life.
I know that you and Elizabeth will approve your-
selves good scholars, and obtain the applause and
respect of your teacher. But with the literary acquisi-
tions and other accomplishments which you will not
fail to have, I am desirous of impressing upon you most
earnestly the importance of cultivating and preserving
an equal temper.
After long experience of life, nothing is more effec-


JEMBARRASSMENT. 115
tually established in my mind than the indispensable
necessity of good temper to enjoyment, if not to respec-
tability. No situation in which you have ever been
placed was calculated to affect your future happiness so
much as that in which you will find yourself at Geneva.
With your sister, who is very lively, sensitive and even
irritable, you will find it sometimes difficult to maintain
that even, affectionate and amiable intercourse, which
it is of great importance that you and she should always
hold together, and as you are the oldest and the most
sedate, the responsibility of keeping up such intercourse
will chiefly devolve on you. Elizabeth is tender, affec-
tionate and grateful naturally. And if she sees you
overlooking some provocations, and determined to live
with her on the footing of an amiable elder sister, I am
persuaded she will determine not to be outdone in the
good offices which will so peculiarly become you both,
in all your associations, and harmony between you will
recommend not less than literary attainments. Before
you will have been long at Geneva I hope to visit you,
and to provide, as far as I shall be able, all that may be
wanting to make your studies and your life useful and
pleasant.
In the meantime and ever be assured that you and
Elizabeth are now, and will always be, objects of my
strongest affection.
MYRON HOLLEY.
ALBANY, 31st August, 1824.
DEAR FATHER, - Robert and I arrived here yesterday,
a little before 5 o'clock P.M., having come from
Hudson on a return post coach. My travelling has
probably been beneficial to my health, for I now feel

116 MYIRON HOLLEY.
entirely recovered, with reasonable appetite, and for
the two last nights have slept sufficiently without any
medicinal aid. -
You have learned from Alexander that Edward and
his family were well, and that no news existed at
Hudson of any interest. Our ride from Salisbury was
pleasant, but from Hudson here, in consequence of the
roads being very dusty and wind being with us, we
were very much annoyed and thoroughly covered with
dust.
I have found no letter here from home, from which I
infer that all is well there. This city is alive with the
expectation of soon being honored with the presence of
La Fayette. Great preparations are making to do him
honor, and he is expected here on Thursday. Gen.
Stephen Van Rensselaer is to meet him, by order of
the governor, at the line of the state bordering on
Massachusetts, with a detachment of horse, for the
purpose of escorting him to Albany, where, in front of
the Capitol within the public green, an arch is erected
for the occasion. In front of the Capitol, at the second
story above the piazza or vestibule, a gallery is erected,
as I understand, to be filled by ladies who mean to aid
in giving a public welcome to “the nation's guest.”
Perhaps from this place, some one of them, to be
selected for her beauty and accomplishments, may
bestow upon the head of the hero of the occasion, and
one of the most disinterested and constant asserters of
liberty in the world, a wreath of flowers, or some other
emblems of praise and gratitude, Suitable to the sim-
plicity and sincerity of republican manners. Such a
wreath, on such an Occasion, and so bestowed, would
be more dear to a gallant and feeling heart than all



EMBARRASSMENT. 117
the rewards of chivalry, and would make La Fayette the
happiest man in the world.
If La Fayette returns to France, what effect upon his
situation there will the voluntary honors he is receiving
in this country have 2 Will they not make the ad-
herents of arbitrary rule envious of him, and induce
them to traduce, villify and injure him? All men of
sense will perceive that he is receiving in this country a
higher and more illustrious distinction than can, or ever
could, be conferred by kings or emperors, with all their
generosity and magnificence ; because this distinction
proceeds from the unbought, sincere, deep-felt, univer-
sal love of a reflecting, intelligent, sober-minded people,
without art or hypocrisy, in the ingenuous, straightfor-
ward exercise of their feelings. In my opinion, the
state of the general feeling in this country towards
La Fayette is creditable to our People, and argues well
for the interests of humanity. The great distinction
and advantage of this age over all preceding ages, is,
that public sympathy and public opinion are much more
controlling and imperative than they ever were before ;
and that they should be manifested in a manner so
Spontaneous, and so lively, and so universal, in our
Country, and in behalf of one so disinterested and so
worthy, will have a tendency to give them a wider
influence and a still more thorough control. And it is
self-evident that public sympathy and public opinion
must always be in favor of the rights of man, and of
whatever will advance the dignity and happiness of the
human race; that is, they will be in favor of the mass
of men, and not in favor of exceptions.
It is probable that we shall remain here two or three
days, by which time I expect to be able to get through


118 MYRON HOLLEY.
With my necessary business here, and then return to
Lyons, where I shall cherish some expectations of
Seeing you in the course of the fall.
Please give my best love to mother and Caroline and
other friends.
With great respect and affection,
Yours,
MYRON Holley.
LUTHER HOLLEY, Esq.
On reading this allusion to Lafayette, one can-
not help thinking of what was just then going on
in the royal household of Louis XVIII. That
arbitrary monarch, restored to his throne by the
allied despots of Europe, had been endeavoring
for ten years to pacify his subjects by swearing
to a charter which promised to secure their
rights, but did not, and was now on his death-
bed. The Jesuits had gained complete control
over him for the last four years by means of the
beautiful Madame du Cayla, such a tool as they
always knew how to use. But the dying king,
who really had no faith in the church, had honestly
made up his mind that he would die outside of
its pale, and without touching its sacraments.
He doubtless remembered, with natural disgust,
how, when in 1815, he had hardly stepped one
foot on his throne, it came near being upset by
the priests outraging public feeling by refusing


EMBARRASSMENT. 119
to receive into the church of St. Roch, or say
prayers over the body of Mademoiselle Rancourt,
a popular actress. He had to quiet the tumult
by sending his own priest to read the service.
He also remembered the religious murders at
Nismes, and like a sensible man, king though he
was, he thought he would die without adding his
kingly sanction to such priestly nonsense. The
ultramontanes and Jesuits stood aghast at his
resolution. Cardinals and prelates did their best
to shake it, but in vain. Nothing could overcome
it till they called Madame Du Cayla from her
religious retirement at St. Ouen’s, who by her
beauty and tears prevailed on him to take the
final sacraments. No doubt the corrupt power
that ruined the Bourbons, vilified Lafayette all
it could. It vilifies everything good within its
pale as well as without. Both Lafayette and
Thomas Paine, with the profoundest reverence
for human liberty, did all they could to prevent
the cause they reverenced from being stained by
the murder of either priest or king. They were,
both, the best and wisest friends kings ever had.


120 MYRON HOLLEY.
CHAPTER XIV.
AT HOME witH HIS FAMILY.
MR. HoLLEY having retired with dignity and
a good conscience from the office of Canal Com-
missioner, in the spring of 1824, spent much of
the next summer in conference with his successors
in the great work, and with the legislative com-
mittee of investigation whose report, as we have
seen, was far more favorable to him than the
legislative action resulting from it. In the mean
time let us look at him in the bosom of his family
in Lyons. His oldest daughter Caroline had just
been married to Graham H. Chapin, a lawyer, and
afterwards a member of Congress, and Clarissa
and Elizabeth were at a boarding-School in
Geneva. In a letter to the former he gives a
picture of the family and of himself, which can-
not be reduced to a smaller compass without in-
jury to the coloring.
Lyons, 5th December, 1824.
My DEAR CLARISSA, - Behold me, with your mind's
eye, seated in the upper kitchen, by the side of a good



AT HOME WITH THE FAMILY. 121
---
wº-
hickory fire, one side of which is occupied by your
mother singing Cornelia to sleep, just beginning to
carry into effect the gratifying purpose of conversing
a little with you. And as I know all our household are
dear to you, I will complete the description of our
present domestic condition, by telling you that Sam
and Sally, and Myron and Cuyler are engaged in very
good natured but noisy intercommunication with Viny
in the lower kitchen. Your aunt Betsey and Caroline
have gone to take leave of Mrs. Church, who starts
with her family this evening in a boat, to take up their
residence in Syracuse. Robert and William have
walked down to the store to spend their evening, and
Mr. Chapin is over at his new house watching the fires,
which have been kept up there in all the fire places
since yesterday morning, for the purpose of drying the
recently plastered walls and ceilings. After consider-
able delays Mr. Chapin’s house is now completed, with
the exception of the inside painting, and that will be
a job of no great length, so that Caroline expects to
commence house-keeping in about one week from this
time. Yesterday the process of cleaning the joiner's
work for the reception of the paint was commenced,
and to-morrow it is to be renewed with energy. It is
impossible to tell yet, whether the chimneys will draw
Smoke well, or not, and from all the opportunities of
judging thus far furnished, there is some diversity of
opinion upon that very interesting subject. The house
will be found, we all think, very convenient, and suffi-
ciently roomy, being built nearly upon the plan of our
house in Canandaigua, though a little larger. But,
while we have lately all been anxious, in our different
modes, to do everything in our power to aid Caroline


122 MYIRON HOLLEY.
to start fair in her new character of mistress of an in-
dependent establishment, we have not neglected to
cherish, in our hearts, the liveliest affection for you and
Elizabeth, who are equally dear to us with your elder
sister. And as the cold weather seems now to have
set in, in Sober earnest, we anticipate great happiness,
in your good company at the approaching Christmas.
Perhaps we may some of us see you before that time,
but whether we do or not, we shall not forget the
promised boon of a visit then from yourselves, and
several of your interesting friends.
I have just concluded the reading aloud to your
mother and aunt of the novel of the Abbot, which you
know derives its chief interest from the exhibition which
it gives of the character, embarrassments and friends
and enemies of the celebrated Mary, queen of Scotland.
The impression left upon our minds by the beauty,
accomplishments, virtues, vices, distresses and suffer-
ings of that unhappy lady, is quite gloomy, though a
candid view of her conduct and its results is decidedly
favorable to virtue. Her character attracts all the
complacent interest which can possibly belong to the
most amiable dispositions, elegant figure, charming
countenance and gracious behaviour, united in a female
well educated, and moving in a sphere so conspicuous
as to impart an important influence through every heart
in several of the leading nations of Christendom, until
after her unfortunate marriage with the foolish, licenti-
ous, and ridiculous dandy, Lord Darnley. Her very
reasonable disgust with him seems first to have opened
her mind to intrusions of the vile, and it must be con-
fessed that in reference to him and the contemptible
musician Rizzio and the profligate Bothness, she de-



AT HOME WITH THE FAMILY. 123
graded herself to the commission of crimes of the
grossest dye. But if she greatly sinned, she greatly
suffered, and at last, after nineteen years of close and
rigorous captivity, she met the death prepared for her
by her inhuman enemies, with the greatest fortitude,
and even piety, leaving upon the whole a stronger claim
to the sympathies of posterity than any female
Sovereign of modern Europe.
Your aunt and Caroline have now returned, and their
conversation with your mother has become so lively, as
to break off this long letter in midway, which I am
afraid you will find so dull as to leave it uncertain
Whether I Ought to apologize for continuing it so long,
or for breaking it off.
With great affection for you and Elizabeth,
Your very obt.,
MYRON HOLLEY.
Miss CLARISSA HOLLEY.
Please give our love to Mrs. Plumb and her amiable
family.
A man never enjoyed his family more, or was
more faithful to it. He also enjoyed, in spite of
the loss and calumny it had cost him, the great
public blessing which his labors had conferred
upon mankind, though he was to see the glory of
it transferred, for the present, from himself to
others.



124 - MYRON HOLLEY.
.
2
CHAPTER XV.
THE WEDDING OF THE WATERS.
It was in the fall of 1825 that the waters of
Erie met those of the Hudson, and the great wed-
ding festival was celebrated from the 26th of
October to the 4th of November, beginning at
Buffalo and ending in a blaze of glory and gush
at New York. A great amount of the sublime
was mixed with plenty of the ridiculous. But the
whole people were really glad, and no man was
gladder of that than Myron Holley, who honored
the great wedding cortege with his presence from
Lyons to New York. The people of this generation
can hardly conceive the delight experienced by
those of that, from one end of the land to the other,
when it was telephoned by cannon from Buffalo to
New York and back in three hours, that the great
lakes were, in a commercial sense, level with the
ocean. Every one saw how this laid the founda-
tions of thousands of fortunes, and made every
industrious man and woman richer.
THE WEDDING OF THE WATERS. 125
Whoever will dig into the files of New York,
Boston or Philadelphia papers of that date will
find them, dry and barren as they then were on
most topics, perfectly luxuriant, blooming and
flamboyant on the canal celebration. Eloquence,
and even poetry sprang up as by magic, where
they were least expected. The old jokes about
“Clinton's big ditch" gave place to millions of
fond anticipations of a voyage in a splendid pack-
et-boat on the “raging canawl.”
The ceremonies had of course been carefully
arranged and formulated beforehand, so as to sat-
isfy everybody, especially those most ambitious to
send their names by water to posterity. In Buf-
falo, then a scattering and inconsiderable village,
more notable for an enterprising hotel keeper and
stage proprietor than anything else, there was a
vast concourse of people from the surrounding
country, who moved in solemn procession to the
head of the canal, where a canal-boat, named the
“SENECA CHIEF,” splendidly and appropriately
decorated, and bearing kegs of Lake Erie water
destined to be poured into the ocean by Dr. Sam-
uel L. Mitchell, below the narrows of New York
harbor, received on board Gov. Clinton, the Lieu-
tenant-Governor, and New York and other dele-


126 MYRON HOLLEY.
gations. This boat was drawn by four horses, and
was followed by three others, gaily dressed, and
bearing distinguished citizens. Jesse Hawley,
now a citizen of Rochester, instead of the jail
limits of Geneva, addressed the crowd in behalf
of the visitors, and was replied to by Judge For-
ward of Buffalo. Then started the horse-drawn
boats on their slow way, greeting on the banks of
the canal, as they passed the sparse clearings,
nearly the whole population of many square miles
of territory on each side. In every smart village
or incipient city the aquatic pageant was received
with shouts, music and cannon ; speeches of wel-
come and speeches of reply ; dinners and balls. The
progress was not rapid. That was not the fast
age. It was Wednesday when the “Seneca Chief.”
started from Buffalo. It was noon the next “Sab-
bath day” when it arrived in Utica. The Gov-
ernor and party attended church there in the
afternoon, and it does not appear that any legal
measures were taken in regard to the fracture of
the Jewish law, -— perhaps it is less liable to frac-
ture on water than on land.
Monday morning the processions, cannon firing,
music, and speech-making began again, and grew
more and more intense as the pageant passed Little



THE wedding OF THE WATERs. 127
Falls, Amsterdam, Schenectady, till, at half past
10 o’clock on Thursday, Nov. 3, the “ Seneca
Chief.” unhitched its team of horses and floated.
into the Albany basin, through which it was towed
by yawls manned by twenty-four masters of sail-
ing vessels, between lines of canal boats vocal with
huzzas and hallelujahs.
As soon as the Governor’s party landed, it was
escorted to the state capitol, where Philip Hone
tendered the congratulations of the New York
Corporation, and William Jones, of Albany, those
of the capital city. Three hundred and fifty per-
sons sat down to a feast under a double arcade upon
the capitol lawn, presided over by John Tayler
and Ambrose Spencer, assisted by Martin Van
Buren and seven other vice-presidents. One of
the regular toasts was worthy of a proud state :
“A generous competition among all the states of the
Union in promoting our common prosperity. New
York has led out with steamboats and canals.”
Gov. Clinton's volunteer was still worthier of
memory :
“The love of country—may it ever rise superior to
the spirit of party and personal consideration.”
Steam lost no time in towing to New York not


128 - MYRON HOLLEY.
Only the “ Seneca Chief,” but a whole fleet of canal
boats, for the next day was to be the great one
there — a demonstration of all the trades and arts,
on land and water, to be followed in the evening
by the largest and most magnificent ball ever
danced on this or any other continent.
Charles Ring, editor of the “New York Ameri-
can,” must sum up the story of that day, the
details of which would fill a larger volume than
this. I quote his editorial of the 5th.
The celebration of yesterday was everything that
heart could desire. It was the appropriate expression
by a great and free people of their joy at the completion
of a work alike useful and magnificent, achieved by
their own unaided means, industry, and Self-denial, and
of which the influence, moral and political, will extend
to the remotest times, and to the most distant quarters
of our Union.
The heavens, too, smiled on the happiness of man.
A more beautiful day never dawned. It was the very
atmosphere which a painter would have chosen to give
effect to the brilliant, the unrivalled water scene. A
warm light mist hovered over the bay, and served to
magnify without obscuring the numberless and various
vessels that floated on its tranquil bosom. It was to
the reality what poetry is to truth, a beautiful amplifi-
cation. When the gaily decorated Steam and Canal
boats, with their countless passengers, were drawn up
off the battery, at about half-past nine O'clock, in pre-
paration for their departure towards the ocean, a spec-


THE we IDDING OF THE WATERS. 129
tacle was presented which not only has never been
equalled, but which no other place in the world has the
means of equalling. Twenty-one steam-boats, besides
canal and pilot boats, barges, and a ship, all dressed
out with flags, and alive with happy human beings,
brought within the distinct view of tens of thousands
of delighted spectators, and surrounded with a scenery
of which the beauty is nowhere to be surpassed. It
was a glorious sight, and on a most glorious Occasion.
To those who were not present yesterday in the city,
it is quite impossible to convey anything like an idea
of the scene. It was altogether the most impressive we
have ever witnessed ; and the conduct particularly of
both actors and spectators, was orderly and decorous,
not only beyond all former example, but beyond, we
are bold to Say, anything that was ever seen anywhere
amidst such an immense mass of people. There were,
independently of about five thousand persons who
walked in the procession, probably over one hundred
thousand lookers-on, of every age and description, and
degree, from puling infancy to spectacled old age, coun-
trymen and citizens, gentle and simple ; and among
them all,— and at some time in the day they almost all
fell under our observation,--we saw not a single instance
of drunkenness, no quarrel, no riot, no confusion. We
make this remark with even greater pride than that
with which we record the celebration itself, or the great
cause of it, for it speaks most emphatically in praise of
the moral character and conscious dignity of a free
people. .*


130 MYRON HOLLEY.
CHAPTER XVI.
The struggle for Justice.
Yet the man whose wisdom, energy, and self-
sacrifice had achieved this glory, more than any
other one man's, whose integrity had been certi-
fied by the most rigid examination, who had con-
veyed his whole property to the state to save
harmless his bondsmen, after all this rejoicing,
did not find enough of love-thy-neighbor-as-thyself
in the State of New York, to restore to him his
small property till March, 1828. Till then, with
a stout heart and a placid temper, he most cour-
teously pleaded with the legislature for justice,
year after year, backed by such friends " as dared
* That DeWitt Clinton was one of those friends, the ſol-
lowing grateful letter testifies:
ALBANY, 21st April, 1825.
GOVERNOR CLINTON, - I beg leave to tender to you, and to
Mrs. Clinton, my most grateful thanks for the repeated and
effective expressions of your favorable Opinions of my claim,
presented to the legislature during the present session. The
bill, which has passed the Senate and Assembly, Will, I trust,
lead to the entire discharge of my bail, and leave me in pos-



THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE. 131
to stand by him, without heeding the hoarse cries of
“defaulter,” “defaulter,” coming from the dens of
political knavery, and from religious bigotry too,
no doubt; for, though Mr. Holley was born re-
ligious, and grew more and more religious till he
died, whatever bigotry he may ever have had
had been all washed out by his canal experi-
ence. But the struggle with prejudice was long
and dubious, as letters to one of his daughters in
1827 will show :-
ALBANY, 24th March, 1827.
DEAR CLARISSA, - I was very happy to receive your
good letter yesterday, with the postscript of Elizabeth,
and I thank God that you are able to write so good a
letter, and that you are all so well. I have help and
hopes here, but must not be too sanguine. The com-
mittee of the Senate, to whom my memorial was re-
session of a Slieſter for my family. It may, and I think it
Ought, to do more. But Whatever may be the determination
of the commissioners, it can never impair the just admiration
with which I regard the conduct of yourself and your lady in
my behalf. To remit provocation bespeaks an elevated and
honorable mind; to cure the disposition, from which it may
be supposed to proceed, by active beneficence, is a sure index
Of that enlarged and precious charity, which is better even
than faith and hope. That the perfect reward of these, and
of every other christian virtue, may belong to you and Mrs.
Clinton, both in this life and forever, is the earnest prayer
Of, Sir,
With the highest respect and most grateful affection,
Your very ob’t.,
MYRON HOLLEY.


132 MYRON IHOLLEY.
ferred, have reported favorably, and the bill for
reconveying my lands to me, which they introduced, is
made the order of the day for Wednesday next, when
I hope it will pass. I have a package for Mr. Chapin,
which Mr. Forbes, of your neighborhood, told me he
would soon call for. This contains my memorial and the
report of the committee.
I hope, my dear, that neither you nor any of the rest
Of the family, go to the night meetings, as I look upon
the awakenings which take place there as, on the whole,
not promotive of religion or virtue. In the young and
innocent they are the result of high and unsafe excite-
ment, and in those of mature years, they are sometimes
hypocritical, and sometimes the evidence of remorse for
misconduct, which produces no permanent good. There
is no evidence of real religion like that which is afforded
by a sedulous devotion to useful actions, and a constant
cultivation of amiable affections; and the best and
safest place for the display of the actions and affections
for my family, in my present situation, is at home.
Do not show this, nor let its contents get out of the
family, because it would wound the feelings of some of
my friends unnecessarily, and would be misunderstood ;
but do not go to any of the night meetings.
Give my love to all. Kiss Bolivar.
Yours, in haste,
M. HOLLEY.
Lyons, 1st. Sep., 1827.
My DEAR CLARISSA. —You will be very welcome home
as soon as it may be safe and convenient for you to
return.
I have not at present the money to pay your expen-



THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE. 133
ses; but if Robert cannot let you have it, write me
soon after the receipt of this, and I will raise it for you. .
It is not proper that you should incur much obligation
to your aunt or uncle, and I have for some time felt
considerable solicitude lest you should incur more than
you ought. Believe me in this, as I speak out of noth-
ing but love to you, and have had larger opportunities
of knowing human nature and character than you have.
The reverse of circumstances.which I have experienced
has been the means of testing the sincerity and strength
of that sympathy, which many persons professed for
me, and perhaps not unfortunately, for we are often
much benefitted by knowing the truth of professions.
A large proportion, some even of my blood relations,
have not borne the test so well as I could have wished.
But I cannot consent for a moment to suppose, that my
own children are any of them in the smallest degree
alienated by my reverse. It would give me inexpres-
sible pain if my dear Clarissa should give me any reason
to think her affections could be at all influenced by it.
I believe few parents have taken more delight in pro-
viding for the happiness of their children than I have.
And there is nothing, even in my anticipations of
heaven, which gives me more intense enjoyment than
the hopes which I cherish of their useful, respectable
and happy progress in life. I know not by what com-
pany you are surrounded, but I have much, that is, all
reasonable confidence in your discretion, and I count
too on Robert's judgment in that concern, and fully on
his affection towards you. And I have no doubt that
your uncle and aunt would prevent you from all harm,
which they might think menaced you, from that source.
Still I have some fears that at your susceptible age, and




134 MYRON THOLLEY.
possibly with your mortified prospects and diminished
hopes, you may suffer yourself to contract ties which
may not be most happy. Clarissa, be not mortified, be
not at all disposed to abate one jot of hope or of expec-
tation for yourself or your connections by my reverse ;
for I do think it will not long oppress me or hinder me
from doing all that parental affection and propriety may
suggest for the education of all my children, and for
their advancement in the world. Your mother and I
were, a short time ago, at Canandaigua, where we were
treated with great and very friendly attentions by Mr.
and Mrs. Greig, who, among other instances of regard,
offered to send you to school at Troy for a year at their
expense, with many expressions of kindness toward you
as well as us. Mrs. Pawling, I believe, had written to
them on the subject, and they wished to have you home
and ready to set out for the school with Miss Lavinia
Porter, who is to go there very soon. Your mother and
I declined the offer of Mr. and Mrs. Greig, not without
the most grateful thanks for the generous sympathy with
which it was made, and not without much reluctance,
for we very much wish that you should enjoy the advan-
tages of more school teaching, Our reasons for declin-
ing are, that it would take some time to prepare you
for going there ; you are absent from home, where we
hope you are happy and useful. Within six months
we hope to have my claims upon the state allowed,
which will enable me to send you and Elizabeth to a
boarding school together; and your age will not be such
as to make you six months hence an unfit inmate of a
boarding school; and we do not like altogether Mrs.
Willard ; and if my property is restored, it would be
sordid and unbecoming for me to lay under such deep


THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE. 135
obligations for the education of my children or any one
of them to another. I intend, and want you should
remember it, if my prosperity is restored, as I think it
will be next winter, to send you and Elizabeth abroad
to school for one year, perhaps at New Haven.
I have not refrained from writing to you from any
diminution of affection, or because you were not every
day in my thoughts, but for reasons altogether different-
and which, I think, you may easily imagine.
We have heard but few particulars of the most melan-
choly fate of your uncle Horace, whose death I cannot
help deploring as a public calamity, and who was one
of the truest and dearest of my earthly friends.
We have heard by letter from Alexander to John
that the ship in which he died was the Louisiana. That
he and Mary were both sick together, he being in a
cabin below, and she being in one above him on deck;
that they could not help each other, and had little or no
assistance either from nurse or physician. We are all
anxious to hear more. Give my love to Robert.
Most affectionately yours,
MYRON HOLLEY.
These letters reveal a spirit of stern integrity,
independence and self-help, along with an absence
of cunning, or what is sometimes called shrewd-
mess, which accounts for the suffering which grew
out of a deficiency comparatively so trifling, and
the long delay in obtaining a partial reparation
so obviously just. Had Mr. Holley possessed the
cunning of the ordinary politician, he would not

136 IMYRON HOLLEY.
have told the legislature of that aeficiency of $30,-
000, and would have kept Square with the comp-
troller by means of his friends — “making friends”
as the Scripture says, “ of the mammon of un-
righteousness” if necessary. If he had had the
shrewdness of an ordinary detective, he would
probably have found out who robbed him and have
laid the odium on the shoulders that deserved to
bear it. But he was too grandly proud to make
the most of his friends, and never stooped to court
friendship either by flattery or promises of favor.
Genial as the sunshine, he spoke evil of none,
whatever he might think. Almost any conceivable
man in his position, and doing what he did, would
have taken care that the person who wrote under -
the pseudonym of “ Peter Ploughshare’ should
be consigned to the eternal infamy due to hypo-
crites. Mr. Holley undoubtedly knew who he was,
but he let him pass quietly into oblivion, where it
is difficult to find him to-day. Stat nominis wºmbra
only. We know that it was no farmer who thus
disgraced the most honorable of tools and occupa-
tions.
But justice and dignity finally prevail, and their
success is worth far more than any which ever
crowns the work of political cunning. Mr. Holley




THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE. 137
thus announces to his wife the close of his four years
siege at Albany.
ALBANY., 20th March, 1828.
MY DEAR SALLY. — My bill has this day passed the
Senate by a large majority, 20 for it and four against it.
It wants only the signature of the acting Governor
Pitcher to become a law, and he has told a friend of
mine this morning that he will sign it as soon as it is
presented. The bill provides for restoring to me all
the property which I conveyed to the state, and thus
affords the authority of the legislature in favor of the
great truth, that while I was Canal Commissioner I
used no money but what I had a right to use. The bill
has passed both houses as a majority bill, not as a two-
thirds bill; that is, it is regarded not as a charity or
gift, but an act of justice, requiring the legislature to
pass it as a duty of moral and legal obligation. I
announce this good news to you first, because there is
none to whom the annunciation will give more pleasure,
and, my dear Sally, I do hope and trust that we and our
lovely family of children, who have been somewhat in
the shade of adversity, may now be able to enjoy and
improve our lives in the healthy sunshine of prosperity.
Most affectionately yours,
MYRON HOLLEY.
I shall start for home in two or three days, if by that
time I can get the proper conveyances of my property
executed.
This modicum of justice must have rejoiced many
hearts outside of Mr. Holley's family circle, and
especially his neighbors and acquaintances in

138 MYRON HOLLEY.
Lyons and Canandaigua. Mr. John Greig, one
of the earliest and most distinguished citizens of
that place, writing to Col. Troup on the 21st of
May, 1828, says: “To Mr. Holley, more than
any one else, are we indebted for that meeting [in
Canandaigua, Jan. 8, 1817], and the popularity
which the canal policy immediately afterwards
acquired in the western part of the state. Indeed,
I have always been satisfied that his intelligence and
Zealand unwearied exertions both of mind and body
On the subject, from the moment of his appoint-
ment as Canal Commissioner, essentially con-
tributed to bring the Erie Canal to a successful
completion.” &
The bill, whose passage caused Mr. Holley, his
family and particular friends so much joy, was
unanimously reported in the Assembly pretty
early in the session of 1828, but action on it was
considerably delayed by the
IDEATH OF GOV. CLINTON
on the 11th of February. As Mr. Holley was
on terms of respectful intimacy with that great
man, during the greatest work of his life, and
well knew his character and his aspirations, the
notice he takes of him in his correspondence with



THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE. 139
his daughters is of peculiar interest. In his letter
to Clarissa, afterwards Mrs. Dr. Beaumont, writ-
ten the next day, he says, “Perhaps, before this
reaches you, you will have heard the news of the
death of Gov. Clinton. He died at 7 o'clock last
evening, suddenly of, as is supposed, a disorgan-
ized condition of the heart. He was sitting in
his study with two of his sons, to whom he re-
marked, putting his hand to his breast, that he
felt a stricture there. His eldest son said, ‘ Per
haps you had better walk a little, being at the
same time preparing a paper to hand to his father,
who had not yet got up, when the son perceived
that his father's head dropped a little forward,
and coming to him found him incapable of speech
or motion. A physician was called in in ten
minutes, and much pains were taken to restore
him, without success. The Governor had been
well enough to write letters during the afternoon,
though his health has not been good for some time
past. This morning at the meeting of the Assem-
bly, the Governor's death was solemnly an-
nounced,” — and the letter proceeds to detail the
action taken to honor his memory. Writing the
next day to his younger daughter Elizabeth,
afterwards Mrs. Kingman, Mr. Holley says: “ His



140 MYRON HOLLEY.
funeral will take place tomorrow at 2 o’clock
in the afternoon, and the legislature and citizens
are taking measures to have it conducted with all
possible honor to the deceased. Mrs. Clinton
was abroad at Judge Duer's, when the death of
her husband occurred. A messenger came to
Judge Duer's with the news and communicated
it to the Judge, who immediately informed Mrs.
Clinton that the Governor was taken ill, and
wished her to come home. She immediately ex-
claimed that he was dead, and started for home,
having fainted before she reached there. When
she reached home she became frantic with hy-
sterical affection, and though much pains were
taken for her relief, they were ineffectual till last
evening, when she fell asleep, and is now probably
better. Yesterday she remained all day uncon-
scious of her situation, dressed for company,
went to the corpse of her husband, told him to
get up and comb his hair, and warm himself, for
he was cold. Her condition is one of great dis-
tress and excites universal sympathy. During
the last season, though it is not known to the
public, he had a paralytic shock, which it was
very much feared, for an hour, would terminate
his life, and then she was aflected in Some degree.


THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE. 141
as she has been by his actual departure. It is
certain that not only her private and personal
affections have been most violently wrought upon
by this sudden separation from her husband, but
that the prospects she must have cherished most
dearly are blasted by it. The distinguished char-
acter and station of her husband ever since their
marriage must have kept her almost constantly
engaged in the elegant and splendid courtesies of
the most distinguished social circles, she herself
being for the most part the graceful, dignified and
accomplished mistress of those courtesies. And
no doubt her ambition was excited and directed
to the anticipation of all the pleasures and gratifi-
cations of the still larger and more brilliant circles
supplied at the capital of the United States, where
she might have hoped to see her husband occupy-
ing the highest station of honor which can be
conferred by earthly agency. It is not therefore
surprising that her affliction is overwhelming.
Mrs. Clinton is a woman of amiable dispositions
and good principles, and will probably recover her
senses and her composure, and lead a useful life
for years to come. But how different must it be
from that which her probable hopes and expecta-
tions had depicted for her?”

142 MYRON HOLLEY.
It is quite true that at the very time when
Myron Holley threw himself into the great labor
of constructing a canal through three hundred
miles of forests and swamps to open the valley of
the Mississippi and the upper lakes to the ocean,
George Stephenson, a younger man by two years
and forty days, made real the idea of an iron horse
on iron rails. And by the time the Erie Canal
was completed, and the paeans were echoing from
Buffalo to New York, he had fairly made the rail-
way system of the world a fixed fact. The canal
is now put out of sight by it, as the moon is by
the sun in the daytime. But how soon would
railroads have pervaded the Mississippi valley, or
how fast would they have spread over Europe, if
the canal had not existed, pouring the food of that
valley into the stomachs of the iron-workers
wherever they worked 2 The canal was slow but
sure. It created the Wealth and inspired the
enterprise” which gave us the railroads. Though
* Work had hardly commenced on the New York canal be-
fore the State of Ohio began seriously to consider how she
should take advantage of its completion. Lines of Canal
connecting the Ohio river with Lake Erie were projected, and
surveys made, long before the completion of the New York
enterprise. Throughout that vast Wilderness were then scat-
tered stumpy farms whose surplus produce Would not pay for
transportation over the execrable roads of mud and corduroy.



THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE. 143
z
“water" in the latter is not so useful as in the
canal, they have been to the great body of the
people an incalculable blessing. They are giv-
ing us a country freer in both muscle and mind,
and better worth loving.
The first requisite for abolishing poverty is the
easy interchange of the products of labor. This
effected, the thing becomes in some degree possi-
ble. For it opens a possibility of universal edu-
cation. This tends to enlarge a middle class of
people, leaving the excessively rich and the ex-
cessively poor in a minority of no great account.
The people turned out voluntarily to assist the surveying
parties. The writer well remembers how proud he felt, when
an ambitious Stripling, to ‘‘ carry chain * a little while for
Mr. Geddes along the banks of the Cuyahoga. It was previ-
ous to 1822.

144 - MYRON HOLLEY.
CHAPTER XVII.
IIORTICULTURE.
IT has already been mentioned that Myron
Holley had a beautiful garden in Canandaigua.
He was naturally a gardener, which means that he
was a lover and improver of nature. At Lyons
he reserved for his own home two acres which be-
came a wonderful garden under the slight oppor-
tunities which his constant and weighty cares on
the canal allowed him. No sooner was he released
from his embarrassments by the tardy justice of
the legislature, than he returned to this garden
home with delight. But he was not content with
cultivating his garden and enjoying its flowers and
fruits himself. His delight was to induce others
to enjoy the same pleasures. If he made any im–
provement in flowers or fruit, and he made many,
he wished all others to have the benefit of it. A
letter to one of his friends soon after his return
from Albany in the spring of 1828 illustrates this
trait in his character.


HORTICULTURE. 145
Lyoxs, 12th April, 1828.
DEAR SIR, - This day I have taken up six, from
among the best of my little quince trees, and addressed
them to you, to the care of Joy, Bruce & Co., agents
for the Pilot Line of canal boats, at Albany. And I
hope they will come to your hands in good condition.
If they shall live and flourish in your grounds, as simi-
lar trees have in mine, they will bear the year after
next, from twelve to twenty quinces each, and in five
years, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and
fifty each. The fruit of them will be yellow, tender and
fragrant.
In commencing the cultivation of my garden and
Other grounds this spring, I feel that the establishment
of my just claims to the absolute title of them, by the
legislature, has given a new impulse to my taste for
rural pursuits. And there is no employment, not
immediately connected with the successful introduction
of my children into life, and the welfare of my family,
from which I anticipate, for my declining years, so
many useful and interesting results. For a long time
some of the most valuable sources of human enjoyment,
as it respects myself, have been too much dependent
upon the Caprice, prejudice and passion of others.
This dependence is now happily removed. And for my
remaining days, I intend to adopt a course of exertion
in my opinion equally characterized by philosophy and
benevolence ; in short, sir, I am ambitious of emulating
your example, by retiring from the bustle and storm of
life to the occupation of the garden and the field, with
nothing like the feelings or motives of an ascetic — but
in perfect charity with all mankind, and because such
occupations afford the best means of improving the

146 MYRON HOLLEY.
mind and heart of intelligent men who are truly devoted
to them, and at the same time secure the most desirable
advantages of peace, useful employment and true
dignity.
With grateful respects for Mrs. Buel, I am, with
much esteem, sir,
Your very obt.
MYRON HOLLEY.
JESSE BUEL.
As we shall see, by and by, there were human
interests ready to appeal to his heart, which could
not allow him to end his days in a garden. The
last thirteen years of his life were to leave him
hardly more leisure for that delightful occupation
than the previous ones. That others might have
better gardens, he had to neglect his own. Still
it is to be recorded that Central and Western New
York, so conspicuous for useful and elegant
gardening, owe as much to Myron IIolley as,
perhaps, to any other man. He was a very grand
pioneer. In all horticultural literature, the useful
and the sweet are, perhaps, nowhere better
mingled than in his “INITIATORY DISCOURSE, de-
livered at Geneva, 27th November, 1828, before
an assembly from which, on that day, was formed
the Dom ESTIC HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY of the
western parts of the State of New York.”

EIORTICULTURE. 147
After describing, as no one could better than
he, the hardships and perils endured by the
earliest settlers in the great valley which his own
labors had done so much to open to the world, he
swept over the history of gardens from the mythic
Eden downwards, culling gems from the poets as
he went, and making his path blooming and
fragrant. After quoting Homer's grand compli-
ment to the garden of King Alcinous in the 7th
book of the Odyssey, he grandly wipes prejudice
away from the memory of the much-abused Nebu-
chadnezzar as follows:—
“But the hanging gardens of Babylon, if they were
not more fruitful than that of Alcinous, were vastly
more expensive and more picturesque. And what
makes them more interesting is the spirit of courtesy in
which they were constructed. Nebuchadnezzar made
them to gratify the taste of his wife, who being by
birth a Mede, and accustomed to the view of moun-
tainous regions, did not perfectly enjoy the rural
prospects of the level country around her husband's
capital. These gardens were four hundred feet square,
and consisted of terraces raised one upon another to
the height of three hundred and fifty feet. These
terraces were ascended by steps ten feet wide, and
supported by massy arches upon arches of solid
masonry, the whole being surrounded and strengthened
by a wall twenty-two feet thick. The floor of each
terrace was made impervious to Water, and covered


148 MYRON HOLLEY.
with a sufficient depth of soil to support the largest
trees, and the innumerable shrubs and plants with
which it was embellished. And upon the upper terrace
was a reservoir, which was filled with water from the
river by an ingenious engine, of such dimensions as to
supply the moisture required by all the terraces.”
We judge from this that Nebuchadnezzar was a
great improvement upon Cheops. He did more
to gratify the living and quite as much to immor-
talize himself with posterity. Mr. Holley notices
the gardens and groves of Greece, where the
immortal Epicurus and Plato taught what some
of the sagest of our modern Sages are happy to
revive, and of Rome he says: —
“The Romans were peculiarly fond of gardens. In
their cities the common people used to have representa-
tions of them in their windows. And several of their
noble families derived their names from their cultivation
of certain kinds of garden vegetables; as the Fabii,
Lentuli and Lactucini. So attached to gardens were
the lowest populace of Rome, that in the inimitably
artſul speech of Antony over the body of Caesar, as
presented to us by Shakespeare, the last degree of
indignation is excited in their minds against his mur-
derers, by the generous disposition which they were
told Caesar had made of his gardens in his will. Antony
assures them, “Moreover he hath left you all his walks,
his private arbors, and new-planted orchards on this
side Tiber; — he hath left them to you, and to yout


PIORTICULTURE. 149
heirs forever, common pleasures to walk abroad and
recreate yourselves.” Upon this they could no longer
be restrained, but resolved, at once, to burn the traitors’
houses.” -
The reader will certainly forgive me for closing
this chapter with a long extract from a discourse
well deserving to be incorporated in full in the
permanent literature of our country. There can
be no doubt it produced many gardens, in an
intellectual as well as physical sense. It Ought
more and more to guide the cultured youth of our
country to an occupation grander and happier
than the pursuit of political power or inordinate
wealth.
The civilized nations of the earth are now vieing
with each other in Horticultural establishments. And
since the discoveries of Linnaeus, a new and most valu-
able object has been extensively connected with many
of them, which has given them additional claims to
intelligent favor. I allude to the promotion of Botanic
science. Europe has numerous public and private gar-
dens, in which the splendors of Horticulture are most
happily combined with this enchanting pursuit.
In our country there have been several attempts, by
individuals and by associations, to effect the same
agreeable combination. These attempts are exceed-
ingly laudable, and, if duly encouraged, will insure ex-
tensive and lasting benefits. They are like to be
essentially aided by the United States government;


150 -- MYRON HOLLEY.
for, during the last year, we were told by one of its
public functionaries that the President had much at
heart the introduction into our country, from abroad, of
plants of every description not already known among
us, whether used as food or for purposes connected with
the arts, through the agency of our ministers, consuls,
and other public agents in foreign countries.
Ornamental gardening, in its broadest range, has
at one time or another been made to include almost
every class of objects, both in nature and art, from the
association of which pleasure could naturally be derived.
Milton describes the garden of Eden as containing “ in
narrow room nature’s whole wealth, yea, more, a heaven
On earth.”
But the more restricted and essential idea of a gar-
den, is that of a place where, by the aid of cultivation,
vegetable productions may be reared more excellent in
kind, and more pleasing in distribution, than the Ordi-
nary growth of nature. Beauty and use are both in-
cluded, though they may both exist in almost infinite
diversity of relative proportions, according to the diver-
sities of taste, and skill, and means in cultivators.
The direct objects of gardening, in the most restricted
definition, besides earth and water, are trees and shrubs,
and fruits, and flowers, and esculent vegetables, with
the best modes of propagating, nourishing, arranging,
improving, and preserving them. To these objects the
manuring, mixing, and working of soils, the construc-
tion of fences, walks, terraces, quarters, borders, trel-
lises, arbors, and implements, are everywhere subsidiary:
while in climates subject to frosts, the Wall, the hot-
bed, and the green-house, are valuable and agreeable
auxiliaries.


HORTICULTURE. 151
The successful conduct of the business of a garden
requires labor, vigilance, and knowledge. Ever since
the sentence of the Most IIigh subjected man to earn
his bread in the sweat of his face, labor has been the
appointed means of his advancement and happiness.
Without it, it is impossible for us to have healthy bodies
Or cheerful minds ; and the worth of all the valuable
possessions which we acquire is measured by the amount
of it which they respectively involve. It is not wonder-
ful, therefore, that much of it is essential to the most
desirable Horticulture, though it is not merely gross
corporal labor that is required.
‘Strength may wield the ponderous spade,
May turn the clod, and wheel the compost home;
But elegance, chief grace the garden shows,
And most attractive, is the fair result
Of thought, the creature of a polished mind.”
And labor is not more indispensable than vigilance—
keen-sighted, unremitted vigilance. Many of the nurse-
lings of the garden are so tender and so exposed to ac-
cidents for months together, that an hour's neglect may
lead to cureless ruin, and disappoint hopes long and
fondly cherished.
But without knowledge, labor and vigilance are vain.
The accomplished gardener must know the best manner
and time of performing a great multiplicity of manual
operations peculiar to each season of the year, all of
which are essential to his success, and the knowledge of
which cannot be obtained without experience and obser-
Vation. Every direct, and every subsidiary object of
his pursuit, demands care, and reflection, and know-
ledge. He must not only know the modes and times of


152 MYRON HOLLEY.
propagating trees, and shrubs, and flowers, of which
there are several already understood, as applicable to
many of them ; the proper use of the pruning-knife, so
essential to some of his highest purposes; the various
means of improving the flavor and size of fruits which
will be acknowledged to have been the most success-
fully introduced, when it is remembered that the largest
and most delicious apples upon our tables have been de-
rived from the austøre English crab ; the measures most
effective towards meliorating the less esteemed culinary
vegetables, which he will not consider unimportant
when he learns that some of them, now the most savory
and nutritious, were in their uncultivated state of but
little claim to notice, such as the asparagus, the celery,
the cauliflower, the potatoe; the charming art of man-
aging ſlowers, by which the single and almost scentless
blossoms of nature have been swelled into much greater
compass and new varieties of beauty, and filled with in-
tenser fragrance ; but the accomplished gardener should
understand the best method of acclimating plants not
indigenous, which may contribute prodigiously to em-
bellishment and use, and which involves the knowledge
of botanical geography. And he should have all that
science which may be conducive to the utmost possible
perfection of every subject of his care. To this end,
chemistry, natural history, and botany, are necessary.
The productions of the garden are affected either for
evil or for good, in different stages of their growth, by the
most minute and the most magnificent Objects in nature,
by the bugs, by the worms, by the flies, by the birds,
by the clouds, by the air, by the sun. The knowledge of
these objects, with all their means of favor or annoy-
ance, and the superadded knowledge of all the other ob-


HORTICULTURE. 153
jects and means by which the effects of these, so far as
they are good, may be promoted, and so far as they are
evil, may be prevented, should be embraced within the
scope of his acquirements. The science of Horticulture,
therefore, does not merely admit, it demands, excites,
and favors the most extensive and diversified intel-
lectual attainments. *
But it has pleasures to bestow which amply repay all
its demands both upon the mind and body.
It gratifies all the senses.
The feeling is gratified by its smooth walks, its soft
banks, the touch of many of its leaves, and fruits, and
flowers, and by the refreshing coolness of its shades.
The smell is agreeably excited from unnumbered
sources, – from the lowliest pot-herb to the stateliest
tree; from the humble violet and mignonnette to the
splendid tulip and queenly rose, – a garden is the un-
rivalled repository of fragrance.
The gratification of the ear in a garden is adventi-
tious, not of man’s procurement, but nevertheless cer-
tain and real. The most tasteful of its animal creation,
in their flight from one end of the earth to the other,
discover no spot so alluring to them as a well-replen-
ished garden. The birds are fond of its shade, its
flowers, and its fruits. Amidst these they love to
build their nests, rear their young, and first win them
to that element which seems created to be their pecu-
liar field of joy. And if they sometimes commit un-"
Welcome inroads upon the delicacies which we prize,
they more than compensate us by their cheerful and
continual songs, and by destroying innumerable insects
and more dangerous intruders in the air, in the trees,
mpon the plants, and on the ground.


154 sº MYIRON IHOLLEY.
The taste finds its choicest regalement in the garden,
in its sweet roots, its crisp and tender salads, its nutri-
tious and acceptable pulse, its pungent and salutary
condiments, its fragrant and delicious fruits, with a
Countless list of other palatable productions, all exist-
ing in such inexhaustible variety that the art of cookery
takes more than half its subjects from that overflowing
storehouse.
But the eye delights in a garden, as if all its labors,
its cares, and its knowledge had been dedicated to that
single sense. From every quarter, and border, and
arbor; from every bank, and walk, and plant, and
shrub, and tree, and every combination of groups,
spring forms of beauty, natural though cultivated, in-
nocent though gay.
Horticulture gratifies the higher faculties of our
nature, the intellectual taste, the reason and the heart.



ANTI-MASONRY. 155
CHAPTER XVIII.
ANTI-MASONRY.
HAD Mr. Holley, when he retired from public
service, consulted his own personal tastes, the
home, the garden, and the education of his chil_
dren would have absorbed the rest of his life.
But two great social questions were at the door.
No man more than he was qualified to answer.
One of these questions concerned the social value of
the institution of Free Masonry. It is recorded of
this institution in the State of New York, in the His-
tory of Ontario County, page 63: “The order in
1826 numbered in the state 360 lodges and 22,000
members. Ten years later, and the lodges were 75
and the members 4,000.” A similar shrinkage,
though perhaps in a lower ratio, occurred in other
states, within the same period. No subject, ex-
cept that of slavery, has ever produced intenser
excitement in this country than broke out in regard
to Free Masonry in Central New York in 1826,
and prevailed for ten years. Mr. Holley, though



156 MYRON HOLLEY.
never himself a mason, had family connections
and political friends who were. If any good grew
Out of that excitement, and probably the opinion
that much did is now as strong inside of masonic
lodges as outside,--to no one man is it due more
than to Mr. Holley. The lesson to mankind,
which reformed, if it did not extinguish, the order,
was, in its most impressive shape, his. It was
delivered with disinterestedness, dignity, and
masterly force. Justice cannot be done to his
character and acts in this behalf without some
detail of the facts. Though he was not a mason
himself, the husband of one of his daughters was.
The order everywhere embraced men of the high-
est respectability, with whom he had been intimate
in public life. Therefore, when it was said in 1826
that a large number of masons had together commit-
ted a crime, the highest known to the law, and the
order justified it, he was not one of the first to
believe it. It was not till he clearly saw, to his
astonishment, that the courts of justice were ob-
structed and overawed, that he applied his mind
to the study of the facts and the character of the
institution. And the moment he had reached a
firm conclusion, he did not confer with flesh and
blood. Masonry became, in his mind, a thing
... . . .”.” - . . . . . ." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .”. - ºf ". . . . . .
* “... ......” . . . . . .



ANTI-MASONRY. 157
which had no right to exist, and he gave his
reasons on every fitting occasion, at any sacrifice
of his personal comfort.
Of course this was very natural. For a man
to whom the family was the focus of human hap-
piness, and justice the vital principle of human
society, any institution which segregated a body
of men from the rest of the world, including the
wives and daughters of their own families, under
oaths of secresy, backed by horrible penalties,
could have no attractions. He never had any
time or taste for anything of that sort. But when
it became plain that such an institution could be
used and had been used, not only against the fam-
ily, but against free government, he became its
uncompromising enemy.
In the ten years’ excitement about Free Masonry
its history was thoroughly scanned. Some of the
ablest scholars were engaged in the search. All
the records of the past were ransacked, from the
remotest times down, by those who were inter-
ested to confirm its pretensions to a venerable
antiquity, as well as by those who were willing to
overthrow them. Not the faintest ray of any his–
torical document or monument could be found to
sustain these pretensions back of 1717. In that


158 MYRON HOLLEY.
year, at the Apple Tree Inn, in London, some in-
genious romancers set up the institution, with its
Odd rituals, secret grips, monstrous Oaths, pro-
fessions of philanthropy, sanctity, and hoary
antiquity. And as the glory of Solomon and his
marvellous temple was then unquestioned, every-
body was ready enough to believe anything which
apparently added to it. The pretended masonic
history seemed to confirm the sacred. The sacred
history certainly does not confirm the masonic, but
in these days has too much need of confirmation
itself. The most thorough and painstaking exca-
vations have revealed nothing of a temple existing
before that which Titus destroyed. And if it did,
and revealed the dimensions described in the
sacred writings of the Jews, it is difficult now to
believe that 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep were
sacrificed in it in the fourteen days of the dedica-
tion. The building was not large enough, even
if furnished with modern machinery. Solomon
seems to have had enough to do in providing en-
tertainment for a fabulous amount of female
society, without founding lodges exclusively of
males, in which to go through those not very
amusing ceremonies described by William Morgan.
Incredible as now it may seem, Free Masonry


ANTI-MASONRY. 159
spread rapidly in Europe. It had certain social
advantages, mutual aid, a resource against peril
among strangers. The lodge was a convenient
midus, in which to hatch plans of resistance to
ecclesiastical or political persecution. In America,
it enjoyed considerable popularity before the revo-
lution, as a benevolent and patriotic institution,
and it did not conflict with ecclesiastical domina-
tion, because it professed profound respect for the
Bible as a divine revelation. A number of the
leaders of the revolution, as Washington and La-
fayette, were, or rather had been, brothers of the
“mystic tie.” But plainly enough, the institution
could not have had any weight to throw in favor
of the separation of these colonies from the
mother country, if it did not weigh against it.
It was only too weak, if it had wished, to prevent
a separation, when justice required it. During
the revolution it flourished considerably in the
American army, and had movable lodges. Gen.
Henry Sewall, during the anti-masonic excitement,
said he was induced to join that he might fare
better in case he should be made a prisoner. Its
chief use seems to have been to relieve the tedium
of long intervals of inaction.
At a later period, after the war of 1812, Free




160 MYTON HOLLEY.
Masonry began to grow rapidly, and developed
political significance, especially to those who were
watchful observers, in regard to minor offices.
Doubtless it was this feature which led to its
trouble. The Secresy of the order was the more
precious, and the more jealously to be guarded,
the more it had political aims. That it had such
aims not only turned out to be the fact, but it was
indiscreet enough in the person of one of its ora-
tors, W. F. Brainard, Esq., of New London, Ct.,
to boast of it. An oration which he delivered,
June 24, 1825, in that place, has this remarkable
passage, which does not seem to have attracted
any notice or comment till after the abduction and
murder of Morgan in the year following.
“ What is Masonry now? It is powerful.
It comprises men of rank, wealth, office and
talent, in power and out of power; and that
in almost every place where power is of any
importance; and it comprises among other
classes of the community, to the lowest, in
large numbers, active men, united together,
and capable of being directed by others, so as
to have the force of concert throughout the
civilized world! They are distributed, too,


ANTI-MASONIRY. 161
with the means of knowing one another, and
the means of keeping secret, and the means
of co-operating, in the desk; in the legislative
hall; on the bench; in every gathering of
business; in every party of pleasure; in
every enterprise of government; in every
domestic circle; in peace and in war; among
enemies and friends; in one place as well as
Žn another! So powerful, indeed, is it at
this time, that it fears nothing from violence,
either public or private; for it has every
means to learn it in Season, to counteract,
defeat and punish it.”
When it became known the next year that a
band of Masons had assumed powers belonging
only to ministers of the law, had bound a man,
confined him in a government fortress and put
him out of sight, then it was discovered that
Orator Brainard was only describing an accom-
plished fact. All the courts of Western New
York were completely in the hands of the masonic
fraternity, and bound by extra-judicial oaths not
to do justice.
It is of no consequence to the present narrative

162 MYRON HOLLEY.
what the motives of William Morgan were in pub-
lishing the secrets for which he was put to death.
Whether he was patriotic or not, his act resulted
in a most fortunate deliverance for his country.
Free Masonry deserved its punishment, if a
republic deserves to exist. About all of Free
Masonry that exists now is the name, which is not
objectionable. There must be clubs, cliques and
coteries, for people who do not fit elsewhere, or
for whom the actual world is unfit. But they
must not govern the whole. -
Secresy is good in the right place and for
honorable purposes. But it becomes a crime
when it shields crime from justice. For publish-
ing secrets, some of which were criminal, Morgan
was secretly murdered — secretly in regard to the
outside world, but not to the masonic world. To
the free-masons, for at least fifty miles on every
side, Morgan's destruction was deliberately pre-
determined, none dissenting, if all did not consent.
There was no form of trial. It was a foregone
conclusion that he must die. The Only delibera-
tion or hesitation was as to the best method of
effecting the murder so as to conceal it from the
public, and here in the multitude of counsellors
the free-masons supposed there was safety. In



ANTI-MASONRY. 163
the darkness of night, as is now known beyond
doubt, they dropped him into Lake Ontario with
a weight attached, and reported he had fled to
Canada. The executioners fled, and were Sup-
ported by the money of the order beyond the
reach of the ministers of public justice, if the
latter should ever come to suspect who they were.
But it was all in vain. In fact, the concealment
was overdone.
In spite of the combined efforts of hundreds of
free-masons to suppress the revelation, even by
setting fire to the office where the printing was
going on, and abducting and murdering its author,
the little pamphlet got into existence and silently
spoke to the living after the lips of its author
were sealed in death at the bottom of Lake
Ontario. It professed to give the silly rites and
execrable oaths of the first three degrees, which
was the whole of the writer's masonic experience.
Masons, high and low, were either ominously
silent, or sneered at the thing as a sham, unworthy
of the slightest attention. But wise men like
Myron Holley, who had never been inside a lodge,
began to ponder. One thing was certain, Morgan
was not to be found. That fact became every day
more important. Mr. Holley had a distinguished

164 MYIRON HOLLEY.
son-in-law who was a free-mason. The father-in-
law was proud of him. His best friend in his
great canal enterprise, De Witt Clinton, had been
a free-mason. Free-masons were all around him
in the highest ranks of life. He was not the man
to accuse them of participation in such a crime,
but he could ask them,--why, if Morgan is any-
where in this world alive, your order being
co-extensive with the world, don't you produce
him, and quiet this terrible excitement? If this
revelation of his is of no consequence, why should
you not show that you so regard it by bringing
him back to his family P. At any rate, if he has
not been murdered, why do you not bestir your-
selves to let the public know what has really
become of him 2 But they did not.
The excitement grew more and more intense.
It blazed up in every family in Western New
York. It burned into the adjoining states. In
spite of the united efforts of masons everywhere to
smother it under wet blankets, it continued to
spread. Presently masons of the most respectable
character began to confess the truth of Morgan's
disclosures and abandon the order. This was the
inevitable result of the outside investigations
which in not many months ascertained beyond a

ANTI-MASONIRY. - 165
reasonable doubt the names of more than a score
of persons actively concerned in the abduction and
incarceration of Morgan. Many of these were
persons who had been highly respected. They
were all, without a single exception, masons.
On the 9th of February, 1828, an encampment
of Knights Templars at Leroy, N. Y., after a
protracted struggle between members who ap-
proved and disapproved the Morgan outrage,
resolved by a majority to disclose all the secrets
and diabolical oaths known to them, and this
included twelve degrees of masonry beyond those
revealed by Morgan. In the July following,
these were published, with eighteen more added,
making thirty-three in all. In 1829 a very able
committee, including the names of Samuel Weeks,
Harvey Ely and Thurlow Weed, reported to a •
State Convention assembled at Albany, “ More
than four hundred initiates, within our own State,
including members of every degree, from the
Entered Apprentice to the Thrice Illustrious
Knights of the Holy Trinity, have publicly
renounced the institution. Thousands have silent-
ly withdrawn.” It was thus demonstrated beyond
any possibility of contradiction or doubt, that the
fraternity were bound by oaths from the top to



166 MYIRON IIOLLEY.
the bottom, not only to do in any similar case
what had been done to Morgan, but to screen
from punishment any crime committed by a
mason, not excepting, in some of the degrees,
Murder and Treason. It was found that bribery
and counterfeiting had been thus screened to an
enormous extent. At every step upward into the
high-sounding degrees the oaths grew more and
more horrible, which accounted for the fact that
so many of the best of men had stopped before
ascending very high.
The address of this convention to the people
of the State of New York was the work of Myron
Holley. The following paragraphs will show its
force and spirit :
Fellow Citizens, – A great crisis has occurred in our
social condition. The peace of this community has
been extensively disturbed, the domestic security of its
citizens openly violated, their property unlawfully in-
vaded, and the life of one of them, without doubt,
feloniously destroyed. And these calamitous events
have proceeded from a source which threatens Our most
valuable institutions, and all those possessions which
make life desirable.
We will not disguise the painful conviction of our
minds, and we cannot suppress it, that We are com-
mencing a course of action, which will necessarily bring
with it much disquietude and distress. The intercourse


ANTI-MASONTRY. 167
of business will be obstructed, the laudable associations
of neighborhoods will be convulsed, and many of the
best sympathies of our nature will be violently turned
away from their customary channels. Such a course
of action should not be commenced for slight or transient
causes. Nothing which does not affect the essence of
our freedom, and which does not manifest itself in the
most decisive and solemn forms, can justify it. But
when the public peace, our domestic safety, Our prop-
erty, our life, our reputation, our equal rights as citi-
zens, are all assailed, by the concerted action of nu-
merous, wealthy, intelligent and powerful bodies of men;
and the regular operation of our constituted authori-
ties is found unable to protect us, then, it is equally be-
coming to our minds and hearts, to our self-respect
and the most cherished interests of human liberty, that
we should protect ourselves, whatever evils may ensue.
The address then goes on to state succinctly
the circumstances of the abduction and the way
the free-masons concealed and protected the per-
petrators, – closing as follows, after recommend-
ing political action :
“To this resort we are summoned by every fear and
every hope which can affect the souls of free men. Our
country appeals to us to make this effort in a cause as
sacred and high as any that ever was promoted by
human means; and by all the sorrows and joys, by all
the proudest blessings, vaunted recollections, and exult-
ing anticipations, of our social condition. And let us
not fear the charge of too much ‘ excitement.’ In



168 MYRON Holley.
Such a cause, excitement brings blame only to those
with whom it is weak or wavering. What individual
has ever satisfied himself in a good cause, without ex-
citement 2 What nation has ever wrested its liberties
from the grasp of tyranny without excitement?
Whence Originate the purest virtues, and the most ex-
alted achievements, of created intelligences but from
powerful excitement? The strongest love of justice,
the quickest indignation at Wrong, and the most impas-
sioned admiration of beneficence are the appropriate
signatures of a superior nature ; but these are only
other names for high excitement. And such excite-
ment the cause we are engaged in both requires and
sanctifies.”
The Anti-Masonic movement culminated in a
National Convention, held in Philadelphia, on
the 11th of September, 1830, on the recom-
mendation of this State Convention, held in Al-
bany. Eleven States were represented by 112
self-elected delegates, eleven of whom were
seceding masons, some of high degree. Among
these delegates were such men as Pliny Merrick
and Amasa Walker, of Massachusetts; Nathaniel
Terry, Zalmon Storrs and John M. Holley, of
Connecticut; Henry Dana Ward, Francis
Granger, William II. Seward and Myron Holley,
of New York; Thaddeus Stevens, Joseph Ritner,
and Harmar Denny, of Pennsylvania; William



ANTI-MASONRY. 169
Slade, of Vermont; Frederick Wadsworth, of
Ohio; and Ellison Conger, of N. J. That con-
vention put forth an " ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE
of THE UNITED STATEs,” from the pen of Myron
Holley, and signed by the 112 delegates. It was
like the appearance of a disciplined and invulner-
able police force in the face of an unarmed mob.
It won a victory without striking a blow. Mason-
ry saw by that address, that Anti-Masonry had
made up its mind to carry the war into politics,
and that its only chance of saving even its name
was by backing out of politics. And it did back
out. Never since that has any political party
dared to build a hope on the masonic character of
a candidate. Lodges simply courted oblivion.
Any unprejudiced person has only to peruse that
overwhelming address to see that its grand idea
triumphed in its utterance, though for some years
an anti-masonic organization was kept up to show
that anti-masons were in earnest.
In 1828, though the anti-masons had no pro-
spect of a majority in the state for the choice of
Governor, as neither party would put up a candi-
date opposed to masonry, they voted to a con-
siderable extent for a candidate of their own.
The vote stood for Governor :


170 MYRON HOLLEY.
Democratic, . Martin Van Buren, 136,794
Whig, . . . . Smith Thompson, 106,444
Anti-Masonic, Solomon Southwick, 33,345
In 1830, both the leading parties professedly
ignored masonry as an issue, but the Whig party
had the wisdom to select for its candidate a de-
clared anti-mason, while his democratic rival was
supposed to be neutral. This in effect made the
Whig and Anti-Masonic parties identical, though
nominally the anti-masons had a candidate in the
field. The vote stood : -
Democratic, . . Enos T. Throop, 128,842
Whig & Anti-M., Francis Granger, 120,861
Anti-Masonic, . Ezekiel Williams, 2,332
The reduction of the aggregate vote nearly ten
per cent. from the previous election must be ac-
counted for by the large number of democrats
who had renounced masonry, but were not ready
to join their old opponents, the Whigs, or condemn
their past by joining the anti-masons. Doubtless
more than 20,000 voters felt the stunning blow of
the Philadelphia Convention and were not in a
mental condition to vote at all. By 1832 the
local excitement had somewhat subsided and
national politics resumed sway. William L.


ANTI-MASONRY. 171
Marcy as democratic candidate for Governor re-
ceived 166,410 votes, and Francis Granger, ab-
sorbing all the anti-masonic votes, received 156,-
572. In 1834, the year of the anti-abolition
mobs of New York, a new question began to
loom up, which so far as it then affected politics
at all, tended to strengthen the democratic — or
rather undemocratic — party. That year William
L. Marcy had 181,905 votes for Governor, and
William H. Seward, a Whig, and also decided
anti-mason, had 168,969. In 1836, the Whigs
committed the mistake of dropping Seward and
taking up Jesse Buel, an inoffensive sort of man
who did not satisfy the strong anti-masons, so
that Gov. Marcy walked over the course. The
vote for 1836 stood :
Democratic, . Wm. L. Marcy, . 166,122
Whig, . . Jesse Buel, . . 136,648
Anti-Masonic, Isaac S. Smith, . 3,496
In 1838 the Whig politicians of New York were
astute enough to see that Seward's opposition to
masonic government and leaning towards abolition-
ism, were not obstacles in the way of his being Gov-
ernor of New York, and he was elected by a vote of
192,828, against 182,461 for Marcy. This was
substantially the final victory of the anti-masonic



172 MYRON HOLLEY.
principle. After that another question took the
field. The growth of the popular movement
against Secret political organizations and extra-
judicial oaths, is pretty well indicated by the fol-
lowing growth of gubernatorial Votes : —
1828, . . . . . 33,345
1830, . . . . . . 123,193
1832, . . . . . 156,572
1834, . . . . . 168,969
1836, . . . . . 140,144
1838, . . . . . 192,882
Throughout the whole of this anti-masonic war,
while alive to all the interests of peace and social
progress, Mr. Holley was in the thickest of the
fight. It has been already said that he was the
author of its most effective manifesto. It has
been well said, in praise of Daniel Webster,
that he won his cases by the clearness of his
statement. Mr. Holley’s statements of fact
were in the highest degree clear, Websterian,
and judicial ; and when he had convinced the un-
derstanding he warmed the heart. While he
denounced the institution, he was tender towards
its victims. Of its members he said: “A large
proportion cherish no part of the spirit of the in-
stitution. Invited to join, by its lofty preten-


ANTI-MASONRY. 173
sions, in early life they entered its threshold.
And though disgusted at every step, for the pur-
pose of understanding an institution which they
had once consented to enter, they suffered them-
selves to be raised to the second or third degree.
Nothing could induce them to go further. Such
were most of the masons whose illustrious names
have been so often abusively and boastfully ar-
rayed to shield the institution from the consuming
reprobation now everywhere provoked against it,
in unprejudiced minds, by its full and accurate
exposure. These men in the bottom of their souls
have all renounced it.”
Most striking confirmations of the truth of this
were brought out during the anti-masonic ex-
citement, including such men as Chief-Justice
Marshall.” The national address of 1830, in a
* The following is an extract of the touching letter of Chief
Justice Marshall to Edward Everett, dated Richmond, July
22, 1833. He had not attended a lodge for thirty or forty
years : —
“I thought it, however, a harmless play-thing, which would
live its hour and pass away, until the murder or abstraction
of Morgan was brought before the public, - that atrocious
crime, and I had almost said, the still more atrocious Sup-
pression of the testimony concerning it, demonstrated the
abuse, of which the oaths prescribed by the order were sus-
ceptible, and convinced me that the institution ought to be
abandoned as one capable of producing much evil, and inca-
pable of producing any good, which might not be effected by
safe and open means.”


174 MYRON HOLLEY.
masterly way, goes over all the means by which
the republic might expect to relieve itself of this
tyrannous “Old Man of the Sea,” which had fast-
ened himself upon its shoulders, and comes to the
conclusion that they reside in the elective power
reserved to the people themselves. “In the first
address of Mr. Jefferson, as President of the
United States,” says Mr. Holley, he denominates
‘the right of election by the people a mild and safe
correction of abuses, which are lopped by the
sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are
unprovided.’ This is the only adequate correc-
tive of freemasonry, - that prolific source of the
worst abuses. And to this we must resort.”
His final appeal to the hearts of the people of
the United States is as follows : —
“FELLOw-CITIZENS, - Are we called to be anti-ma-
sons by the best feelings of our natures? Are Our
objects the highest that can affect the civil character?
Are our means the most approved and indispensable?
Unite with us, – not for Our SakeS, but your OWn.
Aid us in working out the redemption of our country
from free-masonry. We are misrepresented and cal-
umniated, as the chief public means of defeating the
cause we have espoused. Examine by whom and
inquire into their motives. Be not deceived. If
individuals among us are in fault through ignorance,
or passion, or interest, or profligacy, refuse them your



ANTI-MASONRY. 175
confidence. But do not, therefore, betray your rights,
and those of your country ; nor let those beguile you
into their support who prefer secrecy to publicity, and
free-masonry to republicanism. We are for practical,
peaceable, and most necessary reform, - not for des-
truction, but for the establishment of right. Freedom,
in every beneficial sense, is the soul of anti-masonry.
Further revelations of the ceremonies and principles
of free-masonry are not required, for these are perfectly
exposed ; and the exposition is so confirmed as to be in-
capable of material modification. It will go down to pos-
terity among the undoubted records of imposture and
guilt. But we cannot suppress our anxiety to commend
our cause to the decided confidence and active support
of all nominal members of the fraternity. Among such
there are many who have long possessed, and who still
possess, our high esteem, and to whom we are attached
by bonds of the most inseparable and holy brotherhood,
those of a common nature, common Wants, and a com-
mon destiny. We earnestly invite them to come out,
with us, in defence of our common interests. Our course
has been adopted after diligent inquiry into facts, and
an honest comparison of free-masonry with the first
principles of civil order ; and we have no misgiv-
ings. We respectfully suggest to them similar compar-
ison and inquiry. In proportion as men do this we find
our numbers increasing ; and knowing the inquisitive
character of the people of the United States, it is
scarcely more in our power than it is in our wish to ex-
clude the anticipation of success. We know free-ma-
sonry cannot meet with their deliberate approval.
When it was least suspected of evil, and highest in its
harlequin attractions; when that holiness to the Lord,


176 MYRON HOLLEY.
which is inscribed upon its gaudy garniture, and that
charity with which its dark chambers are labelled, had
not been publicly detected as wholly counterfeit, — we
know it was not a subject of their complacent regard.
Shall the crimes with which now it is ineffaceably
blasted, and the pertinacity with which it justifies them
pass without their condemnation and rebuke 2 Shall
that abuse of their confidence, which first brought their
names in connection with the mountebank retainers of
the order, be an argument for sustaining the mounte-
banks, when their party colored garmerits are seen
dripping with the blood of the innocent, and we per-
ceive their power to strike away all the pledges of Our
common safety 2 -
We know that the private opinions of Such members
will concur with ours. We beseech them to concur
with us in giving to those opinions a public and decided
expression ; for that will make them effectual to the
only end we have at heart, the overthrow of free-ma-
sonry. We want not, and we expect not, the aid of
the sinister, or dissolute, the slaves of Office, of preju-
dice, of vice, or of faction ; but we anxiously covet the
association of all who are willing, on all occasions, and
at all times, through evil report and through good re-
port, to contend for the great interests of truth, and jus-
tice, and freedom, and that security intended to be
conferred upon these interests by our laws and consti-
tutions. With such we are proud to labor, and, if need
be, willing to suffer, for we shall not labor and suffer in
vain. But we perceive on all sides the presages of our
success in the unspeakable importance of our cause ; in
the intelligence and self-respect of our fellow-citizens;
in the peaceable and just means with which alone wo



ANTI-MASONRY. 177
mean to promote it; in the favoring sympathies of the
enlightened and wise of every name and clime ; and in
the undergoing, insuppressive, and inspiring hope with
which we may seek for it the protection of that Great
Being in whose hands are all the allotments of nations,
and whose law is that of perfect liberty.”
Myron Holley had been induced to take this
decided and uncompromising position of making
anti-masonry a permanent political issue by two
things, his love of the family and his love of free
government. The latter object of love was for
the sake of the former. Yet a man whose strong-
est affection is for his family, has sometimes to
sacrifice his own domestic interests, for the inter-
ests of that government which is the best pro-
tector of all domestic interests. The scant and
tardy justice accorded to Mr. Holley’s claim after
long and expensive attendance on the legislature
did not leave him the means of supporting a large
family and at the same time doing what the anti-
masonic exigency required the ablest man to do.
His little property was all in real estate, in Lyons
and Rochester. As early as 1829 he was strait-
ened for money. His oldest daughter, Caroline,
was married to Graham H. Chapin, a lawyer orig-
inally from Salisbury, Ct., and settled near him
in Lyons, His next daughter, Clarissa, for whom


178 MYRON HOLLEY,
his pet name was Tatty, had just been married to
Dr. A. L. Beaumont, and was settled in Pennsyl-,
vania. Neither of these gentlemen seem to have
favored the anti-masonic side of the great and bit-
ter controversy. Dr. Beaumont, who was in easy
circumstances, offered in 1829 to loan his father-
in-law $1,000, which he seems to have much
needed. It is highly characteristic of Mr. Holley
that while thanking his son-in-law for this offer,
he says, “I answer your letter with a pleasure,
which I should express with greater energy and
more in detail, were it not that in consequence of
your intention to oblige me with the loan of
$1,000, such expression would wear a little too
much the appearance of being purchased by the
loan. Money is good, for the important uses to
which it may be applied, in all the debt and credit
business of life ; and honesty requires that money
obligations should always be justly remembered
and faithfully discharged.” IIc then proceeds to
detail to his son-in-law things not to be purchased,
proposes to secure the loan by a mortgage on his
Rochester land, and says, “On the subject of those
political distinctions, which have been alluded to
in our correspondence, though my convictions are
perfectly decided, and my conduct will correspond

ANTI-MASONRY. 179-
with them, yet they contemplate nothing of per-
secution. They appear to me to rest upon the
imperious necessity of defending great funda-
mental principles upon the preservation of which
the prosperity of all depends. And I earnestly
hope and confidently believe, that all political
array, in their behalf, will soon be rendered un-
necessary, by their universal adoption and prac-
tical acknowledgment. I pray for this daily, for
I have no political ambition, and have objects
other than political, to which I should be glad to
devote myself exclusively.” By that time the
masonic fraternity were raising throughout the
country the cry of “persecution,” and “political
ambition” against all, whether seceding masons
or outsiders, who were striving to rescue the
country from their almost established domination.
And they found powerful support in this, outside
the lodges. Their tactics failed, as they well
deserved to. It is probably true that Mr. Hol-
ley's sons-in-law lived to be proud of the course
from which they would have dissuaded him. His
daughters now alive must surely be proud of it.
After this letter of Dr. Beaumont came the
great address to the people of the United States,
already quoted from.

180 MYIRON HOLLEY.
One effect of this address and the published
proceedings of the exceedingly able Philadelphia
Convention was to produce a sort of alliance, or
co-operation, of the masonic and ecclesiastical
influences in central New York. Religious re-
vivals, among the various sects, had been com-
mon in that region from the first settlement.
Protracted meetings to promote them had become
an established fashion among the Baptists, Con-
gregationalists and Presbyterians, as well as the
Methodists. The churches and the lodges, much
as they seemed to differ, had one thing in com-
mon — the male element grasped all the power.
The lodge would not trust a woman with a secret,
the church would not allow her to open her lips
as a religious teacher. It is hard to tell which
held her, practically, in the greatest contempt.
A large number of the leading preachers, of vari-
ous sects, were free-masons, and by no means
all of them withdrew on the exposure of the
shameful and criminal secrets. On the contrary,
without admitting there was anything wrong in
the mysterious order, they applied themselves
more sedulously than ever to the cultivation of
fanatical religion and the upbuilding of the
churches. To get up a counter popular excite-



ANTI-MASONRY. 181
ment was the best, if not the only, means of
escaping from that which threatened to sweep
the very name of freemasonry from the face of
the earth. That diversion was in some degree
successful.
Mr. Holley wrote his first letter to his fourth
daughter, Sally, or Sallie, as she herself spells
her name, while on a visit to his birthplace, in the
winter of 1830. She was then at home in Lyons,
and young enough to have him say in a postscript
at the end of a long letter, “If there are any
words in this letter which you do not exactly
understand, get a dictionary and look them out,
and so learn and remember the definitions of
them.”
She is the Sallie Holley, who since the anti-
slavery war, has been so well known as one of
the teachers of the school at Lottsburgh, Va. In
Jan., 1831, she was attending the boarding
school of a Miss Thurston in Lyons. Her father
took the liveliest interest in her education, both
intellectual and moral, as if conscious of the
peculiar in portance of her future — as if he
foresaw the model school at Lottsburgh.
One day there occurred in Miss Thurston’s
school a scene which aroused the deepest indig-


182 MYRON HOLLEY.
nation of Mr. Holley’s soul. It was not an un-
common Occurrence at that day, and is doubtless
in some places repeated in our day, without any
reprobation of parents, the newspaper press, or
the secular authorities. The revivalists invaded
the schoolroom — but Mr. Holley himself shall
state the facts. They are here copied from his
eight-page foolscap letter, closely written, to Miss
C. Thurston, dated Lyons, Jan. 31, 1831, and
containing nearly as long and as able a sermon as
ever was preached on religious education.
After politely disclaiming any intention of tres-
passing on “the delicacy due to her sex,” Mr.
Holley thus states his grievance : —
º
“My daughter informs me that in place of the usual
exercises, at your school on Saturday last, the whole
time, till noon, was consumed in prayer to God, and in
solemn conversation with the Scholars, in respect to
their hopes of eternal salvation, — that soon after the
school hour arrived, the Hon. David Eddy, of a remote
town in this county, and Mr. Newell Taft, of this vil-
lage, came into the schoolroom and partook with your-
self and one of your larger scholars in leading these
exercises, – that in addition to their prayers with the
interesting family of your pupils, one or both of these
gentlemen put such questions and made such quotations
as the following to them, one by one : “Do you think
you have got religion?’ ‘Do you hope to be saved?'



^ ANTI-MASONRY. 183
‘Will you renounce all the vanities of life, the idle
talk, the amusements and pleasures, of this world, and
love Christ?’ ‘The bible says, “He that believeth
shall be saved, but be that believeth not shall be
damned,”’ — that the effect of these exercises upon
your pupils was, to produce much fear and many
tears, – that all the children wept a great deal — that
one little girl, when she was questioned, cried out, ‘O,
take me home, I want to go home,’ — that when you
were asked by one of your pupils if she should not
recite her lesson in philosophy, you put the question to
her, whether she felt more concerned about her philos-
Ophy, than she did about the salvation of her soul?—
that neither she, nor any other of your pupils, during
the whole forenoon, attended at all to their usual stud-
ies and recitations — and that, before the school was
dismissed, you invited them all to attend a prayer-meet-
ing the same afternoon.
“This account is only a specimen, not a complete
statement.” -
Mr. Holley, it is to be understood, while reject-
ing certain theological dogmas, was a decided the-
ist and Christian, in a moral sense. He did not
object to prayer — wrote prayers for his chil-
dren, and prayed himself — but did not believe
that souls could be saved by fear, or gloom or
asceticism. He objected to this course of con-
duct in Miss Thurston's school under three heads:
“1st. Because it was an abuse of prayer.



184 MYIRON HOLLEY.
“2d. Because it was an abuse of religion.
“3d. Because it was an immoral infringement
... 23
of my rights.
Page after page he gives sound reasons for
these positions — reasons that could be supported
by plenty of scripture texts — but which could
stand firm without them. What is more to the
purpose of this narrative, is his disposal of the
interference of Eddy and Taft, and it pungently
illustrates exactly what the various religious
bodies of to-day are doing with nearly all of
the secular schools, in their pretence of saving
souls:
“But the most offensive part of the transactions of
Saturday, to which I object, is the interference of Mr.
Eddy and Mr. Taft. These persons interrupted the
proceedings of your school, in a manner grossly incon-
sistent with my rights. You undertook to teach my
child certain branches of knowledge, in consideration
of which I undertook to pay you a certain sum of
money. While you were engaged fulfilling your under-
taking, these persons came in and altogether arrested
your customary instruction. They have injured me in
proportion to the value of that knowledge, which might
have been acquired during the interruption, and was
prevented from being acquired by it; and in proportion
to the perversion of the mind and feelings of my child,
arising from the injurious fears and pernicious senti-



ANTI-MASONRY. 185
ments, which they inculcated. If there is one right
connected with the paternal relation, more dear than
any, or than all others, it is that of protecting the mind
of a child from error and pollution. So dear, in this
case, is that right of mine, which has been invaded.
If these men came to your school and arrested the
order of its proceedings, and substituted a course of
their own, against your will, you can obtain a just
redress by resorting to the laws; and thus protect
yourself from similar intrusions, in future. If they
came, and conducted, according to your invitation and
request, much of the blame, it cannot be disguised, at-
taches to you. They had no right to visit your school,
except by your invitation. They are not competent to
teach children the branches of education, in which you
can well instruct them, and they are men of bad moral
character. If you invited them there, I have no doubt,
it was with good intentions, though I think it was very
indiscreet and neither has produced, nor will produce
anything but mischief. They would probably pretend
that they came there with good purposes. But I have
no confidence in the honesty of their pretensions.
Though they both pretend to be christians, they have
taken upon themselves obligations, the most anti-
christian, unprincipled and infamous. Publicly pro-
fessing subjection to that authority which says, ' Thou
shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
they have secretly, in a state of indecent nudity, with a
rope round their necks and a bandage over their eyes,
kneeling before a mock altar, laid their hands upon the
Open bible, with a square and compass upon it, to im-
part additional meaning to the ceremony, called upon

186 MYRON HOLLEY.
God to witness, that they always would ‘hail, ever con-
Ceal, and never reveal any part of the secrets of free-
masonry, which they had received, were about to
receive, or might thereafter be intrusted with,’ and to
the full performance of this promise they pledged their
lives, most unlawfully and immorally, to be taken, in
case of failure in the performance. I know you have
too much good sense and real piety, madam, not to be
shocked at the profanity and degradation of the name
of God and the bible involved in such a transaction.
You can also justly appreciate the crime, worse than
self-murder, committed by a moral agent, who volun-
tarily foregoes the use of his understanding, in relation
to the bearing of a proposition, and adopts it, when
such a proposition may require of him perjury, murder,
treason, and any other crime, and especially if he
pledges his life, without any mental reservation, equiv-
ocation or evasion of mind, to the adopted proposition,
and calls God to witness his pledge. These are but a
small part, and not the most profane and degrading, of
the masonic obligations, which have been taken by the
men in question.
“It is well known that these oaths and others of
an equally infamous character, have actually led free-
masons, of as good repute before, as either Mr. Eddy
or Mr. Taft, feloniously to steal a free citizen, and
murder him ; and then to array themselves against the
laws of the land, and the safety of the state, so as
effectually to prevent, for the most part, their judicial
and just punishment. Some of these manstealers, if
not the murderers, are well known to Mr. Eddy and
Mr. Taft, whose moral characters are nevertheless So

ANTI-MASONRY. 187
low, that they have not yet publicly and openly re-
nounced a masonic connection with them. Can men be
sincere Christians, and come out and renounce the
world, and teach little children to renounce the inno-
cent amusements, and the rational pleasures of life, who
yet refuse to renounce a selfish and corrupt association,
which they know retains in its embrace notorious per-
jurers and convicted kidnappers? Such men are not
worthy of respect, while they are so stupid and so
wicked as to live in sins of so deep a dye, as are im-
plicated in the oaths and conduct above alluded to,
though we may compassionate their blindness, and la-
ment their iniquity, we must guard Ourselves against
the contamination of their society. While they remain
in such a state, Christian charity can only weep over
the increasing depths of guilt into which they plunge
themselves by professing a tenderness for their own
souls, or the souls of others, exhort them to a thorough
application of the most searching self-examination, with
a view to the most mighty efforts of which they may be
capable to raise themselves from the horrible pit and
miry clay into which they are fallen, and commend
them in our prayers to the mercy of God.
“Having thus expressed myself with decision and
plainness, upon what I consider the injury I have re-
ceived, and the impropriety which occurred in your
school on Saturday, permit me to conclude by saying
that I can easily forget all the concern you have had in
them ; and if you intend to conduct your school here-
after, with the same attention to the several branches
of human knowledge, by which it has heretofore been
characterized, and without drawing into it religious

188 MYRON PHOLLEY.
fear, or gloom, or grief, I shall cheerfully continue to
send my daughter to you. Wishing you every blessing
in this life and that which is to come, I am in all char-
ity and with much esteem,
“Your very obedient,
“MYRON HOLLEY.”
It is not to be wondered at that after this ex-
perience of the affinity between the masonic and
the ecclesiastical fraternity, there succeeded four
years of editorial labor, in which he directed his
energies, in a large measure, but not exclusively,
against the masonic institution and its iniquitous
oaths as the most vulnerable point of the allied
forces of social evil. His first editorial engage-
ment was in conducting the “LYONS COUNTRY-
MAN,” commencing on the 3d of May, 1831. The
files of that good-looking weekly periodical testify
to the fact that for about three years its sub-
scribers enjoyed better instruction than ordinarily
comes from either press or pulpit. No public or
domestic interest was neglected. The dignity
and courtesy with which he treated his adver-
saries were as conspicuous as his overwhelming
force of argument.
In his salutatory he formally stated one of his
objects to be the complete overthrow of free-


ANTI-MASONEY. - 189
masonry, and said: “While we muster in that
battle all the forces we can command, we shall by
no means forget the great interests in behalf of
which we wage it.”
In this opening of his editorial career, in 1831,
he laid down principles broad enough to justify
all that he did as a moral and political agitator in
the years of his life after free-masonry had ceased
to excite the apprehensions of patriots. He says,
and he grandly lived up to his promises: “We
will not, knowingly, cherish any illiberal senti-
ment, or take a single step, under the influence of
a persecuting spirit. There is not a human being
on earth to whom we bear ill-will. There are no
means of real good that we shall designingly op-
pose. We intend on all occasions which bring
them into question, to advocate the interests of
truth, of justice, of freedom, of knowledge, and
of benevolence; because we are thoroughly per-
suaded that these are our own personal interests,
and the interests of all others, and that they are
the indispensable means of all genuine social and
individual advancement.”
“We set up no claim to extraordinary exemp-
tion from errors of opinion, or mistakes of fact,
or prejudices of mind. But we will strive earn-



190 MYRON HOLLEY.
estly to divest ourselves of these, and we promise,
in no case, to pursue a purpose after we shall
learn that it has no better foundation than these
to rest upon. Feeling ourselves connected with
all human beings by strong and durable sympa-
thies, and rejoicing in the connection with all our
Soul, we mean to contend faithfully, in our lit-
tle sphere, for human improvement. We are
thoroughly convinced that the race to which we
belong can never be improved by inequality of
conventional privileges, by distinction of ranks,
by hereditary transmission of authority, or by any
factitious and lasting separation of individuals
from the common lot. Every institution, there-
fore, which embodies such inequality, distinction,
transmission, or separation, we most decidedly
reprobate, and will labor to overthrow. In these
labors may we not expect the concurrence of all
our free fellow-citizens 2 °
A man fighting free-masonry on these principles
must have been an immediate abolitionist, whether
he was conscious of it or not. The question had
only need to come up to have him side with the
friends of the largest liberty. He stood by labor
and the laborer, whether employed in agriculture
or the useful arts. He stood by literature and



ANTI-MASONRY. 191
science; by education, high and low, “solid, ex-
tensive, and universal.” “Feeling ourselves,” he
writes, “impelled by patriotism, by philanthropy,
by a proud remembrance of the immortal asserters
of our freedom, and by our farthest-reaching hopes,
to the grateful labor we shall, with zeal and con-
stancy, bestow our best efforts in behalf of such
an education.”
This newspaper was not a paying concern, and
as the two leading political parties were interested
to crush out the rising third party, and the mas-
sonic fraternity, so deeply rooted, was seconding
their efforts by the cry of “persecution,” and by
the parade of being exceedingly good and zealous
Christians, it was by no means wonderful that Mr.
Holley's editorial labors exhausted his pecuniary
resources. In 1833 his anti-masonic friends, of
his own Assembly district, nominated him for
their candidate to the Assembly. The politicians,
and especially those of the dominant “democratic "
barty, Were intensely frightened. To let a man of
his power of pen, and still more of voice, with his
grand integrity, into the Assembly, might revolu-
tionize the Empire State. If he were let alone
there was almost a certainty of his election.
Hence a grand battery of the basest calumny ever


192 MYRON HOLLEY.
known in our political history was trained and
opened upon him, - and of course, near enough
to the election day to prevent his reply from
taking much effect. The party organs raised the
old cry of “defaulter,” which the legislative jour-
mals and statute-book had silenced five years be-
fore, and laid the calumny in large print and with
every semblance of proof before overy voter of
the district. All that Mr. Holley could do was to
prepare a reply in the form of a broadsheet to be
posted on election day. The antidote would pro-
bably have conquered the poison if it had been
administered in season. But at the top of society
corruption had been going on — such as high poli-
ticians know too well how to practice — long be-
fore the stink-pots of Calumny were thrown. To
this it was due that some of Mr. Holley's trusted
friends, and even family connections, sided with his
enemies on this trying occasion. But the grand
pioneer of labor, civil and religious liberty, jus-
tice and humanity, did not wilt. His “poster”
for election day deserves to go down to posterity
to the latest generation, and I believe it will, for
the encouragement of all champions of the right
and honest voters against political chicanery.

ANTI-MASONRY. 193
One printed original, at least, of this interesting
document was preserved by Henry O'Reilly, Esq.,
of Rochester, a pioneer in the great telegraph
industry, with a view of placing it in the archives
of the New York Historical Society. While it.
was in his hands the following exact copy Was
made for this memoir : —
Do ME JUSTICE | |
I ask no man to support my nomination
against his conviction of duty. The sense
of duty is the most precious bestowment of
the Creator upon our rational nature. Let
it never be violated. But I ask to be pro-
tected from persecution — to be treated by
my honest fellow-citizens of all parties ac-
cording to the great rule of social justice.
And I ask no more. The last “Western
2
Argus,” in a postscript, accuses me of be-
ing a defaulter, and of defrauding the state
out of about $30,000; and heaps upon me
a multitude of defamatory epithets, which,
if they are truly applied, ought to deprive me
of all favor from the community. Are these
accusations and epithets truly applied?
In 1828 my accounts with the state were


194 MYIRON HOLLEY.
finally adjusted by the following act, entitled
“An act for settling the claims of Myron
Holley, late Canal Commissioner, passed
21st March, 1828 :
“The people of the State of New York,
represented in Senate and Assembly, do
enact as follows : that the Commissioners
of the Canal fund be directed to release to
Myron Holley, his heirs and assigns, all
the interest derived to the State from the
deed bearing date the 8th Decr., 1825, and
executed by Myron Holley, Wm. H. Adams,
John M. Holley, Mindwell P. Granger,
Erancis Granger, and John A. Granger ;
and to assign to the said Myron Holley all
the securities taken, and to pay to him all
the monies received on the sale of such
parts of the estate conveyed by said deed
to the said commissioners, as shall have been
sold : Provided the same shall be received
by the said Myron Holley in full satisfaction
and discharge of all his claims and demands
against the State.”
Previous to the passage of this Act the
commissioners of the canal fund had re-


ANTI-MASONEY. 195
quired of me the surrender to the state of
all my property, real and personal, including
in their rigor even the wearing apparel of
my wife and children. I had complied with
this requisition to the minutest particular.
and the persons named in the act, being, as
bail or otherwise, interested in the real pro-
perty, had joined me in conveying it. After
the conveyance the commissioners of the
canal fund had sold some of the property and
received payments and securities thereon,
and the legislature itself had restored to me
all my personal property. My bail were well
known to be abundantly responsible for any
deficiency in my means of accounting to the
state, and the property conveyed was of
considerable value. The state had given me
the appointment of canal commissioner. It
had the highest authority and the amplest
means to investigate and decide upon my
conduct under that appointment ; and with
full means in its possession, to enforce all
the claims of justice against me, it did in-
vestigate and decide upon it ; and by the
law above recited, it solemnly declared that

196 - MYRON HOLLEY.
I was not a defaulter in a single cent, and
Ordered, as you will see, the complete and
immediate restoration of my property. In
my claims upon the state, an humble indivi-
dual, opposed, slandered, and persecuted by
some leading politicians in every legislature
for four years, I stood, without wealth, with-
out the sympathetic favor of influential poli-
tical associates, without any means of
success, but such as clear justice and the
public character of the state afforded me,
and my rights prevailed. Was this a crime?
Did this success show that I was a default-
er? Did I defraud the State?
In the Senate my bill passed by a majority
of 20 vs. 4, including in the affirmative
the names of Benton, Dagan, Enos, Oliver,
Stebbins, Todd, Throop, and several others
belonging to the political majority of that
body ; in the Assembly it passed by a maj-
ority of 69 vs. 31, including in the affirma-
tive the names of Armstrong, Brinkerhoff,
Butler, Emmet, Hoffman, Livingston, Mon-
nell, Paige, Tallmadge, Westcott, and many
others belonging to the political majority of

ANTI-MLASONRY. 197
that body, and now most high in favor with
my political adversaries. If I defrauded the
state it must have been with the concur-
rence of these men! The charge is false.
Reflect upon it a moment and you will see it
is. It is uttered in the madness of mere
party denunciation. And by whom is it ut-
tered? By Chapin and Chapman, each of
whom has, before his criminal support of
free-masonry had been required, solemnly,
wnder his hand, asserted his belief in my
integrity, in reference to my whole conduct
as canal commissioner, and, by petitioning the
legislature in favor of an act like that above
recited, become a party to the fraud!! Delib-
erate inconsistencies always betray guilt.
The extracts in the “Argus’ are garbled,
and all, when corrected, admit of easy ex-
planation; but it would be too long to
explain them all now. In the last report
made by the legislature, respecting my
claims, the very able chairman of the com-
mittee from whom it came, Mr. Paige, of
Schenectady, then and now a decided friend
of Gen. Jackson and Mr. Van Buren, says:

198 MYRON HOLLEY.
“The claim of Mr. Holley has already un-
dergone the examination of committees of
Several legislatures. Those committees have
wniformly decided in favor of its validity
and justice.” “The committee feel them-
Selves constrained to conclude that the claim
of Mr. Holley is founded in justice, and is
either a legal or an equitable demand against
the state.”
* Although the committee have unani-
mously come to the above conclusions, yet
some of its members conceive that the bill
referred to them ought to contain a provi-
sion requiring that the release of the prop-
erty therein referred to, to Mr. Holley,
should be accepted by him in full satisfac-
tion of all claims upon the state, so as fully.
upon its face, to express that it provides for
the payment of a demand due him by the
state.” The bill, upon this last suggestion,
was amended by the addition of the proviso
which it contains. This report is found in
Assembly Journal of 1828, page 744, &c.
Now, I ask all men, who are not the slaves
of party, and who do not mean to persecute,

ANTI-MASONRY. 199
whether in executing duties so arduous and .
responsible, – when labors, and hazards,
and perplexities were so continually press-
ing upon me for more than seven years, and
when, with untiring vigilance and great abil-
ities against me, and nothing but the sense
of justice on my side, with the acknowl-
edged importance of my services, the pas-
sage of such a law as the one above, in
favor of my claims, by the highest tribunal
in the state, was effected, - I Ought not to
have for my family peace and exemption
from interested and malignant aspersions?
To the free voters of the land it belongs to
suppress persecution in the last resort, and
they alone can effectually point the dagger
which the interested and base have drawn
upon me. Before such voters drive it home
to the mark at which it is aimed, they will
consider, whether they can justly impeach
my character for truth and honesty in my
dealings with any man? whether they can
charge me, on any occasion, with a want of
public spirit? whether my drawing up two-
thirds of all the official documents proceed-


200 - MYRON HOLLEY.
ing from the canal commissioners for above
seven years, while I was a member of that
body, was an evidence of zeal for their in-
terests? whether my letter to the commit-
tee of the Assembly, in 1820, signed by
three commissioners only, and opposed by
the other two, but which caused the con-
struction of the canal west of the Seneca
River, simultaneously with the eastern sec-
tion, was useful towards the speedy comple-
tion of a work which has raised the value
of all their lands and multiplied their means
of an honorable livelihood? — whether, fin-
ally, the resolute assertion of the rights of
the people and the supremacy of the law,
to which I have devoted myself since the
murder of Morgan, has proceeded from dis-
interested rectitude of purpose, and been in
conformity with the true principles of equal
rights? And upon such consideration I
calmly repose the issue of the nomination
with which I have been honored.
MYRON HOLLEY.
Nov. 2, 1833.
The documents Mr. Holley here refers to, in

ANTI-MASONRY. 201
self-defence, incontestibly prove not only that he
was never a “ defaulter,” but that the State of
New York, when he retired from the Office of
Canal Commissioner, in plain equity, owed him a
large sum. It still owes it, with interest, to his
heirs. This rests on the testimony of the most
able and intelligent of his political opponents.
As to the veritable fate of William Morgan,
which proved so much dynamite to Free Masonry,
I interviewed the venerable Thurlow Weed, at
his quiet home in New York, and obtained the
following information :
Thurlow Weed was sued for libel, damages $10,000,
for charging — with paying money to Whitney
and others, abductors of Morgan, in order to enable
them to evade justice. He expected to prove the truth
of his statement by Whitney himself, who had returned
from his flight, and was ready to testify for the benefit
of Weed. But the prosecution claimed that the defence
could not produce testimony to the fact of the payment
of money to the witness without first proving that the
libellee knew that the witness was guilty and was fleeing
from justice, and with the intention of aiding his escape,
and on this plea Weed's witnesses were all ruled out
and the verdict was against him to the extent of $400 !
Afterwards Mr. Weed invited to lunch with him this
same Whitney and a friend of his who was also a friend
of Weed. In the course of the conversation Whitney's
friend urged Whitney to make a clean breast of all he



C •e
202 MYRON HOLLEY.
knew about Morgan’s abduction. To this Whitney as-
Sented, saying that he had long thought of it, and could
have no peace without it. He could not hear a blind
rattle at night without dread of the sheriff. He then
proceeded to say that he, with two other men, took
Morgan from Fort Niagara, bound around the body
with a rope, to the two ends of which weights were at-
tached, and having conveyed him down the river in a
boat till they reached the deep water of the lake, threw
him overboard “Now Weed can hang you,” said his
friend, to Whitney. “But he won’t,” said Whitney.
Mr. Weed did not meet Whitney again till he at-
tended the Republican Convention in Chicago which
nominated Lincoln. Just on the eve of the convention
the two met, and Whitney expressed a wish to have
Weed take down his confession in writing, to be pub-
lished after his death, saying he had not long to live.
But Mr. Weed, being exceedingly busy, put him off till
after the adjournment. But he was so much disap-
pointed that the convention preferred Lincoln to Sew-
ard, that he resolved not to Wait for the adjournment,
and set out immediately to take the earliest train home-
ward. On his way to the cars Whitncy met him again
and urged his purpose of confession, but Mr. Weed ex-
cused himself on the ground that he should lose his
train. After his return Mr. Weed addressed a letter to
Whitney, at Chicago, on the subject, in favor of com-
plying with his wishes. No answer came, but the let-
ter was returned through the dead letter office, for
Whitney himself was dead.
See Gould vs. Weed, 12 Wendell’s N. Y. Re-
ports, to fill the blank on the previous page.




RESIDENCE IN HARTFORD. 203
CHAPTER XIX.
RESIDENCE IN HARTFORD.
Though Myron Holley had won by far the most
honorable place in both the canal history and the
anti-masonic history of New York, he was the vic-
tim of this cruel calumny, launched against him
by the faction which was then governing the state
in the interest of the slave-power, aided by that
which was ambitious to take its place. But he by
no means lost caste with the best and wisest men
anywhere. The anti-masons of Connecticut,
his native state, were about to establish a weekly
paper as the Organ of their cause, called the
“Free Elector,” and they engaged him to edit it—
at a moderate salary, no doubt, though what it
was does not appear — for the term of one year at
least. Averse as he was to leaving home, his
debts obliged him to accept the offer, and for the
next year, 1834, he resided in Hartford.
His long letters to the members of his large
family let us into the heart and character of the
-*




204 MYRON HOLLEY.
** > . = … . . . . . . .” -- - , , , *.*. . **** **, *- : *, -º- . * . . . . . . . . ." ...",. ." - .
- . . . . . . . . . - . . . • . º * 2: … - - - * . . . . . . . . .
man. Those of that year would fill a volume as
large as this. Some extracts must suffice.
HARTFORD, 26th January, 1834.
MY DEAR SALLY, - Since I left home my most pre-
Vailing affections and anxious thoughts have been with
you, and all the other precious tenants of my heart's
love at Lyons. You have had my daily prayers, my
best wishes, my most interesting recollections, and my
most cherished hopes. There is nothing, in the past,
upon which I dwell with more satisfaction, than those
occasions, in the evening and on the Sabbath, when I
have sat listening to you when engaged in reading from
the holy repository of that wisdom which cometh from
above. . . . . . . Never admit the thought, my
dear daughter, into your heart, that speculation, or
mere mental conviction and emotion, under any name,
however plausible and honored, will be sufficient. Prac-
tical duty is the only legitimate end of all speculation,
conviction and feeling, and without this, grace, faith,
and every other name to live are empty sounds; with
this, and tending to this, they are the very gates of
heaven, the bright livery of the Spirits of the just made
perfect.
Before I came here you told me I should see Mrs.
Sigourney. You were a true prophet. A few evenings
ago Mrs. Willard, of Troy, was in this city, as I learnt
by receiving an invitation to take tea in her company.
The invitation was brought by a bookseller here, a Mr.
Huntington, who is highly respectable, and treated me
with great politeness. Mrs. Willard was at his house.
At seven o’clock in the evening, aſter a busy day with
me, I went to comply with my invitation, and soon



RESIDENCE IN HARTFORD. 205
found myself in very intelligent and agreeable company.
The circle was small but social, characterized full as
much by cordiality as by ceremony, though nothing of
either was wanting which good breeding enjoins. Be-
sides Mrs. Willard and Mrs. Sigourney and Mrs. Hunt-
ington, there were the sister of the latter, Mrs. Phillips,
and two other ladies whose names I did not learn, and
there were also, besides Mr. Huntington, his brother,
Doctor Lee, Mr. Sigourney, and a young gentleman.
º . . The subjects of conversation were chiefly
the exertions making by the ladies to sustain a school
for females in Greece. For this object Mrs. Willard
said more than two thousand dollars had been raised,
the school is established, and in it young women are
learning to become teachers, at the cost of the contri-
butors to the school fund, who, after they are suffici-
ently educated, if they can get employment as teachers
at a certain rate of wages in Greece, are to pay back
annually to the school fund a certain sum. Mrs. Wil-
lard's book of travels is selling off, and the avails of it,
beyond remuneration for the expense of publication,
will go to enlarge this fund. Other subjects of conver-
sation were, Somnambulism, Swedenborgianism, phren-
ology, with a small spice of politics, and such other
topics as were less weighty and not improper. All the
ladies at the little soiree were very meat in their dress,
and showed great deference to each other, without any
interrupting eagerness to put in a word here and there
to mend each other's conversation, or exhibit their own
Superior accuracy of recollection, or facility of inven-
tion. In all these respects their example is worthy of
imitation. Love me, remember me, and write to me.
Good-by, my dear. MYRON Holley.



206 MYRON THOLLEY.
HARTFor D, 6th Feb., 1834.
MY DEAR ROBERT, - In a letter which I received a
few days ago from your mother, she informed me that
you had started for Albany, and I address you this line
for the purpose of ascertaining whether you are in that
city or not. I feel towards you an irrepressible and
immortal sympathy, which will be greatly lacerated if
I do not occasionally hear from you, and hear that you
are well. Your faculties and your accomplishments for
business are such as make me happy to think upon, and
it would give me the truest gratification to aid you, in
every way in my power, to get into business, reputable
and profitable. Is there anything I can do for you in
Albany # I know many gentlemen there, and am re-
spected by a considerable number. * If my writing to
them in your behalf would be of use to you, let me
know it, and letters shall be immediately forwarded.
My situation here is very comfortable, and I am getting
into respect rapidly, because I keep myself engaged in
my proper employment, and run into no idle, expensive,
or profligate associations. My life, as you know, has
not been unassailed by malice and persecution. The
consciousness of my integrity, and the general praise-
worthiness of my pursuits, and the hopes I. cherish,
have raised me above all the mischiefs of those evils.
* Thurlow Weed, in his reminiscences of stage-travelling,
before the completion of the Erie Canal, says: ‘‘ It Was an
unusual circumstance to find a stage-coach With fair Weather
and good roads, between Rochester and Albany, that was not
enlivened by conversation, for there Were almost always two
or three intellectual passengers. Myron Holley, for example,
with a gifted and highly-cultivated mind, had committed to
memory, and would recite by the hour, gems from the British
poets.”

RESIDENCE IN HARTFORD. 207
If life ends with the dissolution of the body, the course
of innocence, integrity, and kindness to others, is the
only way of enjoying it. But, my son, I have no doubt
that our spirits are immortal, and that immortality may
be infinitely blessed by the sturdy practical exhibition
of these qualities, and immortality would be wretched
without it. Pray let me hear from you soon, and often,
and from your heart.
Most affectionately yours,
MYRON HOLLEY.
Mr. Holley, from first to last, believed, or rather
undoubtingly took for granted the personal gov-
ernment of the universe by a supreme intellect,
the existence of the human intellect after death,
progressively and perpetually, and in the can-
onized Bible as a revelation of God's nature and
will, without ever appearing to explain to himself
or others how these beliefs were consistent with
adverse phenomena or facts testified to by our
senses, or how the Bible is any more, or bet-
ter a revelation than all other literature. Practi-
cally, however, he seems to have derived the
divinest Wisdom from all sorts of literature, and
to have regarded nature itself as a revelation.
His detestation of the masonie institution did not
in the slightest degree alienate his affections from
the families of his daughters, the male heads of




208 MYRON HOLLEY.
two of which had taken sides in its defence against
him. To an impartial observer it would seem that
the divinity was in him, rather than personally
Outstle of him, and that while the abstract prin-
ciples of love and justice so ruled his own heart
and life, there was no need of his belief in the
Over-ruling personality assumed by the popular
Creeds, and that it was of no consequence whether
personalities exist outside of matter or not, he so
deeply reverenced the personality and personalities
inside of it. His conception of God seems prac-
tically not to have differed from that of an abstract
verity. It was a comfort to him to personify it.
He never lifted a finger nor uttered a word to
compel any other person to do the same.
He had twelve children, all but two of whom
were born in Canandaigua. They had different
qualities and dispositions, but he treated them all
with equal affection. His discipline was nothing
but persuasion and kindness. In the following
letter to his eldest daughter, Mrs. Chapin, he
touchingly communicates the wisdom of a kind
father, derived from large experience :
HARTFORD, 23rd August, 1834.
My DEAR DAUGHTER, - Not long ago I received a
very interesting letter from you, and more recently

‘īuoulu to Moš-Jias ‘ssaulult: O 'uomunnstoo uno.' Iyed
-Uul Abul su 'douno oun uo on 5uuj pun: Ioaul Jo suonioxo
Ulons Ol no.W aluTutuns tou putºu oud oun uo spºnds uno."
ssoiddo ‘AUUUUJ snoloumu Ino.W. Jo ‘uou) “soluo out, you
1971 to Aolo) alou put odoul uonou suoulu A on so.Amout
ino AIddins on pounsop sº tolu A oAC polso lonusp quun
Jo Sosſo.IONo [n]]uillop oun on ‘ssoulsulos odotu Jo uoſ)
-tºpbijap pſoo oun Uto.1] spuds Ino quo Atip on ‘ous stion
-BIal esoul st; Iºnloaljo Os subout out splogu Ojul uuuuntſ
bu V ‘ope UI Stºu ou săulaq out, IU sple-AO) lost;IN Iuo
JO oolioſo Aouaq asuolu put; Injoyºu.A-la.Ao out, su ulcdu
SSolduſ put one.Institu ( , so Indios oun uſ on poſtojo.I
U21jo put; Alluaupulo.Id. a.It pluto put; Juolud Jo Suomuſa.I
Japuan au.I. 'Ol audst; On 1151.1 Vue O.AUUI soul od. Uſutuntſ
qbúl JuaU.Soſua luaupullod put lunutºsqus JSOUI out,
eInsuo IIIAA Woul ‘asſpb.It...I. Jo sp.IIq [G].IOUluſ out) Jo Moolſ
e|]]II tº Jo UOſlºonpo put du juju IIq snolopuſ out, uſ
a.It, S.We AIU Soul St. ‘ATU).I.O.A (Intoſ polluo Olu Aoun uotlaw
puv 1.Igou put purſui Jo S.I.O.A. od 1souju Ino UH.IOJ IIuo
O] ‘alto put; Utopoalſ; Jo shooſqo (In A su spuno.I.Ins poº)
‘SInoS UIGul ‘āūnso.Ionuţ IO ‘[n]ost ‘poguāpp Win.I] odoul
‘poogld aq. Upo utsulo AA G UPIUIAA UI ‘ojiſ uſ UIOIntºn]]s Ou
st oiaq. ‘UIoun [[]] \\ .VII untinuoo utolin usifolio on no.'
qoodNo I put; ; no.' O, on Isſubol A.I.O.A. o.Its ‘odou put, ssott
-[n].Ioat[o ‘aouaphid [un]pſtº H 'Sousſa, O.Ind (IAAO Ino.''
TinyM ooligblooot! IInj Urſ “Urotſ) of Igúosp put; UIoII] looUI
o, Unſeatſ o AUUI Wºut no.V ºut}} Weld I soºn p \ut;UI put;
apnqoſſos [IonuI XIIIgssooou ju IAIOAUI ‘oout 1.IOCIUU 100.13
Jo auo sp. UIOInbul Is Eno R JIosino.V JO 9,180 Injpoot III;
ox{g] On [It] you IIIA llo.V ºutſ] put ‘SIII] O.I.OJoq polonso.I
ÁIJoajiad out; no.8 odou I ‘osnou ou quoqu MIt A trouſ,
aloui annſ op on aſqt od O] st; os oſqooy out no.8 ºutſ,
: poo: JOUI sº Hypou Ino.[ ]bul oul poul.IOJUI st:UI U29qūz;IGI
60% * CIºIOJHJEXIVH NI GHONGICIISGI*I
*


210 MYRON HOLLEY.
and Consistency, always obeying the law of love in tak-
ing charge of children, will be the best means of ren-
dering them obedient and docile. And when they have
their perfect work, they secure us such rewards as can
no where else be reiped — the rewards of a conscien-
tious and kind performance of the most essential duties,
and those of seeing the objects of our efforts and affec-
tions continually enlarging their qualifications for use-
fulness, respectability, and enjoyment. In the allot-
ments of life this is generally true, though not always.
There are exceptions. The most virtuous parents may
Sometimes suffer the unhappiness of seeing their children
do ill. I pray that this suffering may never fall to you,
and think your hope of escaping it is as well founded
as that of any mother of so large a ſamily. But I have
no doubt that suffering in life is designed, by our Infin-
ite Governor, as much for our good as enjoyment is.
By sufferings we become more tender, more patient,
more resigned, more sensible of the presence of Our
Heavenly Father, than we should otherwise be ; and
these qualities are absolutely essential to our highest ex-
altation. To be sure, to produce these effects, We must
suppose the suffering to be disciplinary and limited.
And so in my view will all suffering prove to be. With-
out suffering we should manifestly be less capable of
enjoyment. With it, believing undoubtingly in the ex-
istence and government of God, and that he is good to
all, we are affectingly taught our dependence, our need
of help from Him who is Almighty, and the indispen-
sable duty of trusting in Him at all times.
In the vicinity of this city, one mile south of it, on a
beautiful and healthy elevation of ground, is a Retreat
for the insane. I went to see it yesterday for the first

RESIDENCE IN HARTFORD. 211
time since my residence here, and I felt greatly inter-
ested. There are now 120 inmates of the buildings,
which are very large, and surrounded with many very
charming objects. Without being abrupt at all in
ascent, the site of the Retreat is sufficiently elevated to
be easy to be kept clean, and to afford a wide and
variegated, and ornamental prospect. All report
agrees in representing the management of this estab-
lishment as being eminently kind and effective. I was
strongly impressed with what I heard and saw, though
here were so many persons there as visitors that I con-
cluded to postpone to another time enquiries which I •
had designed to make. I went through the lower hall
of the building, however, and walked across its ample
grounds. Within half a mile of the building one con-
stantly hears songs, shouts, screams, and clamor from
the inmates. There are uttered such tones as healthy
organs are never tuned to, indicative of distress, rage,
and every passion. I heard female voices, harsh,
rapid, shrill, and sorrowful, all mixed up in a manner
to me very novel and afflicting. Going from the edi-
fice down one of its last walks, about 100 rods from
shelter, in the corner of a field, we ſound the saddest
spectacle of quiet melancholy that ever met my eye. A
man looking to be about my age, tall, thin, and silent,
was slowly walking backwards and forwards on a path
not more than 30 feet long, where in weather not par-
ticularly intemperate he is to be found, at all hours of
the day (except those in which he is called to sleep and
eat), saying nothing and scarcely regarding anything.
He answers shortly and mournfully if spoken to, and
seems occupied exclusively by some sad spirit. I in-
tend to see him again, if I can, and by expressions of


212 - MYRON HOILLEY.
that sympathy and good-will for him which I feel, learn
from himself his history. His path is as hard as any
part of the highway, and as much worn. I imagine his
grief is of domestic or religious Origin. This life has
many forms of intense distress which you and I have
never witnessed. I pray that neither we, nor any of
Ours, may ever feel them.
With love to all yours,
Most affectionately,
MYRON HOLLEY.
While residing in Hartford Mr. Holley appeared
before a committee of the legislature in favor of a
law against extra-judicial oaths. He drew up the
committee's report, and the bill it recommended.
Perhaps a grander piece of wisdom was never
committed to a legislative pigeon-hole. The bill
is good law, whether it was enacted by the next
Assembly or not. It is one of those laws, how-
ever, which must enforce itself. Perhaps the only
way in which the government can do anything
effective towards its enforcement is to set the ex-
ample of dispensing with oaths altogether in its
own practice, as some of the best lawyers now
hold that they are utterly useless there, if not per-
nicious. Only the free-masons know whether
they have dispensed with them in their practice.


RESIDENCE IN HARTEORD. 213
REPORT AND BILL.
The Joint Committee, to whom was referred the
Petition of Gaius Lyman and others, praying for the
passage of a law to prohibit the administration of extra-
judicial oaths, respectfully report:
That they have diligently examined the allegations
contained in the said petition, and have enquired of
witnesses under oath, and consulted documents of in-
disputable authority concerning the truth thereof, and
concerning various other facts connected there with. and
they are of opinion that they are true, and that the best
interests of the state require the interposition of the
legislature in the premises.
The facts relied on in the petition, and the proofs
obtained, are all connected with the institution of free-
masonry, and show that institution to be distinguished
by the following features, viz.:
It is a voluntary institution, embracing men only,
between non-age and dotage, neither idiots nor mad-
II].621).
Its professed object is the promotion of charity and
science. -
Its most indispensable requisition is that of inviolable
secrecy in respect to its essential peculiarities.
It secures this secrecy by oaths, with most of which
is connected the penalty of death in case of their viola-
tion.
Its secrets consist of its ceremonies of initiation ; its
oaths, the crimes committed by its members against the
public, including the highest known to the law; and its
pass-Words, grips, signs and cyphers for private com-
munication.



214 MYRON HOLLEY.
ts Oaths are imposed under false pretences and
taken without being at all previously considered and
understood by the persons taking them, and they con-
tain injunctions utterly irreconcileable with moral recti-
tude in those who obey them, with impartial justice in
the most important business of life, and with the safety
of the state.
Its ceremonies are grossly indecent and shockingly
profane.
In reference to the first of these characteristics: by
excluding from its embrace, in the outset, the most
helpless Sex, feeble infancy and old age, with all such
as are born slaves, or suffer under the most afflict-
ing disabilities of life, we perceived the sphere of its
charity is very much circumscribed. Its arrangements,
On this head, are rather made with a business-like and
prudential regard to possible necessities among its mem-
bers, and those immediately depending on them, than
with any more generous views. But such provision, if
adhered to with ſidelity and involving no injustice to
others, is in a certain degree commendable. If, how-
ever, the funds raised by the contributions of all per-
sons initiated into the society under the expectation of
their being devoted to charity and science are chiefly
applied to the purchase of useless and vain decora-
tions, buildings to accommodate its meetings and to
rent, and refreshments often needless and pernicious,
there seems to be connected with this feature of the
institution more of fraud than of charity ; and that
such are the chief applications of the funds was satis-
factorily proved. Passing from this most prominent of
the professed objects of the Society, the committee are
fully convinced that its profession of promoting science


RESIDENCE IN HARTFORD. 215
is intended as an allurement to the increase of its mem-
bers, and wholly illusory. The witnesses examined
knew of no useful discoveries ever made by free-
masonry, of any publication of useful books, or any
establishment or endowment of any seat of learning.
The next in order of its characteristics, as we have
stated them, is its secrecy. Is there any standing pur-
suit in which a good man can engage that requires
secrecy” In the administration of criminal justice,
secrecy is required for a time, that is, till the accused
is secured for legal trial; and the selfishness of nations,
in their wars and negotiations, sometimes enjoin tem-
porary secrecy. But secrecy always implies injustice,
shame, or crime somewhere. Can freemasonry require
secrecy for any injustice, shame, or crime, except its
own 2 If it requires it for this, is it not the duty of the
legislature to frown upon it
The secrecy of freemasonry is secured by oaths;
without these the society would not continue long to
exist. The penalty of these oaths is always unlawful.
It amounts to death in most of the degrees. No man
has a right to kill himself, or voluntarily to put his life
in hazard, without the authority of government, to
which he owes allegiance, or a necessity occasioned by
a violent invasion of the great rights he derives from
his Maker. But the oaths are promissory, and the
promises are many of them unlawful and criminal.
We beg leave here to state some of them.
In the first oath the officer of the lodge, who admin-
isters it, makes the candidate swear that he will always
hail, ever conceal, and never reveal any part of the
secrets of freemasonry which he may afterwards be
instructed in — the officer always knowing that among

216 MYRON HOLLEY.
)
Such secrets, if the candidate advances to the third
degree, are included crimes against the state.
In the second oath, the candidate swears that he will
obey all regular signs or summons handed him by a
brother of that degree, or sent him from a lodge, with-
out any exception but that of its being to be obeyed
within a certain distance from him, and excluding all
objection arising from the illegality or criminality of
the summons.
In the third oath the candidate swears that, on re-
ceiving the sign of distress from a brother of that
degree, he will fly to his relief if there is a greater
probability of saving the life of the distressed than of
losing his own ; that he will not speak evil of a brother
of that degree, neither behind his back nor before his
face ; that he will apprise him of all approaching
danger, if he can ; that he will yield the same pas-
sive obedience as in the foregoing oath ; that he will
keep the secrets of a brother of that degree, when
communicated to him as such and he knowing them to
be such, as securely as the criminal himself would keep
them, murder and treason eaccepted, and they left to his
discretion.
In the oath of the seventh degree the candidate
swears to aid a companion of that degree, and, if in
his power, to extricate him from any difficulty, whether
he be right or wrong; to conceal his crimes as in the
preceding degrees; only murder and treason, in this
degree, are explicitly not excepted, as most usually
administered.
It is important to observe that these oaths are taken
to be obeyed absolutely and on all occasions, without


RESIDENCE IN HARTFORD. 217
any exception in favor of the laws of the land or any
other civil, moral or religious obligation.
The nature of the promises, penalties and ceremonies
contained in the oaths of freemasonry being criminal
and indecent, affords strong ground for the Secrecy of
the order. Such promises, with such penalties and
accompanied by such ceremonies, no man would have
the effrontery to impose in the face of the world, and
no man would take upon himself, understandingly,
because they are decidedly at war with every repub-
lican sentiment, with every moral feeling, and with
explicit Christian precept.
These oaths are not binding, — they are promissory.
A promissory oath is the calling upon God to take
notice of what is promised, and invoking his vengeance
by the promiser upon himself if it is not performed.
Promises are not binding where false or erroneous
representations and inducements are held out to those
who take them. The representation made to the can-
didate before admission, that the oath will affect neither
his religion nor his politics, is of this character, and so
are the pretensions of the society to the promotion of
science.
To take an oath is a solemn and deliberate act of the
mind. Understanding is essential to its obligation, on
which account oaths impose no obligation upon, and
are not administered to, idiots, lunatics, madmen, or
young children, they not having sufficient knowledge of
the nature of the things promised, nor of the penalties
of non-performance ; and both of these sorts of knowl-
edge are requisite. There can be no moral obligation,
in any case, without knowledge; and in respect to the
nature of the promises and penalties in the oaths of

218 MYRON HOLLEY.
freemasonry, all the persons before alluded to as being
free from the obligation of oaths for the want of under-
standing, have as much knowledge as the wisest of the
brethren had before the oaths were taken.
The right to administer oaths is a prerogative of
Sovereign power and cannot be enjoyed concurrently
by the government and its subjects. It would be both
Wrong and ridiculous for any individual, not authorized
by law, to pretend to a natural right of administering
Oaths in such form, with such penalties, and for such
purposes as he might choose to dictate ; and such pre-
tension would not be made valid by his finding any
man, Or number of men, who would consent to take
them. Even if the form, penalties and purposes were
all good, this would be true. The right of administer-
ing oaths does not exist anterior to the establishment
of government nor independently of it. It springs
from the necessities of government after its establish-
ment. It is a right of the most sacred character, serv-
ing the most solemn purposes of civil organization. It
cannot exist in individuals or associations, except when
conferred upon them by government.
There is no rightful government in our country but
that of religion and the laws adopted under our civil
institutions. Christianity commands, “Swear not at
all.” Civil government has not conferred upon free-
masonry the right to administer any oath. Would it
not be a violation of every man’s conscience and a
scandalous breach of his allegiance to our government
for him to administer an oath under pretence of author-
ity from any foreign government? It is equally so
under pretence of authority from freemasonry. None
of the oaths of that institution are authorized by Our



RESIDENCE IN HARTEORD. 219
laws; they are therefore unlawful and not oblig-
atory.
The performance of some of the promises in the
masonic oaths is in all cases unlawful, and of many
others of them, in some cases, it is so. A promise to
conceal crimes, to give notice of approaching danger
from legal prosecution for crime, to assist any out of
difficulty, right or wrong, is always unlawful, the
promiser being under a prior obligation to the con-
trary. From such prior obligation what shall discharge
him 2 His promise ? His own act and deed? But an
obligation from which a man can discharge himself, by
his own act, is no obligation at all.
An oath can never bind a man to do what is morally
wrong. If it is a bond of duty, let us consider what
is the authority of duty. It is the command of God,
or general utility, opposition to which is the very defini-
tion of wrong. It is both preposterous and impious to
call upon God to take notice of what is in opposition
to his command. To make a promise under such cir-
cumstances is deeply sinful; to break such a promise
always a duty.
Our laws regard the due administration of oaths as
of great importance in ascertaining the truth in the
most important concerns of individual right and the
public safety. And it is wholly inconsistent with their
due administration to have them administered at all
without authority. To assume the power to admin-
ister them without is a flagrant criminal and dangerous
usurpation of Sovereign power. Unauthorized swear-
ing is profanity, subject to punishment by our laws;
and the offence of such profanity is amazingly en-
hanced by circumstances of premeditation, indecency



220 MYRON HOLLEY.
and mockery, and, most of all, by the deliberate usur-
pation of authority to commit it. The Father of his
Country, in his farewell address, emphatically asks,
“Where is the security for property, for reputation,
for life, if this sense of religious obligation desert the
Oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in
courts of justice?”
In the administration of the masonic oaths we have
said the ceremonies are grossly indecent and shock-
ingly profane. To show this we need only refer to
those of the first degree, which, however, are not so
deeply revolting as those of some of the higher
degrees.
Such false professions, such criminal and dangerous
oaths, such indecent and profane ceremonies we are
convinced should be strictly prohibited by law ; and in
order to effect such prohibition we have proposed a
bill, which we report here with, and recommend to be
passed into a law. All which is, respectfully sub-
mitted.
Signed, per order:” GEORGE SPOFFORD,
- Chairmam.
AN ACT in addition to an Act concerning Crimes and Punishments.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Represen-
tatives in General Assembly convened : That every
person who shall hereafter knowingly and wilfully ad-
minister to any other person, any oath not by law
authorized or required, and shall be thereof duly Con-
victed, shall for every such offense forfeit and pay the
sum of one hundred dollars. -
And every person who shall hereafter knowingly,
wilfully, and willingly receive any such oath, and shall


RESIDENCE IN HARTFORD. 221
be thereof duly convicted, shall for every such offense
suffer a like penalty.
The impression he made on his native State,
and which its semi-capital made on him, may best
be discovered from a long letter addressed to his
daughter, Mrs. George Kingman :
& HARTFORD, 19th Oct., 1834.
MY DEAR ELIZABETH, - Your last excellent letter
was duly received, and gave me great pleasure, though
I have not been very prompt in answering it. All the
expressions of affection which it contains my heart has
responded to every day since I received it ; and will
respond to when its pulsations are lost in the ethereality
of our spiritual nature. The only comforts I have en-
joyed, in this place, have arisen from my consciousness
of being honestly employed, my hopes of meeting the
members of my family soon in health and undiminished
affection for me, and the excellent letters with which
so many of them have favored me. But my exile
seems long. How many long evenings I have passed
in lonely but tender recollections of my dear children,
their connexions, their new relations, their increasing
social interests, their past history, with all the endear-
ing incidents which have made up my domestic expe-
rience My person is in Hartford ; my senses are con-
versant with its scenery ; but my mind, my thoughts,
my hopes, and my love are far to the west, occupied
with far dearer images associated with all my true en-
joyments upon earth, and which to me must essentially
contribute to the bliss of heaven. Do not from these


222' MYRON HOLLEY.
remarks imagine that I am destitute of the respect
of those with whom I live. Seeking to do no mis-
chief, and prosecuting my employment in a spirit of
good will toward others, though I have not much
Society, reasonable evidences of estimation wait upon
me wherever I go. But the regards of strangers,
especially such as pertain to the calculations of a
SOrdid utility, and are offered to the mind more than
to the heart, and imply the expectation of remunera-
tion in some shape or other, have very little in them
to satisfy the cravings of a free and social nature.
They constitute commodities condemned, by all the
higher powers, as contraband, in the intercourse of
love. Hartford is prosperous in its business, has far
more wealth than any other place in Connecticut, and is
enlarging its business and population. It is two hun-
dred years old. Several generations are deposited in
its burying grounds, among whom individuals were found
that were of energetic character and commanding vir-
tues. Its early settlement was opened and made Safe
and successful, by public spirit, enterprise and hardi-
hood, that deserved the name of a fearless and gener-
ous philanthropy. Its infancy, like that of most other new
settlements, was noted for the neighborly sympathies
which it manifested ; and the hazards by which it was long
surrounded called forth and cultivated much vigilance
and shrewdness and self-reliance. These qualities still
distinguish it, in the channels of business. They are
not the only qualities needed to make Society desirable.
Where they prevail to the exclusion of quick moral
sense, and all true relish for that Spiritual communion
which builds up the inner man, and fits him for those
enjoyments which lie beyond the power of time and

RESIDENCE IN HARTFORD. 223
sense, they are only coarse means to coarser ends. I
fear Mammon has more devoted worshippers here than
any other God. Johnson says, in one of his satires:
This mournful truth is everywhere confest,
Slow rises worth, by poverty deprest;
But here more slow, where all are slaves to gold,
Where looks are merchandise, and Smiles are sold.
And it seems to me to apply more to this place, than
any other to which my acquaintance has extended.
But censure is not an agreeable employment, and I will
break off from this strain. I was led to it by a sensa-
tion, perhaps too keen, of my personal want of sympa-
thizing companionship.
We had an anti-masonic state convention here last
Wednesday and Thursday, in which, being one of its
members, I took part, which gained me credit. My
manner of conducting the Free Elector too was cor-
dially approved by that body. These circumstances
are gratifying to me, and on that account will please
you. The anti-masons wish very much that I should
engage with them for another year, and are trying to
gain patronage for the paper in such a degree as shall
induce me to remain. But I can be no longer sepa-
rated from my family. If nothing better can be done
for them, I must come home and get disencumbered of
my debts by surrendering all my property, and so be
at liberty to start anew, and devote myself to their
society, to their support, protection, comfort, and the
education of the little ones. I hope a better lot awaits
us, but will not be discouraged if my fortune takes this
color. My health is good, my character I trust is not
deteriorated, my sense of duty to my family is strength-



224 MYRON HOLLEY.
ened, and I will work for them with the constancy and
ardor of the truest affection. I cannot live thus away
from them. My days and nights are troubled with
apprehensions of their suffering for necessary food
and fire, and clothing. I shall soon write to your
mother, and I hope to be able to send her some
money. Tell George I thank him for what he has done
for them, and hope he will keep them along and not let
them suffer. I shall be able to pay all yet. If my in-
terest at Rochester is advertised for sale on the mort-
gage, and George should find it out, I wish he would
send me a paper containing the advertisement. Per-
haps I could make some arrangement here to my benefit
with it. -
Remember me most affectionately to your mother,
Grace, Bolly,” Sally, and all my other friends.
As ever yours,
MYRON IIOLLEY.
* This was his pet name for his youngest son, Bolivar. On
all the generous minds of that age the conduct of the great
South American patriot and liberator produced a profound
impression. To the Senate of Colombia (afterwards divided
into the republics of New Grenada, Venezuela and Ecuador),
Simon Bolivar said: “I beg as fervently of my country as I
would for the lives of my children, that you Will never Consent
that clime, or color, or creed, should make any distinction in
your republic.” -
Again, to the Legislature of Bolivia and Peru he said : —
“Legislators Slavery is the infringement of all laws. A law
having a tendency to preserve slavery would be the grossest
sacrilege. Man to be possessed by his fellow man Man to
be made property of ! The image of the Deity to be put
under the yoke Let these usurpers show us their title deeds!”

RESIDENCE IN HARTFORD. 225
*.
*:
+z-
--~~
--
*
º
.
*
t
So when his editorial engagement was at an end,
in spite of the earnest entreaties of his Connecti-
cut friends, he hastened home to his cosy Stone
cottage in Lyons, not to live long among his
quince and mulberry trees, but to do what he
could to relieve the little property he had left from
the incumbrances which burdened it. After much
struggle he effected the sale of his house and five
acres in Lyons, and bought a farm of 120 on the
Genesee below Rochester — and no farmer ever
enjoyed life more than he did on that beautiful spot.
The place was broad, fertile, genial and unpreten-
tious, like himself. A grand, pensile willow tree
standing near the commodious house he built, will
assure the stranger that he has found the sacred
home where he lived at the sublimest period of
his life. *


226 MYRON HOLLEY.
CHAPTER xxI.
LIBERTY PARTY.
In spite of the Declaration of Independence,
which in words abolished slavery as emphatically
as it separated the colonies from the mother
country, and in spite of the constitution of 1787,
which created the United States as a nation with-
out re-establishing slavery, that abominable and
inhuman institution existed in nearly all the
states in the early years of the present century;
and while Myron Holley was so bravely battling
with the more local masonic usurpation, the ex-
tension of slavery was the governing interest of
the nation. The South claimed that human chat-
telism was entrenched in the constitution, and the
people of the North, almost without exception,
admitted that claim. Constitutionally and legally,
it was not a question of race or color at all. The
assumption was, partus sequitur ventrem. Once a
slave forever a slave, whatever the race or com-
plexion of the mother. Physical human slavery

LIBERTY PARTY. 227
no longer exists in any of the United States. It
abolished itself by its own inherent unwisdom.
It was not by any political foresight or integrity
of the North that it met its fate. The slave power
might have continued to govern the nation had it
not insisted on suppressing the freedom of speech
and the press by brute force, and on using the
national power to restore fugitive slaves. The
great civil war was by no means a crusade against
slavery, though it well enough might have been,
and probably would have been, if Captain John
Brown, instead of James Buchanan, had been
President of the United States.
Morally speaking, the crime of slavery resided
no less in the north than the south. New Eng-
land ships imported the slaves from Africa and
sold them chiefly in the southern colonies, be-
cause there their labor was more profitable than
on the rugged hills of New Hampshire and Massa-
chusetts. But even after the Declaration of
Independence, slaves were held in the northern
states. They were held in New York so late that
perhaps Myron Holley may have owned one for
domestic service in Canandaigua. Some others,
in his time, certainly did. But the institution
gradually faded out at the north, till “Mason and

228 MYRON HOLLEY.
Dixon's line * divided the slave states from the
free, and in 1820 that line was extended, virtually,
to the Pacific, by a “solemn" compromise.
Little did the great slaveholders of that day
dream what was to happen in the next two or
three decades. The Yankee Whitney, in giving
them the cotton-gin, had opened to them a vision
of wealth beyond all El Dorados. Cotton was
now King, and the whole commerce of the north
bowed the knee in allegiance to his majesty. The
white race of the south, enriched by the labor of
the slaves, had nothing to do but to govern the
nation. The negroes raised the cotton, the sailors
carried it to market, and Calhoun thought Charles-
ton would soon be more powerful than London
and Rome combined. Did not the soil of the
south have more Sunshine than that of the north,
and the monopoly of a plant with which the
subject looms of England and New England could
clothe and bed the world 2
But while the ingenious southern statesmen
were dreaming these dreams, Myron Holley was
patiently and enthusiastically digging that ditch
through the marshes and swamps of New York,
which in 1825 was to let the enterprising, well
schooled white free laborers into the vast forests


LIBERTY PARTY. 229
of Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, and into the
boundless prairies of Illinois and Wisconsin.
These became rich states, while, as to the mass of
the white population, all the South became poor.
More and more the great trading metropolis of the
east, New York, derived its wealth rather from
this new west than from the south. By ten years
after the Missouri compromise, so cunningly con-
trived by Henry Clay, the north and new west
were ripe for a moral movement to emancipate
public sentiment from its servility to the slave-
holders. This was an all-important step in the
solution of the great problem. The ignorant
masses of the great cities and large towns could
not be relied upon to aid it. It was too easy to
make them believe it was an attack on their means
of living rather than a vindication of their rights.
Even their patriotism, no less than their pre-
judices, was appealed to against it. Neither were
the powerful Christian sects, or churches, to be
relied on. To them it was a theological civil war.
And, as Organizations, they stood by an institu-
tion which at the south was as much in the church
as in the World. As obstructions to the moral
movement, the churches were far more effective
than the mobs. The pulpit everywhere — with a


230 MYRON HOLLEY.
very few exceptions — either justified slavery from
the scriptures, or denounced abolitionism as a
pestilent sin.
The germ of the moral movement against slavery
was in the heart and head of William Lloyd
Garrison, a young printer, born in Newburyport,
Mass., in 1805. His heart and head, from early
manhood, were full of the Golden Rule and the
Declaration of Independence. He had never been
schooled into Jesuitism. Till it shone out in him,
there had been no solid basis for any moral move-
ment against the bad system, for even such a
devoted abolitionist as Benjamin Lundy proposed
only gradual emancipation, thus giving up both
the Golden Rule and the Declaration. Garrison,
when he joined Lundy, in Baltimore, in editing
the “Genius of Universal Emancipation,” in 1828,
at the age of 23, advocated, with a most refreshing
and contagious vigor, the duty of immediate aboli-
tion, personal and national. He denounced the
pretension of property in human beings as abso-
lutely false, and every act of ownership as a crime,
law or no law. Here was a solid logical founda-
tion, on which a man could stand without Stultify-
ing himself. When you asked a man or woman
how would you like to be a chattel, Sold on the


LIBERTY PARTY. 231
auction block, even for a single day, there could
be but one answer. For gradual emancipation,
especially if accompanied with colonization or
deportation of the emancipated, the slave power
cared little, if anything. But Garrison's new
doctrine was, in their view, treason to the state
and blasphemy to the church. Of course it was
not long before he was in a Baltimore prison, and
it was on complaint of a Newburyport slave
trader, whose name is elsewhere handed down to
posterity. Arthur Tappan, a very benevolent
Christian silk merchant of New York, effected his
release. Garrison soon after established his famous
LIBERATOR in Boston, which, in spite of all sorts
of persecution, mobocratic and theocratic, con-
tinued to be issued weekly till the slaves were
proclaimed free, at the close of the rebellion.
There never was a more foolish act of persecu-
tion — unless we except two or three recent
instances against the free use of the United States
mails — than throwing young Garrison into a
Daltimore prison. It was terribly ominous of
what happened to the Confederacy of Jefferson
Davis about 37 years afterwards. If Garrison
had been wrong, his doctrine would have died of
itself. Right as it was, possibly it never would
**

232 MYRON HOLLEY.
have triumphed if he and his followers had not
been persecuted. He owed his success, seeming-
ly, rather more to the folly of his persecutors than
to his own wisdom and perseverance.
While Mr. Garrison deserves more glory than
he has received, or perhaps ever will receive, for
being the uncompromising leader of the moral
movement against chattel slavery, he was subject
to Some, perhaps inevitable, but unfortunate, limi-
tations. He accepted the prevalent theory that
slavery was entrenched behind guarantees in the
Federal constitution. So that he fought not only
against the slave power, but against the constitu-
tion itself, as a “Covenant with death, and an
agreement with hell,” fondly quoting Jeremiah,
whereas with a reasonable interpretation making
the instrument consistent with itself, there was
not a clause or word in it which could operate
either as a guarantee or justification of chattelism
or property in a human being.” On account of
* The fault. Of the Constitution Was not that it authorized
or guaranteed slavery, but that it did not, in express terms,
forbid it. By fair implication it did. But ignoring the exist-
ence of the foul injustice, the framers of the instrument left
it to be abolished by the States, giving Congress and the fed-
eral courts no power to act upon it, except in the District of
Columbia, the territories and the commerce between the
states. This was the “compromise.” Doctor Franklin at


LIBERTY PARTY. 233
this opinion, apparently, if not on account of the
doctrine of non-resistance derived from the Sermon
on the Mount, in the New Testament, he confined
himself entirely to the moral movement, and never
encouraged any direct or distinct political action.
Such action, however, grew inevitably out of his
moral teaching, in spite of his personal aversion
to it.
Slavery begins in war, and there is no peace
till emancipation comes. Hence civil war existed
in the colonies and in the United States till 1865.
It was at first confined to the masters and slaves
as the belligerents. After the formation of the
American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, it broke
out decidedly in the July mobs in New York, in
the time wrote to a bosom friend, who expostulated with him
about it. : —
“It is a little sop to Cerberus—the best thing that can be
done at present—it cannot last long ; there is too much virtue
in the country. As fast as men become honest they will drop
slavery. Every homest man knows the laborer is worthy
of his hire; and Would just as Soon keep your purse, that he
had found, because fortune put it in his possession, as he
Would compel a poor man or Woman to bear the heat and bur-
den of the day for him. Without reward. There is not one
shade’s difference between the two ; and further,
What he to Afric's child would do,
He’d do to thee and thine.
So guard your spoons and daughters too,
Whene'er he connes to dine.”



234 MYRON HOLLEY.
1834. Slavery fired upon the peaceful settlers of
IXansas before it did upon Fort Sumter.
The one man who did more than any other to
start the political movement which culminated in
1860 in the victory of a party opposed to any fur-
ther geographical extension of slavery was Myron
Holley, At the latter date, with California and
New Mexico added to the Union, it was plain
enough to the slaveholders that if slavery could
not be extended to them, the system, and the pow-
er founded upon it, was doomed. So they put
themselves in the attitude of carrying out their
chronic threat of dissolving the Union, and com-
mitted the serious military blunder of attacking
Sumter, instead of occupying Washington. If
the southern leaders had had the boldness of a
good cause, or even the usual wisdom of a bad
one, they would have stayed under the old flag at
Washington, barred out Lincoln, and inaugurated
Breckenridge. Their folly was fortunate for the
slaves and for us all. Still, it was the grand po-
litical movement which grew out of the little Lib-
erty Party of 1840 that drove the slaveholders
into this folly. The party that voted for Fremont
in 1856 and for Lincoln in 1860, was as clearly the
natural result of that which voted for Birney in
LIBERTY PARTY. 235
1840 and 1844, as an oak is of a well-planted
acorn.” It was the last great labor of Mr. Holley's
* The growth of the Liberty Party, through the names of
Free Soil and Republican, up to victory, is evidenced by the
following series of figures, giving the votes cast against the
pro-slavery candidates, compared with the whole popular
vote, in six presidential elections : —
Liberty. Free Soil. Republican.
ar —’- → z- 2'- * * *
Year, . . . . . 1840. 1844. 1848. 1851. 1856. 1860.
Candidates, . . . Birney. Birney. Van Buren. Hale. Frem’nt. Lincoln.
Votes, . . . . 7,069 62,263 291,342 155,825 1,341,264 1,857,610
º FHarrison - Taylor * 3. 5 tº
Presidents elected ) . Tyler. Polk. & Fºe. Pierce. B'chan’n. Lincºln.
Whole vote, . . 2,395,900 2,678,121 2,872,056 3,143,679 4,053,967 4,645,390
Though Lincoln did not have a majority of the popular
vote, he had a large majority of the electors, and really rep-
resented a vast majority of the people, counting as people all
the Women and enslaved men—not allowed to vote—and also
a majority of the virtue, intelligence and worth.
The Liberty vote in 1840 seems ridiculously small com-
pared with the whole vote, and it was fairly so compared with
the voting abolitionists, then embodied in Anti-Slavery Socie-
ties, who could have numbered not less than 70,000. It was
generally reported by the newspapers — if at all—as
“scattering.” The following are the official returns, as col-
lected by Mr. Greeley, though he does not give any for
Indiana, where some votes were certainly cast for Birney.
VOTES FOR BIRNEY AND EARLE IN 1840.
Maine, . . . . . . 194 | New York, . . . . . 2, SOS
New Hampshire, . . . 126 New Jersey, . . . . 69
Massachusetts, . . . 1,621 | Pennsylvania, . . . . 343
Vermont, . . . . . 319 Ohio, . . . . . . . 903
Rhode Island, . . . . 42 Michigan, . . . . . 321
Connecticut, . . . . 174 Illinois, . . . . . . 149
NeW England, . . . 2,476 Other states, . . . . 4,593
2,476
Total, . . . . . . 7,069

236. - MYRON HOLLEY.
life to plant that acorn. It grew in the soil his
earlier labors watered, and which his recent labors
had been ploughing and harrowing. His life had
been making both the physical and moral prepara-
tion for the growth of such a party. He was just
the broad, sensible, far-seeing man to be the father
of it. And it will go down to the remotest future
that he was ; – that he, almost alone, of all the
prominent abolitionists of his day, insisted on
planting the acorn when it was planted; and but
for him it certainly would not have been planted
then, if ever.
It was not till the winter of 1837, when Mr. Hol-
ley had become comfortably established in his new
home of Rose Ridge, on the Genesee, two or
three miles below Rochester, that he began to take
a practical interest in the slavery question. His
son-in-law, Hon. Graham H. Chapin, was then
in Congress, and under date of Feb. 23 he writes
to his daughter Caroline, who was with her hus-
band in Washington : “The things most deeply
interesting to me in the proceedings of Congress,
The “Political Text Book” of Greeley and Cleveland, and
Johnston’s “American Politics,” state the total as 7,609, but
this is by an error of transposing figures. The Liberty men,
however, were right in saying that they had in 1840 “ScVen
thousand men who had not bowed the knee to Baal.”

LIBERTY PARTY.
2
37
during the present session, relate to the question
of slavery. And these things I am persuaded will
become more and more interesting at every future
session of the national legislature, till slavery is
abolished. By the same mail which carries this I
send to Mr. Chapin a copy of an abolition address
which I delivered here at Rochester a short time
ago. If you or Mr. Chapin read it, you will per-
ceive that it is written without passion, and that it
was prepared without reference to many docu-
ments. At Washington I presume a diligent in-
quirer might find many evidences of the state of
public opinion in all the states on this subject, at
and subsequent to the Declaration of Indepen-
dence. A collection of such documents, copi-
ous and authentic, would be very valuable. As
Mr. Adams, the late President, has read and pre-
served everything almost connected with every
question agitated much in the course of our na-
tional progress, I have thought that he may have
made a speech which is published with reference
to such documents. If he has, it would oblige
me very much to receive a copy of it.”
But for the “ abolition address here referred
to, Mr. Holley would probably soon have been in
Congress himself. He was by far the ablest rep-



238, MYRON HOLLEY.
resentative that could then be sent from his dis-
trict. His long anti-masonic service was in his
favor, rather than otherwise. The whig party
controlled at that time a decided majority in the
district, and offered the nomination to Mr. Holley,
on the condition that he would not agitate the
slavery question. He rejected it, rather than be
gagged on that question, for to act against slavery
was all that could tempt him to leave his family
and his delightful home. Congress, in those days,
lost many valuable members by such action of
the dominant political parties. William Leggett,
of New York, was a signal instance, in the demo-
cratic party. As editor of the W. Y. Evening
Post, he had shamed the city authorities into sup-
pressing the anti-abolition mobs of 1834, and his
party dared not trust him in Congress without a
padlock on his lips, on that subject.
But the abolitionists who were then organizing
with zeal in all parts of the free states, were wise
enough to avail themselves of such a champion
as Mr. Holley, and in Dec. 1838, he writes to his
daughter Mrs. Kingman, at the close of a long
and interesting letter in which he pictures the
happiness of family ties, “I intend in a day or
two to go out in this county angl give lectures



I,IBERTY PARTY. 239
upon anti-slavery, and after trying it a week, if
I can stand it pretty well, to continue it for three
months. I am offered $130 for such services
three months.” The testimony of those who heard
them is, that no lectures made a deeper or more
lasting impression than his. ?
On the 7th of February, 1835, there occurred
in the Senate of the United States the most as-
tounding declaration of sentiments on the slavery
question which ever proceeded from the lips of
any man called a statesman in the nineteenth or
perhaps any previous century. It may fairly be
considered as the declaration of that war which
ended at Appomattox. The dominant citizens of
the District of Columbia, of course slaveholders,
had got up a petition to Congress praying it to
stop the agitation of the slavery question by re-
fusing to receive any petitions for its abolition,
there or elsewhere, and it was of course signed
by hundreds of non-slaveholders, who, whatever
might be their opinions, did not dare to refuse.
This was placed for presentation in the hands of
Henry Clay, whose voice in its favor would obvi-
ously be more effective than that of John C. Cal-
houn. Mr. Clay in presenting it, outdid all that
Calhoun had ever done, and at once received the


240 MYRON HOLLEY.
hearty congratulations of that champion of human
bondage. The great orator of Grecian Liberty,
the legislator who had won the hearts of the
northern Croesuses by his “ American,” or tariff
protection “system,” here made the mistake of his
life and threw away his chance of being either the
next president, or the next but one. His ex-
pressed terror lest the morality of the Declaration
of Independence should get into the ballot-box,
induced at least a few of the “ultra-abolitionists”
to resolve that it should go there without loss of
time, – and stay there till it should effect its
object.
Mr. Clay was, in any good cause, probably the
most forcefully eloquent man who ever spoke in
the Senate of the United States, or in the popular
house. On this occasion he exhausted his elec-
trical energy, and there never was a more diabo-
lical justification of a diabolical institution, as will
be seen by consulting the Appendia, of the Con-
gressional Globe, Vol. 7, page 355, where it stands
carefully revised by himself. Here are some of
his exact words with his own italics:
“Mr. President, it is at this alarming stage of the
proceedings of the ultra-abolitionists that I would seri-
ously invite every considerate man in the country

LIBERTY PAHTY. 241
solemnly to pause, and deliberately to reflect, not merely
on our existing posture, but upon that dreadful precipice
down which they would hurry us. It is because these
ultra-abolitionists have ceased to employ the instruments
of reason and persuasion, have made their cause poli-
tical, and have appealed to the ballot-box, that I am
induced upon this occasion to address you. . . . .
“I know that there is a visionary dogma which holds
that negro slaves cannot be the subject of property. I
shall not dwell long with this speculative abstraction.
That is property which the law declares to be property.
Two hundred years of legislation have sanctioned and
sanctified negro slaves as property. Under all the
forms of government which have existed upon this
continent during that long space of time — under the
British government — under the Colonial government
— under all the State constitutions and governments —
and under the Federal government itself — they have
been deliberately and solemnly recognized as the legi-
mate subjects of property. To the wild speculations
of theorists and innovators stands opposed the fact,
that in an uninterrupted period of two hundred years
duration, under every form of human legislation, and
by all the departments of human government, African
negro slaves have been held and respected, have de-
scended and been transferred, as lawful and indisput-
able property,”
He then goes on to cite as a British concession
of the right of property the paying of £20,000,-
000 to free the slaves in the West Indies, and pro-
ceeds, with stupendous audacity, to say : —




242 MYRON HOLLEY.
“If, therefore, these ultra-abolitionists are sincerely
determined to pursue their scheme of immediate aboli-
tion, they should at once set about raising a fund of
twelve hundred millions of dollars to indemnify the
Owners of slave property. And the taxes to raise that
enormous amount can only be justly assessed upon
themselves, or upon the free states, if they can persuade
them to assent to such an assessment ; for it would be
a mockery of all justice, and an outrage against all
equity, to lay any portion of the tax upon the slave
states to pay for their own unquestioned property.”
In thus converting the slave power into a money
power the astute politician forgot how the people
had lately overthrown a money power of only some
sixty millions, and still dreaded its recovering
ascendancy. If there was concentrated at the
south another 20 times as great, what could they
expect but eternal subjection to it? Two days
later an honest democrat, Thomas Morris, of
Ohio, who had seldom opened his lips in the
Senate during the five previous years, presented
the petitions of thousands of abolitionists in Ohio,
praying for abolition in the District of Columbia,
with an exceedingly modest but manly speech,
which deserves to be in all our school books. One
of its points was that Mr. Clay's money power of
twelve hundred millions had only to join the great


LIBERTY PARTY. 243
Biddle Bank monopoly to extinguish our liberties
and rule the world.
Undoubtedly this atrocious and thoroughly
brutal speech of Henry Clay excited a profound
emotion in the breast of Myron Holley. For him
it struck at the foundation not only of his politics
but his religion. I have already said he was a
deeply religious man. But his religion, though
he took for granted that it grew out of the Bible,
where the slaveholders also found their sanction,
was really better expressed by the Declaration of
Independence. He was that sort of Christian
that for some years he had found a more congenial
atmosphere outside of churches than in them, and
was very commonly spoken of as an infidel.
Being invited to deliver an oration in Perry, N.Y.,
on the Fourth of July, 1839, he took occasion to
give his views of the slavery question at consider-
able length. A few extracts from this production
will serve to show the logic which underpinned
the Liberty Party.
FRIENDS AND FELLOW CITIZENS,- To honor our
parents is a natural duty, of which the obligation is
equally plain and imperative. It is the first command-
ment with promise ; and no man is so dull as not to
perceive its beneficial tendency. Those who bring us
into being, who nourish, protect, instruct, encourage


244 MYRON HOLLEY.
and guide us, are entitled to our gratitude, reverence
and Obedience. Their affectionate solicitude and con-
tinual labor for Our well-being and advancement, can
be repaid only by our performance of all our filial
obligations.
Enlarging the application of this natural duty beyond
the confines of the domestic hearth, we are assembled
this day to offer a reasonable homage to our civil fathers.
Never has human life presented a day so worthy to be
consecrated to such homage as that which we are
engaged in celebrating ; and never were a people bound
to their civil fathers, by obligations so numerous, pre-
cious and persuasive, as those under which it is our
privilege to live. With what words — with what
emotions—with what principles — does it become all
the children of this great republic, to mark the anniver-
sary of their national freedom, and to honor its
illustrious founders Every honest heart will respond
— with none but the words of truth and soberness —
with none but emotions of the most expansive patriot-
ism — with none but the principles of equal and
universal liberty can they be duly marked and honored.
The day we celebrate was not one of inconsiderate
exultation or unmanly depression — of unchastened
revelry, or gloomy mortification — of frivolous distinc-
tions, or unproductive ceremony. It was a day when
good men spoke freely, and sincerely and ardently —
when they thought anxiously and intensely, but clearly
and candidly — when they acted bravely, consistently
and perseveringly. The great subjects which filled
their minds were the rights, duties, improvement and
happiness of social life. These subjects they examined
and discussed, with an earnestness, comprehension and



LIBERTY PARTY. 245
.*
sagacity new in the history of nations, because they
regarded them with the deep interest of the most exten-
sive and permanent self-application ; and the results at
which they arrived, they resolved to maintain, with the
legitimate force of truth, with a fortitude which no trial
could discourage, and with a philanthropy the most
unlimited and beneficent. Their labors, their sufferings,
their achievements, their disinterestedness, have excited
the sympathies and admiration of mankind. Their
words have already come to be considered as the living,
imperishable and inspiring accents of frecdom. Their
thoughts are set in the polished framework of our con-
stitutions, where they glow and shine, with unclouded
and genial lustre, for our warmth and guidance ; and
where, I devoutly trust, they will continue to glow and
shine, with lustre undiminished, till, like the lights in
the firmament of heaven, they warm and guide the
world.
He then proceeds to describe the character of
the men who peopled our continent from the old
world. They were chiefly law-abiding, but more
disposed to value themselves as creations of the
Supreme Being than as subjects of the state.
They were men who could not be driven from
their sense of duty by any amount of persecuting
force. How those men faced, defied and over-
threw British usurpation, he depicts in vivid colors.
They were republicans. They loved liberty, as
indispensable to all pure enjoyment and elevated hope.




246 MYRON HOLLEY.
They looked upon it as of God's appointment, without
which there could be neither right, nor duty, nor im-
provement, nor happiness — and these were the ends
of their creation — the great objects of their care for
themselves and for their children. They had been born
and bred to freedom. They had long inquired, and
conversed, and learnt, and labored, and loved, and
hated, and lived without unreasonable restraint. And
they could bear everything better than to think under
the supervision of human authority ; to talk in a bonds-
man’s key ; to profess opinions they did not entertain ;
to countenance sentiments they despised ; to feel the
new-forged collars of servitude burning and blistering
their bodies, and their inevitable effects corrupting the
immortal wealth and obscuring the inextinguishable
light of their souls.
They fought ; they conquered. Their outward prep-
aration was small, and their muster mean to the
eye. But they had the highest and holiest preparation.
of the heart and understanding. Their battle was
gallant and long sustained against the most formidable
odds. Their cause was the mighty cause of the human
race, and the Great Being who keeps that cause as the
apple of his eye, crowned it with success. The names
Of Our fathers will be forever sweet in the mouths of
men. Their praise is already in all the earth. And
every nation shall yet repeat, throughout all its multi-
tudes, and in the fullest joy of Self-appropriation, the
glad song of their victory.
Showing how the republican government com-
menced its career on principles that did not admit
the existence of slavery, and how it practically


LIBERTY PARTY. 247
excluded it from the common territory of the
states, and how the universal expectation was that
it would cease in twenty years, he proceeds to say :
Since our nation was thus solemnly pledged against
it, slavery has increased in the United States more than
in any country in the world. It has multiplied five-
fold. More slaves are now annually smuggled into this
country than ever were imported in any single year of
our colonial existence, and there are, probably, more
open slave-traders in the southern states than there are
On the whole Guinea coast of Africa. The nations of
the earth, in the aggregate, have scarcely more capital
embarked, in this detestable traffic, on the high seas,
at this moment, than the great Atlantic cities of this
Union have, and derive less pecuniary profit from it.
Virginia sells annually, of her own native children, into
the most cruel bondage, to the estimated amount of ten
millions of dollars. The merchants in New York alone
have legal claims upon the persons of men, women and
children, endowed with the same natural rights as they
enjoy, to secure debts, as upon articles of property, to
another amount estimated at ten millions. Our national
authorities have given to the trade in slaves imported
from Africa, the name of piracy, and have then winked
at its perpetration by pardoning convicts under the act,
and by permitting the sale of imported slaves in our
country ! They have admitted new states into the
Union, in which all that industry which constitutes the
great basis of national wealth was to be discouraged,
by the infamy and restraints of slavery ; and yet, in
consequence of this infamy, the authors of it are to


248 MYRON HOLLEY.
enjoy political power to dispose of national wealth, and
determine who shall fill the most important of our public
Offices, much greater than that of an equal number of
honest freemen. They have purchased immense Terri-
tories, at the common cost of the nation, in which they
have extended the institution of slavery and the same
unjust political power. And they, by sheer usurpation,
have introduced laws creating slavery in the District of
Columbia, and have long witnessed there the sale of
free citizens to pay jail fees, by their own officers,
without any expression of disapprobation, thus destroy-
ing all justice and humanity in the spot consecrated by
the name of Washington — where the national honor
especially dwells, and where they are constitutionally
endowed with the right to legislate, in all cases what-
SOeVe]".
At this moment the two great political parties of our
country, sharing the favorable wishes, exertions, and
purses of a majority of the people fancying themselves
free, are emulously exerting themselves to cast the
highest honor of the nation upon men, one of whom has
prostrated his dignity and insulted the nation by com-
mitting himself to oppose the abolition of slavery in
the district (where it exists only in deſiance of the Con-
stitution which he has sworn to support), until Such
abolition is consented to by the slave States 1 and the
other of whom has publicly affirmed that human beings
may become property, chattels, articles of traffic, when-
ever barbarous and Sordid legislation shall So enact :
and he a man, too, who, as a representative of this na-
tion, a few years ago, signed his name to a treaty in
which the traſſic in slaves is said to be irreconcilable
with humanity and justice, and publicly bound his



LIBERTY PARTY. 2.3
country to use its best endeavors to effect its entire abo-
lition 1 Many men of intelligence, abilities, high sta-
tion, and influence, at the South, have come out before
the public and represented slavery as a blessing, and
these men and their abettors have violated the highest
rights of their free countrymen, and all the obligations
of the constitution, to prevent its discussion, and to
hinder the spread of free principles. They are sus-
tained by the apathy or open support of a large major-
ity of politicians, professing Christians, and printing-
presses, in all the free States. Nowhere in the land
consecrated by the ashes of Washington and Jefferson,
is any man, professing openly their most important Sen-
timents, safe from the cowhide or tar-barrel, the bowie
knife or the rifle-ball. In the person of Amos Dresser,
freedom and Christianity were publicly scourged in
Tennessee . In the person of Aaron W. Kitchell, they
were rode on a rail, and tarred and feathered in Geor-
gia In the person of Peter John Lee, they were kid-
napped and sold into slavery in New York In the
person of J. B. Mahan, they were ruthlessly delivered
up in Ohio, and sent for long incarceration in Ken-
tucky In the person of E. P. Lovejoy, they were
murdered in Illinois “O ! what a fall was there,
my countrymen Then you and I, and all of us, fell
down, whilst bloody treason flourished over us!” And
yet government—the government set up by our fathers
— framed upon the model of Christianity, under the
wing of which they trusted their children, and child-
ren's children, would forever sit in security, was, in the
entire letter, yet existing. Its spirit and provisions
were standing Out on the unmutilated face of the na-
tional charter, in obvious and direct condemnation of

25%) - MYRON IHOLLEY.
these enormities. This spirit and these provisions can
take effect only through human agency, and the admin-
istrators of the government can alone employ such
agency. But they said nothing, did nothing. Worse
than this, they encouraged these atrocities, and com-
mitted others of equal enormity. Deputy post-masters
rifled the mails with which they were officially entrusted.
The post-master general, sworn to guard that great
department of public power from all illegal encroach-
ment, when openly apprised of these proceedings, re-
fused not only to discharge the delinquents, but even
to censure them And the President of the United
States lent all his influence to countenance these alarm-
ing assaults upon the common rights of the people, and
Officially recommended measures to extend them
How can the principles of our government be rein-
stated and perpetuated 2 I answer, by resorting to the
same powers through which they were originally estab-
lished. These powers, we have seen, were the inculca-
tion of moral and religious truth, by precept and
example, and the application of it to all the purposes
of government. The practical application of truth to
government is political action.
It has become fashionable with many of late to de-
grade the word political into a signification narrow,
sordid, grovelling, selfish, and personal. This is be-
cause those who have chiefly controlled it have betrayed
it to services characterized by these epithets. It should
have, and may have, a much higher meaning ; and
must be wholly reclaimed from its base significance, or
the memory of our fathers and the hopes of their child-
ren will perish.



LIBERTY PARTY. 251
It was eloquence of this sort that kindled a fire
in Central New York which the political leaders
could not entirely ignore, which caused the Whigs,
at their convention in Harrisburg, Dec. 4, 1839,
to set aside their favorite Henry Clay, and nomi-
nate Wm. Henry Harrison on no platform at all.
He was a northern man, with no principles about
slavery which had ever been very distinctly de-
clared ; but the slaveholders, with good reason,
trusted him, having a vice-president of their own
behind him. He was elected, and both Webster
and Granger had to sell themselves to the slave-
power for places in his Cabinet.
But before Harrison was nominated, Myron
Holley's eloquence, wisdom and perseverance, in
spite of the wrong-headedness, timidity and
stupidity of the mass of the abolitionists, had put
in nomination a hero and patriot worthy of the
name, a man against whom, four years later, the
Whigs ventured to pit Henry Clay, and by that
act won an ignominious defeat.
It must be understood that the great body of
the abolitionists, previous to Mr. Clay's declara-
...tion of sentiments in 1839, were solid against any
distinct political action or party organization. The
American Anti-Slavery Society had repeatedly

252 MYRON HOLLEY.
put itself on record against it. The most that was
recommended was to vote for the candidate who
was most favorable to the abolition of slavery in
the District and Territories, of whichever party he
might be. It could only have been at this very
harmless use of the ballot-box that the great Whig
Orator took alarm. The times were terribly hard,
and many of the abolition organs stopped for
want of patronage. In the face of Mr. Clay's
speech, which, if anything could, would have
aroused all the voting abolitionists to act together
as a unit, even so late as October, 1839, a great
State Anti-Slavery Convention at Cleveland, Ohio,
went largely against separate nominations. But
at that convention appeared Myron Holley, who
brought forward a proposition to make an imme-
diate nomination of President and Vice-President.
It was opposed by President Mahan, of Oberlin,
Blodget, Wade, and others. “This,” says the
Emancipator, “called up Mr. Holley, who made
a most gallant defence of his resolution. When
he spoke of the dignity of the elective franchise,
and the solemn responsibility of every elector to
use it firmly and save the Republic, he was sur-
prisingly eloquent.” He failed to find any sup-
port. With exceptions that could be counted on


LIBERTY PARTY. 253
the fingers, the 400 delegates present at that con-
vention entirely failed to appreciate the hope-
lessly pro-slavery attitude of the two parties, or
that true power of the ballot-box, which Clay had
so overwhelmingly demonstrated. Nothing can
better illustrate this than Henry B. Stanton's
reply to a letter which had been written him just
before the convention, urging him to use all his
influence to have the nomination made then and
there, and let it be followed up by other conven-
tions as they should take place.”
* This letter was strictly confidential, and rather hasty.
Of course, it was not laid before the Convention. But being
stolen from Mr. Stanton's hat while dining at a hotel, it was
soon aſter published in the Liberator, as an effective mis-
sile against the “new organization.” ſe
That organization doubtless had in it men actuated by un-
worthy motives and prejudices. It certainly had in it some
men of genuine anti-slavery zeal, and some martyrs. What
attracted to it some highly practical men was, that, at the
start, it favored, or professed to favor, distinct political
action, while the “old Organization ” bitterly opposed it.
The old organization, however, must have the credit of man-
fully asserting the rights of woman, which the new one soon
turned out to oppose, and thus put itself miserably in the
wrong. Gladly would the Slave Power have seen this feud,
on “the Woman question,” absorb all the energies of both
sides, for it well knew that the male religion of Christendom,
from its inventor, Paul, downwards, Was the POW'er Which
held woman in mental bondage [see the great historian,
Michelet's Le pretre, la femine et la famille], and that negro-
slavery would be safe for a century or two, if that was to be
Settled first. Such men as Henry B. Stanton, Samuel E.




2.54 MYRON HOLLEY.
CLEVELAND, Monday, Oct. 28, '30.
DEAR WRIGHT, - I believe your brother, whom I saw
at our meeting, is to give you a notice of it for the
Abolitionist, therefore I will simply answer your good
letter, for which I thank you.
Myron Holley brought forward the subject of nom-
inating Anti-Slavery candidates for Pres. and V. P.
The discussion lasted 4 an afternoon, the whole of an
evening, and 4 a forenoon. The proposition was finally
laid on the table. My main reason for voting for this
disposition of it was this : — To have nominated can-
didates would have been a surprise on the great mass
of our friends.
Nothing of the kind was indicated in the call. It
Was a local meeting, called for special objects at the
West. It was local in its representation, being con-
fined chiefly to Ohio. The measure was as extraordi-
Sewall and William Jackson had not a word to say against
granting to woman every right, political, social, financial or
religious, claimed by man. Nor had JOIN G. W. IIITTIER,
whose “PASTORAL LETTER,” crying “shame on ye, parish
popes,” will ring down the coming ages till there shall not
be a male politician or judge mean enough to refuse to his
mother or his wife any right or privilege which he claims for
himself. But they thought it Wise to postpone this question
till the slaveholders were brought to their senses.
Mr. Oliver Johnson, the venerable and amiable historian Of
the Life and Times of Wm. Lloyd Garrison, in a private letter
to the writer, demurs to, Or rather demics, the statement that
the “strea/c letter,” SO called, Was Stolen. He must settle that
question with Mr. Stanton. Mr. Garrison must have known
that the publication of that letter put its author in a cruelly
false position with some of his best friends, because in his
haste he used the phrase, “this confounded Woman ques-
tion,” Without explaining it.

LIBERTY PARTY, 2.35
nary as would have been a dissolution of the Society,
and therefore our auxiliary societies would have been
aggrieved by it, greatly. A nomination made before
we see whether the parties will put up anybody for
whom we can go, would, by the mass of Our friends,
have been deemed premature — and had we made a
nomination, and the Whigs had put up Scott and John
Davis, and we had called a Convention in New York
State to nominate an A. S. electoral ticket, that Conven-
tion would have declared it inexpedient to do so, and
thus mullified the whole thing. It would have been
thought a trick; getting away out here and doing
what we knew we could not do at the centre.
No ; so extraordinary a move as the nomination of
national candidates, in my opinion, should not be made
by the Am. Society without due notice to that effect.
Give due notice, and then all are bound to take notice,
and be present, or forever after hold their peace.
This is my plan. Wait till both parties have nom-
imated [the Democratic did not do it till May 5, 1840],
and then if Clay and Van Buren are the men, call a
great Convention to consider the wisdom of nominat-
ing. This will go strong. Anything short of this
would split the Society and prove a failure. gº.
Our meeting was a grand one. 400 Delegates. No
miserable Woman question, non-resistance, nor 15-min-
ute rule to perplex, confuse and gag us.
Haste, thine, H. B. S.
As We have seen, Clay was not the man, but
the North Bend hero, who had declared that the
discussion of slavery was ºnconstitutional and
that “the schemes of the Abolitionists were fraught


256 MYRON HOLLEY.
with horrors upon which an incarnate devil only
could look with approbation.”
The Liberator rejoiced over the defeat of Mr.
Holley at Cleveland, as having saved the Anti-
Slavery cause from being dashed on the breakers.
But Mr. Holley was not discouraged. He had
already procured the passage of a resolution in
avor of a distin ination, in the Monroe
f f a distinct nomination, in the M
ounty Anti-Slaver rention V days pre-
County Anti-Slavery Convention a few d
vious, and on the 13th of November a much larger
Convention assembled at Warsaw, N. Y. There
he laid out his full strength, and carried the meet-
ing as by storm. There was made the first Presi-
dential nomination for the celebrated “Log Cabin
and Hard Cider Campaign” of 1840. The fol-
lowing letter conveyed the intelligence to the
leading candidate, and must have taken him
somewhat by surprise : —
RocłIESTER, 18th Nov., 1839.
HoN. JAMES G. BIRNEY:
DEAR SIR, - As a committee of an abolition conven-
tion held the 13th and 14th days of this month, at
Warsaw, in Genesee County, we beg leave to address
you. The convention after having adopted, with great
harmony, a resolution expressive of their opinion, that
every motive of duty and expediency, which ought to
control the action of a Christian freeman, required the
abolitionists of the United States to Organize an inde-



LIBERTY PARTY. 25
7
pendent political party, for securing their great object,
proceeded to nominate suitable persons to be supported
for election to the offices of president and vice-presi-
dent of the United States, at the next presidential
canvass. And subsequently, on the report of a com-
mittee, the convention concurred, unanimously, in the
nomination of James G. Birney, of New York, for the
first office above referred to, and Francis J. Lemoyne,
of Pennsylvania, for the second.
A summary account of the proceedings of the con-
vention at Warsaw having been already forwardgºl to
you, and relying fully upon your just appreciation of
the object and motives of the convention, and the vast
importance of the distinct political action of the abol-
itionists, we earnestly hope you will favor us with your
consent to the use of your name, in conformity with
the wish of the convention. To obtain such consent is
the object of this communication. Devoted as we are,
and as we know the convention to be, to the most active
support of the nominations above referred to, and firmly
persuaded that the great anti-slavery enterprise can
never succeed, without the organization of an inde-
pendent abolition party ; and that such organization
can never commence at a time so auspicious as the
present, nor under names more acceptable to the com-
munity, we repeat the hope, that you will concur with
the views of the convention, and favor us, at your con-
venience, with the expression of your concurrence.
In behalf of the convention, we are, sir, with great
respect, your ob’t serv'ts.
MYRON Holley,
JOSIIUA H. DARLING,
JOSIAH ANDREWS,
Committee of Corres.


258 MYRON HOLLEY.
Both candidates declined to accept this nomina-
tion. Dr. Francis Julius Lemoyne, a working
abolitionist of Washington Co., Pennsylvania, out
of sheer modesty, and because it would interfere
with his profession ; and Mr. Birney, because he
preferred not to accept it till it could come from
a nationally called convention. But it at once
struck hundreds of abolitionists, in all parts of
the country, that the nomination of James G.
Birney was one exceedingly fit to be made. He
had stood so high in Alabama, before he became
an abolitionist and emancipated his slaves, that
the highest judicial office in the state was with-
in his reach ; in case of election he would have
stood in all points of dignity and statesman-
ship above the average of presidents; he had
faced detraction and mob violence with the grand-
est heroism and moral success; in every point of
view he was a man so immeasurably superior to
either Harrison or Tyler, that as soon as these
men were put on the Whig ticket, every intelli-
gent abolitionist, who could vote at all, saw an
excellent opportunity of using his suffrage against
such candidates with self-respect and a good con-
science. Accordingly, soon after the Whig nomi-
nation, a call was extensively signed by leading



LIBERTY PARTY. 259
abolitionists for a National Convention to meet at
Albany, April 1, 1840, to take into consideration
the formation of a Liberty Party.
The movement was ridiculed by abolitionists
opposed to political action, as the April Fool con-
vention. Nevertheless, it assembled to the num-
ber of at least 76 members — generally self-
elected — from six states. The opponents of po-
litical action took care to be well represented,
especially from Albany and Troy. The Conven-
tion promptly assembled in the City Hall, the use
of which had been courteously granted by the
City Council, and 121 members weré enrolled.
It was quite obvious that many of them, though
professing abolitionism, had enrolled themselves
on purpose to vote against distinct nominations.
The Convention was organized by the election of
the following officers:
PRESIDENT :
Alvan Stewart, N. Y.
WICE-PRESIDENTS :
Benjamin Shaw, Vt.
John A. Paine, N. J.
Ichabod Codding, Me.
Charles T. Torrey, Mass.
SECRETARIES :
L. P. Noble, N. Y.
Joshua Leavitt, N. J.

260 MYRON HOLLEY.
COMMITTEE ON BUSINESS AND RESOLUTIONS.
Myron Holley, N. Y.
Joshua Leavitt, N. J.
Ichabod Codding, Me.
Elizur Wright, Jr., Mass.
Edwin W. Clarke, N. Y.
COMMITTEE OF CORRESPONDENCE.
Alvan Stewart, N. Y.
Gerrit Smith, N. Y.
Wm. GOOdell, N. Y.
Letters approving the proposed object of the
Convention were read from J. P. Miller, of Vt.,
J. –G. Whittier, of Mass., Gerrit Smith, H. N.
Robinson and Hiram Corliss, of N. Y., from B. F.
Hoffman, Levi Sutliff and O. Clark, of Ohio, and
from Thomas Earle, of Penn. These gentlemen
regretted their inability to attend the Convention,
and their words of cheer proved their regret so
genuine, that it was fully equalled by that of their
friends who were present.
On the first day, and the morning of the second,
while the Convention was waiting for the Report
of the Business Committee, speeches were in
order, and a good many of them were designed to
drench the object of the Convention with cold
water in advance. One, particularly, by Rev. S.
S. Beman, D. D., of Troy, which immediately
preceded the report, displayed a great power and

LIBERTY PARTY. .. 261
aptitude for ridicule. The reverend Dr. treated
the principles of the abolitionists with the highest
respect, but depicted the means they proposed to
employ in so inadequate and grotesque a light,
and with such a lambent lightning of wit, that if
the question of nominating had been voted on
immediately after he sat down, the Convention
would have been a failure and a joke worthy of
the date.
Mr. Holley reported the Resolutions, of which
he was the author, about eleven o’clock, A.M., and
occupied nearly two hours in a speech advocating
the first, which was taken separately, as a test,
and was to be voted on by yeas and nays. Com-
paratively few members of the Convention knew
of him, and what they did know was, perhaps,
colored by prejudice. But his presence was sim-
ply gratnd. His voice was smooth, distinct, mu-
sical, intensely human. The contrast of his
weighty, earnest sentences, with the badinage of
Dr. Bennan, must have been painful even to that
master of raillery. He had not spoken five
minutes before many eyes began to moisten, and
he commanded the rapt attention of every auditor
till he took his seat. The remark was common
afterwards: “That was the most eloquent speech I


262 MYRON HOLLEY.
ever heard.” “Eloquent,” said one member, “ is
no name for it. It was divine.” At all events, it
went to many hearts. If the yeas and mays had
been taken immediately, there would probably
have been few of the latter. But the Convention
took a recess for dinner, and in the afternoon the
opponents rallied a little. Dr. Beman had already
exhausted his forensic ammunition, and confined
himself to private influence. Rev. David Root,
Moses Breck, and Calvin Pepper, Jr., a young
lawyer of Albany, successively took the floor, and
did their best to turn the tide, and establish an
ebb. But they were met by such men as Beriah
Green, Joshua Leavitt, L. P. Noble and others,
and at last Alvan Stewart left the chair, and in a
few words, which would have put back-bone into
mollusks, closed the debate. The close belonged
to Mr. Holley, but he said, “Let us not waste
time,” and the yeas and mays were then called.
Forty-four of the 121 enrolled members declined
to vote, and let their names drop out of history.
Those who did vote, put themselves on record, as
follows:
Yeas.
MAINE, . . . Ichabod Codding, . . Hallowell.
VERMonT, . . Benjamin Shaw, . . . Weston.
Charles Sexton, . . . Burlington.

EIBERTY PARTY.
Charles Smith,
John E. Cathcart,
Charles T. Torrey,
Joseph Hulburt,
Josiah Hayden,
Thomas W. Ward,
Elizur Wright, Jr.,
M. G. Pierce,
L. P. Noble,
E. W. Goodwin,
Benjamin Paul.
Joseph Strain.
E. P. Freeman.
Samuel Martin.
James Porter.
Christopher Hepinstall.
Daniel E. Bassett,
Samuel Thompson,
John Wilkinson Sleight,
William Barnes,
S. S. Wheeler,
D. R. Norris,
E. M. K. Glen,
Myron Holley, .
Isaac Pierce,
William GOOdell, .
Alvan Stewart,
Edmund C. Pritchett,
Beriah Green, .
E. W. Stewart,
J. N. T. Tucker,
E. Willard Frisbie,
James Brown, .
E. W. Clarke, .
Middlefield.
Williamsburgh.
WOrcester.
Curtisville.
Haydenville.
Shrewsbury.
BOSton.
Middletown.
New York.”
Albany.
Poughkeepsie.
* *
DOver.
Johnstown.
Athens.
Warsaw.
Minnville.
Rochester.
New York.
Utica.
Whitesboro.
Camden.
Apulia.
Phelps.
Oswego.
i &
The residence
MASSACHUSETTS,
CONNECTICUT,
NEW YORK, .
* This residence may be erroneous.
hailed from northern New York at that time.
&
I think Mr. Noble
of the six following Mr. Goodwin, is not indicated in the re-
port, but probably it Was Albany.


264
MYRON HOLLEY.
NEW YORK,
NEW JERSEY, .
MASSACHUSETTS,
NEW YORK, . .
D. Cushman,
Geo. W. Peavy,
G. W. Roberts,
Wm. S. Gates, .
Joshua Leavitt,
John A. Paine,
Nays.
Moses Breck,
David Root,
Levi Stockbridge,
Calvin Pepper, Jr.,
T. Fassett.*
Israel Smith.
R. Winslow.
W. B. Sims.
John Alden.
A. G. Alden.
S. J. Penniman.
H. Blackmore.
A. Stowell.
S. A. Parmelee.
William Crapo.
W. Tillinghast,
Geo. Cuyler,
Thomas Little,
E. A. Lambert,
A. Wheeler,
Samuel Lightbody,
John Rhodes,
IR. Wales,
P. A. Moon,
W. II. Seymour,
II. G. Hayner, .
Exeter.
Troy.
Scoharie. *
Ploomfield.
Newark.
- — 43
Northampton.
North Hadley.
Albany.
Albany.
New York.
{ {
{ {
Utica.
Troy.
{ {
* The names Without indication of residence Were probably
all from Albany or Troy. From the latter certainly came
two leading party politicians, one a Whig and the other a
democrat, both mays /



LIBERTY PARTY. 2
65
NEW YORK, . . Sam. N. Lawrence, . . Troy.
William Stimpson, . . & C
Charles Sheldon, . . . . “
N. C. P. Ives, . . . . West Troy.
Gurdon Grant, . . . . * {
George Brainerd.
Uriah MOOre.
Among the yeas were men who had plenty of
office within their reach, if they would suppress
their humanity, men who could face present con-
tempt and ridicule out of respect to themselves,
— and among the nays were some who could not.
This crisis passed successfully, the names of
JAMES GILLESPIE BIRNEY, and THOMAS EARLE
were inserted in the second Resolution, which
Mr. Holley had reported in blank, by a unanimous
and vivo, voce AYE, and the whole series was
passed as reported with some trifling verbal
amendments. There never was a fairer or more
patent victory of good temper and pure reason
over the stupid vis inertice of stereotyped conser-
vatism. It seemed as if the broad humanity and
Sound common sense of the Fathers of the Re-
public had come down there.
Liberty Party Resolutions always occupied
space enough to be exhaustive and leave no escape
for a “ doughface.” This admirable series is too

266 MYRON HOLLEY.
long to be copied here. It ought to have dis-
armed all opposition among the abolitionists, for
it is conceived in the most catholic spirit, and
expresses nothing but cordial approbation of the
moral action of those who confined themselves to
that. But I cannot abstain from copying the
preamble to the nominating Resolution, which is
as follows:
Whereas, large bodies of freemen, in the United
States, have adopted the pledge embodied in the con-
stitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society, “to do
all that is lawfully in our power, to bring about the ex-
tinction of slavery ; ”
And whereas, a National Convention of Abolitionists
holden in this city on the 1st of August, 1839, solemnly
and deliberately resolved that they would neither vote
for, nor support the election of any man for President
or Vice President of the United States, who is not in
favor of the immediate abolition of slavery ; And
whereas, in the judgment of this Convention, it becomes
the anti-slavery electors of our country to unite their
votes upon well qualified candidates for these high
offices at the ensuing election, and, in our estimation,
no such candidates are yet nominated and none are
likely to be, without our interference; Therefore, Re-
solved, That we owe it to the sacred cause of HUMAN
RIGHTs, and our desire to advance it by all peaceful and
constitutional means, to make such nomination, &c.
This movement of Myron Holley, - for the
Liberty Party was practically his achievement, —


LIBERTY PARTY. 267
cannot be historically appreciated without a view
of the cotemporary public opinion and feeling,
which can only be learned by the way in which
the public press, both anti-slavery and pro-slavery,
religious and political, received it. A few exam-
ples out of hundreds that could be cited, must
suffice. -
It is with pain I cite the expressions of the
Liberator, for Mr. Garrison was the author of that
most weighty and imperative sentence which Mr.
Holley quotes in the first clause of the preamble
to his first resolution. That he could so descend
and go back on those who would follow the straight
path he had himself so nobly and clearly marked
out, is a sad proof of the weakness and imper-
fection of human nature.
[“Liberator,” Editorial, April 3, 1840.]
‘‘INFIDELITY. — After a careful examination of all
the reasons which have been urged in favor of another
political party, we are satisfied that they spring from a
lack of faith in God, and those simple instrumentalities
which it is His good pleasure to adopt for the suppres-
sion of evil and the salvation of the world.”
[“Liberator,” Editorial, April 10, 1840.]
ALBANY CONVENTION. — By yesterday’s “ Abolition-
ist” We are furnished with an account of the proceedings
of the SOI-DISANT National (!) Convention, which was

268 MYRON HOLLEY.
held on the first day of April at Albany, and a more
ridiculous farce than appears to have been enacted on
the occasion, in the nomination of presidential candi-
dates, we have never had occasion to place on record.
As we prophesied, in point of numbers, it was really
contemptible. Of 121 persons who enrolled their names
on the occasion, 48 belonged to Albany, and 104 to
the State of New York. There was 1 from Maine, 0
from N. H., 2 from Vt., 11 from Massachusetts, 0 from
Rhode Island 1 from Connecticut, 2 from N. J. 0 from
Pa. 10 from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan | | | | A
National Convention forsooth ! Why it was not as
large as a common village meeting. Will it be credited
by the abolitionists of the United States the handſul of
abolitionists thus brought together had the folly, the
presumption, the almost unequalled infatuation, to put
candidates in nomination in their behalf for the Presi-
dency and Vice-Presidency of the U. S. 1 — namely,
James G. Birney, of Kentucky, and Thos. Earle, of
Pa. This nomination was sustained — Yeas, 44 | |
Nays, 32 || Majority, 11 ! But we are compelled to
omit all comment on this political farce in our present
number. We can only say, that the reasons which
induced Mr. Birney to decline a similar nomination
made a short time since still exist in full force. We
have too high an opinion of the good sense and sound
discretion of himself and Mr. Earle to believe that they
will consent to stand — nominated as they have been,
in fact, by a majority of only eleven persons.
Mr. Garrison here appears to have mistaken
the vote on the question of nominating for the vote
on the candidates. Though the Convention was

LIBERTY PARTY. 269
divided on the propriety of nominating, it was
quite unanimous in the choice of candidates.
The Boston “Daily Advertiser” of April 8,
1840, with its proverbial promptitude, gave the
news of the nomination of Birney and Earle on the
first of April, with these significant remarks,
showing how anxious the great parties of that day
were to keep clear of all taint of abolitionism.
“We are happy to learn that the abolitionists have
resolved to support their own candidates for the presi-
dency. They are surely not wanted as adjuncts of the
Whig party. . . . It will now be distinctly understood
that the abolitionists are not Whigs. They have political
objects of their own to promote, entirely at variance
with those of the Whig party.” "
* The Boston Whigs in 1840 were glad enough to see abol-
itionists opposed to separate political action, for if they did not
get for Harrison and Tyler all the White abolition votes they
got nearly all the colored ones. But their ingratitude for
this political aid soon showed itself in a remarkable manner.
On the death of Pres. Harrison the Mayor invited “all citizens”
to join in a public funeral procession in his honor. The
colored citizens Who had been allowed to vote for him, at Once
met, appointing a marshal, and offered to join the procession
in a body. The Mayor, Mr. Chapman, and the Chief Marshal,
Josiah Quincy, Jr., under the apprehension that such a pro-
ceeding would excite a mob, endeavored in vain to dissuade
them. At last Mr. Quincy sent to their Marshal, Mr. Alex-
ander, the following curious note:–
“CITY HALL, Tuesday, April 20, 1841.
“If the colored citizens intend to appear as an organized
body, they Will take position in rear of Ward No. 12.
‘‘ JOSIAII QUINCY, J.R.,
• Chief MarSlhill.”

270 MYRON IIOLLEY.
*
But the most amusing expression of opinion was
that of the great Whig organ at Washington, the
“National Intelligencer,” which attempted to make
the country believe that the Liberty Party was
plotted by Van Buren to debilitate the Whigs at
the North.
[“National Intelligencer,” Editorial, April 7, 1840.]
“A man might as well whistle in a whirlwind, and
expect to be heard, as expect the people in the north
now to contend for abolition in the South, when there is
nowhere such a need of abolition as in the North itself,
prostrated as is its trade, and chained as are all its
energies by the power of the federal office holders.
This last device of Mr. Van Buren to regain New York,
and to recover Massachusetts, will turn out to be as
contemptible as it is ridiculous. Indeed the abolition-
ists themselves laugh at it.” "
It is needless to say that the colored citizens, who chiefly be-
longed to the Beacon Hill Ward, No. 6, declined this Negro Pew
arrangement, and those who ventured to take their proper
places in the procession, as unorganized, were, as the Mayor
and Marshal predicted, ignominiously mobbed off. At the
next Presidential election they took care to Vote the Liberty
Ticket.
* This arrogance of the old parties prompted the following
lines, which appeared in Wm. Goodell’s “Friend of Man,”
showing that the little sprout was not to be discouraged by
huge trunks that were rotten at the core.
LIBERTY PARTY.
Will ye despise the acorn,
Just thrusting Out its shoot,
Ye giants of the forest,
That strike the deepest root ”



LIBERTY PARTY. 271
This was the Intelligencer's way of calming and
quieting the whigs of the south, who had been so
much alarmed by the speech of Henry Clay the
year before that they were almost ready, in their
fright, to join the “Democratic” or Administra-
tion party, as the surest defence of slavery. Its
logic, however, was too “ childlike and bland ” to
have any considerable effect. With the aid of
those abolitionists who were more ultra than
practical, the Whig party stood firm both at the
Will ye despise the streamlet
|Upon the mountain side,
Ye broad and mighty rivers
On-sweeping to the tide 2
Wilt thou despise the crescent,
That trembles, newly born,
Thou bright and peerless planet,
The queen of eve and morn?
Time now his scythe is whetting,
Ye giant oaks for you ;
Ye floods, the sea is thirsting
To drink you like the dew.
That crescent, pale and trembling,
Her lamp shall nightly trim,
Till thou, imperious planet,
Shalt in her light grow dim.
And so shall wax the party,
Now feeble in its birth,
Till liberty shall cover
This tyrant-ridden earth.


272 MYRON HOLLEY.
north and the south, till the next presidential
campaign, when Mr. Van Buren's plot, if such it
was, not only defeated his great rival, Henry
Clay, but sent Mr. Van Buren himself home to
Rinderhook, there to meditate himself into some
degree of fitness to be the FREE SOIL candidate of
1848. It had been the cherished plan of the great
whig slaveholders of the south to cement the
slave power and the national bank power, and by
controlling both to control the nation. But
That party, as We term it,
The party of the WIICLE —
Has for its firm foundation
The substance of the soul.
It groweth out of reason,
The strongest soil below ;
The Smaller is its budding,
The more its room to groV.
Then rally to its banners,
Supported by the true,
The Weakest are the Waning,
The many or the few.
Of what is small but living,
God makes himself the nurse,
While “Onward” cry the voices
Of all luis universe.
Our plant is of the cedar,
That knoweth not decay;
Its growth shall bless the mountains
Till mountains pass a Way.

LIBERT"Y PARTY. 373
General Jackson had exploded a torpedo under
the National Bank, and the chief object of the
Whig campaign of 1840 was to repair that
mischief, and the north was really made to believe
that the destruction of the Biddle Bank monopoly,
and not the depravity of its ally, the slave system,
was the cause of the miserably hard times which
then prevailed. The slave-ridden south was
always the hot-bed of bankruptcy, and the north
at last learned that when better times came, they
came from western rather than southern trade, as
abolitionists always taught. Only those who paid
fair wages were good customers.
The grand argument, inside the anti-slavery
ranks as well as outside — and especially in the
against party political action was, that
it “ let down the moral sublimity of the cause.”
How much more it did so than voting for the least
pro-slavery of two thoroughly pro-slavery candi-
dates, was never shown. Wim. Goodell, editor of
the Friend of Man, was one of the earliest aboli-
tionists, and one of the most sincerely religious
persons, remaining so till his death, and always
an admiring friend of Mr. Garrison. His testi-
mony as to the origin of the Liberty party is, of
churches
course, valuable. He said in the Fifth Annual
274 MYRON HOLLEY.
Report of the N. Y. State Anti-Slavery Society,
of which he was secretary, Sept., 1840:
“Among those who were the most early and decided
in recommending the policy of independent nominations,
were the editors of three anti-slavery papers, whose
arguments and views exerted a well-deserved influence
on the anti-slavery community. Myron Holley, of the
Itochester Freeman, (which our western friends would
have done well to have sustained), Joshua Leavitt, of
the Emancipator, New York, and Elizur Wright, Jr.,”
them of the Massachusetts Abolitionist, Boston, these
were among the prominent writers by whom the new
policy was vindicated and recommended. Our own
paper, the Friend of Man, has been open to the discus-
sion from the first, admitting freely and impartially the
principal writers on both sides, but taking no decisive
editorial stand in favor of the measure until some time
last spring.”
But no man did more than the modest and
laborious William Goodell to sustain the “moral
sublimity " of the Anti-Slavery cause. Reviewing
an Address of the Managers of the Massachusetts
Anti-Slavery Society, in which the Liberty Party
was criticized in a tone pretty nearly bordering on
cant, he wrote :
“The managers say, by nominating abolition candi-
dates we shall let down the “moral Sublimity" of our
* The “Jr.” was dropped at the death of his father in 1845,
and he himself had been dropped from the Abolitionist prior
to April 1, 1840.
LIBERTY PARTY. 27
enterprise. We ought to “shun the very appearance
of evil” — alluding to the sacred text, 1 Thes. v. 22.
“Abstain from all appearance of evil.” Here we protest
against the interpretation. The Apostle's Own Greek
phrase, we think, means only, Abstain from every sort
of evil. But if it must be translated appearance, it is
that which appears evil to oneself, and not to the world.
The common interpretation does not hold true in
morals. It is by no means our duty to abstain from
everything which appears to be evil to others, while it
seems right to ourselves. The fashion of the world in
wrong in this respect. We care too much about our
appearance; what others say of us and our motives:
and at the same time we are too ready (is it prompted
by Our self-knowledge?) to condemn the motives of
others. If a third party really is the best way, as it is
confessedly a rightful one, to knock off our brother's
chains, and we take it, shoulder to shoulder, the pro-
slavery public may say of us what they will, they will
certainly think none the less highly of our “moral
sublimity.” Indeed, what is that moral sublimity good
for, if it cannot sacrifice its reputation for sanctity, and
incur the odium of the tyrannical and the inhuman, in
Order to seize the best means of accomplishing its
object? But we suspect there is a little self-righteous-
ness to be sacrificed. IIave we not set a rather high
value on our own purity 2 Is it, after all, anything
very much out of the reach of common Saintship to
Wish to see our own countrymen more free and our
country relieved from disgrace? We incline to think
not, but that an immense majority in the free states
may be brought to the same “moral sublimity" by the
right lead.”
MYRON IHOLLEY.
CHAPTER XXII.
ON THE STUMP.
A certain species of political oratory, better
known in this country than any other, takes its
name from the fact that in our western states the
stump of a large tree frequently became the pulpit
or rostrum from which a candidate for office or a
political adept addressed his fellow citizens. From
the time, in 1838, when Mr. Holley declined to .
accept office from the Whigs, on the condition of
being gagged on the subject of slavery, he was
much on the stump, besides editing the Rochester
Freeman, a weekly sheet specially devoted to the
abolition cause. From the first he held that anti-
slavery sentiment must make itself a political
channel, or fail of any effect. And wherever any
anti-slavery sentiment existed, }..s addresses pro-
duced conviction. It was this conviction, widely
extended by him, that effected the nomination, on
the first of April, 1840. In him there was no
faltering or despondency about the result. He
labored in a hope, not born of feverish enthusiasm,

ON THE STUMP. - 277
but cool judgment. He had a distinct vision of
the means as well as the end. Writing from
Rochester to his daughter, Mrs. Beaumont, who
was then living in Lyons, in March, 1839, he
says: — “Anti-slavery sentiments seem slowly to
be gaining ground in all the north, and they are
undoubtedly producing effects favorable to aboli-
tion in all the union. I have no doubt that
slavery will be abolished in North America within
twenty years. If the slave states are wise or
prudent they will, before that lapse of time,
abolish peaceably, and if they will not, the first
war that shall occur between our country and any
considerable foreign power will compel a bloody
abolition. I pray this may be prevented.” He
goes right on to speak to his “dear Tatty,” as he
called her, of his own labors. “I have often
thought with some mortification of my lecture
delivered when I was last at Lyons. The pleasant
society which I enjoyed all the day with my
children and grand-children absorbed me so much
during the day that in truth I was very ill-prepared
to give a lecture. But I thought the few aboli-
tionists at Lyons wanted sympathy and encourage-
ment, and that by coming out as I did, I should
somewhat strengthen their faith and fortitude.
**-

278 -- MYRON IHOLLEY.
j
Odium, misrepresentation and persecution have
ever awaited those who set themselves earnestly
to cast off great abuses. So many men of wealth,
intelligence and influence have their feelings,
habits and prospects thoroughly mingled up with
great social abuses, that whoever exposes, resists
and seeks to overthrow the abuses, must expect
trouble. And if they have not a faith and firm-
ness leading even to martyrdom, if need be, the
reform will not be carried.”
Notwithstanding this modest self-depreciation,
no doubt the “few abolitionists of Lyons” were
encouraged when they saw the gentleman who had
given them their canal, and whom they well knew
to be the wisest man in the state, standing by them.
Here was a man who could show them how to do
as well as to think and feel.
Never did he lecture without inspiring action,
which always implies hope. After the nomina-
tion, he gave himself to the work of the stump
with the full spirit of martyrdom, seemingly well
aware that he was crowding ten or twenty years
of life into one, and that the Liberty vote to be
gained was worth the cost.
The little despised Liberty Party was very far
from commanding the sinews of political War

ON THE STUMP. 279
which a party wielding the anti-slavery sentiment
of the country should have had. It resolved to
establish a daily paper in Albany as its organ, and
after much delay it was done in a small way, the
martyr Charles T. Torrey becoming its first editor.
The best it could do was to promise $40 a month
to keep Mr. Holley in the lecture field. And on
that slender stipend he labored with the vigor of
a Hercules through all the months succeeding the
nomination till the election. In writing to his
son William who had fallen sick in Buffalo, in
September, he reveals the effect of these labors
upon his health, as well as the manner of them.
“We want very much to be with you in your dis-
tress, and regret that our situation and means,
at present, forbid it. We should like to hear
further particulars, and if you are not getting
better or are growing worse, your mother will
come out if possible. I am now engaged in serv-
ing the anti-slavery cause, and get forty dollars a
month, which is better than nothing. I find,
however, that speaking so much as I have occasion
to do, or something else, has given me a pain in
my breast and reduced me below good working
condition. Yet I must persevere. I start away
from home (Rochester) again to day. .




280 MYRON HOLLEY.
A few days ago I was within eleven miles of
Buffalo passing from Aurora to Fredonia, and I
wished amazingly to come there, not knowing
however that any of you were sick, but I had not
an hour to spare, and tore myself on westerly.”
From this “ pain in the breast” he did not re-
e
cover. His speaking or “ something else” had
exhausted his vitality and sleep did not restore it.
That “ something else” was partly the excessive
fatigue of constant travelling, for at that day
the railroad system, with its multitudinous
branches, hardly existed. In the Empire State
there were not then 500 miles of railroad where
now there are more than 5,000; for the Cen-
tral was not opened from Schenectady to Buf-
falo till 1841, and the Erie reached only from
Piermont to Goshen. As to the fatigue of travel,
it is easier to stump all the northern states now
than the single state of New York then. But,
it was mostly the deep thought and sense of
responsibility which exhausted him. It is only
sleep which restores the thinking power of the brain,
and the sleeping-car had not yet been invented.
The best and soundest thinking is done directly
after sound natural sleep in pure air. If the air
of the sleeping-car could be kept fresh and free
&

ON THE STUMT’. 281
from dust, perhaps, by virtue of the vibration, it
would be the best sleeping place in the World.
Mr. Holley was naturally a good sleeper. He
never disturbed that important faculty by stimul-
ants or narcotics, – those pests which are filling
the world with insanity, - for he never took any-
thing stronger than a single cup of coffee in the
morning. To this undoubtedly his farsightedness,
equanimity and steady persistence may be largely
attributed.
Mr. Holley’s lectures, it must be remembered,
were never superficial. He had a great fund of
humor, and power to amuse any audience, but he
confined it to the parlor, or the company in a
stage coach, or packet boat. Before an audience
in a hall, few or many, whatever his subject, he
went to the bottom of it as thoroughly as if he were
addressing the Senate of the United States. And
if there was in that audience any thinking power,
he set it in action. His appeal was never to pre-
judice — no vituperation — no personality — no
sarcasm — but a mountainous accumulation of un-
questionable facts laid directly at the door of
practical common sense. The early years of the
anti-slavery cause were full of oratory, - the bare
names of the orators would fill a page, – in which

282 MYRON HOLLEY.
irony, denunciation, invective, ridicule, wit, blis-
tering Satire and indignant rebuke conspired to pro-
duce philippics as much grander than that of Dem-
osthenes as the object was more deserving of them.
Witness the speeches of that giant of the New York
bar, ALVAN STEwART, who, presiding at an anti-
slavery meeting in Utica in 1835, tossed the leader
of a mob of respectable citizens, who invaded the
church and penetrated to the pulpit where he sat,
to break up the meeting, down on to the crowd of
his followers below, and then coolly put the reso-
lutions of the meeting to the vote which formed the
New York State Anti-Slavery Society. Witness
the speech of the young WENDELL PHILLIPS
when he burst out on that “recreant ’’ New Eng-
lander, Hon. James T. Austin, Attorney General
of the Commonwealth, who dared in Fanueil Hall
to class the fiends who murdered Lovejoy with
the men who threw the tea overboard in Boston
Harbor. Here was a king of Macedon, face to
face, surrounded by his grim myrmidons, defam-
ing the fathers of our republic. The young
Demosthenes rose, pointed to their pictures on
the walls, and said, “I thought while he was
speaking those pictured lips would have broken
into voice, to rebuke the recreant Americah — the

ON THE STUMP. 283
slanderer of the dead.” “Take back that word,”
howled the liveried slaves of slavery. No. He
went on, and the plaudits shook the old Cradle of
Liberty as it was never shaken before. The
words of the orator were true in the grandest
sense, – the earth did open and swallow Austin.
All this, every breath of it, and more of the same
sort, was necessary to rouse the people from their
fatal lethargy. But there was another sort, per-
haps fully as effective, and it was even earlier.
As far back as 1832 there was a young “ divinity
student” who hated slavery in every shape,
whether it was the lash or the bottle that produced
it. He had the natural gift of eloquence to such
a degree that when he talked against alcohol, deal-
ers went home, rolled the whiskey barrels out of
the back door and knocked in the heads. When
he talked about negro slavery in an Alabama
parlor, James G. Birney became an abolitionist
and liberated his slaves. He it was that revolu-
tionized Lane Seminary against the opposing
power of its president, the great father of the
Beechers, and sent nearly all its students to
Oberlin, which became a celebrated station on
the underground railroad. IIe it was who, in a
course of lectures in Steubenville, Ohio, put so

284 MYRON HOLLEY.
much abolitionism into a young democratic law
student, who attended to refute him, that he held
his peace on the subject till he became Lincoln's
Secretary of War in 1861. Perhaps if Judge J.
Black had attended that course, it would have
saved him from making a deplorable donkey of
himself. And shall I forget “Carolina's high-
souled daughter,” who afterwards became the
excellent wife of the orator just mentioned 2 She,
soon after the first mobs and before the murder of
Lovejoy, kindled coals in the Legislature of Massa-
chusetts, in spite of the freezing mixtures of
election sermons and the awful frowns of the
clergy. The names of these will be remembered
without marble.” Mr. Holley's stump oratory
was of the same sort. It seems to me impossible
to believe that if one hundred leading men of the
South, including John C. Calhoun and Jefferson
Davis, could have listened to him for two hours,
there would ever have been a Mexican War or a
Southern Confederacy.
* After voice and health failed this cloquent pair, they
settled at Fort Lee, on the IIudson, for a While, and there
compiled from a vast stack of Southern newspapers that ter-
rific pamphlet, “SLAVERY AS IT IS; OR, TIE TESTIMONY OF
1,000 WITNESSEs,” which was the precursor, and afterwards
the justification, of Mrs. Stowe’s “UNCLE TOM'S CABIN.”

HIS HOMEs. 285
CHAPTER XXII.
HIS HOMIES.
THE homes of great and good citizens, whether
the first or the last, are the most sacred places on
earth. They are apt not to be so durable as those
of tyrants and oppressors. The world did not begin
much to admire the genius of Homer till it had
forgotten in what city he was born. Yet his name
and his fame may outlast the pyramids. The
homes and habits of Cadmus are not known.
Would we not give as much to know them as to
see the Colosseum or the Vatican 2. It is rather
painful and depressing to behold a grand house,
built by a small, ignoble, or detestable man, whose
name would otherwise have been forgotten ; or a
magnificent cathedral, which was built and pre-
sided over by some cold-hearted inquisitor, whose
gaudy garments smelt of the smoke of burnt
heretics; but who does not feel his heart warmed
and enlarged by looking on the home-picture on

286 MYRON HOLLEY.
which the eyes of a Howard or a Shakespeare
rested with delight?
Much do I wish that I could show my kind
readers, in the present beautiful style of the
graphic art, the house where Myron Holley was
born, the four which he himself successively built
for his family, and the last one where his dust"
now reposes, built for him by the kind hand of
mother Nature in one of her sweetest groves, and
beautified by the gratitude of the little band of
Liberty Party. Abolitionists three or four years
after his death. I can but point out the spots.
It was as early as 1821 that Mr. Holley re-
moved his wife and ten children from their pleas-
ant home in Canandaigua to Lyons, where he had
provided a spacious double house, two stories
high, on the main street, with doubtless all the
then modern improvements. It is to be remem-
bered that his good father was a man of consider-
able wealth, and that his Canandaigua property
was desirable. He could well afford to live in a
good house.
Lyons is hardly less beautiful than Canandaigua.
It has exceedingly fertile hills, of easy ascent, but
with wide and charming views of valley scenery.
It is at the head of navigation on the river Clyde,

HIS HOMES. 287
an affluent of the Seneca, formed by the junction of
Mud Creek from the west, and Flint Creek, bear-
ing the waters of Canandaigua Lake, from the
southwest. Either of these would be considered
respectable rivers in England or Scotland — they
only lack a Burns to be so here.
. After his reverse in the canal business had
obliged him to make the most of his resources, he
built a cozy stone cottage on Phelps Street, in a
less aristocratic portion of the town, called Joppa,
situated in a five-acre fruit-garden, where he
cultivated quince and mulberry trees, and where
his family lived while he was editing in Lyons and
in Hartford.
I am told it was of this home that a Canan-
daigua poet, rejoicing in the name of Zebulum
Barton Stout, wrote some verses, published in the
local papers, and addressed to “Mrs. Holley,
Miss Lawrence and Miss Holley.” The sense
and spirit are rather more conspicuous than the
polish or finish, but those who complain of this
rustic bard, should show they know how to give
his worthy subject a worthier treatment. Amer-
ican poets have never yet done justice to American
troes. ©


288 MYRON HOLLEY.
On the green margin of the peaceful stream,
Which winds its way through Lyons' charming vale;
Stand three tall Elms — and nobler trees, I deem
Ne'er waved their heads to heaven’s salubrious gale;
Their spreading branches with thick foliage crowned,
Partly obstruct a view, admired by all;
And thoughtlessly was a decision found,
The ancient sturdy Elms should straightway fall.
But ere the impious axeman gave the blow,
A Voice unearthly murmured in the breeze;
The spirit of the Woods, in accents low,
Thus sighed a prayer, amid the trembling trees:
Hold, Woodman know these venerable elms,
The wintry storms of ages have withstood ;
False is the taste, and cruel, which condemns
The stately Elm, the pride of every wood.
E’er in this vale the White man durst appear,
These verdant branches spread their summer shade
O'er many an Indian hunter loitering here,
O'er many a beauteous, taWny, forest maid.
The Elms, a monument, then, WOOdman spare,
Of the lost race, to tell that they have been ;
Their solemn dirge shall mournful winds declare,
Dews wept from leaves, the tribute grief begin.
And when the morning sunshine shall exhale
These Nature’s tears, for Nature’s children Shed,
As through their boughs light winds prevail,
They’ll cheer the living while they mourn the dead.
In future, oft shall village youths repair,
And lovelier damsels grace the jocund train;
Then, Woodman, grant this happier race to share
These blessed shades. Oh, let the Elms remain

HIS HOMES. 289
Lost were these strains upon the Woodman’s ear,
Had not two blooming maidens joined their voice,
In intercession sweet, with hearts sincere,
And begged the trees might live. They live. Rejoice.
Thus wayward man can slight a voice from heaven.
Yet woman’s pleadings joyfully obey;
Woman, to thee the magic charm is given,
At once to serve, yet bear enchanting SWay.
This village has a dwelling named CONTENT, -
In front, a dark green maple woodland grows,
Beneath whose shade, in graceful curvings bent,
Erie's canal in silent grandeur flows.
'Tis sweet to mark at evening's pensive hour,
Amid the grove, the decklights glide along ;
Or listen, lulled with music's soothing power,-
To the shrill bugle, or the boatman's song.
Health to this mansion, long may joy and love,
And blue-eyed hope, its smiling bowers adorn ;
Each sum returning o'er the dark green grove,
Forever waken still a happier morn. *
Around this home of “Content” Mr. Holley's
married daughters were then settled, and he him-
self in a long letter to Mrs. Clarissa Beaumont,
dated Hartford, Sep. 21, 1834, tells how and why
he loved it. Notice how he recognized in Nature
a commandment more effective than any contained
in any book. After expressing the longing he
felt, after nine months of absence, to meet again
the objects of his “ most engrained affections,” he
says: “ The divine wisdom has seen it best to


290 MYRON HOLLEY.
ordain that the stream of love should flow strongest
down the current of life; and so has made it
natural that parents should love their children
more than children should love their parents. If
I remember right, parents are not commanded,
anywhere in the Scriptures, to love their children.
This most necessary and most efficacious of means
of compelling human beings to do everything in
their power to increase and secure the well-being
of their race, is better accomplished by ligaments
round the heart and incapable of being severed
from it, than it could possibly be by any words—
even the commands of the Most High. They are
monsters who do not feel, or who refuse to acknow-
ledge, the force of all these ligaments. Every day
of my life the scenery most before me is that of Ly-
ons. And the society I most enjoy is that which
gives this scenery its chief interest. Our new situa-
tion, at the Quince Orchard, with its snug comforts
and unfinished but promising accompaniments, –
the place you occupy, with its tasteful, convenient,
and multiplied means of enjoyment, -Caroline's
domicil with all its agreeable associations, and
Elizabeth's nice establishment by the river, are
almost constantly before me, in all their peculiar
features and distinguishing attractions; and my

HIS HOMES. 291 -
heart is filled, sometimes with a melancholy, but
more often with a cheerful interest in the living,
and moving, and immortal, and responsible, and
loving beings, who fill the high places of all this
scenery, and, in my view, concentrate upon it the . .
highest social delights of this life, and twine them-
selves inseparably with all my most solemn and
'most precious anticipations of the future.”
Yet, though he had achieved for Lyons the
“silent grandeur” of the canal which “flows” so
lovingly by it, had made Wayne a county " and
* In those early days, whenever a new county was to be set
off from one already established, there was generally a stub-
born resistance from those whose power was to be diminished.
I quote the following letter for two reasons; first, to show
what Lyons owed to Mr. Holley, and second, how DeWitt
Clinton's plan of having the Erie Canal duly celebrated, in a
book of the greatest possible scientific, economical, pictorial
and historical interest, written by Mr. Holley himself, fell
through, because in the midst of his preparation for it, he,
Clinton, was stupidly removed from the Canal Board.
&
ALBANY, 15 April, 1823.
DEAR SIR, - I was disappointed in not seeing you before
your departure from this place.
I have received a letter from the bookseller in New York,
[A. V. Goodrich & Co..] declining the overture I made on ac-
count of circumstances unconnected with any objections to
the merits of the plan, but I really would advise you to pro-
ceed and execute the work, and there can be no doubt of a
liberal remuneration from more affluent quarters.
Mr. Bouck thinks that the Canal Board ought to meet at
Buffalo the latter end of May. Will you let me know your




292 MYRON HOLLEY.
:...ºk."
Lyons the capital of it, he was not to stay in
Lyons.
Soon after his return from Hartford, seeing that
five acres of quinces, with some Chinese and
Italian mulberry trees, would not sustain a large
family, he repaired to Rochester, then the centre
of the great milling interest and growing to be a
great city. From some hotel there we have a
family letter to his daughter, Mrs. George King-
man, then residing in Lyons:
Roch EstER, 4 March, 1835.
MY DEAR ELIZABETH. — Your present of apples and
cakes came very safe by George, and were received
with great delight as evidence of your affectionate
regard for me. Besides affording me a little Supper
last evening, they enabled me to be properly courteous
to Judge E. B. Strong and Dr. Smith, who called at
my room half an hour, having left the ball-room occu-
pied here last evening for that purpose.
George informs me that you take a lively interest in
opinion in order that I may select the most acceptable period?
This, however, is upon a supposition that the present Canal
Eoard will continue. I learn that there is an excitement
against you on account of the new county, which I very much
regret. As to myself, I think it almost certain that an at-
tempt will be made to remove, and I shall certainly feel
no mortification at its success.
I am sincerely,
Your fricnd,
IDEWITT CLINTON.
M. II.OLLITY, ESQ.

HIS HOMES. 293
Sally, and wish her to be sent to Caroline's in Con-
necticut for a year. This might be very useful to her.
and possibly may take place. At any rate, I feel very
sensibly obliged by the sisterly feeling in you which it
indicates; and am very much gratified by the interest
manifested by George in such an arrangement. I shall
think of it, and if I do not come home (probably I
shall) before the canal opens, shall write further on this
subject. In the meantime, I cannot say that the proba-
bility is in favor of her going. I love Sally with an
affection which nothing shall or can ever obliterate, and
hope to aid her advancement in life more hereafter
than I have been able to for some years past. I have a
project of business here which looks plausible for a per-
manent establishment. If it can be compassed on
reasonable terms, it promises me comfort, and my fam-
ily more assistance from me than I shall be ever able to
render them in any other way as to subsistence and
profit. George can tell you what it is, but I wish it
not to be spoken of out of the circle of my children.
With perfect affection, my dear Elizabeth,
Your abiding friend,
MYRON Holley.
Kiss Clare and little George for me, and give my love
to Sam.
It does not seem that this “ project of business *
succeeded, for Mr. Holley bought a piece of land—
of great natural beauty and fertility — on the
river, a little below Rochester, where he built a
plain commodious house, and moved his family




294 MYIRON HOLLEY.
into it before Christmas, though it was not quite
finished. From that place, as “ROSE RIDGE,” he
dates his beautiful letters for the next three years.
The spot is well worth going to see, as the Gene-
see, after playing Niagara at Rochester, flows
peacefully through a deep gorge beneath it.
Nature indulges in a beautiful shrubbery of arbor
vitae on its banks. Here with his library, his
principal room on the ground floor, he was in
his element. He knew how to get as much out of
his acres as any man could, and a great deal
more out of his books. I must here give the
reader the residue of a letter to his daughter
Caroline at Washington, from which I have quoted
in a previous chapter :
Rose RIDGE, 23d February, 1837.
MY DEAR CAROLINE. – Your mother and I were
very much pleased to read a very interesting letter
which you addressed to her yesterday ; and as the time
draws near when you will leave the seat of government,
I lose no time in expressing my thanks for that and all
the other evidences of your affection with which you
have favored us this winter. I received the play of
Bulwer and all the other articles and documents referred
to by you, and have read most of them with much inter-
est, and feel, indeed, much obliged both to you and Mr.
Chapin for them.



BIIS HOMIES. 295
Bulwer’s play, I think, adds nothing to his reputation
as an author. It seems to me feeble, and to embrace
a poor subject. The intrigues, sensuality and vices of
kings cannot be treated of, with much interest, in any
publication without marking them with that stern rep-
robation, which titled and fashionable and enthroned
infamy peculiarly deserves. The graces and the flatteries,
and the fame of the Court of Louis the 14th of France,
do only make the more disgusting the pride, selfish-
ness and brutality of that hypocritical and unprincipled
scoundrel's character. But I will say nothing more of
him. -
Your anxiety to get home again is natural and com-
mendable. I think you have done well in availing
yourself of the fine opportunity offered you by your
husband's election to Congress, and consent that you
should accompany him there, to become acquainted with
the distinguished circles of Washington. And I think
you have done better to make up your mind, notwith-
standing the pretension, the elegance, the intelligence
and the renown of those circles, to cherish an honest
and deep-felt preference for the more true-hearted, art-
less and virtuous society with which your own village
will supply you. I entertain but little confidence in the
qualities requisite to distinction in what are called high
Societies in any country. In such societies in our
country, I fear, there is increasing degradation. The
most distinguished virtues, and the great improvements
of our race, have always originated with the poor; and
I think we must always chiefly look to them for future
improvements. This is the lesson of history, and easily
to be accounted for. The Christian commandment of
love to God and man enters more deeply into the


296. - MYRON HOLLEY.
spirits of the reflecting poor than any others, and when
this affection combines in all its strength and purity, as
it sometimes does in their souls, with the highest intel-
lectual power, and a resolution never daunted in the
pursuit of good, they become the lights and guides of
the world. In such persons the want of education is
nothing. Every thing in nature stimulates them to
inquiry and to thought, and to observation. Their best
faculties become strong by exertion. And they have no
prejudices, which always disable the high born and the
high bred, or if they have, their prejudices are in favor
of the great majority of their fellow beings, and not in
favor of any little class. And all social improvements,
that are true and permanent, benefit, not the few at
the expense of the many, but the many together with
the few.
Your mother's hand is better, though not yet so well as
to enable her to write. She regrets this chiefly because
it prevents her from writing to you.
If you see Mr. and Mrs. T. Childs before you start
for home, give my respects to them, but do not fail to
do it to my brother-in-law, Mr. Whittlesey.
We have heard no bad news from Lyons, though it
is now two or three weeks since we have heard any-
thing at all from there. Bolly is with Mrs. Kingman and
goes to school. Sally is with Mrs. Beaumont and I
hope considers herself at school also. Grace is all the
child we have at home. She likes to hear your letters,
and wants very much to have Cornelia Chapin spend
the summer here. Perhaps, after you get home, and
find all things there as you can wish, you will be able
to come out to see us with her and Some other of your
family. It will give us great happiness. Give my

HIS HOMIES. 297
affectionate regards to Mr. Chapin and believe me as
usual vours. Ma and Grace Send love.
MYRON HOLLEY.
Mr. Holley's life had not been exempt from
the sorrows of the common lot. At Lyons he
had lost his daughter Cornelia, a lovely child,
the next younger than Sally. He felt the loss
most keenly, but the neighbors who came to con-
dole with him at his house, where a Methodist
minister preached a funeral sermon, were surprised
that he wore light clothes, never before having
seen a man who did not dress in black and wear
crape on such an occasion. At Rose Ridge, in
1838, he heard that three of his daughters, Mrs.
Chapin, Mrs. Beaumont and Mrs. Kingman, had
simultaneously entered on a six months probation
to join the Methodist church. He sat down and
addressed to the three jointly a very long and
serious letter, in which he does not object to the act
nor cast any reproach on the church, but very dis-
tinctly states his notion of religion. By his defini-
tion, Religion is “a practical obedience to all the
obligations of our nature and just relations *—
substantially identical with that of Voltaire, Paine
and other distinguished deists, whom the Method-
ists as well as most other Christian sects are never




298 MYRON HOLLEY.
tired of denouncing as “infidels.” He expresses
no anxiety about or prejudice against belief if only
duty was right. While he was writing this letter,
one came to him from Lockport, stating that his son
Robert had just died there. He incorporates this
letter, and then proceeds to speak of his son in
the tenderest terms, implying that though his
habits had not all been such as he could wish, he
believed him not to be beyond hope. Neither the
, Scriptures nor his own understanding taught him
that “ probation was confined to this life.” The
whole of his most affectionate epistle taught trust
in Nature as well as Christ. If the Methodist
Church would apply to Miss Sallie Holley, who
has preserved this letter in full, they would find
it quite as edifying as any of Paul's. I wish I
had room for it here.
I must give one which he addressed to his
young son Bolivar, who was then a lad at school
in Lyons:
RosB RIDGE, 26th March, 1837.
MY DEAR BOLIVAR,-Grace and I have just finished
a very pleasant walk down along the banks of the
Genesee, during which we often thought of you. The
clear sky, the bright sun, the merry birds, all attended
us, and seemed to say, “Where is Bolly, whom you
both love so much, and who used to walk with you



HIS IHOMIES. 299
here?” The best answer I could make was, our dear
Bolly is at Lyons, engaged in learning many things
very necessary to enable him to pass a useful and happy
life; and we hope he is diligent and ambitious to make
good progress. But while he is striving with all his
powers, to increase his knowledge, Grace and myself,
and his mother, all hope he will neither forget us, nor
lose one jot of his love for us. “ That he will not,” all
nature seemed to say, ‘‘ and when he comes home, im-
proved in mind and manners, and grown nearer to the
stature of a man, you and he will walk here again
with increasing satisfaction. Perhaps, in the course of
the summer, which I am now laboring to bring forth, he,
with some of his, and your, best friends at Lyons, will
join you in one or two very pleasant whortleberry par-
ties.” With this and many other social enjoyments
which we hope to experience with him, we make our-
selves contented in his absence, praying to our heavenly
Father, that he may have the grace to be always good,
which we are sure will make him always happy. Mother
and Grace send their best love to you and Elizabeth and
Caroline and Tatty and all their children and friends.
Affectionately your father.
The great cause of human liberty did not allow
Mr. Holley to spend that summer on his farm of
Rose Ridge. He hired a house in Rochester,
nearer his work. His labor was on the Drºss and
on the stump. He felt that to be the crisis of a
new birth. Not a moment was to be lost. We
have seen Now effectively he labored.


300 MYRON HOLLEY.
Thus to pull up stakes was costly, difficult and
slow. Debts must necessarily be incurred. The
times were excessively hard. The industrious
north had trusted the slack-twisted financial honor
of the south, and it failed. The backers of the
Jºochester Freeman had not the backbone to sus-
tain it. Late in the fall of 1840, after Mr. Holley
had finished his great work of planting a new party
on the immortal Declaration of '76, he completed
the sale of his beautiful farm, received money
enough to pay all his debts — which he did with a
relish only known to honesty — and had left $400
in hand. Just before the canal froze up he visited
his daughter, Mrs. Kingman, then settled in Buf-
falo, much enjoying with his family a trip which
his earlier labors had made possible.
He returned to his hired house at Rochester to
die. I find no letter from him later than one
addressed to J. W. Alden and Samuel E. Sewall,
in reply to an invitation to attend the Massachu-
setts State Liberty Party Convention to be held on
the 24th of February, 1841, in the Marlboro
Chapel in Boston. It was dated Feb. 1, 1841,-
only a month and four days previous to his death,
and closed thus:– “I pray God to endow you with
divine wisdom and render your convention a


HIS HOMIES. 301
mighty instrument of disabusing our cause of the
visionary notions which have so much impeded it,
and placing it firmly in the strong arms of Christian
principles and practical good sense.
With much respect,
Your obedient servant,
MYRON HOLLEY.”
THE LAST HOME.
Its site is among the beautiful, tree-crowned
river hills, on the Genesee, above Rochester — in
a cemetery well named MOUNT HOPE. A plain
and modest monument marks the spot, whose his-
tory does honor to another great man, who loved
him like a brother, and whose own memory will
grow greener and greener with his.
At a convention of the Liberty Party of the State of
New York, held at Canastota, Sep. 20, 1843, Gerrit
Smith offered the following Resolutions. They were,
after a few remarks by him, passed unanimously — the
members of the convention standing whilst the votes
were taken. The blanks in the 2d and 3d resolutions
were filled with the name of Gerrit Smith.
1st. Whereas of all the public and private honors,
which cluster so thickly and brightly around the name
of MYRON HOLLEY, there is none so prominent and
enduring, as his devoted friendship for the slave ; and
whereas amongst the evidence of that friendship, none
is so worthy of record, as his agency in founding the

302 . MYRON HOLLEY.
Liberty Party : Resolved, therefore, that for this party
to incur the expense, and have the credit of erecting the -
monument on his grave would be strikingly appropriate ;
and that now, when this party is travelling so rapidly
towards its bloodless and blessed victory over American
slavery, is a peculiarly fit time to erect it.
2d. Resolved, that , be authorized to erect
the monument at the expense of about two hundred
dollars; and that the only testimony to Mr. Holley's
worth which shall be inscribed on it be as follows:
_ TIIE LIBERTY PARTY
OIT TIIE -
TJNITED STATES OF AMERICA
HAVE ERECTED THIIS MONUMENT
TO THIE MEMORY OF
MYRON IIOLLEY,
THE FIRIEND OF THIE SLAVE,
AND THE MOST EFFECTIVE, As WELL AS ONE OF THE
VERY EARLIEST OF THIS FOUNDERS OIF
THAT PARTY.
3d. Resolved, that each member of the Liberty
Party have the privilege of contributing one cent, no
more, towards the expense of erecting the monument ;
and that the said be authorized to appoint a
person in each of the free states and free territories,
whose duty it shall be to gather the contributions of his
respective state or territory, and send the same to him,
the said &
4th. Resolved, that the first day of October, 1844,
shall be the period when these contributions shall cease
to be made ; and should their aggregate exceed the cost


HIS HOMES. 303
of the monument, the excess shall be given to Mr. Hol-
ley’s family.”
This was the day of small things and great
hopes. The next Presidential election showed less
than 70,000 Liberty Party voters. If there had
been enough at one cent apiece to have given to
Mr. Holley's family any excess over the cost of
the monument, perhaps the victory over American
slavery would have been “bloodless,” as was then
hoped. But some thousands gave their cent. Mr.
Smith procured the monument, which was of
Stockbridge marble, made by Mr. Dixon, of
Albany, under the superintendence of Orville L.
Holley.
* At the date of this Canastota Convention the activity of
the Liberty Party leaders was such as thoroughly to frighten
the Whig politicians. They had no other cause of fear.
Their idol, Clay, had won the south by the atrocious speech
already cited. All they had to do, Was to hold their ascen-
dancy at the north, by keeping their voters from going over
to the Liberty Party. Neither high rhetoric nor fair argu-
ment was sufficient for that. At the last fortnight of the can-
vass in 1844, the Michigan Whig State Committee concocted
against Mr. Birney the basest and most inexcusable forgery,
of a letter aileged to have been written by him to a Mr. Gar.
land of Saginaw, selling himself to the democrats for a seat in
the legislature. It was worse than a lie. Supported by bets
in the highest quarters, it doubtless cost the Liberty Party
thousands of votes, but it did not save Henry Clay,



304 MYRON HOLLEY.
On one side it bears the inscription:
MYRON HollBY
BORN IN SALICBURY, CONNECTICUT,
APRIL 29, 1779.
DIED IN ROCHESTER,
MARCH 4, 1841.
EIE TRUSTED IN GOD, AND LOVED HIS NEIGHBOR.
A fine medallion likeness by Carew, of Boston,
in Italian marble, is inserted in the same side of
the shaft.
On the opposite side were inscribed the words
above cited in the second resolution.
The monument was dedicated June 13, 1844,
under a blue sky, in the presence of six thousand
persons.
A characteristic eulogy was delivered by Gerrit
Smith, and the following hymn, composed for the
occasion, by John Pierpont, was sung to the tune
of “God Save the ſing.”
Here, where young Summer weaves
A screen of tender leaves
Over thy grave,
And the WOOd-robin’s Wing
Around is fluttering
Thy requiem we sing,
Friend of the slave.
IIere, in this leafy aisle,
A monumental pile
To thee We rear;


HIS HOMES.
- That strangers as they’re led
---. These shady paths to tread
- . . May linger by thy bed
And drop a tear.
Why, brother, should we mourn?
. Long hast thou bravely borne
- A false World’s frown : —
- Yet He for Whose dear sake,
Thou did'st that burden take
Well knoweth how to make
Thy cross thy crown.
How glowed thy lips — thy pen
- When for thy fellow men,
For e'en the thrall,
Thy spirit dared to be
With God’s Own freedom free,
And publish his decree
FREEDOM FOR ALL!
Tears — manly tears — will yet
These cold, mute marbles Wet,
Servant of God;
And clouds in mourning drest,
Low greeting from the West,
And stars that watch thy rest,
Bedew thy sod.
**...”


306 MYRON HOLLEY.
CHAPTER XXIII.
HIS CHARACTER.
THE family is the ultimate test of character.
It is the furnace where gold is distinguished from
every other metal. The man or woman who can
pass that ordeal, and, like an autumn sunset, shine
brighter to the last, has a better title to heroism
than any other mortal. Well ordered, loving
families are the only stuff that a real republic can
be made of. If the average family is a sham, so
will the republic be. If the general fact is that
the family is harmonious, husband and wife wor-
shipping each other and living for each other —
children, if any, worshipping mother and father —
no matter what the creed or the wealth may be,
the country will be happy under almost any
government, if not under none. It cannot help
being a republic.
It was the glory of Myron Holley's life, that all
his unparalleled devotion to the public service, his
facing persecution for rectitude, his far-seeing and
self-sacrificing patriotism were founded on his love

HIS CHARACTER. 307
for his family. It was on that theatre that his
magnificent and beneficent powers of body and
mind had full play. With delight he tossed his
babies, and his children's, in the air, and when
their minds began to open, poured his light into
them, as the sun does into the opening buds of
spring. Let us hope the time will come when the
republic will put its supreme trust only in such
persons.
The idlest of all dreams is, that there can be
patriotism and cohesion in a republic, when there
is not love, harmony, order, justice in the family.
If chains of arbitrary will and hoops of theologi-
cal creed are what hold the family together, no
government other than arbitrary, plutocratic and
theocratic, as well as military, can hold society
together.
That our rather over-lauded democratic republi-
can government has not gone into utter disinte-
gration long before now, is doubtless owing to
the fact, that scattered over our vast country, of
all creeds and none, are, in large proportion, happy,
self-supporting, fondly loving, proudly laboring,
and comparatively free-thinking families. These
families are self-centred units; and to them the
e pluribus wivum flag is more significant than any

308 MYRON HOLLEY.
theological emblem. It teaches them to ostracize
no man or woman. Under it, they are learning
that deep wisdom which the great English bard,
nearly three centuries ago, put into the mouth of
a heroic woman who essayed the healing art:
“Our remedies oft in Ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to Heaven. The fated sky
Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull
Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.”
It is now more than *enty-years since Myron
Holley was laid beneath the sod, wept by high and
low, rich and poor, white and black — the sky
weeping too. Others may have forgotten, but
his sons and daughters worship him more and
more. The few that knew him personally at all,
do so too ; and their only regret is that they did
not know him more intimately.
Under the date of March 19, 1878, Henry
O'Rielly, one of the most enthusiastic and honest of
the men who spread the telegraph wires over the
continent, wrote me about Mr. Holley : —
“A long life has not enabled me to see a man
more worthy of honor and love. I use the last
word warily — for his was a truly lovable charac-
ter. When I came to know him (for he was my
neighbor for several of his later years), I 're-
".
.."t


His CHARACTER. 309
pented in sack-cloth and ashes' (metaphorically
speaking) for what I saw was the injustice done
towards him by many of the partizans with whom
I was associated, persons in whose prejudices I,
for awhile, participated — but only for awhile; for
unfounded prejudice gave way speedily, as I
became acquainted with the excellence of his whole
character. Few could know him so well as I
knew him—for I knew him in adversity for seve-
ral years.” In this letter Mr. O'Rielly also
says: “I first cleared up and laid out the 'Trian-
gle Tract’ in Mt. Hope, on which our lot is next
to Mr. Holley’s monument — where a tablet
records the simple fact that Capt. Henry Brooks
O'Rielly of the Army of the Potomac fell in May,
1862 — defending in the field what Mr. Holley
courageously advocated in a life of severe trial,
in the latter part of which life none knew him
better than I did.”
Mr. O'Rielly, who took a leading part in the
enlargement of the Erie Canal, was able to, and
kindly did, furnish incontestible documents, prov-
ing what has been stated in the foregoing pages,
to wit, that, to the practical sagacity, zeal and
self-denying devotion of Myron Holley, New York
and the world owe it, that the original canal did


310 MYRON HOLLEY.
not stop at Oswego, and probably that anything
of the sort was begun in 1817.
But the most convincing proof of the high moral
as well as physical excellence of Mr. Holley, is
the fidelity and reverence with which his now ven-
erable daughters cherish his memory. We have
already seen the cause of this in the letters already
cited in the previous pages. His religion differed
from that of most fathers in that it included what
is good in all religions, grew from all sources,
excluded none, conceived of God as simply a
personification of all the abstract verities—eter-
nally self-existent — a universal fatherhood —
inseparable from the nature of things. There was
in it, no total depravity, no original sin, no im-
puted righteousness, no atonement by blood, no
miraculous conversion, no angry tyrant to be pro-
pitiated by the sacrifice of innocent enjoyments.
No wonder then that his daughter Sallie should
write of him — and her words will surely gain -
more credence than mine —“Nothing impressed
me more, as I grew into young womanhood, than
my father's earnest religious convictions, ever
ardent, alive and all controlling. I never knew
any soul who had such an unfaltering faith in
immortality — more like sight than faith, a habit-

HIS CHARACTER. 311
ual anticipation of heaven, that transfigured all
human life to him and dignified every act. He
utterly repudiated the popular theology. He
thought it unscriptural, irrational and demoraliz-
ing, and that it deplorably hindered the coming
of the kingdom of heaven upon earth. So he, as
I knew him, could not sanction going to the fash-
ionable churches. I never in all my life saw him
in a church. Instead he used to hold a simple
service in our home parlor in Lyons, in which the
family and the poorer neighbors joined. After his
removal to Rochester he convened Sunday morn-
ing meetings at the Court House, where he
preached regularly. There was no Unitarian or
liberal preaching otherwise in the city. While he
occupied the fine fruit and vegetable farm a few
miles north of Rochester, at Carthage, his custom
was to hold Sunday meetings in the poor old
district school-house there. What a curious, odd
audience used to gather to listen and look at him.
Every rank in Society was represented. There
sat the elegant and courtly Judge E. B. Strong,
With occasionally the ladies of his household.
And the Episcopalian Hoopers, on Sundays too
rainy to get to their St. Paul's in the city, came
to this extraordinary kind of worship, where they



312 MYRON HOLLEY.
met the poorest and most humble day-laborers,
and even drunkards and outcasts did not feel
themselves excluded from the all-embracing
humanity of those ministrations.”
“It was not an uncommon thing for families,
too degraded by intemperance and vice to venture
to ask a clergyman, to send for my father to offi-
ciate at their funerals. They saw in their daily
intercourse with him, that his divine tenderness
took them all in.”
“This Carthage farm, which he named ‘ Rose
Ridge' for the beautiful roses he used to grow
there, yielded choice fruits and vegetables, that
my father, in a light wagon, took himself up to
the city to supply customers — mostly wealthy
families, and one of the lively ladies used to
declare that ‘ Mr. Holley sold early peas and pota-
toes, asparagus and tomatoes in the morning, with
as much grace as he delivered Lyceum lectures in
the evening.” The garden, the orchard and all
out-door nature was a perpetual joy to him. The
very trees and stars were significant and friendly
to his pure heart.”
“I was told this anecdote of those days. Dr.
Whitehouse, the most exclusive and aristocratic
Episcopal clergyman of Rochester, himself an

HIS CHARACTER. 313
Englishman, had married a Bordentown lady of
the Joseph Bonaparte neighborhood, and brought
her to what she regarded as the outside barbarian
world. After a residence of some months, she
one day, in a fit of enthusiastic delight, ran up to
her husband's study, and broke in with, ‘Why,
Doctor I’ve just seen the only gentleman I have
yet met with in Rochester; and he was at Our
basement door selling vegetables | how wonderful
who is it? Who can it be P’ ‘O,’ smiled the
Doctor, ‘it must be Myron Holley.’”
In regard to the sin of selling vegetables that
Reverend Doctor could be more forgiving than in
regard to that of heresy. I have on the best
authority a fact characteristic of his profession and
of the age that is passing away. Mr. Holley’s
son-in-law, Graham H. Chapin, was sent to Con-
gress from Lyons by a combination of Democrats
and Masons, in the Anti-Masonic times. He was
a kind-hearted, unprogressive, college-bred, gen-
tlemanly man of the surface. Residing after his
return from Congress at Rochester, he regularly
attended the most fashionable church there, and
died in the odor of sanctity. Dr. Whitehouse
preached his funeral sermon, in which he praised
him for not accepting “ the cold, frigid philosophy


314 - MYIRON HOLLEY.
of Unitarianism of Myron Holley,” whom he did
not hesitate to stigmatize as an “open infidel” —
a phrase which had vastly more force then than
In OW.
This pulpit anathema was ignorantly hurled at
a man who had written the following beautiful
form of prayer for his youngest daughter, Grace.
I copy it from his own handwriting:
“Father in Heaven, to thee I owe
The blessings which my days have crown'd;
My parents kind, thou didst bestow,
And dearer, children never found;
My sisters and my brothers too,
Thy goodness to my heart has giv'n ;
To thee, O may we all be true,
And find, in love, Our path to heav'n.”
No sane mortal ever objects to prayers devoid
of superstition, and such were the sincere and un-
pretending prayers of Myron Holley. They were
not pompous, pharisaic or dictatorial, and never
asked for miracles. He would never have joined
in any national teazing of the Infinite about the
weather, or the healing of gun-shot wounds.
Is it to be wondered at, that a man who prayed
in his family and taught his children to pray,
should set his face resolutely against all religious
fanaticism 2 About the time when revivalism


HIS CHARACTER. 315
broke out in a school in Lyons, as already related,
a revival preacher, by the name of Littlejohn,
came to that place and proposed to hold a “pro-
tracted meeting ” of 42 days. Mr. Holley assem-
bled the influential citizens in the Court House,
and set before them the demoralizing effects of
such meetings so vividly, that the project was
abandoned. Happy would it be, wherever such
extravagances threaten to become epidemic, if
some enlightened and tenderly religious person
would have the moral courage to do as he did.
As an employer of labor, we have already seen
that Mr. Holley was eminently successful. It was
his overruling sense of justice and warm sympathy
with the labores which pushed the great ditch
through two hundred miles of forests, marshes
and swamps. Shirking no hardship or danger,
he inspired the digger and contractor alike with
enthusiasm, which neither physical obstacles or
popular clamor could daunt. Years after the
canal was finished and he was living quietly in his
five-acre garden in Lyons, or on his hundred and
twenty acre farm in Carthage, some coarse-clad
but grateful Irishman would call on him and
remind him of the good old times of the digging.
One said: “Commissioner, I was the man who


316 - MYRON HOT,LEY.
carried the lantern,” or regalled some other
Service ; and he was seldom without the aid in his
garden or on his farm, of one or more of these
humble volunteers, happy to work for him with-
out pay, weeks at a time; but whom he lodged,
fed and dismissed with better clothes and a sense
that in him they had a friend who would welcome
them whenever they came. He had the strength
of a giant, and did not abstain from using it in a
combative sense on a fit occasion. When his
eldest daughter was living in a house not far from
his own at Lyons, with her first child in her arms,
he became aware that she was in danger from a
stout, unprincipled tramp who had called on her
as a beggar and found her along, Hastening to
the house, without saying a word, he grasped the
fellow around body and both arms, and carried
him, bellowing for mercy, through the yard and
into the middle of the street, where he set him
down. Greatly relieved, the miserable wretch
ran as if he had escaped from a lion.
He was an early riser, enjoyed his food, used
neither intoxicating drinks nor tobacco. “Thank
you, I smoke clear,” he said, when invited to take
a cigar. His evenings were always spent at home,
when practicable. His daughters do not remem-
*



HIS CHARACTER. 317
• -
ber that he ever spoke a cross word in his family,
or indulged in a selfish act, or showed anger under
any provocation. He was refined without regard
to conventionality. His patience was impertur-
bable and his self-command absolute. Such
ability to govern his own spirit is to a good man
and reformer as invaluable as it is rare.
His delight in little children was a conspicuous
trait. They were never in his way. He loved to
have them with him in his garden, teaching them
how to sow seeds and pull up the weeds. When
he came in, he would be carrying two or three of
his little grand-children on his broad shoulders at
once. He always carried in his pocket a little
wooden folding comb which his own father had
made for him, with his own hands, and once when
he came in from his garden, after sowing pepper-
grass, one of these little ones, who had been
assisting, climbing up in a chair beside him,
begged the privilege of using this comb on his
head, which was granted. After she had proceed-
ed a little in the operation, finding a bald spot on
the top of his head, she excited a great laugh by
saying, “ Grandpa, why don't 'oo sow hair seed on
here P’’ -
While he lived in Rochester, editing the “Free-

318 . MYRON HOLLEY.
man" for the abolitionists, he was resorted to
from far and near, by entire strangers, for the
settlement of disputes. They were ready to abide
by his decision, for they said he was better than
any of the city courts. “Grace Greenwood,”
who lived in Rochester at the time, says she well
remembers “ his grand and stately presence
coming down the street, when the people would
part in reverence and admiration on either side,
like the waves of the sea, for him to pass through.”
With all this dignity of demeanor there was
never any austerity or arrogance. Once, in
Lyons, when there was great excitement about
the “sin of dancing,” the ministers all preaching
and praying against it, Mr. Holley quietly said:
“It is as natural for young people to like to dance
as for the apple-trees to blossom in the spring.”
For the heart of a man we naturally look to the
closing scene. One of his daughters gives me
this account of it :
“The affection between my father and his
brothers and only sister was above anything I
have ever known on earth. They never separated
without tears and kisses, and to the latest hour of
his life Salisbury was treasured with the fondest
affection. The first person he expected to meet

HIS CHARACTER. 310
in heaven was his mother. His brain was clear
and unclouded to the last moment of his life. I
was with him most of the time during his last
sickness. He again and again expressed his full
faith in a glorious resurrection. He said, a few
days before his death : ‘I believe Jesus Christ
was a man, and I believe in the final restoration
of all mankind to happiness.’ The day before he
died he tenderly assured all of us, his family, that
he should always love us and think of us in
heaven.’ ‘ I NEVER DECEIVED ANY BODY IN MY
LIFE,’ was one of his latest declarations. About
the last thing from his lips was : ‘I think I shall be
dead in two hours. Let the funeral be plain. God
bless my wife and children.’ He died at 8 o’clock
in the morning, on the 4th of March, 1841, while
the Rochester bells were ringing and cannon
firing, in honor of President Harrison's inaugura-
tion at Washington.”
So much for his domestic character.
As to the public character of Myron Holley, no
testimony can be more reliable than that of Col.
William L. Stone, in his day the highly popular
editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser.
Col. Stone was well versed in the history of New
York, was an outspoken anti-mason and a decided,


*
.*
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320 {YRON IIOI,LEY.
if not bitter, anti-abolitionist. He was well
acquainted with the Holley family, and personal
characterization was his forte. In the following
biographical sketch he makes some strange mis-
takes of facts — especially one, in saying the State
allowed Mr. Holley “a commission upon the
moneys he had disbursed” — and lets his pro-
slavery prejudices appear in full force. The
present generation will pity him for that, but it
makes the praise he bestows on Mr. Holley all
the stronger, — in fact, time has converted that
part of his sketch into the highest culogium.
Take notice : Col. Stone supposed the State had
paid Mr. Holley money which it still owes.
“DEATH OF MYRON HollFY. — The decease of
this distinguished man was announced several days
ago, during the absence of the present writer, or
the event would have received a notice less sum-
mary than it did. He was a native of the town of
Salisbury, Connecticut, a brother of the late Rev.
Dr. Horace Holley, President of the Transylvania
University, and also of Orville Holley, the present
Surveyor General of this state. There were seven
brothers, distinguished alike for their talents and
fine manly proportions, being all, or nearly all of


HIS CHARACTER. 3.21.
them, larger than the ordinary size of man.
Myron, the subject of this notice, began his colle-
giate life, we believe, at Williamstown, and com-
pleted it at Harvard.
“He was destined for the bar, and went through
the usual preparatory course of legal reading ; but
the drudgery of the profession was uncongenial to
his habits, and his taste was better satisfied with
the study of belles-lettres and the classics, than
with the law. The consequence was, that he never
entered upon the practice of his profession. At
the age of about twenty-two he settled in the then
infant and now beautiful town of Canandaigua,
where he soon afterward married. In the year
1804 he went into the book-selling business
there, and continued therein some five or six
years, when he was appointed clerk of the county
of Ontario.
“He was subsequently elected to the State Leg-
islature, and was a member when the project of
uniting the lakes with the ocean, by means of a
canal, began to be discussed. He at once saw the
importance of the subject. The grandeur of the
enterprise suited well his expansive and vivid
imagination, and he enlisted in the cause with all
the talent and enthusiasm of his nature. He saw


322 MYRON HOLLEY .
in the future a stream of gold from the great West,
flowing into the lap of New York, and with all the
energies of his mind he labored to induce the gov-
ernment of the State to cut a channel for the glit-
tering wave. Side by side with De Witt Clinton
during the sessions of 1816 and 1817, did he labor
at Albany, to induce the Legislature to enter upon
the mighty work; and on the passage of the act of
1817, authorizing its commencement, with Stephen
Van Rensselaer, De Witt Clinton, and Samuel
Young, Myron Holley was appointed one of the
commissioners. He was charged as the acting
commissioner of the Erie canal, and Colonel Young
as that of the canal to unite the Hudson with Lake
Champlain.
“Great apprehensions were entertained, in con-
sequence of the magnitude of the undertaking, lest
the people should be alarmed at the cost, or be-
come discouraged at the slowness of the progress.
Mr. Holley wisely counselled the construction of
the middle section, from Utica to Syracuse, first,
thus as it were, compelling the people East and
West of that section to insist upon the completion
of the whole with the utmost possible expedition.
The result was unexampled in the annals of internal
improvement. The ground was broken by the


HIS CHARACTER. 323
commissioners on the 4th of J uly, 1817, at Rome,
and a boat from Lake Erie fell into the embrace of
the ocean in October, 1825. tº.
“Mr. Holley had never been remarkable for his
attention to the minor details of business. In his
own private affairs he oftener paid out his dollars
and cents without counting them, than with it.”
This easy trait in his character did not escape the
subordinate agents employed to assist him in the
disbursement of the public moneys along the line
of the canal; and owing to his want of exactness
in these matters, to probable losses, and possibly
to the dishonesty of a bank teller through whose
hands the bundles of bank notes were passed to
him in Albany — a teller who afterward turned out
to be a defaulter and a rascal — Mr. Holley's
vouchers did not cover his apparent expenditures,
and he became technically, a defaulter. The con-
sequence was a resignation of the post he had so
ably filled. But he was not suspected of dishon-
esty; and by allowing him a commission upon the
* If this was so, Mr. Holley resembled Daniel Webster in
that respect. But it is doubtful. Mr. Holley was not penu-
rious, yet in the ‘‘ minor details of business,” his results and
reports show that, no man of his responsibilities was ever
more careful and accurate.
... → …
.*-: , ; ;
324 MYRON HOLLEY.
moneys he had disbursed, his accounts were finally
adjusted with the state.
“But with a soul alive to honor, his sensitive
mind, wounded at the imputations cast upon him
by the partizan papers of the day, rested ever
afterward beneath a cloud. He settled at Lyons,
a pleasant village upon the canal about twenty
miles north of Geneva, where, in retirement, he
devoted himself to horticultural pursuits for several
years, with great success. His time was divided
alternately between his library, his garden, and his
private friends.
“After the abduction and murder of Morgan, Mr.
Holley became actively engaged in the anti-masonic
controversy. His feelings recoiled with horror
from the dark tragedy * by which freemasonry
killed itself as well as its victim, and he joined
with spirit in the contest which ensued. Having
labored with success in the cause in the West, he
repaired to Connecticut and took the editorial
charge of a newspaper devoted to it in Hartford.
He edited this paper with ability for about a year,
but the people of Connecticut saw little necessity
* That is true enough. But it was the fact that the authors
of the tragedy were screened by an oath-bound fraternity,
many of whose members sat on the bench of justice, that im-
pelled Mr. Holly to action.



THIS CHARACTER. 325
for fighting the battles of anti-masonry over again
in that state, after the battle had been fought and
won on the ground of the original excitement, and
Mr. Holley returned to Western New York, and
settled down upon a farm in the vicinity of Roch-
ester, where he again turned horticulturist with as
much taste and success as before.
“About three years ago another change came over
him. He was ever a lover of ‘the largest liberty,’
and the idea of ‘the oppressor's rod,” wherever or
by whomsoever wielded, was abhorrent to the noble
impulses of his nature. The exaggerated tales of
human suffering and woe among the sable sons of
the South, as declared by the agents and ministers
of the abolitionists, seized upon him with a degree
of freshness and power which seemed to drive all
other thoughts from his mind, and he at once
entered upon this new field of labor with a zeal that
would have done honor to Peter the Hermit. Dis-
posing of his farm, he invested its proceeds in the
establishment of an abolition press at Rochester.
But it was too late. The abolition fires were fast
burning out. Even his own acknowledged literary
taste and talent could not sustain his paper; and
having exhausted his means it died.
“Mr. Holley struggled onward by public lectures
SS


326 MYRON HOLLEY.
, --, - . .
to keep up the contest, but in vain. . . .
Having ceased those exertions, all other earthly
labors have soon been ended, and he sleeps with
the dead. He was a man of fine feelings and a
noble heart, of elegant person and accomplished
manners. His mind was an ample store-house of
English and classical literature, and they were
poured forth in conversation with rich and eloquent
profusion. As a colloquialist, it may be doubted
whether even Coleridge was more fascinating,
although he was more ambitious and profound.
His life, as we have seen, was full of vicissitudes.
In a pecuniary point of view it was never profita-
ble to himself. The middle portion of it was of
great advantage to the state. His latter years
were by no means those of unclouded brightness;
and his sun has set in gloom !”
Mr. Holley was the last man in New York likely
to be carried into the abolition camp by “ exagger-
ated tales,” but Col. Stone, who did not remember
one of the “tales” in his own columns, ante, page
80, must somehow account for his old friend's
going over to the enemy. It was not very long
after Mr. Holley's death that the heroic John
Quincy Adams, in his trial before the House of


HIS CHARACTER. 327
Representatives, showed the slaveholders, out of
their own mouths and newspapers, that these
tales were by no means exaggerated.
Had Col. Stone lived till our day, he would
have seen that Mr. Holley’s founding the Liberty
Party was the greatest success of his life, and
really stands in the same relation to the present
and, it is to be hoped, future unity and glory of
our republic, as his canal success does to the pros-
perity and wealth of New York.
The State of New York, beyond dispute, saved
$80,000 by throwing upon Mr. Holley a burden
of responsibility, for which it paid him nothing —
not even one per cent. On his disbursements. It
ascertained his perfect honesty, and placed the
fact on record. It then restored his small estate
which he had placed in its possession, to secure it
against an alleged default, at the same time exact-
ing from him a voucher that he would not prose-
cute his righteous claim to any percentage what-
ever on his disbursements. This claim, at simple
interest, must now amount to more than $100,000,
which is as justly due to Mr. Holley's heirs, and
as much needed by some of them, as any debt
that was ever due in this world. It is impossible
to predict when it will be paid. And it is equally


328 MYRON HOLLEY.
impossible to see how the people of New York,
made rich by Myron Holley’s canal labors, can
enjoy riding in their beautiful Central Park with-
out seeing there a statue of Myron Holley, as well
as one of De Witt Clinton.
The RoCHESTER DEMOCRAT of March 5, 1841,
said of Myron Holley — and never were truer
words uttered of the dead : — -
“This eminent citizen, accomplished scholar
and noble man, expired yesterday morning, at his
residence on Johnson Street, in this city, at the
age of sixty-two, carrying with him to the grave
the love and regrets of all who knew him. The
public services of Mr. Holley are engraved upon
the state, as enduring as Lake Erie and the
Hudson, while his private virtues and benevolence
will live in the hearts of his friends and acquaint-
ances until they cease to beat.”


THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
DATE DUE


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