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and villages in the county; afterwards, giving scope to a clear and comprehensive mind, and the exertion of an excellent business talent, his commercial operations were extended to counties in this state remote from his native home; and he did not finally stop until he reached the distant shores of the Pacific ocean; even California was not neglected by the accomplished and successful Fairfield merchant. I am not aware that Mr. Buell ever thought of removing to New York, where fortunes are so rapidly made and marred in commercial pursuits. He was several times gratified and honored by the confidence of his townsmen, in electing him to local offices of trust and confidence. He was a member of the assembly from this county in 1845. This, I believe was his first appearance at Albany as a legislator. He was placed at the head of the important committee on banks and insurance companies, in a house in no respect destitute of men of talents. Although it is not usual to select the chairmen of the leading committees from new members, the appointment in this instance was judicious, and the compliment well deserved. In this new and untried position, Mr. Buell sustained himself in every respect to the satisfaction of the house and his friends. An ardent politician of the Herkimer school, and I use this term because our neighbors in other counties charge us with being "of the strictest sect," it was his duty and his pleasure to square his official conduct to suit the feelings. and opinions of his constituents.

Mr. Buell was chosen member of the 32d congress from the 17th congressional district, composed of Herkimer and Montgomery counties, at the November election, 1850. His competitor was a personal friend, and then the member from the district, Henry P. Alexander. The canvass was briskly conducted and adroitly managed by the contestants and their friends. The district was one in which there could not be much doubt when the whole vote was polled and party lines strictly drawn as "in olden time." He was married to Miss Harriet E. Gruman, of Clinton, Oneida

county, November 9, 1840. Before taking his seat in the congress, to which he had been elected, Mr. Buell closed his connection with most of the mercantile establishments in which he had been interested, over which he could not well exercise a personal supervision. He won and enjoyed the confidence and regard, not only of the business community, but of his political friends and associates. By his industry, application and unwearied exertions, he accumulated a fortune, enough to satisfy the reasonable desires of an ambitious man a little removed from the commercial and financial emporiums of our state, where few men are counted rich who are rated under a million of dollars, where comparisons serve only to stimulate to hazardous experiments, and even wild and imaginary speculations. He must, of course, have been punctual in all his pecuniary engagements, and prompt in all his other business relations. His surviving townsmen have cause to remember him for his public spirit, and the worthy recipients of charity never solicited his aid in vain.

Mr. Buell died at Washington city on the 31st January, 1853, after a brief and painful illness, in the 52d year of his age. The house of representatives passed the usual resolution of condolence; and while a monument in the congressional burying ground commemorates his official connection with that eminent body of American statesmen and his death, his mortal remains, distinguished by a suitable memorial, have found a final resting place in the grounds of Trinity church, Fairfield, by the side of which repose the remains of a father, brother and an infant daughter. His wife, two sons and a daughter, survived him.

ROBERT BURCH

Was born in Killingsly, Connecticut, December 3d, 1761, emigrated from Berkshire county, Massachusetts, into this state, seated himself in the present town of Schuyler in 1799, and died on the farm he had opened and reduced from a

wilderness state, on the 26th of June, 1830, in the 69th year

of his age.

Devoted to agricultural pursuits, Mr. Burch bore the even tenor of his way through life unobtrusively, and left several sons, who are among our prominent and active business

men.

He was one of the members of the assembly from this county at the sessions of 1811 and 1812, at a period when national and state politics very much engrossed public attention. He possessed a quick apprehension and a sound and discriminating judgment. He was diligent and attentive to his public duties, and was careful in those times of high party strife to be prepared to vote promptly when the question was propounded by the speaker. I have heard an anecdote repeated of him to this effect. His seat in the house was near that of Mr. Brayton, a member from Oneida, with whom he was on terms of friendly, social intercourse, although they differed on political subjects. Mr. Burch was always in his seat and prompt to respond in a pretty audible tone of voice when the roll was called on a division. Mr. Brayton may have been, and probably was, classed among the leading men of his party. Now for the anecdote. On one occasion, after a pretty stormy debate and close vote on a division, Mr. Brayton accosted his political adversary and said to him, "Burch, how does it happen that you are always so prompt and ready to vote, your party friends following your lead to a man, and you seem to give yourself but little trouble in regard to matters before the house?" Mr. Burch coolly remarked, "I'll tell you, sir, how it is; your name being called next before mine, I am careful to notice how you answer, and, always on questions of this sort, vote against you, and feel assured I am quite right." The question may have been prompted by some momentary feeling of irritation under defeat; the answer shows that the respondent was fully satisfied he had done his duty.

A few years after Mr. Burch settled in Schuyler, some of his former neighbors "at the east" sent him some branches

of a dwarf evergreen, too frequently found in the soil of New England, not only to remind him of his former home, but as they said, "to keep him from being homesick." A pretty good antidote that for any such ailment in one then reposing in the luxuriant valley of the Mohawk.

STEPHEN W. BROWN

Was a native of Williamstown, Mass. He was several years engaged in mercantile business, in the town of Salisbury, in this county, which resulted favorably. He removed to Little Falls in the year 1830, with a view to a more extended field of business operations, and to give a wider scope to a mind fertile in expedients. He was liberal and public spirited, if not to a fault, so far as regarded his pecuniary resources, it may well be said, he indulged his generous feeling to the extremest limit of prudence. He was active, ardent and almost incessantly engaged in business. Always among the first, and with the foremost, in any local business enterprise that required associated capital, and combined personal exertion, to carry it forward to a successful result; or in founding and rearing some public institution, permanently beneficial to the locality where it was to be established. After his removal to Little Falls, he was several years engaged in trade at that place, which he finally relinquished, and devoted his whole time and attention to the affairs of a manufacturing establishment, which had been brought into existence mainly through his personal exertions. He closed his mercantile business in 1843.

He was chosen sheriff of the county at the November election, 1837, and held the office one term. He was a popular officer; kind and agreeable in manners, and cheerful in disposition, he had many friends, and very few, if any, enemies. With an almost inexhaustible flow of kindly good feelings, and hopeful in the extreme, anticipated results were sometimes counted as accomplished, when in fact actual realization was not within the measure of a fair pro

bability. His character, as a man, was irreproachable, or if not so, the tongue of blame has not blazoned his faults to the world. He was a reformer in almost every thing relating to politics and civil government, and exerted his influence, effectually at times, to correct some of the flagrant abuses of the bad men of the legal profession, which were oppressive. I say bad men, for I know that only a few of that honorable class, would descend so low as to commit the faults which, through his agency, were immediately and successfully remedied by legislative interference. He was suddenly and violently attacked, when absent from home on business, with a fatal malady, from which he did not recover. He survived but a few days, after his return to his family at Little Falls.

The monument erected to his memory, by those who knew him well, and appreciated his worth, bears this incription:

STEPHEN W. BROWN
Died May 30th, 1846,

Aged, 49 years.

This stone is erected by his

neighbours to evince their

high estimation of his character.

BENJAMIN BOWEN

Was a native of Rhode Island. He came from Newport, in that state, to Fairfield, in 1787, where he purchased a farm and settled. He remained at Fairfield until 1792, when he removed to Newport, and commenced the erection of mills at that place, and laid the foundation of the prosperity of that pleasant and thrifty village. He was a man of great activity and enterprise. He was a member of the legislature in 1798, elected on the same ticket with Gaylord Griswold, Henry McNeil, Nathan Smith, Mathew Brown, Jr., Lodowick Campbell and Isaac Foot. This was the only time that I find he was chosen a member of either branch of the legislature. He was appointed one of the judges of the

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