charged against our public men, and those who have "gone to that bourne from whence no traveler returns," now "rest from the labors of life's toilsome pilgrimage," leaving behind them fame and characters untainted and untarnished. The financial article of the constitution of 1846 has been recently modified so as to allow the legislature to contract a debt to a limited amount to complete the state canals. A majority of the electors in the county who voted on this modification, were in favor of the amendment. The vote was a small one, and affords no evidence of a change of opinion in the county favorable to an unlimited grant of power to the legislature over the credit and finances of the state. This review closes with the year 1854, and will not be resumed by the author of this work. NOTE. The reader, I doubt not, will excuse a brief allusion to a subject which has, on more than one occasion, attracted public attention. The governor, in his annual message to the legislature in 1831, had directed attention to the accumulating surplus revenue of the United States, under the operation of the tariff laws, and the senate of this state raised a select committee consisting of Mr. Benton, Mr. Mather and Mr. Deits, to whom that part of the message was committed. The members of the committee gave the subject their early and earnest attention, made up their minds to present a report to the senate, and designated Mr. Benton to prepare it. In the mean time, as Mr. Hammond states, the assembly, on the 10th of March, passed a concurrent resolution, without a division, declaring that the surplus revenue ought to be annually distributed among the several states, without alluding to the constitutional incompetency of congress to act on the subject. I transcribe what Mr. Hammond says in vol. II, of the Political History of New York, page 353. "It [the resolution] was sent to the senate, but was by that body referred to a select committee, of which Mr. Benton was chairman, who, on the 4th of April, made a long and able report, in which they discussed the constitutional question in relation to the powers of congress to make the proposed division without decidedly expressing their views on the question." [Senate Documents of 1831, No. 79.] Mr. Hammond seems to infer that because the committee withheld a decided expression of opinion as to the constitutional power of congress to make the distribution under the power then vested, that the committee entertained doubts on that subject. This conclusion does great injustice to two of that committee, Messrs. Benton and Deits, at any rate. The whole argument of the report on this point, which Mr. Hammond says was an able one, went to show that congress had no more power to create a surplus for the purpose of distribution, than it would have to build a church, school house or an academy within the territorial limits of one of the states. The committee could not fail to see that they were discussing a subject submitted to their consideration by the executive department of the government, and which had been acted upon by a coordinate branch of the legislature, without any allusion to the constitutional question; and they felt unwilling to meet the difficulties which seemed to them insurmountable, other than by presenting the argument against the exertion of the power by congress in the best possible light and in the most forcible manner they could, and leave the subject without any other expression of opinion. Had the committee entertained any other views, or no decided views at all on the subject under consideration, would they have elaborated an argument in support of principles they repudiated or about which they felt indifferent? There is no subject of constitutional power or legislation, over which the people of this country should be more watchful or guarded than the "money power," wherever it may be exerted, whether by the state or United States. CHAPTER XI. 1791 To 1855. William Orendorff, Aaron R. Clark, John Bowman, Samuel Bennett, Samuel Perry, Nathaniel Foster, John Allen. The catalogue of crime of the higher grades is quite brief. It is believed there was no trial or conviction from 1791 to 1798, when Oneida county was set off. I have gleaned from criminal records of the county only six trials which resulted in convictions and acquittals. On the 31st of May, 1809, William Orendorff was tried and convicted upon an indictment for a rape, and sentenced to the state prison during his natural life. On the 5th of June, 1811, Aaron R. Clark was tried and convicted before Mr. Justice Van Ness of the supreme court upon an indictment for manslaughter, and sentenced to the state prison for three years and three months. On the 15th of September, 1812, John Bowman, who had been previously indicted for murder, was arraigned before Justice Van Ness of the supreme court, D. V. W. Golden, Walter Fish and George Rosecrants county judges, and J. Ingham, assistant justice, and plead not guilty. The following are the names of the jurors empanneled to try the case: Augustus Carpenter, Lucius Wetherby, Benjamin Benjamin, Jr., Jabez D. Wolf, Oliver Miner, James Alexander, Daniel I. Petry, Jost I. Petry, Ezra Mallory, Gibson J. Stranahan, Joseph Pooler and Sheldon Harvey. There were nine witnesses sworn on the part of the prosecution, and examined. Not any witnesses were called and sworn on the part of the prisoner. The entry of the verdict and sentence pronounced by the court is recorded in these words: "The jury found the prisoner guilty, and he was sentenced to be hanged by the neck until he was dead, on the fourth day of December next, between the hours of 11 o'clock A. M. and 1 o'clock P. M." John Bowman was a lad not over ten years of age when he was tried and convicted for this crime. He was ably defended by Daniel Cady, Esq., now one of the justices of the supreme court of the fourth district. Bowman had killed one of his playmates, a small girl younger than himself, and the point insisted upon by Mr. Cady in the defense, was, that he was too young to possess a mind and judgment capable of understanding and appreciating the nature of the offense he had or was about to commit. The jury thought otherwise, and brought in a verdict of guilty. The judgment of the court was not executed. The sentence was commuted by a law passed November 10, 1812, to imprisonment for life in the state prison. Samuel Bennett was convicted upon an indictment for manslaughter, on the 12th of December, 1822, before Mr. Justice Platt of the supreme court, and judges Holt and Herkimer of the common pleas, and sentenced to confinement in the state prison at Auburn for ten years. Simeon Ford, Esq., the district attorney, conducted the prosecution, and Messrs. Hoffman and Maculey defended the prisoner. In this case the counsel for both parties exerted all their powers for conviction and acquittal, and a Herkimer audience have seldom witnessed more able forensic efforts than were displayed on this occasion. At the September term of the oyer and terminer in this county in 1826, Samuel Perry was arraigned on an indictment for murdering his wife. The court consisted of Nathan Williams, circuit judge of the fifth circuit, and Hiram Nolton, Sanders Lansing and John Mahon, county judges. The jurors sworn were Jeremiah B. Cooper, William Williams, Henry F. Orendorff, Elnathan Harvey, Peter House, Henry Dockey, Milton Philleo, Joseph Griswold, Eli Fortune, John Eysaman, James Van Valkenburgh and Suffrenus Snell. The whole panel having been exhausted by peremptory challenges and challenges for cause, the two last named jurors, Van Valkenburgh and Snell were summoned to sit as tales. George H. Feeter, district attorney, assisted by Abijah Mann, Jr., and David Bucklin, Esqs., conducted the prosecution, and Lauren Ford, Michael Hoffman and Oran G. Otis, Esqrs., defended the prisoner. Twenty-three witnesses were called by the prosecution and examined, and two only on the part of the defense. The trial commenced on the 14th day of September, and on the 16th the jury pronounced the prisoner guilty by their verdict. The prisoner's counsel tendered several exceptions to the ruling of the court during the progress of the trial, and the judgment upon the verdict was respited to allow the supreme court of the state to examine and give judgment upon those exceptions. The social position of the prisoner, the alleged or supposed causes which prompted the commission of the offense, and the estimable character always borne by the unfortunate victim murdered, conspired to excite in our community a deep and intense feeling. The court room in which the trial was conducted, although not as large as some in our cities and most populous counties, was quite spacious. Long before the court convened to open the trial, this room was filled almost to suffocation with an anxious and deeply excited audience; the avenues to the room were so densely thronged with people seeking admission that ingress and egress by the officers of the court was at times very difficult. I felt a strong desire to hear this trial, as I had never been present at the traverse of an indictment for murder, but my human endurance could not stand it. I once, during the trial, under the auspices of the district attorney, got into the court room, and after remaining a short time made my escape from it, and was compelled to remain an outsider. Many others were excluded from hearing the trial, and for the like reasons. The respite of the judgment rendered it necessary for the |