Norwich NY 70 years ago, Related by George Denslow - 1906

Seventy Years Ago

Reminiscences of Early Days in Norwich, Chenango Co., NY 

Related by George W. Denslow, Who Was Ninety Years Old on Sept. 19, 1906

Compiled for the Union by Leonard W. Cogswell

Chenango Union, November 22, 1906

 

Down on Hayes street there was a general training lot, and also one on what is now Henry street.  The old Rider hotel on the Latham lot used to be opposite the Hayes st. training ground. We had great times there general training days.  Gen. Crane, father of Van B. Crane who lives on Court st., was the commander-in-chief when I came here.

 

We used to have great celebrations on "Independence Day," 4th of July.  I remember one particularly on July 4, 1840 here in Norwich by the Democrats and Whigs.  The democrats had their dinner in the orchard back of the Rider hotel where the Latham house stands nearly opposite the Union office.  I think the Whigs had their dinner on the Green.  Long processions marched in from the outlying towns, delegations of prominent citizens going out to meet incoming processions of their political adherents.  I think there were about 40 Democrats, of which I was one, went out on horseback to the top of West Hill and met one of these processions headed by Capt. John Harvey of Preston, a Revolutionary soldier, one of the old Continentals, and he had on his old continental suit of blue and buff. To me it seemed but a step back to "Old Pat" and Bunker Hill.

 

In their ragged regimentals

Stood the old Continentals,

Yielding not;

When the grenadiers were lunging

And like hail fell the plunging

Cannon shot.

 

But with eyes to the front of all,

And with guns horizontal

Stood our sires,

And the ball whistled deadly,

And, in streams flashing redly,

Blazed the fires

 

Each party had a band and they would march in opposite directions up and down Broad street at the same time, hollering and yelling, bands playing, each trying to drown out the other with noise.

 

In 1837 Chenango County had a population of a little less than 40,000, and was a congressional district by itself.  In those days it took three days to complete an election; the first day it was held at White Store, the next day at North Norwich (than a part of Norwich) and the last day here in Norwich.  We had pretty good times, for elections were not conducted then with so much machinery, fuss and feathers as now.  Then we had a plain ballot with nothing but the candidates of one particular party on a ticket, we went up and dropped it into the ballot box and knew we had voted the ticket we desired. We didn't have a ballot as big as a newspaper which must be folded with mathematical accuracy.  Then, if we found a doubtful voter, we could stick a ballot in his hand, march him by force up to the ballot box and see that he dropped it in, and then we knew that "he had delivered the goods."

 

I cast my first ballot for president in 1840 for Martin Van Buren, as good a democrat as there ever was, a much misrepresented man.  I voted here in 1838 for state officers, getting my goods here from New Haven in time, for then we had to have a certain amount of taxable property to vote.

 

In 1851 my wife and I went to Syracuse on business, and while there we heard that wonderful Hungarian patriot and orator, Louis Kossuth, speak.  I remember he wore a cocked hat with the three feathers in it.  He was a fiery speaker and made a great speech.

 

I remember when Horace Greely started the Log Cabin in the campaign of 1840, which was devoted to ridiculing Harrison, and then afterwards when he started the New York Tribune.  I remember when Charles Dana started the New York Sun.

 

Over in Cooperstown I remember when James Fennimore Cooper took the public by storm with his Leatherstocking and Pathfinder and Deerslayer tales.  The Norwich Journal, the Albany Evening Journal, edited by Thurlow Weed, the Tribune edited by Horace Greely, at one time printed a lot of stories relating to Cooper's action in excluding the public from Three Mile Point in Otsego Lake at Cooperstown, and Cooper sued them all for slander, and at one time had a dozen or more suits against Weed, and finally accumulated such a lot of judgments against various editors that Weed and others were forced to retract all they had said.  It was "bitter crow" for Thurlow Weed to eat.  I remember the talk of the time. I  remember the furors over the Morgan-anti-masonic troubles which waged so bitterly for some time caused by the disappearance of a Mr. Morgan who was said to have been secretly killed by the Masonic order.

 

To be continued