Chenango & Unadilla Valleys 50 Years Ago - 1872

The Chenango and Unadilla Valleys Fifty Years Ago

S.S. Randall

Chenango Telegraph, March 13, 1872

 

South New Berlin

 

Continued from post of October 2, 2017

Eight miles below [New Berlin], on the river, was Butts hotel, magnificently administered by the sprightly and companionable host, Caleb S. Butts, and his excellent and hospitable lady.  In the immediate vicinity resided Nathan Taylor, one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas--a very worthy, intelligent and highly respected man--but possessed of little legal lore.  Dr. Henry Bellows was the practicing physician of the place, and enjoyed a wide reputation for medical skill and [...unreadable...]  Way House," kept by the landlord Lull.  In the neighborhood also resided Alpheus C. Jeffords, a prominent Democratic politician, with a jolly rubicund visage, not wholly destitute of cultivation.  To him, one warm summer day in 1827 or thereabouts, Lot Clark insisted upon introducing his distinguished guest, Mr. Van Buren, then in the meridian of his career as the "Great Magician" of the United States Senate, and on a visit with his son John, to his old friend Lot, who was driving him over the hills to New Berlin.  "Van Buren? Van Buren?" snorted Alpheus, who had evidently but recently partaken of refreshments; "Martin Van Buren?"  Receiving a polite affirmative from the great man, he pithily inquired--"Well Mr. Van Buren, Wouldn't you like to be next Governor now?"  Mr. Clark perceiving intuitively that farther intercourse with his friend Jeffords might be unprofitable, left him "alone in his glory" and hastened onward.

 

Here, too, in this hilly region flourished Sam Angell, Deputy Sheriff and Constable, who was known far and wide, as the "homeliest man in the county," with the exception, perhaps of his colleagues, Deputy Sam Pike of  Norwich and Francis Peeso, of Oxford.  No session of County or Circuit Court, could be recognized as strictly valid, unless the tall, lank, shambling, slouching form of Sam Angell, with his strongly marked and expressive physiognomy, and his long black official staff or pole, were present.  Deputy Peeso was another original.  He was "crier" of the Court, and especially distinguished for his utter inability to catch within any remote degree of accuracy, the names of witnesses, jurors or others, whom he was directed to call; transforming William into Billings, Jones into Stones, Smiths into Tiffts and Enoses into Peanoses. Three irrepressible wags Throop, John C. Clark and John Clapp, aware of this idiosyncrasy of poor Peeso, would keep him on every available occasion in the full exercise of his lungs, with roaring out for "Timothy Toodlefunks," Wunks McFadden," Alick Cumpane," "Jimmy Jessamy" and "Alick CumFundletop," to the infinite amusement of the bar, and not seldom to the disturbance of the gravity of the Bench itself--while the stolid countenance of the victim remained immovable as a stone. 

 

To be continued