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GENEALOGY COLLECTION

ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY

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ARTHUR GEOP-GE OLMSTED

ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

SON OF A PENNSYLVANIA PIONEER; BOY ORATOR OP

ULYSSES: FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE SLAVE;

DEFENSE OF THE UNION; DEVELOPMENT

OF THE NORTHERN TIER; CITIZEN.

JURIST, STATESMAN.

By
RUFUS BARRETT STONE

PHILADELPHIA

THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY

1919

1450908

"He lives twice who lives well.**

— Olmsted Ancestral Motto.

PREFACE

THE generation in which a man of dis-
tinction has lived becomes familiar
with the significant incidents of his
career. But if he has survived to a great age
and gradually retired from public view, while
the visible results of his genius, his public
spirit, his philanthropy, remain as the me-
mentos of his mature years, the story of his
earlier life becomes dim, and the perfect
whole can only be restored by retracing the
steps of his upward pathway. It is due to the
community in which he lived, to the people
and the state which he served, that some
account of the notable incidents of his ancestry
and the circumstances of his youth should be
preserved, and some connected record made
of the leading events which marked the
contemporary history of the community of
which he was a part, and which gave impres-
sion to his character in its formative period
and to the development of his ripening
faculties. The history, itself, is incomplete
without the relation which he bore to it, the

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8 PREFACE

part taken by him, which, perchance, gave to
occurrences then transpiring some distinctive
form and significant direction towards results
of historical consequence. In the span of
life of one who, from youth to old age, lived
in a pioneer county of northern Pennsylvania,
and became influential in its settlement and
progress, it is to be presumed that incidents in
its growth were comprehended. So the stories
of the community and the individual run
parallel, and here and there are interwoven.
Official distinctions, however high or numer-
ous, though denoting public confidence, are
not the truest measure of success in life.
Neither Franklin, nor Edison, nor Longfellow,
were elevated to the highest posts of official
honor. Indeed, public service sometimes
interrupts careers which, if left to normal
courses, might evolve into far more important
spheres of usefulness. Moreover, the call to
office is not alone dependent upon qualities
for service, but is more or less incidental,
contingent upon environment, events, his-
toric periods. So influential are these factors
that, given the period and place, the parentage
and ancestry, an attentive student of biog-
raphy, with a sufficient knowledge of history,

PREFACE 9

local and general, could almost project and
weave into a narrative, the prefigured inci-
dents of a boy's life; or, if the course of life
were run, looking backward over the actual
events, could see where its natural develop-
ment had been deflected or accelerated. It
must, therefore, be considered that as youth
develops to manhood and manhood to middle
age, and so on, the influences exerted by the
individual and his environment upon one
another are doubly interesting. His con-
tribution in its relation to locality and events
is the true criterion of his success.

In the preparation of this volume the
writer has consulted both personal corre-
spondence and published family histories,
including the Genealogy of the Olmsted
Family, by Rev. George K. Ward; An
Abridged Genealogy of the Olmsted Family,
by Elijah L. Thomas; Savage's Genealogi-
cal Dictionary; American Ancestry; Genea-
logical and Personal History of Northern
Pennsylvania; also town and county his-
tories, inclusive of histories of the counties
of Potter, Cameron and McKean in Pennsyl-
vania; of the counties of Delaware, Saratoga,
Fulton and Ulster in New York; of the towns

10 PREFACE

of Norwalk, Ridgefield and Hartford, in
Connecticut; Gazetteer of the State of New
York, Twentieth Century of Bench and Bar,
McClure's Recollections of Half a Century,
Report of the Geological Survey of Potter
County, Journals of the House and Senate of
Pennsylvania; also files of the Potter County
Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, Press, Evening
Telegraph, North American and United States
Gazette.

Acknowledgment for courtesies is also ex-
tended to Mr. F. S. Hammond, of Syracuse,
N. Y.; Mr. C. S. Heverly, Towanda, Pa.; Mr.
Oscar J. Harvey, Wilkesbarre, Pa.; to the
Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Widener
Public Library of Philadelphia, State Library
of Pennsylvania, Grosvenor Library and Pub-
lic Library of Buffalo, Connecticut State
Library, and to the respective offices of the
Adjutants General of the United States and
of the States of New York, Massachusetts and
Connecticut.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Preface 7

I Following the Mayflower 15

II The Cradle of the Republic . . 24

III In the Revolution S3

IV On Two Frontiers 39

V Boyhood and Schooldays 53

VI Lyceum, Library, Law-Office . . 64

VII For Abolition and the Union. . 88

VIII From Home Life to Harrisburg 108

IX The Speakership in 1865 124

X Service in the Senate 140

XI State Leader and Candidate . . 170
XII As Lawyer and Judge 208

XIII Rounding the Years 234

XIV Four-Score and Seven 248

Index 261

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Portrait of Arthur G. Olmsted Frontispiece

PAGE

His Manuscript 14

Draft from Shaffer's Map 44

connecticut-susquehanna townships 47

East and West Highway 48

Fountain-head of Rivers 49

Prehistoric Battle-ground 51

Jersey Shore, Pine Creek and Buf-
falo R. R 150

Manuscript of Gov. Geary 163

Manuscript of Gen. Kane 174

Statesmen of the Northern Tier

Facing page 238

Sources of Population 244

Manuscript of Gov. Hartranft 249

Signature of Thomas H. Murray 254

(13)

A-tr-?.'^ ^^^-z^^C /^c^^^^J^ /t^-<i_ /x,,.^r-t-^ —

— ^From the manuscript of Arthur G. Olmsted.

CHAPTER I

Following the Mayflower

No home for these I — too well they knew
The mitred king behind the throne; —

The sails were set, the pennons flew.
And westward ho ! Jor worlds unknown.

And these were they who gave us birth.

The Pilgrims of the sunset wave.
Who won for us this virgin earth.

And freedom with the soil they gave.

— Holmes.

THE English birthplace of the Olmsted
family was in old Essex^ (East Saxon),
between Cambridge and Braintree.^
These rolling uplands constituted the heart of
the agricultural district tributary to London.
Land titles, not held by socage, free or villein,
were becoming settled into tenures of frankal-
moigne, grand serjeanty or copyhold, and the

1 "Bounded on the east and south by the German Ocean and the River Thames;
by Suffolk and Cambridgeshire on the north, and by Hertfordshire and Middlesex
on the west." — Wright's Encyclopmdic Repository (London).

2 The ancient English seat of the Olmsted family has been long identified. Allu-
sion is made to the parish of "Elmsted" in "Doomsday Book" for the County of
Essex in the reported survey made under WiUiam the Conqueror in 1086. The
name is Saxon, ' Elm " and ' sted, " meaning the place of elms. It was also written
Almesteda, Enmested. Is this parish, later known as Bumsted-Helion in Cam-

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16 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

inhabitants, whose prayers were answered
in great annual harvests of coriander, canary
and caraway, were already searching and
fertile for the seed of new thought — if only
freedom of thought had been vouchsafed.
There were days when the odors of the sea
wafted inward over the fens their suggestions
of other shores; and on the Blackwater ocean
ships were setting their sails.

When James Olmsted, the first of the
colonists, set out for America, he left the
eastern counties of England in a state of
intense religious commotion. Luther had
nailed his ninety -five theses to the door of the
Wittenberg church, and the blows of his
hammer had been heard across the English
Channel. Calvin, too, had spread dissent.
The government was alarmed, and sought to
suppress the uprising with an iron hand.
A statute was enacted "for abolishing diver-
sity of opinions." The people of England,
according to the historian Green, had become

bridgeshire, near the present town of Braintree, the ancestral home was Bituated.
As early as 1242, it was occupied by Maurice de Olmstede, and earlier by Martin
de Olmsted, who was the donor of lands to the fraternity of the Knights Templar.
The modification of the name is perhaps due to the fact that the manor was sur-
rounded by a moat, since the Saxon word "holm" signified an island. _ The house,
still well preserved, and now included in the property of the University of Cam-
bridge, is a long low structure of stone and plaster, with thatched roof. Since the
fifteenth century it has been known as Olmsted Hall. It is thought that this designa-
tion is due to the fact that within its walls at one time courts were held. — Wrighl't
Index, Vol. II, pp. 769-60; American Ancestry, IV, p. 29.

FOLLOWING THE MAYFLOWER 17

"the people of a book, and that book was the
Bible." The Puritans pleaded in vain for the
liberty of interpretation. They were pursued
to their hiding places.^ Nevertheless, they
multiplied. "A great number of the Fathers
of the American States," says Guizot, "had
frequented their assemblages." A law was
enacted forbidding persons over five in num-
ber, and over sixteen years of age, unless of
one family, to meet for domestic or social
worship. Thus persecuted, the people in 1592
petitioned the privy council for permission to
come to unexplored America, for freedom to
worship God "As in conscience persuaded
by His Word." Although the petition was
ignored, the dissenters increased. Perpetual
discussion prevailed. Surely it was "no mean
school for intellectual training." Raleigh, a
year later, speaking in parliament, said that
there were twenty thousand who attended
conventicles. They were mainly residents of
the counties along and near the eastern coast,
Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Middlesex and Cam-

1 "They were imprisoned and scourged; their noses were slit; their ears were
cut off; their cheeks were marked with a red hot brand. But the lash and the
shears and the glowing iron could not destroy principles which were rooted in the
soul, and which danger made it glorious to profess. . . . The dungeon, the pillory
and the scaffold were stages in the progress of civil liberty towards its triumph." —
Bancroft's Hist, of V . S., Vol. 2, page 320.

18 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

bridge, including the notable seats of learning^
and centers of wealth. How completely the
growing purpose of the liberty-loving people
of these counties to transplant their ideal
England to the shores of America was ulti-
mately realized is denoted by the fact that the
counties bordering on Massachusetts Bay were
given the identical names of the English
counties, and ere long became a veritable New
England to the eager immigrants, who carried
with them the love of their native land.

The decade to come was one of repressed
religious yearning, of persecution and ferment.
At length the little church of the Pilgrims
escaped to Holland. The Mayflower sailed
and returned. Meantime Cambridge had
become the center of revolt. It was here
and in the neighboring communities of Essex
that Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone, both
of Emmanuel College, dared to preach the
doctrine of the freedom of the conscience.
King James declared: "I will make them
conform, or I will harry them out of the
land, or else worse — only hang them; that's
all." The beckoning of freedom toward

1 Fiske, however, comparing the two great universities, notes the "greater
conservatism" of Ojuord, and the "greater hospitality of Cambridge towards new

ideas.

FOLLOWING THE MAYFLOWER 19

America became irresistible. Cromwell sym-
pathized with the Puritans, and would have
sailed with them, but was taken from the
departing vessel by order of the King, a
circumstance by which a new direction was
given to the history of England.^ Hampden,
too, was eager to throw in his lot with the
colonists, and though he remained in Eng-
land, he ultimately aided them to procure a
royal charter.

Within the Cambridge sphere of influence
were the Essex homes of James Olmsted and
his brother Richard. They had thrived under
the wise economic maxim of Elizabeth: "The
money which is in the pockets of my subjects is
as useful to me as that in my treasury."
They were the owners of large estates, and
while it is not recorded that they left all to
follow in the wake of the Mayflower, the
purpose to emigrate could not have been
contemplated without anticipating material
sacrifice.

The decision involved more to them than
can now be easily reckoned. It implied the

* Four years later (1641) when Parliament had by a majority of eleven votes
passed the remonstrance, Oliver Cromwell said: "If the remonstrance had been
rejected, I would have sold all I have in the morning and never would have seen
England more, and I know there are many honest men of the same resolution."—
Quizot't Hittory of England, Vol. II, p. 444.

20 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

utmost individual risk for the cause of religious
liberty. Their leadership and influence at
this juncture could hardly have been over-
rated by their exiled compatriots.^

These brothers, James and Richard, were
children of James, Jr. (and Jane Bristow), of
Great Leighs, County of Essex, born about
1550, who was one of three sons of James,
whose wife was Alice, and who was a descend-
ant of Richard, born about 1430, these facts
being verified by the church records of
Fairsted and Great Leighs.^

When the time for departure came, it
seemed best that Richard should remain in
England, presumably to better dispose of
his own and his brother's affairs, for of his
intention to go there can be little doubt, since
his three children, Richard, John and Rebecca,
accompanied their uncle James. Their father,
however, did not survive to join them in their
New England home. Besides these children
of his brother, James was accompanied by his

• "It was not a mere party of adventurers gone forth to seek their fortune
beyond seas, but the germ of a great nation wafted by Providence to a predestined
shore. . . . These men possessed, in proportion to their number, a greater mass
of intelligence than is to be found in any European nation of our own time. . . .
Nor did they cross the Atlantic to improve their situation or to increase their wealth;
it was a purely intellectual craving which called them from the comforts of their
former homes; _ and in facing the inevitable sufferings of exile, their object was the
triumph of an idea." — De Tocguetille's Democracy in America, Vol. I, pp. 38-40.

2 Address of Prof. Everett W. Olmsted, Olmsted Genealogy, by Olmsted and
Ward, p. XV.

FOLLOWING THE MAYFLOWER 21

own sons, Nicholas and Nehemiah, and by a
goodly number of his Essex neighbors. There
were one hundred and twenty-three pas-
sengers, including fifty children. They sailed
from Braintree, a river port in their own
county, in the ship Lyon under Captain
Pierce, and after a voyage of twelve weeks
arrived in Boston harbor, on Sunday, the
sixteenth day of September, 1632. They
settled first at Mount Wollaston, now Quincy,
near Boston, but in the course of the year
"by order of the Court," they removed to
Newtown, soon to be known as Cambridge, a
name dear to these heroic exiles. Hooker
and Stone, when they landed a little later,
found the larger part of their Cambridge
congregation awaiting them at the wharf.

The entire Massachusetts colony then num-
bered but little more than a thousand souls.
John Winthrop, of Groton, in English Suffolk,
had been chosen governor. Among those who
had come over on the previous voyage of the
Lyon was Roger Williams, the founder in
New England of the Baptist faith. The year
had been notable, too, for the visit of the
Sagamore of the Mohegans from the banks of
the Connecticut. He came to extol the

22 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

fertility of the lands of the river valley, and to
solicit an English plantation as a reinforce-
ment against the Pequods.

Richard Olmsted, the elder of the young
immigrants of the Olmsted name, was nearly
twenty-one years of age when he stepped
ashore, having been baptized at Fairsted in
Essex, February 20, 1612. The invitation of
the Mohegans appealed to his spirit of
adventure, and to the vigor of his young man-
hood. Besides, he and his companions were
in revolt against the theocratic government
of the Bay Colony. He enlisted with a
number of his Cambridge comrades for the
proposed expedition. Westward to the Con-
necticut was an unexplored region.^ Under
the inspiration of Hooker and Stone, who
already had a vision of a true government
conceived by them on shipboard, they struck
out into the wilderness, and after many days
of hardship and danger, reached the river
bank, and founded a settlement to which they
afterwards gave the name of Hartford, after

1 Extract from Winthrop's Journal: "June 30, 1636. Mr. Hooker, pastor of
the church at New Town, and the most of his congregation, went to Connecticut.
Etis wife was carried in a horse-litter; and they drove one hundred and sixty cattle
and fed of their milk by the way." Trumbull says: "This adventure was the more
remarkable as many of this company were persons of figure, who had lived in Eng-
land in honor, affluence and delicacy, and were entire strangers to fatigue and danger."

FOLLOWING THE MAYFLOWER 23

the county seat of old Hartford,^ the birth-
place of Samuel Stone. There could not
have been more than fifty persons in the
settlement, for as late as 1637 there were,
according to Bancroft, but one hundred and
eighty in the three towns of the colony,
Hartford, Windsor and Weathersfield, noting
that he says the force organized in that year
to prosecute the Pequod war numbered about
sixty men, *' one-third of the whole colony.'*
Richard Olmsted was one of the original pro-
prietors in this colony. He was a soldier in
the colonial army. His native qualities of
leadership were soon recognized. He was
elected a sergeant, and quickly promoted to a
lieutenancy. The enemy was defeated.

'Pronounced "Harford."

CHAPTER II

At the Cradle of the Republic

THE colony effected an organization
under a constitution adopted Janu-
ary 14, 1639. It was an epochal
organic document, being the first in the
series of American consitutions, and it has
never since been materially altered.^ Hooker
had been restive and rebellious under the
theocratic commonwealth projected for the
Bay Colony. "The foundation of author-
ity,'* said he in an election sermon preached
before the general court in May, 1638, "is laid
in the free consent of the people, to whom the
choice of public magistrates belongs by God's
own allowance." In further exposition to
Winthrop, Hooker wrote:

"In matters of greater consequence, which
concern the common good, a general council,
chosen by all, to transact businesses which
concern all, I conceive, under favor, most
suitable to rule, and most safe for rehef of

1 Says John Fiske: "It was the first written constitution known to history
that created a government, and it marked the beginnings of American democracy. '

(24)

CRADLE OF THE REPUBLIC 25

the whole. This was the practice of the
Jewish church, and the approved experience
of the best ordered states."

Thus, from the beginning, Connecticut was
constituted an independent republic. The
prescribed oath of office recognized no higher
authority. It bound the magistrates "to
administer justice" according to the laws
here established, and for want thereof accord-
ing to the word of God." It was a brave
renunciation of the doctrine of the "Divine
right of Kings."

Richard Olmsted, scarce twenty-eight years
of age, took part in this organization of the
colony he had fought to save from the
destruction for which it had been marked by
the savage Pequods. He was elected a
delegate to the first legislature, called the
"General Court," and thereafter for many
years was repeatedly chosen to take part in
its deliberations. He held other less impor-
tant offices. His dwelling-house in Hartford
was on the west side of Main Street, at No. 49.
The site in later years has been occupied by
the Central Church and 4he old burying-
ground.

Two years after the adoption of the Con-

26 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

necticut constitution all the colonies of New
England united in a formal confederation, and
John Winthrop was elected president. Then
followed a decade of peaceful colonial growth.
By the middle of the seventeenth century the
population of New England had increased to
twenty-one thousand. Two hundred ninety-
eight ships had borne them across the ocean.
In ten years fifty towns and villages had been
planted. Still religion, as in the land they
had left, was the uppermost theme. While
Roger Williams, brave pioneer of intellectual
freedom, was a welcome visitor at Hartford,
the Baptist doctrine which he taught was a
new source of agitation. From the Rhode
Island colony, also, came Samuel Gorton,
proclaiming that heaven was not a place, that
there was no heaven but in the hearts of good
men, no hell but in the mind; and later came
the exiled Quakers. Nevertheless, to the
inhabitants whose lives had hitherto been
harassed by the oppressions of the crown,
these were the "halcyon days of peace.'*
"These days," says the historian, "never
will return. Time, as it advances, unfolds
new scenes in the grand drama of human exis-
tence, scenes of more glory, of more wealth, of

CRADLE OF THE REPUBLIC 27

more action, but not of more tranquillity and
purity."

Richard Olmsted, in 1651, had arrived at
the age of thirty-nine. Hooker, the beloved
pastor and incomparable colonial leader, had
died, and theological controversies were again
arising. A treaty with the Dutch governor
had been signed at Hartford, defining terri-
torial claims, and relieving from controversy
the royal charter which had been procured for
the English colonists, by Hampden, the great
Commoner, and his associates, extending from
Point Judith westward to the Pacific Ocean.
Wide opportunities seemed to be opening.
The settlements of New England were expand-
ing toward the West. It was sufficient to stir
the imagination and stimulate the ambition
of one in the vigor of life, as was Richard
Olmsted. He had in some humble degree
helped to fashion at Hartford a new form of
government among men, based upon the will
of the people, the freedom of the conscience,
the separation of church and state, a civil code
which was to become the framework of the
future republic. Now, he aspired to found a
town, and mold and develop it after his own
plan. About ten years before he had acquired

28 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

grants of considerable land^ about sixty-eight
miles southwest of Hartford, near the mouth
of a little stream emptying into Long Island
Sound, and to it, "defying the dangers of
wild beast and Indians,'* he removed with his
own and nineteen other families. He had
two sons, James and John, and a daughter,
who died in infancy, all children of his first
wife. Although twice married, as disclosed
by his will,^ no particulars of either marriage
are recorded. The settlement at length
became centered in a place called Norwalk,
now a flourishing city of twenty thousand
people. Here he spent his mature life. The
town grew as he designed. He was its
representative in General Court, from year
to year. He was sergeant of its military com-
pany.^ At the outbreak of King Philip's
War (1675), he was sixty-three years of age.
The growth of the colonies had encroached
upon the Indian hunting grounds. The reli-
gion of the white man was a source of irrita-
tion. Massasoit had tried in vain to preclude

1 "He had large grants of land in Fairfield, which then embraced a consider-
able territory, portions of which were narrow strips running back from the coast
about six miles, to the present town of Redding, and including lands since known as
Chestnut Hill and Buckingham Ridge; also grants on the site of Norwalk, the same
being recorded on page 1 of Vol. I of Norwalk Land Records."

2 Will dated Sept. 5, 1684, recorded in Book III, p. 217, Fairfield Probate Records.
8 Savage's Genealogical Dictionary of New England, Vol. Ill, p. 312.

CRADLE OF THE REPUBLIC 29

by treaty any attempt to convert his warriors
from the religion of their race. War was to
the Indians an unwelcome alternative. "They
rose without hope, and they fought without
mercy. For them as a nation there was no
tomorrow." The white settlers, too, were
appalled at the prospect of war. Superstition
ran wild. At the eclipse of the moon an
Indian scalp was seen imprinted on its disk,
A perfect Indian bow appeared in the sky.
The sighing of the wind became the whistling
of bullets. Invisible troops of horses were
heard galloping through the air. In such a
terror-stricken community Richard Olmsted
was the leader to whom the settlers turned for
heroic guidance. He was chosen captain of a
company of militia, and led it through that
bloody year of ambuscade and surprise, of fire
and pillage, to the end of the most destructive
war ever visited upon New England.

At the close of the war Captain Olmsted
was again returned to a seat in the legis-
lature, and for several successive terms was
re-elected. He died in 1686, seventy-four
years of age. His will was signed two years
before his death. It is on file at Fairfield,
the county seat.

30 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

His son, John Olmsted, who, with James,
his brother, shared the property of their uncle,
John Olmsted, at his decease, was baptized at
Hartford, December 30, 1649. By his father's
will he acquired the parental homestead and
other valuable real estate. He married
(July 1, 1673) Mary Benedict, daughter of
Thomas and Mary (Bridgeman) Benedict, of
Southfield, Long Island, and upon her demise
he married Elizabeth (Pardie), widow of
Thomas Gregory. He left the parental
homestead at Norwalk, and took up his
residence at Hartford. In 1699 and again in
1703 he was chosen selectman, and in the
military company he was a lieutenant. He
died in 1704. His will is not recorded, but in
the inventory of his estate the names and
approximate ages of his children appear.^
Among his children were two sons, of whom
Richard, the younger, was born in 1692, and
Daniel ten years earlier. Richard married
(April 22, 1714) Mary Betts (who was born
September 10, 1693, and died January 31,
1786), daughter of Samuel and Judith (Rey-
nolds) Betts.

These two young men seem to have in-

1 Detcendanta of Captain Richard Olmsted, by Hammond.

CRADLE OF THE REPUBLIC 31

herited the enterprise and pioneer spirit of
their grandfather, for, as early as 1708, before
either was married, they had negotiated the
purchase of twenty thousand acres from the
Indian sachem Catoonah, and his associates
of the Ramapoo tribe. This tract was a part
of the unsettled wilderness, about thirteen
miles north of Norwalk, lying along the
eastern boundary of New York. The con-
sideration was one hundred English pounds.
The purchase was sanctioned by the general
assembly sitting at Hartford. The two
brothers and twenty-two others, of Norwalk
and Milford, formed a colony and settled on
this tract. When the settlement became a
town, it was called Ridgefield, the name which
it still bears.

Richard Olmsted served as town clerk in
1712, when barely twenty-one years of age.*
What other offices he may have subsequently
held is not now known, but he was called
Captain Olmsted. Hence it is to be inferred
that he was a captain of the Ridgefield com-
pany in the state militia. He died October
16, 1776, eighty-four years of age.

' The elder brother, Daniel, represented the town in the state legislature in the
years 1742 and 1743.

32 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

His son, Daniel Olmsted, one of ten children,
was born in Ridgefield September 22, 1731.
In 1753 he married Elizabeth Northrop, who
was born in Milford, Connecticut, about 1735,
and died April 30, 1822.

CHAPTER III
In the Revolution

NO battles of consequence after Con-
cord, Lexington and Bunker Hill,
were fought on New England soil,
excepting the battles of Ridgefield and Ben-
nington. In both of the latter instances, as
in the march of the British to Concord, their
aim was to secure or destroy a store of mili-
tary supplies, and in each battle the Americans
were victorious.

On the 26th day of April, 1777, a British
force under Tryon, the Royalist Governor of
New York, marched inland as far as Danbury,
Connecticut, where they destroyed not only
a considerable quantity of supplies but also
the principal part of the town. The his-
torian Johnston thus describes^ what fol-
lowed :

"There were some Continental soldiers in
the neighborhood, and two officers of rank,
Wooster and Arnold. The latter rallied all

1 Johnston's ConnectictU, p. S04.
» (33)

34 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

the men available, regulars and militia, and
headed Tryon on his retreat, at Ridgefield
(a few miles south of Danbury). In the
battle Wooster was mortally wounded, and
Tryon broke through and resumed his way
to the Sound. Arnold kept up the pursuit
until the British took refuge on the shipping
and sailed away."

Daniel Olmsted, then about forty-six years
of age, was one of the six hundred Continental
soldiers who rallied under Arnold that April
day to throw up a barricade at the cross-
roads in Ridgefield, and give battle to the
British. The representation that they were
rallied by Arnold is not historically accurate.
In fact, the reverse is true. Arnold was a
native of Norwalk, and happened to be a
visitor in a neighboring town. Captain
Isaac Hines, of Colonel Nehemiah Bardsley's
regiment, commanded the militia company at
Ridgefield, and as soon as he learned of the
British raid upon Danbury, nothing is more
probable than that he sent for both Arnold
and Wooster. But how were the soldiers
rallied? Who played the part of Paul Revere
and carried the alarm to Fairfield, Bedford
and Norwalk? It was Daniel Olmsted who

1450908

IN THE REVOLUTION S5

mounted his horse and rode.^ He was a
private in Captain Hines' Company, and had
already been put to test as a guard over a
group of his Tory neighbors arrested as
"persons inimical to the United States of
America."^

Accelerated, doubtless, by this British raid
upon Danbury, the destruction of property
along its course, and continued danger of like
hostile invasion from the ports of the Sound, ^
a considerable number of the inhabitants of
Ridgefield and its vicinity decided upon a
removal of their families westward to some
settlement beyond the Hudson, and Stillwater,
in the neighborhood of Ballston, in the county
of Albany (now Saratoga), New York, was
chosen as the destination. The historian of
Saratoga County refers to the settlement of
Ballston as "just about coeval with the
removal of the Connecticut colony to Still-
water."* Among these colonists was the
family of Daniel Olmsted, and there is good
ground for presumption that he was a leader
in the movement. The death of his father had

1 Daniel Olmsted may not have been the only messenger, but his own service if
attested in the pay abstract of the company for horse travel. — Connecticvt Hutorical
Society Collections. Vol. VIII:200.

» Connecticut Archives, Rev. Ist Ser. VIII:216.

i An apprehension verified by Tryon's destruction of Norwalk, July 11, 1779.

* Eittory of Saratoga County by Sylvester (1878), p. 246

36 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

broken the last parental tie, and two of his
children were in their infancy. Moreover,
for many years the Connecticut Colony had
become aware of the wealth of material
resources lying along the headwaters of the
Susquehanna and Delaware, within its royal
grant. It was twenty-three years (in 1753)
before his father's death (though Daniel had
then but just passed his twenty-second birth-
day) when the Connecticut- Susquehanna
Company was formed to purchase the Indian
title to lands on the waters of the Susque-
hanna, within the limits of the Colony of
Connecticut. The company was composed
of eight hundred and forty persons (afterwards
increased to twelve hundred), and included a
large proportion of the leading men of the
colony. The purchase was consummated,
and deed procured, dated July 11, 1754.
A similar association, called The Delaware
Company, bought the Indian title to all land
bounded east by the Delaware River, within
the forty-second degree of latitude, west to
the line of the Susquehanna purchase (which
extended ten miles east of that river). It is
not improbable, and subsequent events afford
support to the view, that the removal to

IN THE REVOLUTION 37

Ballston was but a step towards the promised
land. Beyond was the region of the Iroquois,
then in league with the British. The Seneca
and other hostile tribes were on the war path,
and a reign of terror among the white settlers
presently culminated in the Wyoming mas-
sacre on the 30th day of June, 1778.

With the record cited relating to the battle
of Ridgefield, Daniel Olmsted passed out of
service in Connecticut as a soldier of the War
of the Revolution, but he soon afterwards
reappeared as a private in Captain Thomas
Hick's Company of Colonel Jacobus Van
Schoonhaven's regiment (Half Moon and
Ballston districts),^ and subsequently himself
rose to a captaincy. No account remains of
the meritorious action by reason of which he
gained promotion.

Daniel Olmsted was a taxpayer in the
Ballston district in 1779, and in the list of the
31st of December of that year he was assessed
a tax of five pounds twelve shillings and six-
pence upon a valuation of one hundred and
fifty pounds.^ It was in the summer of that

>The company and regiment are recited in Certificate No. 19928 for 15«. B^d.,
dated 7 November, 1779. — Cerlificates of Treasurer (Manuscript record), Vol. 4,
Ms9. section, University of the State of New York. Like mention on list in ofiBce
of Adjutant General, United States War Department (2253205).

» Hittory of Saratoga County, by Sylvester, p. 250.

38 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

year that the expedition of General Brodhead
from Fort Pitt to destroy the Indian villages
on the upper waters of the Allegheny, and
the expedition of General Sullivan northward
through the Indian country of central New
York, came almost to a point of junction near
Olean. The Iroquois fled before them, but a
harassing warfare continued year after year,
receiving encouragement from the garrisons of
the British border forts, until, on the 20th day
of August, 1794, the Northwestern Indians
were routed by Mad Anthony Wayne at the
battle of Fallen Timbers. This was almost
immediately followed by a general treaty of
peace with the Indians, and emigration from
the East began to be resumed.

CHAPTER IV
On Two Frontiers

WITHOUT delay upon the close of his
military service, Daniel Olmsted set
out, probably alone, for the country
of the upper Delaware. Jay Gould, noted as
a financier, himself a native of Delaware
County, while a youthful surveyor, and then
a resident of the county, wrote its history,
though he afterwards tried to suppress the
work by buying up the printed copies. It
was published in 1856. It contains this
passage relating to the pioneers:

"The following information in relation to
the early settlements was derived principally
from Cyrus Burr, a highly respectable citizen
of Andes, and formerly and for a number of
years, supervisor of that town. The family of
Mr. Burr moved into the county in 1794, and
settled in what was then called Middletown,
Ulster County, but now Andes, Delaware
County, at which time the entire town,
except a few farms along the river, was one
unbroken wilderness. The first farm border-
(39)

40 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

ing on the river below the Middletown line
was owned by James Phenix, who was among
the first that emigrated after the Revolution.
He had occupied the place before the war,
but had retired for safety during that period.
A man by the name of Olmsted, who came in
about the same time, possessed the second
farm."

Presuming the latter to have been none
other than Daniel Olmsted, he must have soon
rehnquished his clearing on the river, for he
is recorded about the same time as a settler a
few miles farther west at or about the settle-
ment afterwards known as Masonville. The
Gazetteer of the State of New York,^ published
in 1859, mentions Daniel Farnsworth and one
Pross as the first settlers on the present site
of Davenport Center, and continues as follows:
"Among the other first settlers were Hum-
phrey Denio, George Webster, Daniel Olm-
sted, Van Valkenburg, Harmon Moore

and Elisha Orr." Walter Scott, a contributor
to the county history ,2 referring to the accred-
ited priority of Farnsworth and Pross, adds:

"But they could not have much preceded
Daniel Olmsted, who settled on the farm now

> Page 260, note 12.

* Centennial History of Delaware County, p. 326

ON TWO FRONTIERS 41

occupied by the widow of Chauncey Olmsted,
for Mr. Alexander Shellman informs me that
his grandfather settled near the old Emmons
hotel east of Oneonta about 1790, and that
in making the journey to Schoharie the Olm-
sted settlement was the first one passed.
The orchard on that farm is said to be the old-
est one in town."

Masonville, which so became the family
settlement, was not formally set apart from
Sidney until April 4, 1811. The town took
its name from Rev. John M. Mason, the
principal owner of the Evans patent of lands
in this town. The surface of the region may
be described as hilly upland, divided into two
ridges by the valley of Bennett's Creek, which
extends east and west through the north
part of the town. These ridges are subdivided
by numerous lateral ravines, through which
flow small brooks. The highest summits are
from six hundred to one thousand feet above
the valleys and eighteen hundred to two thou-
sand feet above tide. The soil is of shaly
loam, stony and diflScult of cultivation except
in the valleys. It is probable that the com-
munity itself did not gain a population exceed-
ing one hundred during the lifetime of

42 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

Daniel Olmsted. His wife having joined
him early in his pioneer pilgrimage, the
parental home was maintained at Masonville
during the remainder of their respective lives.
They had nine children, all of whom appear to
have been born in their Connecticut home,
Molly, the youngest, December 26, 1776, and
Seneca about a year earlier.^ Molly married
Lee, a Revolutionary soldier, and removed to
Roxbury in Delaware County, three years
before her father's death. Seneca grew to
manhood at the parental home near Ballston,
and not far from Broadalbin (organized in
1793, now in Fulton County), gaining such
education (mainly that of experience in earn-
ing a livelihood) as a pioneer settlement then
aJBForded. At the age of twenty-three (about
1798) he married Elizabeth Hicks, presumed
to be a relative, perhaps a daughter, of his
father's Revolutionary captain (Thomas
Hicks), and they almost immediately joined
the little colony at Masonville, and established
their home there.
Daniel Olmsted died February 7, 1806,

« F. S. Hammond, author of "Descendants of Captain Richard Olmsted," and
an accredited contributor to the "Genealogy of the Olmsted Family in America,"
in which valuable work a line of descent through Daniel's brother, Ezekiel, has
been accepted, writes, January 21, 1918: "Now I am fully convinced that there is
just one error in this, and that the name of Daniel Olmsted, Jr., should be substi-
tuted for Ezekiel " This conclusion is abundantly confirmed.

ON TWO FRONTIERS 43

leaving to survive him his widow and several
children, including Seneca, who had succeeded
his father as a leader in the community.
Seneca's wife did not long survive. She died
in the year following, and thereupon it is
probable that his widowed mother came to
live with him and care for his three little
children, of whom the eldest was but eight
years of age. His name was Daniel (namesake
of his grandfather), and he was born August 2,
1799.^ He had a sister Lucy^ and a brother,
Gardner Hicks.^ Seneca Olmsted is said to
have been of robust frame, and possessed of
great strength of mind and body. He and
his mother exerted a very positive personal
influence in Masonville and its vicinity. The
first church in the town was formed December
7, 1811, and it is easily to be believed that
they were influential in its organization. It
was of the denomination founded in New
England by Roger Williams, the Baptist, to
which the Olmsted family has most generally
and continuously adhered. The widow of

1 It is not unlikely that Daniel was born at Providence, Saratoga County, N. Y.,
while his mother was on a visit to relatives there, since the Olmsted Family Genealogy
(Ward) mentions Providence as his birthplace.

' Lucy grew to womanhood, and married William Rufus Sanford, of Marion,
N.Y. . . ^

• Gardner Hicks Olmsted accompanied his elder brother Daniel to Ulysses,
Pennsylvania, and later became a resident of Bennettsville, New York.

44 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

From Sheafer's Historical Map of Pennsylvania (by permission of
the Historical Society of Penna.) designed to show Indian names of
streams and villages and paths of travel. No Indian village or path
appears to have existed in Tioga, and none in McKean excepting
the one here shown and "Burnt Houses" on the western border;
though in the latter coimty there are streams named Conondaw,
Kinzua and Dunimgwa.

Said Hon. Charles Tubbs, in his historical address at the Lycoming
Centennial: "Northern Pennsylvania and the region of the Alle-
gheny was a hunting ground into which the Senecas descended from
the seat of their power on the Genessee, There were their castles
and there they kindled their council fires."

ON TWO FRONTIERS 45

Daniel Olmsted died April 30, 1822. His
grandson, Daniel, who was then twenty-three
years of age, became the head of the family.
On the first day of the following May (1823),
he married Lucy Ann Schofield, of Masonville,
born August 18, 1807, and therefore less than
seventeen years of age, daughter of Lewis and
Clarinda (Young) Schofield. They had six
children, of whom the two eldest were born
at Masonville. The other four were born at
the later home of the family in Ulysses town-
ship, in the county of Potter and State of
Pennsylvania.

Potter County is one of the Northern Tier
counties of Pennsylvania, and the New York
state line serves, therefore, as its northern
boundary. It is within the strip claimed by
the Connecticut-Susquehanna Company, along
which its block-houses, once garrisoned, were
established twenty miles apart.^ From the
day that Daniel Olmsted, with the infant
Seneca, took his departure from his Connecti-
cut home, there is little doubt that these
lands were contemplated as the ultimate
destination of the family. Seneca Olmsted

» The block-house in Deerfield Township, Tioga County, Pennsylvania, wa«
the birth-place of F. W. Knox, Esq., a contemporary and business associate of the
subject of this biography.

46 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

and his son Daniel were true to the tradition.
The Olmsted settlement, which became
Masonville, was in a sense en route. During
the period of their residence there, the long
controversy over the title between Connec-
ticut and Pennsylvania continued. The Con-
necticut claimants under the Susquehanna
Company repudiated the decision of the
congressional tribunal at Trenton, and con-
tinued their surveys. They prepared for
resistance, and induced General Ethan Allen,
the hero of Ticonderoga, to join them. But
Pennsylvania, by successive acts of assembly,
and the exertion of the power of the state in
various ways, finally triumphed, and in the
second decade of the nineteenth century, the
legislative compromise offered by Pennsyl-
vania had been generally accepted, and titles
had become settled.^ So the father and son

'While no comprehensive outline of this controversy can be here given, some
aspects of it, not hitherto noted, are worthy of attention. By the Decree of the
Council of Trenton, created by Congress, the claim of Connecticut to the land in
Pennsylvania north of the 41st degree of latitude was rejected. But the Connecti-
cut settlers contended that the decree affected only the controversy between the
states, and was in no sense an adjudication of the claims of the Susquehanna Com-
pany. Hence they ignored the decree, and the company proceeded to advance its
settlements. A state of civil war ensued. The state administration of Pennsvl-
vania sought to quell the trouble, not only by force of arms, but by diplomacy and
palliating legislation. An Act of Assembly was passed March 98, 1787, known as
the Confirming Law, designed to confirm certain titles in actual settlers. Never-
theless, as late as February 18, 1795, the proprietors under the Susquehanna Com-
pany, to the number of twelve hundred, assembled at Athens, and took further
aggressive action. On the 4th day of April, 1799, the Pennsylvania Legislature
enacted a law known as the Compensation Law, fixing a schedule of prices per
acre, at which, upon payment to the state, the controverted titles might be con-
firmed, supplemental legislation following during several successive sessions. But

ON TWO FRONTIERS

.t,-f>^At.«

I POTTER:

Townships created by the Connecticut-Susquehanna Company in
1796. Grant of Lorana to Joshua Downer, Ezekiel Hyde and
Samuel Ensign (they having exhibited sufficient vouchers of pro-
prietorship) signed by John Franklin, Simon Spalding and Samuel
Ensign, Commissioners, recorded (survey having been approved) in
Liber F, page 112, of the Records of the Susquehanna Company.

This map also shows the Allegheny Reservation of the Seneca
Indian nation, lying across the river one-half mile in width on each
side. It shows, too, the Cornplanter grant of 1,000 acres.

these laws, in the excited state of the public mind, did not meet with general
acceptance.

The state administration, however, under the leadership of William Bingham,
had already entered upon a parallel auxiliary course. Mr. Bingham was, at the
time, not only rated as the wealthiest citizen of Pennsylvania, but also as its most
influential political figure, having been a delegate in the Congress of 1787, and a
representative of the government abroad. As Speaker of the Pennsylvania House
in 1791 and President of the Senate in 1795, he was in a position of advantage to
procure desired legislation. The plan in view was to throw Pennsylvania settlers
in large numbers into the vacant lands in advance of the Susquehanna Company,
and organize local governments therein under the laws of Pennsylvania. Doubtless
this plan was conceived conjointly with the other master spirits of the common-
wealth's cause, Timothy Pickering, Chief Justice McKean and Attorney General
Bradford, but Mr. Bingham entered zealously into it. By Act of 1792, the price
of these lands was reduced, and upon the same being offered for sale, he became the
chief purchaser, particularly in Potter and adjoining counties, and many of the
warrants so purchased by him in 1793 he proceeded to sell to John Keating and others
who actively undertook to forward settlements. Thereupon Mr. Bingham was pro-
moted immediately from the speakership of the State Senate to a seat in the United
States Senate, in which body he served from 1795 to 1801, during which period he
was for a time its presiding oiEcer. Meanwhile, in 1799, Thomas McKean became
Governor, and proceeded to carry out the pre-arrangement for the establishment
of local civil administration. But actual settlements had proceeded so slowly that
when the Act of 1804 was passed, creating Potter and its companion counties, it
was absolutely uninhabited. A further important step was to be taken. Just as

48 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

"East and West Road," the great state highway designed to
bind settlers in allegiance to Pennsylvania who claimed homesteada
under Connecticut title. (See note.)

who at Masonville had watched the steps of
the controversy, again turned toward the
chosen land. The Gushing family with which
they were closely allied preceded them, Samuel
Gushing becoming one of the first county
commissioners of Potter Gounty. The loca-

fifty years later the Union Pacific Railroad was constructed to bind California to
the Union, so in 1807 the East and West Road was projected by Act of Assembly to
be built from a point "where the Coshecton and Great IJend Turnpike passes through
the Moosic Mountains thence in a westerly direction to the western boundary of the
state." It was such an assertion of the immediate and beneficent presence of the
Btate in this region that there can be little doubt but that, as the construction erf the
road progressed through the counties of Bradford, Tioga, Potter and McKean, it
served as a bond to hold to the commonwealth the allegiance of the settlers. Thus,
in the course of time, the sagacious policy of Senator Bingham prevailed, and the
title contest was abandoned. This was not accomplished, however, without some
reaction. As late as 1835 indignation meetings in Bradford County held up the
proprietors as "Our lordly European and American landholders" who have "monop-
olized for very small consideration a great portion of the land in Northern Penn-
sylvania, contrary to the spirit of our free institutions," etc., and it was resolved
that "until the trustees of the Bingham estate establish a title by a solemn decision
of a court of competent jurisdiction," etc., "we will not pay another dollar to them
or their agents." There was no difiiculty nor delay in procuring judicial recognition
of the challenged title.

An interesting episode in this controversy was afforded by the entrance of Gen-
eral Ethan Allen. After the Trenton Decree which struck down the claim of Con-
necticut to the disputed territory it was the plan of Colonel John Frankhn, the able
leader of the Connecticut claimants, to organize the Northern Tier of Pennsylvapia
Into a new state. To this end he summoned to his aid General Allen, who had just
secured statehood for Vermont. He came, says Heverly, in "Bradford Pioneer and
Patriot Families" (Vol. I, p. 178), in cocked hat and feathers, declaring that he had
made one state and "By the Eternal God and the Continental Congress" he would
make another. But he had been checkmated by Pickering, at whose instance the
Pennsylvania Legislature had created the disturbed district into a new county,
named Luzerne, a measure which divided the followers of Franklia and frustrated
bis plan.

ON TWO FRONTIERS

tion selected was about one hundred ten
miles southwest of Masonville, an open " Cat-
skill Region," according to the geologist, of
which the present borough of Lewisville is
near the center, and watered by Gushing Creek

Potter County, the fountain-head of far-flowing rivers.

and its tributary brooks. It is, however, not
far from the famous crest, for along the
borders of the township streams flow diversely
southward to Chesapeake Bay, northward to
Lake Ontario and southwest to the Gulf of
Mexico. The historian writing in 1880 said:

"The greater part of the township is still
as wild as it was when the pioneers of Pike

50 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

Township looked in upon the wilderness, and
nothing less than the necessities of the future
will ever lead to its improvement."'

Forty years earlier, and therefore near to the
date of the Olmsted settlement, the report of
the State Geological Survey, referring to
Potter County generally, said:

"It remains almost what it was a century
ago, an unbroken forest tenanted by the
panther, bear, deer, wolf and fox."^

The region was covered with pine and
hemlock timber, afterwards to become of
great value. The soil of Ulysses Township is
termed Volusia, and is especially adapted to
dairy farming, and to the cultivation of buck-
wheat and potatoes.^ When an unbroken
sheet of ice, say two thousand feet in thick-
ness, came gliding down the Canadian slopes,
it found a barrier in the mountainous range
which had been lifted into the air along the
state boundary between Olean and Salamanca.
The ice thrown off on either hand, as by a
plowshare, as it passed away from the eastern
end of the mountain wall, moved southeast

> History of McKean, Elk, Cameron and Potter (Beers & Co.).

* Report of Oeological Survey of Potter County, p. 65.

• State College Bulletin No. 3.

ON TWO FRONTIERS

A prehistoric battle-ground, where the giant glacier met the
unconquerable highlands and turned aside. The line of crosses
shows the path of the terminal moraine. The map is adapted
from the Warren Folio, U. S. Geol. Survey, after Leverett, who
designed to show the probable preglacial drainage of Western Pa. —
(1) Coudersport, (2) Smethport, (3) Warren, (4) Meadville, (5)
Franklin, (6) Pittsburgh, (7) Erie, (8) Dunkirk.

52 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

across the county of Potter, leaving the traces
of terminal moraine in its pathway.^ The
mean elevation of Ulysses Township above sea
level is about 1,700 feet. Against deadly
drainage of fertility in all directions the forest
through countless years had stood sentinel
over the soil.''

At any rate, it was a virgin soil, and bore its
crown of pine. To the family at Masonville,
shut in by its hard limitations, Ulysses seemed
the Eldorado of their dreams.

1 Geology of Oil Region, III, p. 372.

' In a poem by Jamea Harcourt West entitled "Detritus," there are some fitting
lines:

"Could they who till the Mississippi vales —
Through thousand thousand leagues far-stretched and fair —
Know well what wealth of distant mountain stair
Has crumbled to endow their verdant dales;
Could they but hear the pounding of old galea
In lands of Seneca and Crow and Bear,
Or count the centuries the sun and air
Have filched from forest-lands with silent flails:
Did they thus ken how came their rich black earth, —
By grain and grain from Gardens of the Gods,
From skyey lines far yonder out of reach
Where Allegheny, Yellowstone, have birth, —
What new luxuriance would star their sods,
How costlier far would gleam each vine and peach 1"

CHAPTER V

Boyhood and Schooldays

IN 1836 Arthur George Olmsted, the youth
to whose life-work this volume is devoted,
was nine years of age. He and his elder
brother accompanied his father, mother and
grandfather in their final pilgrimage. There
had been five previous stages in the family
migration on this continent — from Cambridge
to Hartford, thence to Norwalk, to Ridge-
field, to Ballston, and to the upper waters of
the Delaware. All had been accomplished
on foot and by ox teams, through wild or
sparsely settled forest region. As again the
little caravan moved away from the village
which had grown up around their own home-
stead, doubtless they looked back now and
then as long as the spire of their beloved
meeting-house could be seen shining white
above the trees. It was a tedious expedition,
and not without the perils incident to the life
of the pioneer, but in due time the destination
was reached, and there the home was estab-

(53)

54 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

lished which was to be known once more as
Olmsted's Corners.

Four years later the township was created.
It had twenty -nine residents, although in
1831 there were but five families within its
borders. During the first year (1837) follow-
ing the arrival of the Olmsted family, the
first school-house was built and the first
(Baptist) church organized. When the church
was incorporated (January 6, 1849), Daniel
Olmsted was one of the trustees, and his
brother, Gardner Hicks Olmsted, was clerk
and also a trustee. Here Seneca Olmsted
spent the remainder of his days, and lived
to the advanced age of eighty-six years, itself
a testimonial to the simplicity of his habits
and the rectitude of his life. He died January
23, 1860, just as the country began to be
stirred with the mutterings of Southern seces-
sion. He had lived to see his son Daniel, with
whom he lived, become a representative
citizen of the county, honored and respected
in the community, a leader in the church and
in public affairs, and his grandchildren grown
to manhood and womanhood, excepting
Seneca Lewis, his namesake, who died in his
minority, and Herbert Gushing, then a boy of

BOYHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS 55

fifteen. Their success in life must have
cheered his declining years.^

His son, Daniel, their father, was from the
beginning the active leader of the Olmsted
settlement. The village of Lewisville, since
incorporated as a borough, grew up near the
center of the township, and in 1841 he was
appointed postmaster, the office retaining the
township name, Ulysses. He was fortunate
in the selection of a homestead. It adjoined
on the west the lands of Lucas Gushing (with
whose family, also, his own was to be joined
in romance and wedlock), and embraced one
hundred nineteen acres. It was a part of the
great area of lands of William Bingham of
Philadelphia, and is described as Lot No. 74,
being a part of warrants 1261 and 1265. He
went into possession under contract of pur-

I Henry Jason Olmsted, born at Masonville, Nov. 22, 1825, married May 14,
1846, Evalina Theresa Gushing (born Aug. 31, 1826), daughter of Lucas Gushing of
Ulysses. They removed to Goudersport in March, 1848. He served as prothonotary
of Potter County for twenty-one years.

Arthur George Olmsted, born at Masonville September 30, 1827, herein further
mentioned.

Sarah Elizabeth, born June 15, 1830, married March 10, 1850, Chauncey G.
Gushing of Lewisville (Potter Go.), born August 22, 1828, died Sept. 12, 1877, son
of Lucas Gushing — a successful merchant, member of the Baptist society and super-
intendent of the Sunday School.

Daniel Edward Olmsted, born May 30, 1832, died Dec. 29, 1900, married Aug.
29, 1854, Lydia Laura Gushing (born Sept. 30, 1835), daughter of Lucas and Ghloe
(Wood) Gushing. A prosperous merchant at Goudersport for fifteen years, after-
wards a resident of Williamsport.

Seneca Lewis Olmsted, born May 11, 1838, died Oct, 2, 1856.

Herbert Gushing Olmsted, of Emporium, Pa., born Oct. 21, 1845, married Sept.
10, 1865, Martha M. Gushing (born Sept. 28, 1843, died May 28, 1905), daughter of
Leavitt and Jane (Goodrich) Gushing.

56 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

chase, and in 1849 took title by deed. In 1854
and 1857 he purchased from H. H. Dent allot-
ments of forty -one acres and fifty -two acres,
respectively, both in the township of Ulysses.
Here at Ulysses he continued to reside
until the death of his wife, which occurred in
1865. His living children had then set up
their own households, and he was left alone.
The home which had for many years echoed
to children's voices now seemed desolate,
and he did not linger in it. It soon passed
into other hands. In the following year he
was again joined in marriage. His second
wife was Jane (Robertson) Bennett, daughter
of Jabez Robertson and widow of Ira Bennett.
Thereupon he took up his residence with
her at Bennettsville, in the county of Che-
nango, in the State of New York, scarce
three miles from Masonville, and there was
his last home. He at once allied himself
with the Baptist church of that place. The
minutes of August 5, 1875, cover a resolution
to unite with the Baptist church of Bain-
bridge (three miles distant). The resolution
was signed by Jane Olmsted, Daniel Olmsted,
G. H. Olmsted, S. G. Scofield and others.^

^Hiitory of the Counties of Chenango and Madison, p. 179.

BOYHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS 57

He lived to the age of eighty-three years and
two months. His death occurred at his home
in Bennettsville, October 2, 1882. For fifty-
five years he had been a steadfast and exem-
plary member of the Baptist church, in which
he held the office of deacon. In an obituary
notice it was said of him that "he possessed a
wonderfully calm and well-poised spirit.
Hasty, loud, impatient and angry utterances
were strangers to his lips. Those who knew
him best observed his entire freedom from the
vice of evil speaking. Neither was it pleasant
for you to pour complaints against neighbors
and acquaintances into his ears. The grave
silence with which they were received
amounted to a severe rebuke to him who
spoke the evil." And again it was said that
he was "noted for his frugal and industrious
habits, and his kindly, considerate regard for
his friends and neighbors." The oppor-
tunity for distinguished service had not come
to him. It was something to have led an
upright life, endured many hardships, and
to have lived to witness the success and
happiness of his surviving children. His
second son, Arthur, had already risen to
distinction.

58 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

Arthur's boyhood days had been spent with
his brothers and sisters at the parental fire-
side. Ahke with them he received from his
father and mother the impress of their strong,
reverent natures, and was guided by the
example of their daily lives. He and his
elder brother had received their primary edu-
cation at Masonville, but mainly from their
parents and the pastor of the church, the era
of free schools in New York not having
arrived.^ The paramount political issue in
Pennsylvania for two years before the removal
of Daniel Olmsted and his family to Ulysses
had been the free school system. The inhabi-
tants of a border county of New York could
hardly have been ignorant of the heroic legis-
lative battles in its behalf led by Governor
Wolf and Governor Ritner, and of the con-
trolling speech of Thaddeus Stevens at the
crisis of the debate. The successful enact-
ment of the measure may have been a deciding
circumstance, and one which served to hasten
the removal to Ulysses. In any event, within
the year following the first school under this
system was opened in Ulysses. It was con-

* The free school system of New York was established in 1867.

BOYHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS 59

ducted in the new building known as "Daniel's
schoolhouse."^

Arthur's boyhood can easily be imagined,
its Christmas eves, its spelling bees, the games
of winter evenings, the summer tramps. It
would not be difficult to locate the swimming
hole and the stretch of still water which
became ice in the skating season. He was
never fond of hunting, but he loved to troll the
brooks for trout. Here and there in the
neighborhood was a young bear, a tethered
wolf, a pretty deer, getting their education at
the hands of the boys. And then there were
the athletic games, but none of the "national "
brand, and no moving pictures, excepting such
as were occasionally afforded by a runaway
colt, or the crashing to the earth of some
forest monarch. As he grew older, he was
called to assist in the varied work of the farm,
or at the mills. It is not to be doubted that
he made the most of the opportunity which the
district school afforded, and that in the course
of ten years he had exhausted its resources of
learning, and was supplementing it as best he
could by wide reading. His taste of knowl-

1 "It is to be noted that when, in 1835, a state-wide vote was taken, every repre-
sented district in Potter County voted in favor of accepting the system." — Wicker-
■ham, History of Edxication in Pennsylvania, S22.

60 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

edge had made him hunger constantly for
more, and he had the inteJlectual capacity to
assimilate it. About this time the Couder-
sport Academy opened for the reception of
pupils. It was founded by John Keating in
1807, as an aid for the building of the town,
and to promote sales of land in the vicinity.
He donated a square in Coudersport as a site,
and five hundred dollars towards the cost of
building, also one hundred acres adjoining the
town as a source of revenue for maintenance.
But it was not until 1838 that it was incor-
porated and receiving aid from the state.
When the state appropriations were discon-
tinued, the county by special act was author-
ized to pay at first two hundred dollars, and
afterwards three hundred dollars, towards
running expenses. These payments by the
county were discontinued in 1866. Three
years later the whole property was conveyed
to the school district for a graded school, with
a high school department. Like academies or
secondary schools, as at Warren and Smeth-
port, were established at the most populous
centers in the new counties of the Northern
Tier. In fact fourteen other academies were
incorporated at the same session, and in 1840

BOYHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS 61

twenty -five. The multiplication of these
institutions resulted in the substitution of the
high school as an adjunct of the common
school system. As late as 1859 an acad-
emy building was erected at Lewisville, and
J. A. Cooper, afterwards for many years
at the head of the State Normal School
at Edinboro, was the first principal. He
conducted it successfully until 1873, when
it also was converted into a graded public
school.

In 1847 the Coudersport Academy was
regarded as an excellent institution. It was
then conducted by Mr. A. W. Smith, as
superintendent, "late of Union College."
The Potter Pioneer, in its issue of the
30th of October of that year, announces
that the institution has received the fol-
lowing new apparatus: a celestial and ter-
restrial globe, an air pump, an electrical
machine and galvanic battery, a microscope
and lenses, together with chemical appa-
ratus. "With these advantages, which
are superior to any in Northern Penn-
sylvania, the trustees confidently hope that
the * Halls of the Institution' will be
filled with youth who may seek and

62 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

acquire the lasting benefits of education and
knowledge."^

Arthur was ambitious to be enrolled as a
pupil at the academy. But were not the
obstacles insurmountable? It was sixteen
miles through the forest from Ulysses to
Coudersport, and the road was little more than
a trail. A daily trip was clearly impracticable.
But a plan was finally arranged to which his
father consented. He was to make the
journey weekly, walking in on Monday, and
home again on Saturday, and earn his board
during the week by doing chores in town.
His parents knew the warp and woof of the
boy's character. They had no fear of temp-
tations in the town, only of the wild beasts
on the way. But he was fearless and strong,
and eager to begin. So this new door of
learning was unlocked to him, and he made
the weekly jaunt without untoward incident.

1 Included in the notice were the Terms of Tuition:

Reading, Writing, Orthography and Arithmetic 81 50

English Grammar, Bookkeeping, Rhetoric and Philosophy 2 00

Chemistry, Botany, Astronomy, Geometry, Algebra and Surveying S 00

Greek, Latin, PVench and Drawing 4 00

L. F. Maynard, Secretary. L. D. Spafford, President.
Board of Tbostees
William T. Jones Lemuel F. Maynard

Wm. Crosby Timothy Ives

Wm. W. McDougall Lorenzo D. Spafford.

In the standing advertisement the following year the pupil's expenses arc stated
as follows:

Tuition per term, from $1 . 50 to $ 1 . 00

Incidental expenses 0 . 25

Rate for board per week in private families 1 .00 to $1 ,60

BOYHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS 63

His advancement was rapid. ^ Principal Smith
was succeeded by F. W. Knox, of Wellsboro,
who afterwards became a prominent member
of the Potter County bar.

I "Even as a young man," sayg the Potler Journal (Sept. 23, 1914), "he was con-
ceded to be one of the best informed men in the county."

CHAPTER VI

Lyceum, Library, Law-Office

STUDENT OLMSTED had early chosen
his profession. Perhaps his teacher
had guided him to a choice. Influential
friends of his father were already at the
bar in Coudersport. Hon. John S. Mann
was its most distinguished member. More-
over, he was a champion of the prohibition
of the sale of intoxicating liquor, and an
advocate of the abolition of chattel slavery.
It was arranged that Arthur should be
admitted as a student in Mr. Mann's office.
So, at the conclusion of his academic course,
in 1848, he began the study of law, and
necessarily became a resident of Coudersport.
In the same year his elder brother, Henry,
removed to the county seat, and three years
later was elected prothonotary, register and
recorder. Thus to Arthur, more than ever,
Coudersport became his home town. He
availed himself of the advantages of the
public library, which came into existence

(64)

LYCEUM, LIBRARY, LAW-OFFICE 65

about that time, and, although then far from
adequate, became the nucleus for the sub-
stantial public library for which, in later
years, he made liberal provision. In these
earlier days the library sought to make itself
felt, not only through the circulation of books,
but also by occasional literary entertainments.
Mr. Mann's law student, during his academic
course, gained a circle of friends in Couders-
port, and soon became more generally known
for the breadth of his knowledge and for his
intellectual acumen. He was not reluctant to
take part in the Library Course, and chose for
the subject of his lecture "Science, its Origin
and Progress," a subject which betokened his
interest in the academy's advertised equip-
ment of globes, batteries and microscopes.
It was in the winter of 1849. Coudersport
then contained less than one Iiundred tax-
payers. But there was a goodly attendance
at the meeting. It was held in the old court-
house, built in 1834, and replaced in 1853.
The personality of the young lecturer drew
the audience more certainly than the charm
of the subject. He was twenty-two years of
age, and of exemplary habits. He had
inherited the superior stature of his lineage.

66 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

His features were of classic mold, his dark
eyes flashed, his voice rang out clear, his
enunciation was distinct. Doubtless his
brother Henry was in the audience, and per-
chance his father had been invited to town for
the night. The lecture was carefully pre-
pared. Extracts from it are here quoted, not
because of its immediate interest, nor of its
treatment of the subject, but rather as a
measure of the young orator's intellectual
quality, his power of expression, and the
gravity of his thought:

"Created by a Being whose very essence is
knowledge itself, and whose works are order,
perfection and science combined, man, the
most wonderful and noble of them all, with
mental and moral endowments only second to
the great author of them — what more enno-
bling to his character and more in accordance
with the manifest original design of his
Creator than a thorough knowledge of those
great and fundamental principles which by
ordination of the Supreme Ruler govern and
control all the great moral, social and philo-
sophical movements that are constantly tak-
ing place in that part of the universe with
which he is or may be familiar ... I have
no doubt the Almighty, in his wisdom, con-
fers the privileges of liberty upon any people,

LYCEUM, LIBRARY, LAW-OFFICE 67

and has from the commencement of earth,
in just as liberal a measure as they have been
able to receive and enjoy . . . Man walks
on the surface of a sphere whose very existence
leads him to study and meditation. Plants
are springing up under his feet, showers
descend to water them, rivers, supplied by
springs that never dry, carry their waters
along to the ocean which never fills, — day-
light and darkness succeed each other in
measured portions, and orb after orb in silent
grandeur move their ceaseless rounds in the
great conclave above. Unnumbered beauties
are on either hand, ever varying and ever new,
and constantly exciting his innate desire to
know, and inviting him to thread the pleasant,
though laborious, paths of Science . . . And
what is mind even when uncultivated? A
blank upon which may be written the wisdom
of earth and heaven in fair and legible lines,
or upon which may be made a disgraceful blot
and stain never to be eradicated, — a soil
capable of producing the richest and most
abundant fruits or the vilest and rankest
weeds. Science is the cultivator which
enriches that soil, sows thereon the seeds of
virtue and truth, and causes it to bring forth
abundantly fruits suitable for the enjoyment
of beings destined to a glorious immortality;
but without that cultivator the rank weeds of
ignorance flourish upon that soil, and the

68 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

mind of man, that noble principle, becomes
choked with error and crippled with imbecil-
ity. ... It is well established that 1,856
years B. C, or more than 3,700 years ago, a
colony of Phoenicians, who were at that time
noted navigators, settled on the shores of the
Mediterranean Sea, mider Grachus, their leader,
and built a city which they called Argos.
About three hundred years afterwards,
Cecrops founded Athens, and gave laws to the
then barbarous native Grecians. Soon after
Cadmus, another Egyptian, founded the city
of Thebes, which, according to Homer, had
one hundred gates, and introduced the Phoe-
nician alphabet. From this time learning and
literature began to be cultivated, and at
length the Grecians became the most learned
and enlightened nation the world had ever
witnessed."

It may be assumed that an address so
scholarly and thoughtful gave to the speaker
an immediate and most enviable standing in
the community.

Meanwhile great moral issues were pressing
for solution, particularly the abolition of
slavery and resistance to the liquor evil. The
weekly issue of the New York Tribune was
finding its way among the settlements of the
Northern Tier, and the great personality of

LYCEUM, LIBRARY, LAW-OFFICE 69

Horace Greeley was forming on the political
horizon as the figure of Liberty. The flaming
utterances of William Lloyd Garrison and
Gerrit Smith became the topics of the fireside.
Now, too, the weekly newspaper brought
occasional report of the lyceum lectures of
John B. Gough, and, perchance, the text of his
famous apostrophe to a glass of water was
heard anew in the declamations of the school-
room. This very year the temperance move-
ment was inaugurated, culminating in Good
Templars organizations, to be succeeded by
the Sons of Temperance. Olmsted's opinions
on these questions were already formed, and
he was outspoken in their expression.

Having studied law assiduously, he was, in
1850, admitted to the bar, Hon. Horace
Williston, of Wellsboro, being the presiding
judge. The bar of Coudersport then included
Hon. John S. Mann, L. F. Maynard, Wales C.
Butterworth, Charles B. Cotter, Isaac Benson
and Edward O. Austin. The number of non-
resident members was larger. In this list
were Hon. Orlo J. Hamlin, John E. Niles,
Hiram Payne, L. B. Cole, Horace Bliss, James
Gamble, F. B. Hamlin, A. V. Parsons, S. P.
Johnson, Benjamin Bartholomew and Joseph

70 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

Wilson. Indeed, it was not unusual for mem-
bers of the local bar to establish some pro-
fessional relation with prominent attorneys
in older counties. Thus Mr. Benson's card
in the People's Journal, dated March 3, 1848,
advertises that through him the services of
S. P. Johnson, Esq., of Warren, may be
engaged. Later F. W. Knox, Esq., advertises
that *'a lawyer of experience and ability will
be associated" with him in prosecuting all
cases committed to his care.

During his student days, in the conduct of
civil and criminal cases, before a justice of the
peace, in the preparation of contracts, deeds
and wills, as well as in matters of counsel,
Arthur Olmsted had gained a reputation for
his legal knowledge and ability, and it rapidly
spread among the settlements, for the inhabi-
tants needing legal services all came in to the
county seat, there being no lawyer then
practicing elsewhere in the county. Besides,
his preceptor, Mr. Mann, in addition to his
law practice, was, as he then advertised,
engaged in the sale of land as the representa-
tive of the owners of several large tracts, and
this brought to his office many settlers
desiring to purchase homesteads. Hitherto,

LYCEUM, LIBRARY, LAW-OFFICE 71

criminal offenses had been prosecuted by a
deputy attorney general who resided at
Williamsport and rode a circuit of coun-
ties. Now, in 1850, in the fall of the
year of Arthur Olmsted's admission to
the bar, and when he had but just passed
his twenty-third birthday, he was to be
elected the first district attorney of Potter
County. It was not a lucrative office. In
fact, the compensation for the term did not
exceed fifty dollars, but it gave the officer
not only some professional prestige, but also
desirable experience in the trial of cases.
At this stage in the development of the
county, the homesteads purchased by settlers
from the Bingham and Keating agents were
generally still held by the purchasers, and
consequently few questions of title had arisen.
Sources of litigation were not numerous. In
after life Arthur Olmsted was heard to say that
his professional income for the first three years
of his practice amounted to ninety dollars.

But the county was just entering upon an
era of material development. A turnpike
had been completed between Jersey Shore and
Coudersport, and previously a post route from
Jersey Shore to Olean. Hon. Orlo J. Hamlin,

72 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

then representing Potter and McKean in the
House, had secured a large appropriation
($200,000) for construction work on the East
and West Road through McKean County, and
at the same session had procured the enact-
ment of a law organizing the eighteenth
judicial district, composed of the counties of
Potter, McKean, Warren and Jefferson.
Within the next decade other events of
importance were to occur. A stage route was
to be established between Bellefonte and
Smethport, and the Philadelphia and Erie, as
well as the Sunbury and Erie railroads, were
to be surveyed. About this time Ole Bull
purchased from John F. Cowan eleven thou-
sand acres near the southern border of the
county now included in Abbott and Steward-
son townships. His purpose was to establish
a colony for his countrymen, a number of
whom arrived and organized a settlement, in
the midst of which he built a castle. There,
as if directed by some rare instinct to the con-
genial intonation of the primeval forest, again
his far-famed fiddle

"Sang all the songs it knew

And learned long years ago within
The wood in which it grew."

LYCEUM, LIBRARY, LAW-OFFICE 73

But it was a pathetic dream, for the title failed,
and ultimately the community was deserted.
The People's Journal, published at Couders-
port, September 24, 1852, has this paragraph:

"Ole BulF passed through our village on
Saturday, on his way to Oleona, the new-
town just commenced through the energy and
public spirit of this child of genius."

Coudersport was truly a village then.
Although its location was doubtless fixed on a
map in Philadelphia so as to be as near the
center of the county as topographical condi-
tions would permit, a more picturesque site
could hardly have been chosen. Ten miles
from its source, and 1,664 feet above tide, the
Allegheny rapidly crosses its streets and
winds through its borders, rippling and flash-
ing in the sunlight, on its way. The village
was as a jewel set in the comely crown of the
surrounding hills. Among its inhabitants the
varied walks were represented. The cards in
the weekly newspaper, the People's Journal^
included that of H. S. Heath, physician;
William McDougall, surveyor ; Lucas Cushing,

^ Pond, the lyceum bureau manager, 8ays: " I paid Ole Bull $25,000 for fifty
concerts, and made a handsome profit." At the Boston concert the poet Long-
fellow was present, and the sales ran up to $1,100, in addition to course tickets.

74 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

temperance hotel ; Joseph Mann, agent of the
Oswayo Lumber Association, and Jones and
Storrs, general merchandise, "opposite north-
east corner of Public Square," and in the
square the new court-house was being erected.
The names of the editors, William W.
McDougall and John S. Mann, are set above
the motto: "Fidelity to the People,'* and
among the editorials was a stirring exhortation
for subscriptions to the stock of the Couders-
port and Wellsville Plank Road Company:

"Shall the road be built? Or shall we
permit the great advantages which the New
York and Erie Railroad offer to us to escape
us for want of energy enough to build a plank
road from this village to the state line, a dis-
tance of nineteen miles?"

The same paper contained an appeal that
the county should be represented at the
National Anti-Slavery Convention to meet at
Cleveland in September: "In 1848 there were
twelve thousand men in Pennsylvania who
refused to wear the collar and who cast their
votes for Liberty. Organization is the only
thing that will cure our leading politicians of
their contemptible and cringing subserviency
to the Slave Power."

LYCEUM, LIBRARY, LAW-OFFICE 75

Into the various movements of the people
looking to the development of the material
resources of the county, and to the growth and
prosperity of Coudersport, it is safe to say
that Arthur Olmsted entered with efficient
helpfulness. It is gratifying to note that
however ardently he may have mingled in the
social life of the community, he soon became
a guiding star in the turbulent storms of
reform which w^ere beginning to sweep across
the country. In respect to measures designed
to curb intemperance and to restrict slavery,
his attitude seemed to be instinctively right.
It could have been guessed before it was
declared. It seemed to proceed from a strong,
native religious sense, which might have been
traced through his parentage backward
through a long, progressive, freedom-loving
ancestral line; back to Hartford, the "Birth-
place of Democracy," in the days of Roger
Williams; back to the landing of Hooker and
Stone, and their declaration of independence;
back to the secret conventicles of Old Essex
and the mental enslavement from which the
forefathers fled.

During the September term of court in
1853, the district Baptist Conference was held

76 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

in Coudersport, and Arthur Olmsted, then
twenty-six years of age, was invited to deliver
the principal address. He chose for his
subject: "The Christianity Demanded by
the Times,'* and discussed it under three
heads: 1st, an intelligent Christianity; 2d, a
practical Christianity; 3d, an earnest, energetic
Christianity. Fortunately the text of this
remarkable address has been well preserved.
Speaking under the second head he said:

"There was a time in the history of the
Church when piety sought retirement, when
the Christian thought it his duty to retreat
from the busy scenes of active life and seek in
soUtary vigils and fastings and prayer that
preparation of heart which would especially
recommend him to the favor of God. ReUgion
in those days assumed the meditative, the con-
templative form, and it was thought that the
quietness and seclusion of the cloister and the
cell are especially favorable to the growth
and development of the Christian graces. Nor
would I take it upon myself to pass censure
upon the peculiar behef of the religion of those
times. It was allowed, and we may suppose
it was brought about by the Providence of
Heaven, and can be both explained and
justified by considering the spiritual necessi-
ties of that age.

LYCEUM, LIBRARY, LAW-OFFICE 77

"But the demand now is for a Christianity
of a different mold. Quietism will not meet
the requirements of present exigencies. Re-
ligion is called on to lay aside the loose gown
and slippers of contemplative retirement
and put on the working-day dress. She must
go out into the crowded streets and thronging
thoroughfares, enter the workshop and the
counting house, walk forth *on change,' and
visit those places of resort 'where people
most do congregate.' She must mingle in
the scenes of the outward world, and con-
descend to converse familiarly with the liv-
ing men of the present, as they pursue the
business and occupations of everyday life.
We have a deal of that religion that goes to
meeting on Sundays, but not enough of that
which lives and acts during the week, and be
assured the men of this day will estimate the
value of our religion by its practical results.
.... They would acknowledge that the
Gospel system was a most sublime and beau-
tiful body of divine truth, perhaps, if you
could persuade them to study and examine it;
but a beautiful action, a noble deed of
charity, an instance of generous forgiveness,
at once challenges their attention and com-
mands their respect. This is something they
can appreciate, and when the Christianity of
today shall put on more decisively this aspect,
it will more nearly meet the demands of the

78 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

times, as well as more signally indicate its
vital reality.

"It must be confessed, I think, by those
who contemplate the present condition of
the Church, that there is in it a disposition to
lay too much stress upon the behef of abstract
dogmas and the observance of heartless and
hollow forms. These have in them no saving
efficiency or living power. Nor is anything to
be gained to the cause of true rehgion in this
day by setting them up as the test and stand-
ard of orthodox piety. Doctrinal tests and
theological disputes have had their time, and
have accomplished what good they may. It
is time now for the Christian churches to
cease their intestinal strife and war of words,
and that she turn her undivided energies to
the accomplishment of practical good. Let
there be a cessation of hostilities upon the
Five Points of Calvinism and a hastening
from all sides to cleanse the world from the
Five Points of Iniquity in which the world
abounds. When the Church can point more
confidently to instances of public vices cured
and social evils removed, and to benevolent
and meliorating reforms carried directly by
its agency, — then will Religion, of which it is
the representative, be more powerfully recom-
mended to the practical mind of this practical
life."i

' It is not recorded that these frank utterances produced commotion in the
conference, and yet they abound with the same views which expressed today (sixty-

LYCEUM, LIBRARY, LAW-OFFICE 79

That was the clear, commanding voice of a
leader of men, one who had a vision of con-
tests to come, and who foresaw the oppor-
tunity and mission of the Church; one who
had spoken of the Bible as "The Heaven-
descended charter of Human Rights." He
was thinking not alone of the impending
struggle against slavery in the South, but also
of that slavery in the North which the rum
power was fastening upon the body politic, as
well as upon its individual victims. It was a
day when rum ruled along the frontiers, in
forest and in camp.^ Where did Arthur
Olmsted stand, with his future before him, his
talents and his popularity in the scales?
He was asked to speak under the auspices of
the Sons of Temperance, and this is what he
said:

"If the day ever comes when men are
brought to judgment for their action here,
and it surely will come if God is true to

five years later) by another noted layman of the Baptist faith, John D. Rockefeller,
Jr., have startled the church and aroused much controversy. Mr. Rockefeller, por-
traying the "reborn church," said: "Its test would be a hfe, not a creed — what a
man does, not what he professes, — what he is, not what he has; its object to promote
applied religion, not theoretical religion. Thus would develop its interest in all the
great problems of human life — industrial, social and moral problems. ... If the
Baptists of today have the breadth, the tolerance, and the courage to lay aside all
non-essentials and will stand upon the platform of the founders of the church, the
Baptist church can be the foundation upon which the Church of the Living God
ibould be built." (New York Herald.)

• About that time there were in Coudersport three licensed hotels, also a recti-
fying establishment, and all the stores but one sold intoxicating liguor.

80 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

Justice, let me stand in the place of him who
has defamed his neighbor without a cause, —
yes, in the place of him who in the dead mid-
night hour has made the heavens lurid with
the flame of burning mansions of men, but
deliver me from the doom of him whose
business it was to put that to his neighbor's
lips that stole away his brain. ... I have
often thought that it needed no argument
whatever to make the law's inconsistencies
more glaring. It simply amounts to this:
that the State of Pennsylvania, in considera-
tion of a certain amount in dollars and cents
paid into its treasury, grants to certain indi-
viduals, under the seal of its respective
courts, the right to follow an occupation which
increases its taxes, beggars its citizens, fills
its jails, and operates as a wasting pestilence
throughout all its boundaries; twelve good
citizens of the town or borough being required
to certify that the individual applicant is a fit
person to exercise this distinguished privilege.
It would seem that any respectable man
could ask for no greater libel upon his char-
acter than the certificate of twelve men, law-
ful and true, of his own vicinage, that he is the
proper character to do such deeds of infamy."^

' It was in the course of this adJress that Mr. Olmsted, in terms of the keenest
earcasm, advised a revision of the current form of petition for license so that it should
read as follows:
"To the Honorable the Judges of the Court of Quarter Sessions of Potter County:

"The petition of A.B., of Township, county aforesaid, respectfully show-

eth, that he occupies a commodious house in the county and township above men-
tioned, and is desirous of keeping a public house of entertainmeDt therein. He

LYCEUM, LIBRARY, LAW-OFFICE 81

While an address of such powerful eloquence
would have been a potent factor for the cause
of temperance if it had been delivered at
some populous center of the commonwealth, it
was not wholly lost among the pines. It was
well calculated to stir the community, and
when passed by word of mouth from settle-
ment to settlement, to stir that uprising
against the license law which, under the cham-
pionship of Hon. John S. Mann, culminated,

therefore prays your honorg to grant him a license to kill. Your petitioner considers
the sword as an antiquated way of extinguishing life. There is a savageness about
it and a useless effusion of blood. Wounds are inconvenient and not always attended
with death. I wish to do my work with less trouble and more effectually.

"Death by the sword is an unjust and partial system; it affects only those who
are drawn up in battle array. It falls entirely upon one sex. According to the
theory of Malthus, there are more human beings created than the world is able to
maintain. Therefore it is necessary that a part be cut off for the safety and sub-
sistence of the whole. Now as there are full as many women in the world as men,
some process of diminution ought to be devised, in which they shall bear due pro-
portion. I petition, therefore, for leave to kill women and children as well as men.
I pray, also, that power may be given me to enter the domestic sanctuary, and to
slay by the fireside as well as on the battlefield.

"And may it ^ease your honors, none reverence more than ourselves the inven«
tion of gunpowder as an expeditious and commodious way of freeing earth of her
supernumeraries. It is truly admirable. Nevertheless, I am not quite satisfied to
adopt it. When the field is once covered with the dead, the thunder of the cannon
ceases. Bat-ties are not of frequent occurrence. I prefer to use an agent that needs
no test, and that night and day may follow the work of destruction. Do your
honors suggest, then, that pestilence and famine must be summoned as executors
to my commission?

"I suppose that the plague may be imported, and we know that it has produced
great effects. The cities of the East have been humbled in sackcloth before it, and
desolated London anciently inscribed with the red cross and 'Lord, have mercy
upon us' the doors of her smitten and almost tenantless dwellings. The past year,
too, the opening graves of our own land told how fearful was even the lightest foot-
step of the destroyer 'walking in darkness.' Famine also has withered whole
nations. They have blighted and faded away, stricken through for want of the fruits
of the field, but earth soon renovated herself and was again clothed with plenty.
The harvest whitened and the grape filled its clusters. The flocks that had vanished
from the fold returned, and the herds lowed in their stalls. Health and fulness of
bread banished away every trace of weeping and of woe. Not only is the dominion
of pestilence and famine transient, but their sway is also restricted. In the height
of their power they kill only the body. They have no authority over the soul. I
desire a broader commission. I request liberty to kill the soul as well as the body.
What tremendous agent do you then seek, before which the ravages of war and pesti-
lence and famine are forgotten? May it please your honor, I wish for a liceose to
sell intoxicating drinks." —

82 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

eight years later, in the passage of the special
prohibition law of 1860 for the county of
Potter.

A community so alert as Coudersport was in
matters of moral consequence was equally
alive to intellectual cultivation. This was
betokened by the existence of the public
library, the academy, a superior weekly news-
paper, and a county bar, small in numbers,
but of more than ordinary rank. The
enthusiasm of professional spirit and fellow-
ship which it manifested is hardly equaled at
the present day, even in larger places. The
court-house was the forum, not only for the
vindication of the law, but it served also as
the town hall, the center of community activi-
ties. Here lectures were not infrequently
delivered. It was the era of the lyceum.
In the first half dozen years of the latter half
of the nineteenth century, Arthur Olmsted
developed apace. In the careful preparation
of numerous addresses, his views on matters
of public interest became fixed and definite.
At the instance of the bar association he was
invited to speak on "Law Reform." Ex-
tracts from his address are here reproduced,
not merely because of the intellectual enter-

LYCEUM, LIBRARY, LAW-OFFICE 83

tainment which they afford, but also for the
reason that they disclose better than any
words of description his mental traits and
quality, that degree of scholarship, acquired
chiefly by private study, which enabled him to
command historic incident in appropriate
setting, and because it shows again how he
made every subject that he touched alive and
burning with the great oncoming struggle
between freedom and slavery:

"We propose this evening to take a sum-
mary view of the most important general
reforms which have been effected or attempted
in England from the period of the French
Revolution down to the present time. If
any ask why cross the Atlantic for a theme,
we can only answer that the people of the
United States must ever be interested in the
political history of Great Britain. We have a
common origin and an identity of language.
We hold similar religious opinions, and draw
the leading principles of our civil institutions
from the same sources: reading the same
historic pages; and while recounting the
words and deeds of orators and statesmen,
who have dignified human nature, or the
achievements of warriors who have filled the
world with their fame we say: 'These were
our forefathers.' The sages and scholars of

84 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

both nations teach the youth to cherish the
wisdom of Alfred, the deductions of Bacon,
the discoveries of Newton, the philosophy of
Locke, the drama of Shakespeare, and the
song of Milton and Byron and Wordsworth,
as the heirlooms of the whole Anglo-Saxon
family. The ties of blood and lineage are
strengthened by those of monetary interest
and reciprocal trade, and such are the
resources of each in arts, in arms, in literature,
in commerce, in manufactures, and such the
ability and genius of their great men, that they
must, for an indefinite period of time, exert a
controlling influence on the destinies of the
world. Now, when viewed in a less attractive
aspect, can America be indifferent to the
condition and policy of her transatlantic
rival? Enterprising, ambitious and intrigu-
ing, she whitens the ocean with the sails of
her commerce; she sends her tradesmen wher-
ever the marts of men teem with traffic; belt-
ing the earth with her colonies, clothing its
surface with her forts, and anchoring her
navies in all its harbors, she rules 160,000,000
of men; giving law not only to cultivated
and refined states, but to dwarfed and hardy
clans that shrivel and freeze among the ices
of the polar regions, and to swarthy and
languid fighters that repose in the orange
groves, or pant on the shrubless sands of the
desert tropics. With retained spies in half

LYCEUM, LIBRARY, LAW-OFFICE 85

the courts and cabinets in Christendom, she
has, for a century and a half, caused or par-
ticipated in all the wars of Europe, Asia and
Africa, while by her arrogance, diplomacy or
gold, she has shaped the policies of the com-
batants to the promotion of her own ends.
Ancient Rome, whose name was the synonym
of remorseless power and boundless conquest,
could not, in the palmy days of her Caesars,
vie with Great Britain in the extent of her
possessions and the strength of her resources.
An American orator once spoke of her as
'That power whose morning drumbeat follow-
ing the sun and keeping company with the
hours, daily encircles the earth with one con-
tinuous and unbroken strain of the martial
airs of England.' . . .

"But when the earthquake shock of the
French Revolution overthrew a throne
rooted to the soil by the growth of a thousand
years, all Britain felt the shock, scales fell from
all eyes, and the people of the realm discov-
ered that subjects were clothed with divine
rights as well as kings, and that the divine
rights of kings and the divine rights of hod-
carriers were not essentially dissimilar, and
that old adage of Lord Castleraugh, which
had been stereotyped for one hundred years:
'That the people had nothing to do with
the laws except to obey them' began to be
doubted."

86 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

Coming finally to the circumstances of the
abolition of slavery by act of Parliament,
allusion was made to Thomas Clarkson as the
father of the movement for the abolition of the
slave trade, and to the supporters of the move-
ment in Parliament, including Wilberforce,
Pitt, Fox, Burke, O'Connell and Brown; but
upon broaching the topic, Mr. Olmsted said;

"Perhaps some may consider an apology
due this audience for the introduction of a
subject here which may be considered as hav-
ing a bearing upon American politics; but to
me it appears a reform of too much magni-
tude to be passed over in a sketch of this kind
without at least a passing notice."

He quoted the following passage from
O'Connell's eloquent advocacy of the act of
abolition :

"I am for speedy and immediate abolition.
I care not what caste, creed or color slavery
may assume. I am for its total, its instant
abolition, whether it be personal or political,
mental or corporeal, intellectual or spiritual.
I am its earnest enemy. I enter into no com-
promise with slavery. I am for justice in
the name of humanity and according to the
law of the living God."

LYCEUM, LIBRARY, LAW-OFFICE 87

Referring to the statutory abolition of the
slave trade in this country, Mr. Olmsted said
it was true that it had been abolished, so far
as the forms of law are concerned, " although,"
he added, "there is much reason to suppose
that it is yet carried on to some extent, and
undoubtedly will be, for so long as the exis-
tence of slavery makes a demand for fresh
cargos of human agony, so long will incarnate
fiends be found who will brave heaven, earth
and hell to furnish the supply."

CHAPTER VII

For Abolition and the Union

MR. OLMSTED had already actively
engaged in the anti-slavery cause.
Pursuant to the Journal editorial
hereinbefore quoted, a Free Soil Conven-
tion met at the court-house on the 17th of
September, 1851. On motion of O. A.
Lewis, Dr. H. S. Heath was elected presi-
dent and Burrell Lyman and Nelson Clark,
vice-presidents, and Arthur G. Olmsted and
Nelson Jinks, secretaries. The object of
the convention was stated by John S. Mann to
be the election of delegates to the National
Free Soil convention to be held at Cleveland
on the 24th day of the coming September.
The following persons were thereupon elected :
Joseph C. Allen, Joseph W. Stevens, S. A.
Slade, Arthur G. Olmsted, N. B. Beebe, D. N.
Jinks, W. B. Graves, W. C. Butterworth, W.
M. McDougal, Thomas Lewis, Oliver C.
Warner, T. B. McNamara, A. H. Butterworth»,
Sala Stevens and D. C. Chase.

(88)

ABOLITION AND THE UNION 89

On motion of Arthur G. Olmsted, a com-
mittee of five on resolutions was appointed by
the chair. The committee presently reported
the following draft, which was adopted. It
is evident that these resolutions were from
the hand of Mr. Olmsted:

"Resolved, That our Fathers ordained the
Constitution of the United States in order,
among other great national objects, to estab-
lish justice, promote the general welfare and
secure the blessings of liberty, but expressly
denied to the Federal Government which
they have created all constitutional power to
deprive any person of life, liberty or property
without due process of law;

"Resolved, That *due process of law'
includes the right of being tried in open
court by an impartial jury; and that inas-
much as the Act of Congress commonly called
the 'Fugitive Slave Bill' deprives a large
class of American citizens of their liberty
without due process of law, therefore, it is
unconstitutional ;

"Resolved, That it is the duty of the Federal
Government to relieve itself from all responsi-
bility for the extension or continuance of slav-
ery, wherever that government possesses con-
stitutional authority to legislate on that sub-
ject; and it is thus far responsible for its
existence; . . .

90 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

"Resolved, That we are in favor of land
reform in its broadest sense : that every family
may have a home, exempt from levy and sale
by execution; . . .

"Resolved, That we are in favor of a thor-
ough and eflScient organization of all the
friends of freedom in Pennsylvania, and we
suggest to the delegates from this state to the
Cleveland convention the propriety of mak-
ing arrangements for a state convention to
meet at such time and place as may be most
conducive to our cause; . . .

"Resolved, That we will oppose the propa-
gandism of slavery at all times, in all places,
by all honorable means, against all odds, and
without compromise."^

These resolutions are here transcribed be-
cause they are both typical and historic. The
list of officers and delegates chosen by this con-
vention may well constitute a county roll of
honor. The anti-slavery men of Potter were
laying as best they knew the foundations of a
political organization which should some day
abolish slavery. The Cleveland convention,
to which they sent delegates, called another
national convention, to be held some months
later, and the latter convention demanded the

' People » Journal, September 19, 1861.

ABOLITION AND THE UNION 91

repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, and free
homes for the people. It inscribed on its
banner "Free soil, free speech, free labor and
free men.'* This was the last national con-
vention of the Free Soil party. As it was held
in Pennsylvania, so also was the first conven-
tion of the Republican party into which, in
1856, the Free Soil movement was absorbed.
In Seilhamer's History of the Republican
party it is said:

"The first foundation stone of the Republi-
can party was a hurried amendment offered
in the 29th Congress, that became famous as
the Wilmot proviso."^

The bill then pending was to appropriate
two million dollars for the use of the President
in an adjustment of the boundary line with
Mexico. The amendment overshadowed the
bill. It was the outcome of a hurried con-

' Stanwood in his History of Presidential Elections (p. 163) says the Wilmot
proviso so divided the Democratic party that it lost the election of 1848.

"Wilmot was in his first session of his term in Congress, and as yet entirely
unknown outside of the district that had chosen him as its representative. He was a
young man of powerful frame, with a mind that partook of the rugged strength of his
body. His most noteworthy qualities were his strong common sense and his tena-
cious courage. He was able, without any claims to brilliancy, either as an orator
or statesman. As a speaker he was clear, incisive and sensible, and convinced rather
by his sincerity than his eloquence." — Seilhamer's History Republican Party, Vol. 1,

P- 2.

"In the beautiful suburbs of the town may be seen the little City of the Silent,
and near the public road stands the simple marble headstone of the grave of David
Wilmot, with nis name and date of birth and death on the inner surface and on the
outer surface, where it can be seen by every passerby is inscribed the text of the
Wilmot proviso." — McClure's Recollections of Half a Century, p. 240.

92 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

ference between Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine;
George Rathbun, Martin Grover and Preston
King, of New York; David Wilmot, of Penn-
sylvania; Jacob Brinckerhoff and James J.
Faran, of Ohio, and Robert McClelland, of
Michigan. Of these men, Hamlin became
Vice-President; Grover, representing a South-
ern Tier district, including the counties of
Allegany and Steuben, was elevated to the
bench, and Wilmot, representing the Northern
Tier district, adjoining that of Grover, and
including Potter, Tioga, Bradford and Sus-
quehanna, then but thirty-three years of age,
was, along with Lincoln, Sumner, Banks,
Wilson, Clay and Giddings, in the list of
unsuccessful candidates for the Vice-Presi-
dential nomination. He was temporary chair-
man of the Republican convention which
nominated Abraham Lincoln for President.
He was subsequently elected president judge
of the thirteenth judicial district of Penn-
sylvania, and later a Senator of the United
States from the same state. The Northern
Tier was for freedom and Wilmot was its
chosen leader. As the proviso, though des-
tined to defeat, was the anti-slavery slogan
which ultimately divided the Whig and Demo-

ABOLITION AND THE UNION 93

cratic parties, so Wilmot was himself its
personification. When he came to Couders-
port, he was the lion of the day. His name
was given to one of its municipal allotments.
Arthur Olmsted had then become a titled
citizen of the borough. Indeed, sooner or
later, he was chosen to all the offices of honor
in the gift of the people: school director in
1854, councilman in 1855, burgess in 1860.
On the 10th day of July, 1854, Judge Wilmot
spoke at the court-house in Coudersport.
It was about the middle of that decade,
which was to become in American history its
great period of debate and legislation. Clay's
Compromise had been enacted, California
admitted, and the territories of Utah and
New Mexico organized. Webster's conten-
tion that nature unfitted the territories for
slavery, and that it was useless to "re-enact
the will of God" had triumphed. Now the
Kansas-Nebraska bill was pending. In Penn-
sylvania the issue was complicated by the
rapid growth of the American or Know-
No thing party. James Pollock was its stand-
ard-bearer for Governor. The anti-slavery
sentiment inclined toward him. Arthur Olm-
sted was not deterred from his support by

94 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

the adherence of the Know-Nothing party.
He was not a member of its order. He, how-
ever, expressed sympathy with its essential
purpose, so far as it aimed to avoid the danger
arising from the influx of an element incapable
of perfect assimilation with native citizen-
ship. He reviewed the development of the
naturalization laws, discussed the several
stages of their enactment, and advocated
further restriction upon immigration.

"This order," said he, "although it may be
injurious and pestilential in its effect, yet it
differs from the pestilence in this, that
although it wasteth at midnight, it walketh not
at noon-day."^

Whatever Judge Wilmot may have said to
the eager listeners in the crowded court-room
on that July day, it could not have found

' Regarded as a political organization, Mr. Olmsted was evidently in agreement
with Horace Greeley, who said of it: "It may last through the next presidential
canvass, but hardly longer than that. It would seem as devoid of the elements of
persistence as an anti-cholera or an antiseptic potato rot party would be."— Stan-
wood's History Presidential Elections, p. 193. And in fact before the next presi-
dential election it did lose its momentum. The Republican platform of 1860 upon
which Lincoln was elected, supported by Olmsted and Greeley ahke, contained this
plank: "That the Republican party is opposed to any change in our naturalization
laws, or any state legislation by which the rights of citizenship hitherto accorded
to immigrants from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired; and in favor of
giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citizens, whether
native or naturalized^ both at home and abroad."

Nevertheless, Curtin, who was then a candidate for Governor, so recognized
the strength of the movement in Pennsylvania that he feared the nomination of
Seward (who had advocated a division of school revenue), and with Lane of Indiana
turned the nomination to Lincoln. — McCIure's Recollections, p. 218.

In later years Mr. Olmsted expressed satisfaction with the act of 1906, excluding
anarchists and polygamists.

ABOLITION AND THE UNION 95

quicker response than these thrilling sentences
of the favorite son of Potter, the boy orator of
Coudersport:

"We had a mission to accomplish once,
and every American was inspired by its
grandeur, and every free heart throbbed quick
and strong with emotion at the name of the
young nation in the west, upon whose broad
banner was inscribed in letters of living Ught,
*The rights of the people, ' and eternal opposi-
tion to the blood-red wrongs of aristocrats
and kings. But the virtue of the maiden
nation has become debauched, her morals
corrupted, her sensibilities deadened, and
freedom is no longer her watchword; upon her
soil today are the two antagonistic ideas of
freedom and oppression, contending with
each other and the whole power of the admin-
istration aiding the latter. ... It seems to
me, sir, that the present is a dangerous crisis
in our national affairs. That power which has
been constantly encroaching and increasing in
strength since 1820 must now be checked, or
the consequences may be fearful. If Kansas
is admitted into the Union as a free state, it
will be the death blow of chattel slavery; if
the reverse should be the result, no human
foresight can discern what the effect may be.
We are just entering on a campaign in which
there is to be but one issue. Pennsylvania

96 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

will be the battle-ground of 1856.^ . . . Let
every man swear that the mountain gorges
and vast plains of Kansas shall be free — free
not by the force of compact broken and
trampled in the dust, but free by the force of
strong arms and brave hearts. . . . While
I speak, telegraphic dispatches are flying to
the people of the civilized world heralding
new tidings of still greater outrages.^ Each
dispatch adds some new feature to this tale
of awful horrors. The city of Lawrence has
been burned to the ground. Her inhabitants
have been driven to the open fields, to the
forests, to the mountains like the martyrs of
the fifteenth century, or have fallen by the
hands of the mob, headed by United States
oflBcers, the craven emissaries of the adminis-
tration,^ and the faithful instruments of the
party it represents and leads. . . . Now
let the dumb speak, let the indignant North
proclaim that slavery propagandism is for-
ever at an end. Aye, let slavery herself be
dethroned. I speak ex cathedra for no man.
I speak but for myself. If slavery has any
rights under the constitution, let them from
from this day be ignored."

1 The contest did center in Pennsylvania. Republicans asserted that upward
of $150,000.00 were collected in the slave states and sent into Pennsylvania. —
McMaster. VIII, p. 274.

2 This was the struggle between the "Free Soil Men" who had emigrated to
Kansas from New England, aided by Abolition Societies, and the " Border Ruffians,"
who moved in from the South to make Kansas a slave state.

' Administration of President Franklin Pierce.

ABOLITION AND THE UNION 97

Pollock was elected, and Arthur Olmsted,
on the 11th of March, 1857, received courteous
parchment recognition of his services by
appointment as one of the Governor's military
aids-de-camp, with the rank of lieutenant-
colonel.

More than a million and a quarter votes
were cast for Fremont in 1856, and the South
began to take alarm. The conviction gained
ground that slavery could only be saved in one
way, and that was by secession. The South
began to dream of a great empire around that
American Mediterranean, the Gulf of Mexico,
holding possession of the mouth of the
Mississippi.^ She counted upon the friendli-
ness of Europe. England, France and Spain
were not averse to a diminution of the com-
mercial power of the republic, and looked
with favor on the prospect of a division. Their
alliance to seat Maximilian on the Mexican
throne was, however, to be thwarted by the
diplomacy of Seward, the successive steps of
which, advancing to its inevitable conclusion,
furnished to the century its most distinguished
example of a bloodless national triumph.

This decade stands out in American history

* Draper's History of the CM War in America, Vol. 1, p. 421.
7

98 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

distinct from all others for further significant
events of national consequence. It witnessed
the construction of the transcontinental rail-
road binding the Union from shore to shore —
the construction of railroad lines, east of the
Rocky Mountains, at the annual average rate
of two thousand miles — Perry's visit to Japan,
and the resulting treaty; the rise of the
French republic; the tide of emigration to
the California gold fields; the Homestead
legislation; the Dred Scott decision, and the
publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin. It was the
great constructive era, exciting the imagina-
tion and stimulating the patriotism of young
America, who in its marvelous enterprises
saw the unfolding of a mighty republic.

In 1852 the first train ran through from
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and thereafter
little was heard of the scheme to add to the
Union a new state — the State of Allegheny.
Plans were on foot for a road from Sunbury to
Erie, and public meetings were held to arouse
the interest of the people in the region
affected, and to obtain subscriptions to the
stock. Some years earlier, a railroad up the
Allegheny across the Divide, otherwise known
as the Allegheny Plateau, and on the earliest

ABOLITION AND THE UNION 99

maps called the Endless Mountains, down
Pine Creek, was projected, but, owing to the
wild character of the region and scarcity of
men, was abandoned. The enterprise was,
however, revived in 1856, and a company was
chartered under the name, Jersey Shore, Pine
Creek and State Line Railroad Company.
The route ran diagonally across the county of
Potter. But construction was delayed. How
could the representative citizens of that
county, whose support was indispensable,
Mann, Olmsted, Ross and Knox, give to the
enterprise requisite attention when the nation
was distracted with the danger of disunion?
The serious depression in the Republican
ranks which attended the defeat of Fremont
in the Presidential election of 1856, and the
state of the Union, as it then appeared to Mr.
Olmsted, are best described in his own words.
The following passages are extracts from a
letter written by him to his brother Henry,
then at Harrisburg, under date of the 24th of
October, 1856:

"The result in the state was most aston-
ishing and disheartening. It seemed to cast
a general gloom over the Fremont men of
this vicinity. ... I have no doubt but the

100 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

Northern Tier of counties will raise Fremont
above the state ticket three thousand, but,
considering the despondency in other sections
of the state and the Fillmore disaffection, it
can have but little avail towards altering the
result. ... I had hoped from what I had
gathered from the newspapers that we had a
majority in the legislature on joint ballot, but
even that poor consolation was swept away
last evening. The next Congress is to be pro-
slavery, and, with a pro-slavery President, the
good Lord only knows what grave fiUibuster-
ing schemes may be accomplished during the
next four years. . . . Wise issues a procla-
mation calling on the militia of Virginia to be
in readiness to march down to Old Point
Comfort and take possession of the United
States in case Fremont is elected. The
Southern governors meet in convention and
discuss dissolution. Almost every Southern
newspaper avows treason. Brooks, Keith
and (illegible) threaten to seize the treasury
and the archives. . . . The most humiliating
part of the whole thing is that it is to be
successful."

The raid of John Brown at Harper's Ferry,
his capture, trial and execution, deepened
public excitement, and sectional feeHng ap-
proached the sundering point.

Hoping against the inevitable, the loyal

ABOLITION AND THE UNION 101

sons of Potter County went about their
accustomed tasks. The great forests had
already begun to move seaward, — more truly
than "Birnam wood to Dunsinane" — from
many a pine-clad slope of the Northern Tier,
and for years to come, the branches and
tributaries of the Susquehanna were to be
clogged by logs running wild and by rafts and
booms.^ But the day was at hand when the
raft was to become historic for the human

>The following Is from a contemporary description of a "log jam" in the flood
season: "A log catches upon a rock or bar in such a manner as to obstruct the chan-
nel, other logs rapidly collecting about it until the entire stream, perhaps, is choked
with a seemingly inextricable tangle of logs. They are fixed in this jam in every
conceivable position, from horizontal and criss-cross to perpendicular. To the
uninitiated it would seem impossible to extricate the logs from their tangle with the
fierce current of the raging stream locking them together as in a vise; but now comes
as cool a piece of pluck and skill as ever was seen in the life of the soldier upon the
battlefield — the professional 'jam-breaker,' there always being one or more of
these experts accompanying the drive (frequently those whonave learned their
trade upon the turbulent Aroostook and other logging streams of Maine). One of
these men, divested of all unnecessary clothing, but with his feet securely spiked,
jumps upon the jam. He carries his pike lever with him, and upon this instrument
alone he is to win the victory over the maddened stream. He holds his life in his
hand; a single false move often means his death, but he is cool and determined.
It is known to veteran jam-breakers that there is usually one log in the mass which,
if detached, will loosen the entire jam so that it will break with a rush; this is called
the 'key-log.' The first duty of the jam-breaker is to find the key-log; this found,
he goes straight to work to loosen it. Other men have to be called upon the jam to
assist him; but when the last hitch of the cant-hook is to be given which will free
the key-log (if the business is not precipitated by some unforeseen event), all of
the men, save the jam-breaker, run for the shore. With a final twist of his lever
the log springs from the mass of writhing logs and shoots out upon the current, but
not so quick but that it bears a living freight._ The jam-breaker, with the agility
of a cat, strikes the spikes of his boots into its slippery side, and is leading a crashing,
tearing mass of logs and water which chase madly in his wake. By long practice
he easily balances upon the rolling, pitching log, which he gradually works to the
shallow water and springs ashore, alter, perhaps, riding a mile or more upon his
unstable craft. This is the modus operandi of breaking a jam where everything
works to the wish; but often the jam breaks at an inopportune moment, and the
men are hurled here and there into the seething flood animate with rushing logs.
If all come out of the peril with their lives, they are indeed fortunate, even if they
have fractured limbs or contusions. Woe to the man who sinks beneath the logs —
they close above him and he is crushed or drowned. There is deadly danger lurking
at every step, from the felling of the tree in its native wilds until the logs are secured
in the boom, where the Potter county boy leaves them," -—History of Potter County,
p. 987.

102 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

freight that it bore. On the 13th of April,
1861, General Thomas L. Kane, having ob-
tained authority from Governor Curtin, organ-
ized a rifle regiment which assembled on the
banks of the Sinnemahoning, and took passage
for Harrisburg on three rafts, upon one of
which, the "flag ship," they set up a green
hickory pole, placed above it a bucktail, and
from this floated the flag of the Union. It
soon became known as the Bucktail Regiment.
It included volunteers from Potter County.
General Kane was in communication with
Olmsted and Mann, pursuant to which he
came to Coudersport, accompanied by Dr.
S. D. Freeman of Smethport and F. B.
Hackett, Esq., of Emporium (who had been
a student in Mr. Olmsted's ofiice) and at the
close of an enthusiastic meeting held at the
court-house, enlistments were received and a
captain elected.

This was doubtless the occasion referred to
by M. J. Colcord, editor of the Potter Journal,
writing in 1914:^

"The writer's first distinct recollection of
Arthur G. Olmsted was at a patriotic rally
near the beginning of the Civil War, when

i PoH«r Journal, September iS, 1914.

ABOLITION AND THE UNION 103

Mr. Olmsted made a speech on the court-
house square in support of enlistment to put
down the rebellion. His patriotic fervor,
flashing forth in the eloquent address, helped
to kindle the fires that lighted the hills and
valleys of Potter County with a patriotism and
devotion to the Union cause unequaled any-
where in the North."

While individual members of this famous
regiment were in many instances subsequently
assigned to other commands, it made an unsur-
passed record for Spartan bravery. It is
recorded that at the battle of Harrisonburg,
Colonel Kane, with 104 men, came suddenly
upon four Confederate regiments and a bat-
tery, attacked and broke their line. Upon
recovering from their surprise the Confederate
regiments prepared to advance under cover
of dense woods. It was then that Martin
Kelly, of Elk, like Arnold of Winkelried,
turning to Kane said: "Colonel I will draw
their fire," and stepping forward into view
received a shower of bullets from which he was
to die next day "in the glory of war.'* Not
until the Confederate General Ashby had
been killed, and his forces repulsed, did the
Confederates realize that they had been

104 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

engaged in battle with no other than the
deadly Bucktail Rifles. This celebrated regi-
ment lost but fifty-two men in this action,
but the number of Confederates killed or
wounded was five hundred fifty -nine. Potter
County also contributed volunteers to the
46th, 53d, 58th, 149th and 210th regiments of
Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, also to the
37th and 85th regiments of New York.

The orator^ of the day at the County
Centennial celebration held at Coudersport in
1904, truly said:

"In no part of the North was more patri-
otism displayed or greater sacrifice made.
According to its strength, no county con-
tributed more in men or in means. One in
seven of all her inhabitants went forth to
battle in that dread struggle in which, on
either side, were deeds of valor to be remem-
bered in song and story to earth^s remotest
d^y."

It has been elsewhere^ recorded that Potter
County furnished more soldiers in the Civil
War, in proportion to its population, than any
other county in the United States. The

1 Hon. Marlin E. Olmsted, then representing in Congress the 18th Congressional
District of Pennsylvania, re-elected for seven successive terms, a leading member
on the Republican side, son of Henry J. Olmsted.

2 Potter Journal.

ABOLITION AND THE UNION 105

soldiers' monument, erected on the court-
house square, bears the names of 318 soldiers
who died in battle or from wounds received.

Arthur G. Olmsted, although a man of
splendid stature, suffered at times through-
out his mature years from maladies incident to
an intense nervous temperament, which dis-
qualified him from military service. Never-
theless, he had much to give. His rare gifts
of oratory, the persuasive power of his elo-
quence over bodies of men, his knowledge of
the great issues at stake, his native zeal in
his country's cause, were all put at the service
of the Union.

Hon. J. C. Johnson,^ of Emporium, Penn-
sylvania, writing of a later stage of the civil
conflict, says:

"I distinctly reciall that dark period of the
Civil War: after McClellan's Army was
driven into the defenses of Washington, and
Lee was marching his victorious legions
towards the borders of our owti state, and
under such pressure Lincoln had called for
300,000 more volunteers. It was under those

1 Captain J. C. Johnson, the writer of this letter, enlisted in Company K, 149th
regiment, called the "New Bucktails, " commanded by Colonel Roy Stone, only
one-third of which survived the battle of Gettysburg, two-thirds, dead and wounded,
having been left on the field. Walton Dwight, the captain of the company, became
lieutenant-colonel August 29, 1862, and Captain Johnson waa then promoted from
the position of first lieutenant to the captaincy.

106 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

circumstances that I first really became
acquainted with Judge Olmsted. I was
reading law in F. W. Knox's office in the
summer, and occasionally Judge Olmsted
took me with him to the trout streams, where
he loved to while away an idle hour exercising
his expert skill in fly fishing. I recall my
youthful, enthusiastic admiration of him; his
kind, indulgent attention to my callow sug-
gestions about the conduct of the war, and his
dark and gloomy suggestions of the conditions
in the North at that time. It was then,
August, 1862, that he, with Hon. John S.
Mann, Hon. Isaac Benson and F. W. Knox,
went with Walton Dwight and myself out to
the homes of the people in Potter County to
raise volunteers. We held meetings in the
schoolhouses and churches, and in a short
week one hundred twenty-six of the staunch
and reliable men of Potter county responded to
the call. Judge Olmsted did patriotic service
in raising that company of volunteers, and
fitting them out, and in securing them a
bounty of $100 each, and he followed them
with watchful care and interest after their
departure for the field, and ever after until
the close of the war. Judge Olmsted was then
a prominent figure in the county, and his pa-
triotic appeals moved men, as the quick result
of raising so large a company in so short a time
under the sad and disheartening conditions of

ABOLITION AND THE UNION 107

that day abundantly testifies. General Kane
was then in the field. The old Bucktails were
then serving under him. Other companies
of men had been raised in Potter County and
were in the service. The part Judge Olm-
sted had in their going out is unknown to me,
as I was myself new to Potter County, having
been there only since June of 1862. Of
course, from the time we went to the service
imtil I was discharged in 1865, my knowledge
of Judge Olmsted's career is only such as I
have derived from the public prints and
records. On my return he was in the legis-
lature. ... It was certainly very unfor-
tunate that physical disability prevented his
going into service in the field. He was the
material to make a general of then."

CHAPTER VIII

From Home Life to Harrisburg

MR. OLMSTED'S own home life began
in 1860. On the eighth of May of
that year he married Ellen Ross/
daughter of David and M. A. Ross, and
sister of Hon. Sobieski Ross, subsequently
representing the Coudersport district in Con-
gress. Her father was of Scotch and her
mother of Puritan ancestry. They removed
from Grafton, New Hampshire, to Penn-

1 The grandfather of Ellen (Ross) Olmsted was Thomas Ross, of Billerica, Mass.
(son of Joseph Ross, of Mason, N. H.). He was baptized Aug. 31, 1760, according
to the church records of the First Cong. Unitarian Church (Vital Records of
Billerica, p. 166; Beer's Hist. Potter Co., p. 1173), and joined the American Army
in the War of the Revolution, from Ashburnham, Mass., at the age of fifteen years
(Mass. Military Archives, vol. 24, p. 83; vol. 23, p. 200), serving from May 17 to
Dec. 1, 1776; and again from May 26, 1777, to May 26, 1780, the latter service
being in Col. Rufus Putnam's regt. (Mass. Military Archives, vol. 6, part 1, p. 102;
also U. S. Pension Bureau Rev. Record). Three years later he married Deborah
Bond, of Ashburnham (Vital Records of Ashburnham) and removed to Hanover,
N. H. There he reared three daughters and six sons, one of whom (Isaac) became
a member of the Governor's Council, and held many other offices. "David went
to Pennsylvania" (Gazetteer of Grafton Co., N. H., p. 320). In 1827 he married
Mary Ann Knight (daughter of John and Seclendia (House) Knight), then a teacher
at Lymansville, a Potter County settlement. Her mother, Seclendia House, was
the daughter of Jonathan House, of Hanover, N. H., a member of the famous
independent military organization, recognized by Congress, and known in Ameri-
can history as the " Green Mountain Boys," which Invaded Canada to Montreal in
1776 (Vermont Revolutionary Rolls, p. 635), captured Fort Ticonderoga under
Ethan Allen, Crown Point under Seth Warner, and fought at Bennington under
Stark (Vt. Rev. Rolls, pp. 831, 832; see also Nc-w York in the Revolution, pp. 61,
62). Colonel E. M. House, known as the personal representative of President
Wilson, although born in Texas, is of the same New England ancestry.

In 1819, four years after the death of John Knight, Seclendia, his widow,
married John L. Cartee (Cartier), a pioneer, whose early settlement, known as
Cartee Camp, is the only one in Potter County noted on Sheafer's Historical Map.
He become a resident of Coudersport.

(108)

HOME LIFE TO HARRISBURG 109

sylvania in 1820. ' He was a surveyor,
but for several years was engaged in the
lumber business at Ceres, removing to
Coudersport in 1827, where he represented the
Bingham estate. Mr. Olmsted had purchased
the residence of Dr. Heath, which the latter
had built and occupied as a homestead, and it
became at once the Olmsted mansion. It is
situated on the principal residence street near
the public square, and through all the vicissi-
tudes of the years is still regarded as the most
desirable residence in the community. One
child, Nellie, was born July 19, 1861, who grew
to womanhood and on the 26th day of Decem-
ber, 1893, became the wife of William F.
DuBois, then principal of the Coudersport
High School, since a leading lawyer of the
Potter bar. They reside at the county seat,
and have one child, Arthur William, born
January 14, 1897, now a student at the
University of Pennsylvania. But two chil-
dren were born to the Olmsted wedlock.
The birthday of the son, Robert Arch Olm-
sted, was June 21, 1877. He succeeded to
his father's business affairs, and since the
latter's death has entered into a professional
partnership with Mr. DuBois. He married

110 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

Kathryn Fizzell, daughter of William and Jane
Fizzell, of Bradford, Pennsylvania, January 8,
1907. They reside in the parental home-
stead at Coudersport, though latterly their
winter residence has been at Southern Pines,
North Carolina. They have three children:
Arthur George, born May 9, 1908; Warren
William, born May 19, 1910, and Margaret
Ellen McCloud, born August 23, 1912.

During the period of political reconstruction
between 1856 and 1861, Arthur G. Olmsted,
though yielding often to the demands of
public occasions, was yet able to devote him-
self to his profession. Various matters inci-
dental to the growth of the county, not strictly
professional, but requiring legal supervision,
engaged his attention. For instance, it was
in 1860 that the County Agricultural and
Horticultural Society was organized. The
dismemberment of the county by cutting off
for the formation of Cameron a large portion
of Portage Township, was also a matter of
grave concern. His law office at this period
was over the store of W. T. Jones Bros, on
Main Street. His practice increased. He
rose rapidly to the front rank in his profession.
The election of Lincoln having been followed

HOME LIFE TO HARRISBURG 111

by secession, and the three months' anticipated
duration of the war having been spent over and
over, it was seen that the war was not only to
be indefinitely prolonged, but that it had
become formidable. Upon the recurring calls
for troops it was recognized that the success
of the Union cause in the Northern Tier
depended in great measure upon the eloquent
appeals which Mr. Olmsted was putting forth
in the counties of Tioga, Potter and McKean.
He had become to the loyal people of these
counties the man of the hour. It was pre-
sently perceived that he was needed at
Harrisburg, not only by the interests of the
county, but also by the Washington adminis-
tration. He was accordingly elected to the
General Assembly in the fall of 1862.

Anxiety then prevailed throughout the
North. McClellan had been forced to retreat,
and was simply encamped, apparently inac-
tive, over-estimating the forces against him,
and calling for excessive reinforcements and
equipment. Between him and Halleck there
was evident estrangement. The garrison at
Washington had become an army of 73,000
men under Banks, marking time and doing
guard duty. McClellan's prolonged inaction

112 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

wrought upon Lincoln's patience until finally,
on the 6th of October, he gave McClellan a
peremptory order to move. Meantime, the
enemy's foraging incursions into Pennsyl-
vania as far as Chambersburg and into Mary-
land past the Army of the Potomac, had put
the Union commander at such disadvantage
that he was unable to set his army in motion
until the 25th, and by that time he had so
lost the confidence of the administration and
the country, that before encountering the
enemy he was relieved of command and
succeeded by Burnside. Mr. Olmsted had
other means of information than the public
journals. He had occasional letters from the
front, from the boys who had gone, as it
were, upon his call. The subjoined extracts
are from an exceedingly graphic and penetrat-
ing letter written to him by Captain J. C.
Johnson. It is dated at Camp McNeal,
Washington, D. C, Headquarters 149th Regi-
ment P. v., October 13, 1862;

"Undoubtedly you want to know the state
of affairs with the 'Potter Bucktails.' Well,
as was anticipated, Capt. Dwight is captain
no more. That extra bar fell upon my shoul-
der straps as the crumbs fell into the hands

HOME LIFE TO HARRISBURG 113

of a certain hungry man of olden time when
Walt was elected to Lt. Colonelcy at Harris-
burg. The Colonel is popular, and the
Potter boys are good soldiers. . . . Regi-
mentally we've been floundering in red tape
snarls, and have got so that we can put in all
the dots in the right places in muster and
pay rolls, and can find all the offices in the
city, and wait all day for an audience with-
out swearing. We've done nothing at drill
for ten days — given up camp guard — and
are set at hospital gates or over government
board piles, to keep legless soldiers from
running away and old women from stealing
splinters. I suppose we are to be kept in this
way until the mud is so thick we can't move.
We may be doing government great service,
but I don't see it.

"All the country within this great chain of
forts about Washiugton is literally covered
with soldiers, and brigades of officers block
up the streets of Washington. Yet they stay
here, and nobody seems concerned, while
Jeff Davis is having a gay old time sweeping
the crops of Pennsylvania, Maryland and
the valley down into Richmond, and stealing
homespun broadcloth and horses. It may be
all right, but I can't see it. Nothing is
looked for more anxiously than the order
* Forward,' and we all feel ashamed to sit here
in inglorious idleness. It may seem bad

114 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

management, it does seem so, but there is
no use lamenting. No one but old Jeremiah
ever made anything out of lamentations, and
he wouldn't if the Lord hadn't been on his
side. It is no business of Company officers to
think, — Generals for strategy."

Arriving at Harrisburg, Mr. Olmsted found
a degree of confusion there, a need of con-
centration for effective support of the admin-
istration at Washington. More than once
he accompanied members of the House and
Senate in visits to the Governor to urge
measures of co-operation with the President.
In subsequent conversation with Captain
E. R. Mayo, of the Smethport bar, himself a
veteran Union soldier, Mr. Olmsted is re-
ported to have said that while Governor
Curtin has been called "The Great War
Governor," his course in these critical days,
taken as a whole, was not such as to justify the
title.^ He was, however, sufficiently demon-

' In the legislative session of 1863 a resolution was offered in the House approv-
ing the course of the Governor in caring for the sick and wounded soldiers, and,
after amendment, was indefinitely postponed.

Early in June of that year, when the danger of Lee's incursion into Pennsyl-
vania became apparent, the President sent out to the neighboring states an emer-
gency call for troops. To the Governor's proclamation about 25,000 volunteers
responded, but because they did not come prepared for the term enlistment pre-
scribed at army headquarters, he declined to muster them in, and issued a new call.
On the contrary, the New York and New Jersey troops were received as they came —
for the emergency. Before Pennsylvania volunteers could respond to the second
call, the battle of Gettysburg had been fought. Pennsylvania's default is charged
by the state historian^ (Egle — Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 266), "to the action
of the state and natiooal authorities." The alternative conclusion involves an

HOME LIFE TO HARRISBURG 115

strative and spectacular, as attested by this
clause from his first inaugural address : " When
the present infamous and God-condemned
rebellion broke out." Strong Pennsylvania
statesmen then stood around the administra-
tion of Lincoln. In its congressional delega-
tion were included Stevens, Grow, Kelley,
McPherson, Morrell, Randall, Schofield and
Williams. Wilmot was in the Senate, Stanton
was Secretary of War, and Meredith was
Attorney-General of Pennsylvania. The dan-
ger to the Union had brought to the legislature
men of unusual ability. Mr. Olmsted's dis-
trict was composed of Tioga and Potter. His
colleague was Hon. C. O. Bowman of Tioga.
The adjoining district comprised the counties
of Clearfield, Jefferson, McKean and Elk, and
was represented by C. R. Earley, of Elk, and
T. J. Boyer, of Clearfield. Mr. Olmsted was
not unknown at Harrisburg. Upon the organ-
ization of the House he was placed on the
committees of chief importance: Ways and
Means, Corporations and Federal Relations.
His ability, his aptitude for legislation, and

unjust reflection upon the patriotism of the people of Pennsylvania; and this alter
native appears to be accepted by Greeley and other historians. It has gained cre-
dence because it fits into the recognized theory tliat the Confederate raids into
Pennsylvania were merely campaigns of "f rightfulness," designed to deadeu the
spirit of loyalty in the North and create a demand for peace.

116 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

his effectiveness in debate were early rec-
ognized. The rank attained by him in his
first session was such as to render his retention
in the legislature a matter of imperative con-
cern at this critical period in the history of
the commonwealth, and he was accordingly
successively re-elected without opposition till
the end of the war, so that his continuous
service in the House included the sessions of
1863, 1864 and 1865. It was in the nature of a
patriotic service, and so recognized by his
constituents, for such a prolonged absence
from his home necessarily interrupted the
practice of his profession, and resulted in
much personal inconvenience and sacrifice.

If more men of marked ability were then
sent to the legislature than in recent years, it
would not be difficult to account for the fact.
First, the number of members was not quite
half so large as the present membership (207),
and the districts were correspondingly larger
in era. The range of legislation was much
wider before the adoption of the present con-
stitution. Nearly all of the local, special,
municipal and individual business now trans-
acted in the courts was then accomplished by
legislative enactment. Thus laws were passed

HOME LIFE TO HARRISBURG 117

to annul marriages, creating corporations,
such as lumber companies, oil companies, rail-
road companies and banks, authorizing Phila-
delphia to construct certain sewers and drains,
empowering borough councils and school
boards to borrow money, county commis-
sioners to build a bridge, executors and
guardians to sell real estate. At Mr. Olmsted's
first session, a law was enacted changing the
place of holding elections in Stew^ardson
Township, Potter County; another enabling
the town council of Coudersport to repair
sidewalks; an act authorizing commissioners
to open the state road in Potter and McKean;
an act to release Potter County from a judg-
ment in favor of the commonwealth; an act
confirming loans made by commissioners of
Potter to pay bounties; a supplement to
an act incorporating the McKean County
Railroad Company; a supplement to an act
incorporating the Potter County Railroad
Company. To ensure such a body of legisla-
tion important to the convenience, as well as
to the prosperity and growth of a particular
district of the commonwealth, as also effective
participation in general legislation relating to
the affairs of the state and nation in a great

118 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

historical crisis, called for a high order of
ability and for superior qualities of states-
manship. Arthur G. Olmsted stood the test.
In his second session he attained the Republi-
can leadership in the House. His district
still comprised the counties of Tioga and
Potter. His colleague was Hon. John W.
Guernsey, of Wellsboro. The adjoining dis-
trict composed of Clearfield, Jefferson,
McKean and Elk, was represented by T. J.
Boyer, of Clearfield, and A. M. Benton of
McKean. It was a Democratic district.
Dr. Boyer became conspicuous as the author
of charges of bribery in the contest resulting
in the election of Simon Cameron to the United
States Senate, testifying according to the
majority report of an investigating committee
that on one occasion he was offered $15,000,
and later $20,000, and being corroborated in
essential particulars by Dr. Earley.

Mr. Olmsted was appointed chairman of
the Committee on Legislative Apportionment,
second on Judiciary General (of which W. D.
Brown of Warren was chairman), and a mem-
ber of Federal Relations and Judiciary Local.
By his request he was excused from the chair-
manship of the Committee on Banks. It

HOME LIFE TO HARRISBURG 119

was on his motion that a resolution was
adopted directing the publication of a daily
Legislative Record^ and he was made chair-
man of the committee on the part of the
House.

The completion of the Sunbury and Erie
Road was announced. Legislation was con-
summated changing the boundary line be-
tween the counties of Warren and McKean,
also legislation affecting the Potter County
Coal and Lumber Company and the McKean
Railroad and Navigation Company. The
speaker, Hon. H. C. Johnson, of Crawford,
announced that during his absence Mr. Olm-
sted would act as speaker fro tern}

The responsibility of leadership in the
legislature of the Keystone commonwealth
was at this juncture a grave undertaking.
Pennsylvania was not only in many respects
the most important of the loyal states. It
was the nearest to Washington, and its
statesmen could most readily be called into
council. The Civil War had its dark periods.

"In the spring of 1863," says McClure,
"Hooker suffered a most humiliating defeat
at Chancellorsville, and the Army of the

« Home Journal, 1864, p. 9.

no ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

Potomac had little to inspire it with hope of
victory. It had been defeated on the Penin-
sula; it had been defeated at the Second Bull
Run; it had a drawn battle at Antietam;
it had been defeated at Fredericksburg and
defeated at Chancellorsville. It had not a
single decisive victory to its credit.^

Moreover, Pennsylvania was on the border,
its boundary confronted the Confederate Army
of Northern Virginia; its soil was constantly
exposed to hostile incursion. Thrice, year
after year, it had been invaded. Chambers-
burg had been burned, and the counties of
Bedford, Fulton, Franklin, York and Adams,
as well as Cumberland, had been raided. Is it
any wonder if the pulse-beats at the national
capital were anxiously noted at Harrisburg?
Pennsylvania had already organized its
Reserve Corps. The War Department of the
United States had created in Pennsylvania
two new military departments: the Depart-

1 McClure's Recollections, page S18. The following quotation is from John
Sherman's Autobiography (Vol. 1, p. 329): "The utter failure of McClellan's Cam-
paign in Virginia, the defeat of Pope at the second battle of Bull Run; the jealousies
then developed among the chief oflScers of the Union army, the restoration of
McCleUan to his command; the golden opportunity lost by him at Antietam, the
second removal of McClellan from command, the slow movement of Halleck on
Corinth, the escape of Beauregard, the scattering of Ilalleck's magnificent army, the
practical exclusion of Grant and his command, and the chafing of Bragg and Buell
through Kentucky — these, and other discouraging events, created a doubt in the
pubhc mind whether the Union could be restored." The Democratic National Con-
vention, meeting at Chicago on the 29th of August, 1864, by resolution declared the
War for the Union a failure, and demanded that "immediate efforts be made for a
cessation of hostilities."

HOME LIFE TO HARRISBURG 121

ment of the Monongahela, *' including that
part of the state west of the mountains,'*
under command of Major General Brooks, and
the Department of the Susquehanna, com-
prising the remainder of the state, under
command of Major General Couch. In June,
1863, General Couch arrived at Harrisburg,
and assumed command. Troops to the num-
ber of 31,422 were assembled in the Depart-
ment of the Susquehanna, and 5,166 in the
Department of the Monongahela. These
troops were finally merged in the Army of the
Potomac.

A special session of the General Assembly
of Pennsylvania became necessary in 1864,
and met pursuant to call in August of that
year.^ The administration of the War Depart-
ment was not without the most grievous
scandals, which were made the subject of
investigation and report on the part of the
House.^

1 Governor's Message, session of 1864,

2 The following scathing passage is extracted from the report of the House
Special Committee: "The criminal collusion of army officers with the most reckless
and unmitigated scoundrels as herein exhibited, clearly proves a state of co-operation
among the said officers, and systematic villainies perpetrated upon the credulous
soldier, the unsuspecting people and the general government, which is of the most
heinous character. Disqualified persons have repeatedly passed the surgeon's
examination, with his full Knowledge of their infirmities. Men have been mustered
into the United States service who were utterly disquaUfied for military duty, and in
many cases are yet in the service of the government. Recruits, after they were
mustered, were not only permitted to desert, but were even induced to do so by those
in authority, in order that they might be taken to other recrtiiting stations, with

122 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

It was a turbulent year — the year in which
the peace sentiment in the North rose to a cli-
max and receded. One of the chief causes con-
tributing to this revolution was a decision of
the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania holding
the Draft Act of Congress unconstitutional.
Against this decision the loyal spirit of the
North rallied in a resentment not unlike that
which followed the Dred Scott decision. The
Chief Justice (Lowrie) who was a candidate
for re-election and his associate (Justice
Woodward), who was the Democratic candi-
date for Governor, were both smartly defeated.
A motion to dissolve the preliminary injunc-
tion was promptly made to the reinforced
court and the order vacated. The report of
the case (45 Pa. 238) embraces ten written
opinions covering one hundred pages. Justice
Strong, who delivered the principal opinion
sustaining the act, was subsequently called
to the bench of the Supreme Court of the

an apparent understanding that those persons, although physically disabled and
notorious deserters, might again be enlisted, either as volunteers or substitutes.
Army oflBcers have leagued with bounty swindlers, for the accomplishment of these
vile purposes. The streets and alleys of our villages, towns and cities, have, at their
command, given up the deformed and the aged to be accepted as soldiers for our
armies. Infirmaries have been robbed of their diseased and maimed, and even
prisons have disgorged their convicts at the bidding of judicial officers and traiEckers
m human flesh. In fine, human depravity of every grade has feasted upon the needs
of the government, and while military authority has received from the hands of
the ci\'il powers these culprits whom they sought to bring to conviction, justice has
been paralyzed and the commun ity left the easy prey of the most accomplished
scoundrels." ' — Home Journal, 1864 March 23d.

HOME LIFE TO HARRISBURG 123

United States. It was the year, too, in which
McClellan accepted the Democratic Presi-
dential nomination, but, with unflinching
patriotism, won the applause of the North
by smashing the plank of the party platform
which declared the war a failure, saying:
"I could not look in the face of my gallant
comrades of the army and navy and tell them
we had abandoned that Union for which we
have so often imperiled our lives.'* Lincoln
finally wrested the victory only by the weight
of the homely argument that it was not good
policy "to swap horses while crossing a
stream."

CHAPTER IX

The Speakership in 1865

WHEN the legislative session of 1865
opened, Mr. Olmsted was named
for speaker by the Republicans
with one accord. George A. Quigley of
Philadelphia was the Democratic candidate.
The latter received thirty-six votes, includ-
ing that of his opponent. Olmsted received
sixty votes and was elected. Among the
members who supported him were several
of subsequent note, including Matthew S.
Quay, representing Washington and Beaver;
A. K. McClure, of Perry and Franklin, and
W. D. Brown, of Venango and Warren. At
this session the Thirteenth Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States, prohibit-
ing slavery and involuntary servitude, was
ratified. A pension law was enacted pro-
viding a maximum monthly pension of
eight dollars for honorably discharged offi-
cers, non-commissioned officers, musicians
and privates of the army, including volun-

(124)

THE SPEAKERSHIP IN 1865 125

teers, militia and drafted men, disabled by
injury or disease.

A joint resolution was adopted requesting
the Governor to call upon the general govern-
ment for the return of sick and wounded
soldiers, to be treated and cared for in hospi-
tals within the State of Pennsylvania.

An act was passed providing for an addi-
tional law judge in the fourth judicial district,
then comprising the counties of Tioga, Potter
and McKean. Petitions were presented from
the counties of Crawford and Potter praying
for the passage of an act to secure the rights
of married women. Acts were passed incor-
porating or supplementing incorporation of
Bennett's Branch Improvement Company,
Clarion Land and Improvement Company,
Elk County Manufacturing and Improvement
Company, Laurel Run Improvement Com-
pany, McKean and Elk Land and Improve-
ment Company, Midas Petroleum and Im-
provement Company, Potter County Forest
Improvement Company, North Western Coal
and Iron Company.

The prosperity of great centers of material
importance, the development of natural re-
sources in large sections of the commonwealth.

126 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

were thus measurably dependent upon legis-
lative skill, tact and ability. While the con-
stitution of 1873 aimed to overcome existing
evils, it left disadvantages in their wake.
Local affairs being transferred from the legis-
lative forum to the courts, local interest in the
choice of representatives to General Assembly
was diminished, and their selection gravitated
logically to the headquarters of the larger cor-
porations or their political agency, the party
machine. Its power became abnormal, and
willing, rather than strong, men were gen-
erally preferred as representatives.

As speaker of the Pennsylvania House of
Representatives, Arthur G. Olmsted was asso-
ciated in a galaxy of distinguished statesmen,
who brought to the commonwealth high
honor during the Civil War; foremost among
whom was David Wilmot, who succeeded
Simon Cameron when the latter was called
by Lincoln from the United States Senate to
the portfolio of the War Department; Galusha
A. Grow, "Father of the Homestead Law,"
Speaker of the National House from 1861 to
1863; Edwin M. Stanton, also a member of the
Lincoln cabinet, and Thaddeus Stevens, the
"Great Commoner of the Republic."

THE SPEAKERSHIP IN 1865 127

A journalistic townsman of Mr. Olmsted,
writing of him at a later period, has said :

"While not physically fit for service in the
field, Arthur Olmsted gave to the Union
cause the benefit of his talent, his courage and
his sympathy, with clear discernment antici-
pating the dangers that impended when the
South rebelled, with optimism predicting the
ultimate triumph of the right, and with
encouraging words and generous deeds help-
ing the soldiers at the front and the struggling
populace at home. And when the war was
over, it was his initiative that erected a mon-
ument to the brave sons of Potter who had
'given the last full measure of devotion' to
their country."^

While there were statesmen of note, includ-
ing distinguished "War Governors," who
exhibited practical and patriotic concern for
the Union soldier in the field and for his
dependents at home, it is safe to say that there
was no public man of that period who was in
more intimate touch with the men at the front,
none who knew better their needs and their
views, or who was more vigilantly solicitous
for those whom they had left behind. His
hand is plainly seen in the pension law of 1865.

> Potter County Journal, December 10, 1914.

128 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

He corresponded with soldiers who had en-
listed under his persuasive eloquence. He
felt keenly his physical disqualification and
coveted their comradeship. They wrote him
not formal acknowledgments merely, but let-
ters containing reports of battles, observations
and personal opinions — intimate opinions, at
first hand, of much value to a public man in a
position of leadership. The following extracts
are from a letter written by Lieutenant-
Colonel Walton Dwight, dated "Headquarters
149th regiment, near Pollock's Mill, Va.,
May 13th, 1863." It was written at the close
of the Seven Days' Battles, culminating at
Chancellors ville. It is of no little historical
value, as an immediate, intimate, astute
study of a much-mooted battle, notwithstand-
ing the writer had evidently not yet learned
how completely Howard's Eleventh Corps had
been surprised in the forest by the brilliant
flanking movement of Stonewall Jackson, nor
that Jackson had died of his wound, nor that
the Union commander, Hooker, near to a
masterly victory, had been disabled by a
shattered pillar, but for which retreat might
not have been ordered. How solicitous the
writer is of the effect of the reverse upon the

THE SPEAKERSHIP IN 1865 129

people at home! How conscious that the
army was fighting under the eyes of the loyal
North! And yet how undismayed and con-
fident! Nor did he dream that he was soon
to lead his regiment (149th Pennsylvania) in
the famous battle of Gettysburg, and that
when General Roy Stone and Colonel Wistar
were wounded, he was to rank second in
command in the "Bucktail Brigade."

"I would like much to step in unobserved
and listen to the numerous conclusions arrived
at in the quiet little town of Coudersport rela-
tive to the late movements of this army. We
would much like to know how the people feel.
We can judge by the papers, but they lie so
infernally we can put no confidence in them.
Their accounts of the late seven days* cam-
paign are very incorrect. They give to some
corps and generals the credit of doing what
they could not, as they with their commands
were from two and a half to five miles dis-
tant from where great and severe conflicts were
said to have taken place. We want to know
whether our reverse — for it is nothing else —
has dampened the patriotism of the people in
our rear. Will you send us on the new quota
to be obtained by draft? Is public sentiment
of that character that it will fully sustain
the administration in any and all measures

130 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

necessary to crush out the rebellion? You
can see that we are much weaker than before
the late engagement. Our loss is from
15,000 to 18,000, although the prints put it
at 9,000. We here know it to be over 15,000
— although it is not necessary to advertise
that fact. We now have 23,000 two-years*
and nine-months' men, making altogether our
army some 40,000 less than when we made
the crossing some twelve days ago. We
then numbered 110,000 men for duty, now
less than 70,000. True the enemy are
greater losers than we in killed and wounded,
but their men do not go out of service imtil
kind Providence discharges them. They are
relatively stronger than when we made our
advance. You need not expect success from
this quarter unless the enemy is compelled to
withdraw a portion of his force to some other
part of the Confederacy. Should he do so we
could, perhaps, successfully advance with our
present force; otherwise I fear the result of
another forward movement. This is one of
the worst countries to fight a large army ever
seen; the enemy being perfectly acquainted
with the same makes it all count advantage-
ously to them. Their force was, to the best
of my judgment, 100,000 men in the late
engagement. They are, if anything, better
armed than our own men, and are full as well
clothed, notwithstanding the prints to the

THE SPEAKERSHIP IN 1865 131

contrary. My regiment took ninety prison-
ers one day while we were on the right. May
3d. I know we turned in our ovm arms and
retained theirs in preference. They fight full
as well as our men and are fully impressed with
the idea that they are fighting for their inde-
pendence, and consequently must in the end
be successful. The more intelligent, how-
ever, acknowledge that we can overpower them
if we bring the full power of our government
to bear against them.

"There can be no doubt of the final ending
of this affair if we are true to our principles.
If the people will do as well in the rear as our
army will in the field, it is only a question of
time. You must not blame us for not win-
ning. We have done all that could be
expected of any army. Our loss alone
speaks for us. You must remember we are
fighting our own kind, officered by the best
men in the land. We need not expect great
routs and great victories. We have never
had them in this war. From what I have seen
I do not expect them. I think I am per-
fectly cool, and my experience of the past
fifteen days has given me an insight into this
thing never before possessed. Patience and
long endurance, with a disposition to throw
all into the balance for our cause, is the only
thing that will win. There were mistakes
made on our side that cost us dear, that

132 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

perhaps lost us the victory, but General
Hooker is but a man. Had he been some-
thing more, all might have been well. To
err is human. None of us could see the end
in the beginning, consequently none could
foresee exactly what was wanted. Had we
sent a small force to Port Royal — some
fifteen miles below us — to have made a
demonstration at crossing at that point, we
could have held Stonewall Jackson there with
his 20,000 men until Hooker could have
whipped Lee on the right. Or had the
Eleventh Army Corps fought like men
instead of running like cowards, as they did,
our corps, 15,000 strong, might have been
left with Sedge wick, and saved Fredericks-
burg to us, without a doubt. Or had the
cowardly powers in Washington sent down
General Heintzelman with his 40,000 use-
less men at that point, but all needful here,
the result of the late fight would have been
the most glorious of anything since the
rebellion broke out. With that force we could
have completely gobbled them up, and
changed the whole aspect of the rebellion.
As it was, with the cowardice of the Eleventh
Corps, and the doubtful prospect of holding
the position we occupied on the 6th (owing to
the constant reinforcement of the enemy), the
loss of Fredericksburg, and the fear of being
outflanked, in connection with the rapid rise

THE SPEAKERSHIP IN 1865 133

of the Rappahannock, which seriously threat-
ened the carrying off of our pontoon bridges —
thereby entirely cutting off our supplies —
common sense dictated that we should
recross the river, after one of the hardest
fought battles of the war without any decisive
results on either side — although I always con-
sider it a reverse to be compelled to fall back.
The loss of the enemy is certainly much heav-
ier than ours, as they in almost every instance
charged upon our works and were mowed down
like grass. Lee acknowledges a loss of
18,000. I think it must be greater Jeven
than that.

"The generalship displayed by Hooker in
successfully crossing the river in the face of
an enemy nearly our equal in numbers, and our
superior in position, with comparatively no
loss, must win the admiration of all. Our
brigade and the cavalry aided by a series of
feints which completely bewildered the enemy.

"The cavalry went up the river, we down.
Our demonstration was made at Port Royal.
We made Quaker guns, put them in position,
built huge fires in and about the woods in
front of that point, and exposed our empty
wagon train to view — and this was about ten
days previous to the general movement. The
effect produced was more than expected, the
enemy immediately began entrenching, and
sent a strong force to that point. Hooker

134 ARTHUR GEORGE OIMSTED

made one mistake in not keeping a small
force there at the time he made his actual
crossing. As I have previously remarked,
had he done so Jackson would not have been
in our way until after he was whipped. This
point is seemingly the place to cross in advanc-
ing on Richmond. Therefore a feint neces-
sarily would have been something more to
the enemy, and they would have held there a
large force to meet us. The next feint was
made by the First and Sixth Corps on the
28th of last month, the beginning of the late
movement at Pollock's Mills (four miles
below Fredericksburg). I see by the prints
Sedgewick gets all the credit for crossing at
this point, whereas our corps (the First) laid
the first two pontoon bridges, and crossed
the first man. We lost, killed and wounded
there, about one hundred men, were under
fire of the four batteries of the enemy at
that point during the whole time Hooker was
crossing with his main force at Kelly's Ford,
all of which we got no credit for in the papers.
Verily, in these times the loudest trumpet is
considered the finest instrument. We should
have been all right had we a newspaper cor-
respondent along. The loss of our corps here
was very light, owing altogether to the very
bad range of the enemy's guns. We remained
here, keeping up the demonstration, as long
as the bait took, which was sufficiently long

THE SPEAKERSHIP IN 1865 135

to allow our main force under Hooker to get
into position on the right. We were then,
on the morning of the 2d, ordered to the
right. We made twenty-two and a half miles
that day under the most scorching sun, with
eight days 'rations and sixty rounds of ammuni-
tion per man. As we moved up to our posi-
tion on the extreme right and front, on the
night of the 2d, near the confluence of the
Rapidan and Rappahannock, about one and
one-half miles from the former, we passed
through the broken and panic-stricken ranks
of the Eleventh Corps. Some of them were
on mules, some on artillery horses that had
been hastily cut loose from their batteries,
others in ambulances, all intent only on per-
sonal safety, and making rapidly for the
rear, and all giving but one account of the
front. All there was ruin and annihilation.
Notwithstanding all this, our boys moved
through them with cheer upon cheer, which
was heard by Sickles' men who were at that
time desperately pushed by A. P. Hill, about
one-half mile to our front and left. It had a
good effect as it rested our tired boys and
instilled new hopes into them, and had a cor-
respondingly depressing effect on the enemy.
They immediately retired. There is no
doubt but what our timely arrival saved our
army that night at that point. We at once
proceeded to fortify after we got in position.

136 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

At nine a. m. next day (3d inst.), we had a
perfect rifle pit and were ordered to make
reconnoisances in front. We did so and
before two p. m. of the 3d our regiment had
captured eighty-six prisoners, and felt the
position of the enemy for three-quarters of a
mile. The enemy in the meantime shifted
his position to the left of us, only leaving a
skirmishing force to hold us while he could
attack our forces to our left. He did so, but
without success, and with great loss, as our
lines were too strong for him. The day was a
series of skirmish fights, resulting in very
slight losses. Monday, the 4th, all was
quiet until one p. m., when we were informed
that the enemy were making to our right.
Our brigade was immediately ordered out to
meet his advance guard. We moved to our
front and right, and then to our left, hoping
to find it (this whole region is a dense wood
excepting only the center where the princi-
pal fight occurred). His move against us,
however, was only a feint, as he immediately
whipped about and attacked the center of our
line on the right, about a quarter of a mile
to the left of our position. This attack was
one of the most daring and desperate of the
whole war. Jackson and Hill had both
been wounded. We, at that time, had not
heard of anything going wrong at Fredericks-
burg. The enemy was desperate. He must

THE SPEAKERSHIP IN 1865 137

cut through. We were in high hopes. Lee,
in this charge, moved at one time six bri-
gades against our works. They came up
with yell after yell to \vathin forty yards of our
line of defense, then, for a moment, all was
quiet as the grave; then the continuous roar
of 30,000 to 40,000 muskets for five minutes;
then the hea^'y boom, boom, boom of sixty
pieces of artillery; and then the three cheers
of our own men; and then the charge, and
then the * three times three' which told us we
were victorious, — is something that could be
felt but not described. There was something
terribly grand in it all. The 5th was for us a
hea\y day. It told of disaster and defeat at
Fredericksburg. The enemy, too, was receiv-
ing heavy reinforcements, becoming more
numerous on our right than our forces. A
terrible rain also set in which would swell
the river to that extent that it would carry
our bridges off, and leave us without sup-
plies. We could hear nothing of Stone-
man. We then did not know whether the
enemy's connections were cut, so but what
he could constantly pour in reinforcements.
Prudence demanded the re-crossing of the
Rappahannock. But I assure you we did so
with heavy hearts. I think we should have
remained. I believe in either winning all
or losing all. This thing has run about
long enough. The commanding general did

138 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

not take the above view. We are safe this
side the river.

*'The men are in good spirits and willing to
again cross arms with the enemy whenever
our best interests demand it. As regards the
part my own command took in the late cam-
paign, I can safely assure you it stands second
to none in our corps. The nmnber of prison-
ers taken by us was greater than by any
other regiment; and the amount of informa-
tion obtained by our scouts was large and of
the most valuable character. I cannot say
enough in praise of the many excellent
qualities displayed by our men under the
most trying circumstances. Their cheerful-
ness, perseverance and stern will at all times
prominent during our arduous campaign of the
past few days, must win the admiration of all.
I have discipline in my regiment, and every
man now can appreciate the value of it,
although I have been considered very severe,
heretofore. In all of our various moves not
one of my men ever gave a false alarm. I can
safely say, were all the men in our army under
as good discipline as our little brigade, the
70,000 men now left would be more eflBcient
than the 110,000 we took into the late
fight. I do not intend that the good people
in Potter shall ever hear of any disgrace to
our soldiers, however much they may learn of
my severity.

THE SPEAKERSHIP IN 1865 139

*'My kindest regards to your most estima-
ble lady, and believe me

"Very truly yours,

"W. D. DWIGHT,

"Comdg. 149th P. V.
"Please write me if convenient. I have run
over this in great haste, but it is reliable.
The whole summing up of the matter is not
very much in our favor.

"W. D."

Twenty days after the second inauguration
of Lincoln, the Pennsylvania Legislature ad-
journed. On the 24th of March, 1865, Mr.
Quigley of Philadelphia offered the following
resolution in the House, which, upon call of
♦he roll, was unanimously adopted:^

"Resolved, That the thanks of this House
are due and hereby tendered to the Honorable
Speaker, A. G. Olmsted, for the prompt,
able, dignified and impartial manner in which
he has presided over our deliberations."

In token of the esteem of the officers of the
House, an elegant gold-headed cane was then
presented to the speaker by Mr. W. H.
Ruddiman.

' House Journal, 883

CHAPTER X

Service in the Senate

LEE'S surrender, the assassination of
Lincoln, induction of Vice-President
** Johnson into the Presidency, the func-
tion attending it, the processes of recon-
struction, the election of Geary in succes-
sion to Curtin as Governor of Pennsyl-
vania, these and many other stirring events
speedily followed the close of Mr. Olmsted's
period of service in the lower house of
the Pennsylvania Legislature. He was suc-
ceeded in that body by his preceptor, Hon.
John S. Mann, who was successively elected
for the sessions of 1867, 1868, 1869 and
1871, and later chosen a delegate to the
Constitutional Convention of 1873. It was
the intention that Mr. Olmsted should go to
the Senate, Succeeding the incumbent from
Tioga County. The senatorial district was
then comprised of the counties of Potter,
Tioga, McKean and Clinton, in area (4,078
square miles) nearly four times as large as

(140)

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 141

the State of Rhode Island. Mr. Olmsted was
elected to the Senate in the fall of 1868,
carrying McKean County by a majority of one
hundred seventy votes over A. M. Benton, of
Port Allegany, the Democratic candidate,
leading the ticket, with scarce exception,
throughout the district. Meanwhile he gave
more consecutive attention to the practice of
his profession than for some years had been
possible. Seth Lewis and Don Carlos Larra-
bee, students in his oflSce, were admitted to
practice. The latter received the appointment
of postmaster at Coudersport, but after a few
months relinquished the oflSce and became the
law partner of Mr. Olmsted under the firm
name of Olmsted and Larrabee, a partnership
which continued unbroken until 1883. Hon.
Robert G. White, of Wellsboro, was still the
president judge of the district composed of the
counties of Potter, Tioga, Cameron, Elk and
McKean, but was to be succeeded in 1871 by
Hon. H. W. Williams, of Wellsboro. Potter
County was still without rail communication
with the outer world, and, therefore, but
slowly increased in population. Lumbering
was still the chief industry. Few saw-mills,
however, had yet been established, and trans-

142 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

portation of logs was by nature's highways, —
the several tributaries of the Sinnemahoning,
the Allegheny and the Genesee, and for the
purpose these smaller streams were made
"navigable'* by act of assembly.

It is interesting to note the order of legis-
lation in aid of pioneer development; first,
for transportation by stream, then by high-
way, and later by railroad, settlements (towns
and villages) following along these courses in
their natural sequence. Thus, streams of the
commonwealth having been declared naviga-
ble by act of assembly, their chief tributaries
were by numerous acts also declared public
highways. For instance, by act of 1805,
the west branch of Pine Creek from the third
fork in the county of Tioga to the forks at the
Elk-Lick, in the county of Potter, and also the
said third fork from its mouth to Morris'
marsh (in the said county of Tioga) "were
declared to be public highways for the passage
of boats and rafts," and "lawful for the inhabi-
tants and others desirous of using the naviga-
tion of said branches to remove all natural or
other obstructions in the same." Likewise, by
act of 1807, "all that part of Oswaye Creek,
in the county of Potter and county of McKean,

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 143

which lies between the north line of this state
and the forks of said creek about twenty
miles from its mouth, and *'all that part of
Six's or Conondau Creek, which lies between
the town of Smith's Port^ in the county of
McKean, and the mouth of said creek, and so
much of the Allegheny River, in the counties
of Potter and McKean, as lies southwardly
of the north line of the state," were declared
"public streams or highways."

There was contemporaneous legislation reg-
ulating the use of said streams by mill-
owners, and the construction of slopes and
locks in such manner as should not prevent
fish from passing up stream, or boats and rafts
passing downward. Then followed a half
century of successive acts, in such detail,
intricacy and volume as to constitute an inde-
pendent branch of the law, governing the use
of these streams in the business of lumbering
and transportation of logs and rafts along the
same, including the marking of logs and
lumber, taking up and reclaiming the same,
construction of booms by driving piles to
gather and hold floating logs, and finally,
for the incorporation of associations for such
purpose, known as boom companies. With

144 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

the exhaustion of the forests, this period passed
into history.

The number of senators, since increased
to fifty, was then but thirty-three, and a seat
in the Senate was consequently regarded as a
position of high dignity and importance.
Mr. Olmsted entered the Senate with the
prestige of his distinguished service in the
House, from which he had gained an enviable
state reputation. His associates, many of
them, were to be men of marked ability.
Wallace, afterwards a Democratic leader in the
United States Senate, came from Clearfield;
Buckalew, noted as a constitutional lawyer
and author, who had just finished a term in that
body as the successor of Wilmot, came from
Columbia; General Harry White, soon to
become a conspicuous member of the 45th and
46th Congresses, from Indiana; and Charles H.
Stinson, speaker of the Senate, from Norris-
town. Into the ofiice of Attorney General, with
the incumbency of Governor Geary, had come
Benjamin H. Brewster, of Philadelphia, sub-
sequently called to the cabinet of President
Arthur. General Hartranft had become Audi-
tor General, and Robert W. Mackey, political
preceptor of Quay, was State Treasurer.

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 145

Senator Olmsted was assigned to the follow-
ing important committees : Federal Relations,
Judiciary General, Education, and he was
made chairman of the Committee on Library.
Early in the session he introduced and
secured the passage and approval of an act
supplemental to the act of 1853, incorporating
the Jersey Shore, Pine Creek and State Line
Railroad Company. The promotion of this
road was regarded as essential to the public
interests of Potter County, and Olmsted and
Mann had it at heart and kept it in view
throughout their respective terms. But there
were still obstacles in its way which it would
require legislation to remove, and this was
to be sought by an act subsequently to be
introduced.

It was in the session of 1869 that an act was
passed appointing commissioners to lay out a
road from Kane to Campbell's Mill. By far
the most important action of this session was
the adoption of a joint resolution ratifying the
Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of
the United States declaring that the right of
citizens of the United States to vote shall not
be denied or abridged by the United States
or by any state on account of race, color or

146 ARTHUR GEORGE OIMSTED

previous condition of servitude. Party repre-
sentation was evenly divided in the Senate,
and it was by no means certain that the
resolution would pass.^ In fact, a serious
contest was anticipated. The resolution came
from the Committee on Federal Relations with
a strong minority report by Wallace and
McCandless. The majority report was signed
by M. B. Lowry, James L. Graham and A. G.
Olmsted. Its language is easily identified
as that of Olmsted, and the fact that his
name was the last to be affixed is a circum-
stance not needed to confirm the conclusion.
The following passages are worthy of a place
in history:

"That in free America, the home of
Washington — the refuge of the oppressed of
all climes — the land of a free church and a
free Bible, where education is opened to all,
and where alone in all the earth was each
white man the political equal of every other
white man, there should remain upon the
statute books of states which had long de-
clared all their inhabitants free, a law for-
bidding the exercise of suffrage because of
color, could be as little explained to our

1 In 1861 (January 24th), the legislature had passed a joint resolution which,
inter alia, conceded the maintenance of slavery as a constitutional right.

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 147

friends abroad as it could be excused by our-
selves. The principle of justice which had
struck the manacles from the limbs of the
black man would have seemed equal, at the
same time, to the duty of placing the ballot
in his hands. That it would have been so suf-
ficient is now evident to all but for one rea-
son, namely, the baneful and blighting influ-
ence of slavery in the Southern states. . . .
The negro race in Pennsylvania may be
estimated at 75,000. Many can trace their
state lineage through generations; must have
been born on her soil. . . . The negro in
Pennsylvania voted until 1838. Did his exer-
cise of suffrage injure the state? Can any
one — did even the convention, which, in
obedience to the behest of slavery, deprived
him of that right — say that it did? . . . Tax-
ation without representation is as repugnant
to the moral sense today as it was in the
Revolution. Let Pennsylvania no longer
tolerate it within her borders, but now, hand
in hand with her sister states, let her help to
engraft into the constitution of the nation
this last lesson of the Rebellion, this crown-
ing act of justice, and proclaim that under
the flag of our country all men shall be equal
in the eye of the law.'*

The resolution was adopted by a vote of
eighteen in the aflBrmative to fifteen in the

148 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

negative.^ In the session of 1870 Senator
Olmsted was given an additional chairman-
ship, that of the Committee on Estates and
Escheats, and subsequently was also assigned
to the Committee on Electoral Reform. Gen-
eral Thomas L. Kane, a member of the
first State Board of Public Charities, was
elected president of the board. General
Kane afterwards tendered his resignation, and
in a rather scathing report, recommended the
abolition of the board as an inefficient means
for the purpose in view, saying that members
generally were inattentive and neglectful in
respect to attendance at stated meetings, and
little interested in regard to the respective
charities over which they were presumed to
have supervision.

General White succeeded to the speakership
and Lucius Rogers of Smethport was con-
tinued in office as assistant clerk of the Senate.
The time had come for the introduction of
the railroad measure which was to set the
people free enchained in the wilderness, and
liberate the resources of the county of
Potter. The record shows^ that "Mr. 01m-

» Senate Journal, 1869, p. 550.
» Senate Journal, 1870, p. 623.

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 149

sted read in his place and presented to the
chair a bill entitled *An Act to facilitate and
secure the construction of an additional rail-
way connection between the waters of the
Susquehanna and the great lakes, Canada
and the northwestern states, by extending
the aid of certain corporations to the Jersey
Shore, Pine Creek and Buffalo Railway Com-
pany." The preamble of the bill affords such
concise explanation of the measure that it is
here quoted:

"Whereas, It is a matter of much
public importance to the state at large
that a railway should be completed at an
early date to form an additional connection
between the anthracite and bituminous coal
fields of Pennsylvania and the great chain of
lakes and states west: also to aid the construc-
tion of the Pittsburgh, Virginia and Charles-
ton Railway, the Clearfield and Buffalo
Railway and the Erie and Allegheny Railway,
and thereby provide outlets for important
portions of this commonwealth that are
filled with valuable coal, mineral and other
products, now without such highways, and
when those lines are constructed adding
greatly to the taxable values for state, county

150 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

and municipal purposes, ^^s well as to greatly
increase the value of productions from those
sections of the commonwealth for manufactur-
ing, agricultural and all other purposes; and
"Whereas, It is believed that those desira-

Approximate route of the Jersey Shore, Pine Creek and Buflfalo
Road (extended to Buflalo).

ble objects may be accomplished by the provi-
sions of the annexed bill, and in order to grant
sufficient authority for effective aid as afore-
said to secure the same; therefore,'* etc.

The route of the road was to be from Jersey
Shore by way of Pine Creek and the Allegheny
River to the New York state line. March 16,

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 151

1870, was agreed to for the consideration of
the bill, and to enable members of the House
and other persons interested to attend, con-
sideration was postponed to the morning
session of the 17th and again to the evening
session of that day. Debate on this bill
had been long anticipated. It was understood
that it was to be opposed on the part of cer-
tain railroad interests. Constitutional ob-
stacles were to be the ostensible ground of
opposition. Buckalew, one of the most
distinguished lawyers in the commonwealth,
was to lead the attack. It was to be a forensic
battle of giants. The Senate chamber was
crowded. If the bill should pass, it would
go to the House. Hence many members of the
lower branch were in attendance, and the
argument was in effect to both branches.
Representatives of affected interests were
present. Here and there friends of the bill
could be counted in the audience, among
them, doubtless, F. W. Knox and Sobieski
Ross, also Backus, of Smethport, Byron
Hamlin, a senatorial predecessor of Olmsted,
also Strang, speaker of the House, who was to
succeed him, and perhaps Arnold, moved by
the argument that the Buffalo and Washing-

152 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

ton Railway via Port Allegany was dependent
upon the success of the pending project.
These gentlemen, or some of them, with
certain of their friends, had subscribed liberal
contributions in land, required to secure
requisite capital for the proposed railroad con-
struction. Senator Olmsted had made careful
preparation. He was to meet adversaries
worthy of a supreme intellectual effort. The
audience was intent. He began by clearing
the ground of the constitutional question
which had been raised, and then entered upon
a description of the advantages which would
result from the construction of the road, well
calculated to propitiate his hearers. He then
proceeded in the delivery of a powerful argu-
ment, which lacked nothing of vision, nor of
eloquence, nor of legal acumen and cogency,
nor of a masterly array of facts, legal principles
and precedents. He anticipated and over-
whelmed objections, met interrogation with
ready and convincing retort, and when he
took his seat, it was realized that he had made
an argument which no senator could cope
with, that he had won the day, and that
the address was a forensic triumph of a high
order. There are passages in this address

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 153

which will be of permanent interest, particu-
larly in the region which then embraced his
constituency.

Omitting the discussion of the constitutional
question as one of no present interest, and in
any event, substantially disposed of by the
Supreme Court in the case^ cited by Senator
Olmsted, the argument proceeded as follows:

"I believe, sir, that this road when con-
structed will immediately become one of the
most important lines of travel in the United
States. It will reach by its connection with
the Buffalo and Washington Railway ,2 now
in course of construction, the great entrepot
of the western lakes by a route fifty miles
shorter than any now in existence. It gives
a Pennsylvania corporation control of a
short, direct line from Philadelphia to Buffalo.
It should be remembered that while New
York has already four lines of communica-
tion between Buffalo and New York City,
we have not one between that important
point and our great seaboard city, though
trains are now rim from Philadelphia to
Buffalo, under a lease held by the Northern
Central of the Ehnira and Canandaigua road,
but this lease soon expires, and then that

« Gratz M. Pennsylvania R. R. Co., S Wright, 447.
' Via Emporium and Keating Summit.

154 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

road falls into the control of the New York
and Erie. The harbor at Buflfalo is now and
always will be the great point from which the
enormous productions of the West are dis-
tributed. It is safe to say that nine-tenths
of the grain and cattle production of the
entire West is deposited en route to the
Atlantic sea-board in that harbor, and, as
facilities now exist, it is carried eastward
almost exclusively by New York corporations."

Here the speaker exhibited by a comparative
statement of facts and figures the magnitude of
the developing coal trade of Buffalo, from
which shipments were being made to Chicago,
Milwaukee, Detroit and the great West,
ignored by Pennsylvania capital, absorbed in
over-supplying the market toward the sea-
board.

"That line of transportation will be most
important which puts this article of con-
stantly increasing and unlimited demand,
at the great entrepot of the lakes by the short-
est and cheapest route. . . . Now, Mr.
Speaker, this line, when completed, will put
both the anthracite and bituminous coals of
Pennsylvania from forty to one hundred and
fifty miles nearer to Buffalo than they can now
be put there by any existing line."

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 155

Taking the distances from the anthracite
coal fields of Scranton and Shamokin via
Williamsport, Elmira and Canandaigua as
approximately two hundred ninety -four miles,
Senator Olmsted showed that the projected
route via Sunbury would be forty-five miles
shorter. In the following language he por-
trayed the development of bituminous coal
mining in the counties of McKean and
Potter:

"The nearest bituminous coal to Buffalo by
present line is that in Mercer County, which
reaches that point by way of Erie and the
Lakes, or by rail at a distance of one hundred
sixty-seven miles. The next nearest is that
at Blossburg, Tioga County, which by rail
and the Seneca Lake, reaches Buffalo at a dis-
tance of two hundred eighty-nine miles, or
by rail exclusively at a distance of one hun-
dred seventy miles. Now, sir, pass this bill
and build this road, and the bituminous coals
of McKean and Potter counties can be placed
on the docks at Buffalo at a distance of from
eighty-five to one hundred twenty-five miles.
It necessarily follows inevitably from these
facts that the seven hundred thousand tons
now distributed from Buffalo can be trans-
ported thither from seventy-five cents to
one dollar and twenty-five cents cheaper

156 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

than by existing lines, and as a necessary con-
sequence a large portion of the coal carrying
trade must be done over it."

He next demonstrated the importance to
Philadelphia of a share of the eastern traffic
from Buffalo then going to New York. He
gave the figures of 1870 for grain, live stock
and lumber, and showed that only a small
fraction passed over roads in which Pennsyl-
vania capital was invested.

"Now, Mr. Speaker, when the facts show
that by construction of the Pine Creek, State
Line and BuflFalo Railroad, we place Phila-
delphia fifty-five miles nearer to Buffalo and
to this immense trade than she now is, and
over seventy miles nearer to that point than
New York City by present lines, the impor-
tance and value of the undertaking becomes
apparent, and our plain duty as senators
comes home to us. Shall we be deterred by
imaginary evils or objections, narrow and
technical, or shall we arise to a just apprecia-
tion of the great argument, and by an act of
liberal justice to ourselves, grasp now what
the law of development and of trade declares
is our inheritance."

From this discussion of the importance of
the through traffic the speaker passed to the

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 157

subject of local development and its economic
results. Taking the instance of the branch
only twenty-five miles long, up the Tioga
River to the Blossburg coal region, he showed
that the state had in the single year 1870
received from it in taxes $11,978.89.

"And yet," continued the speaker, "the
idea has become almost chronic in the earher
settled and better developed portions of the
state, that all that section of our common-
wealth is comparatively valueless, and its
people and its interests have hitherto been
regarded as unworthy of consideration as
those of a delegate from a distant territory in
the National Congress, or a Catholic bishop
from Egypt or Syria in the Ecumenical Coun-
cil at Rome."

Showing that for more than seventy miles
the projected road would pass through this
undeveloped region "containing coal enough
to occupy the entire transporting power of all
the corporations in Pennsylvania for fifty
years," he went on:

"Build this road through that region now
totally undeveloped and you bring forth this
hidden treasure and haste it onward to the
markets of the West, add untold millions to

158 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

local values, create new objects of state reve-
nues, and furnish employment for thousands
of the hardy sons of toil."

Deposits of iron ore had been discovered at
various points, and the speaker predicted its
development as a matter of importance be-
cause of its proximity to coal and timber
requisite for its manufacture. Then he
turned to agriculture.

"A careful examination of the census returns
for 1870 shows that the aggregate value of
agricultural products in the three counties
through which this road mainly passes is
equal to that of any counties in this state or
elsewhere of equal population. For dairying
purposes they are not equaled by any counties
in this commonwealth, resembling in their
climate, soil and general surface the counties
of Cortland, Allegany, Steuben and others
in the State of New York that produce now the
bulk of the butter and cheese sold in the
markets of the City of New York."

Having thus demonstrated that the earnings
of the proposed road would surely pay the
interest and principal of the proposed lien upon
it, the senator proceeded:

" It would be well for us all to remember that
this road will pass through a region that has

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 159

hitherto received no aid from the fostering
care of the commonwealth. As I remarked
last winter, it is a neglected and imappre-
ciated portion of the state. Its citizens have
hitherto been treated as aliens and strangers
from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
They have borne the burthens without the
benefits of citizenship, and they ask that from
henceforth they shall stand as equals upon a
common platform. They pay for what they
demand. These bonds are but the repre-
sentatives of money actually expended by
the state in sections that are now rich and
populous, and great common gratitude requires
that the representatives from those counties
should go to the verge of constitutional limit
in their efforts to be just to others."

Appealing for a more liberal public policy,
the speaker, though not foreseeing the adapta-
tion of electricity to interurban transporta-
tion, nor the motive power of gasoline and the
invention of the modern motor-truck, clearly
foresaw the expanding need of increased
facilties for transportation at low cost, and
thus predicted municipal construction and
maintenance of lines of railway over short
routes:

"The time will come in this country when
railroads of cheap construction and narrow

160 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

gauge will be as common as highways, and
then they will be built and maintained at
the expense of the municipal corporations
through which they pass."

Recurring to the pending bill, he related a
striking instance of the success attending
legislation of similar import in aid of a
Southern road, and closed with this eloquent
peroration:

"Mr. Speaker, I need hardly say that I
am anxious for the passage of this bill. I
represent upon this floor an important por-
tion of this commonwealth when brought by
railway lines into connection with the outer
world. Now it is as nothing. The whole
future of that region is hanging upon the
proposition contained in this bill. It is for
the legislature to say whether it shall become
rich and populous and great, or whether it shall
remain as it now is, cast off from communica-
tion with the human race. Pass this bill, and
it will bring our people into connection and
sympathy with the balance of this great
commonwealth. It will remove the dread
shadow under which they live and expose
their great natural wealth to view and apply
it to the uses of mankind."

The Senate chamber may well have re-
sounded with prolonged applause. Those

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 145

146 ARTHUR GEORGE OLlSiSTED

I In 1861 (January 24th), the legislature had passed a joint resolution which,
iiUer alia, conceded the maintenance of slavery as a constitutional right.

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 147

The resolution was adopted by a vote of
eighteen in the aflSrmative to fifteen in the

148 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

1 Senate Journal, 1869, p. 550.
' Senate Journal, 1870, p. 623.

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 149

150 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

and municipal purposes, as well as to greatly
increase the value of productions from those
sections of the commonwealth for manufactur-
ing, agricultural and all other purposes; and
"Whereas, It is believed that those desira-

Approximate route of the Jersey Shore, Pine Creek and Buffalo
Road (extended to Buffalo).

ble objects may be accomplished by the provi-
sions of the annexed bill, and in order to grant
sufficient authority for effective aid as afore-
said to secure the same; therefore,'* etc.

The route of the road was to be from Jersey
Shore by way of Pine Creek and the Allegheny
River to the New York state line. March 16,

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 151

152 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 153

which will be of permanent interest, particu-
larly in the region which then embraced his
constituency.

"I believe, sir, that this road when con-
structed will immediately become one of the
most important lines of travel in the United
States. It will reach by its connection with
the Buffalo and Washington Railway,^ now
in course of construction, the great entrepot
of the western lakes by a route fifty miles
shorter than any now in existence. It gives
a Pennsylvania corporation control of a
short, direct line from Philadelphia to Buffalo.
It should be remembered that while New
York has already four lines of communica-
tion between Buffalo and New York City,
we have not one between that important
point and our great seaboard city, though
trains are now run from Philadelphia to
Buffalo, under a lease held by the Northern
Central of the Eknira and Canandaigua road,
but this lease soon expires, and then that

« Gratz VI. Pennsylvania R. R. Co., 5 Wright, 447.
* Via Emporium and Keating Summit.

154 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

road falls into the control of the New York
and Erie. The harbor at Buffalo is now and
always will be the great point from which the
enormous productions of the West are dis-
tributed. It is safe to say that nine-tenths
of the grain and cattle production of the
entire West is deposited en route to the
Atlantic sea-board in that harbor, and, as
facilities now exist, it is carried eastward
almost exclusively by New York corporations."

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 155

Taking the distances from the anthracite
coal fields of Scranton and Shamokin via
Williamspori?, Elmira and Canandaigua as
approximately two hundred ninety -four miles,
Senator Olmsted showed that the projected
route via Sunbury would be forty -five miles
shorter. In the following language he por-
trayed the development of bituminous coal
mining in the counties of McKean and
Potter:

"The nearest bituminous coal to Buffalo by
present line is that in Mercer County, which
reaches that point by way of Erie and the
Lakes, or by rail at a distance of one hundred
sixty-seven miles. The next nearest is that
at Blossburg, Tioga County, which by rail
and the Seneca Lake, reaches Buffalo at a dis-
tance of two hundred eighty-nine miles, or
by rail exclusively at a distance of one hun-
dred seventy miles. Now, sir, pass this bill
and build this road, and the bituminous coals
of McKean and Potter counties can be placed
on the docks at Buffalo at a distance of from
eighty -five to one himdred twenty-five miles.
It necessarily follows inevitably from these
facts that the seven hundred thousand tons
now distributed from Buffalo can be trans-
ported thither from seventy-five cents to
one dollar and twenty-five cents cheaper

156 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

than by existing lines, and as a necessary con-
sequence a large portion of the coal carrying
trade must be done over it."

"Now, Mr. Speaker, when the facts show
that by construction of the Pine Creek, State
Line and Buffalo Railroad, we place Phila-
delphia fifty-five miles nearer to Buffalo and
to this immense trade than she now is, and
over seventy miles nearer to that point than
New York City by present lines, the impor-
tance and value of the undertaking becomes
apparent, and our plain duty as senators
comes home to us. Shall we be deterred by
imaginary evils or objections, narrow and
technical, or shall we arise to a just apprecia-
tion of the great argument, and by an act of
liberal justice to ourselves, grasp now what
the law of development and of trade declares
is our inheritance."

From this discussion of the importance of
the through traffic the speaker passed to the

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 157

"And yet," continued the speaker, "the
idea has become almost chronic in the earlier
settled and better developed portions of the
state, that all that section of our common-
wealth is comparatively valueless, and its
people and its interests have hitherto been
regarded as unworthy of consideration as
those of a delegate from a distant territory in
the National Congress, or a Catholic bishop
from Egypt or Syria in the Ecumenical Coun-
cil at Rome."

"Build this road through that region now
totally undeveloped and you bring forth this
hidden treasure and haste it onward to the
markets of the West, add untold millions to

158 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

local values, create new objects of state reve-
nues, and furnish employment for thousands
of the hardy sons of toil."

Having thus demonstrated that the earnings
of the proposed road would surely pay the
interest and principal of the proposed lien upon
it, the senator proceeded:

" It would be well for us all to remember that
this road will pass through a region that has

SERVICE IN THE SENATE 159

hitherto received no aid from the fostering
care of the commonwealth. As I remarked
last winter, it is a neglected and miappre-
ciated portion of the state. Its citizens have
hitherto been treated as aliens and strangers
from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
They have borne the burthens without the
benefits of citizenship, and they ask that from
henceforth they shall stand as equals upon a
common platform. They pay for what they
demand. These bonds are but the repre-
sentatives of money actually expended by
the state in sections that are now rich and
populous, and great common gratitude requires
that the representatives from those counties
should go to the verge of constitutional limit
in their efforts to be just to others."

"The time will come in this country when
railroads of cheap construction and narrow

160 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

gauge will be as common as highways, and
then they will be built and maintained at
the expense of the municipal corporations
through which they pass."

Recurring to the pending bill, he related a
striking instance of the success attending
legislation of similar import in aid of a
Southern road, and closed with this eloquent
peroration :

The Senate chamber may well have re-
sounded with prolonged applause. Those

STATE LEADER 177

"Judge Olmsted is well known throughout
the state, and wherever known is respected
and beloved. He was repeatedly chosen,
while still a young man, to represent his
district in the House of Representatives, and
subsequently in the Senate of the state, and
by the former body he was chosen speaker,
thus showing the esteem in which he was held
by those who knew him best, whether person-
ally or officially. As speaker of the House,
and in his service m the Senate, at the bar
and on the bench, he has earned a reputation
for firm character and impartial judgment that
make him eminently fitted to preside over the
deliberations of the State Senate, and, should
the emergency occur, to assume the chief
magistracy of the commonwealth. Judge
Olmsted well represents the devoted and
unwavering republicanism of the rural coun-
ties, as Judge Paxson that of the city, and with
two such names at the head of the ticket, there
can be no question of success."

A few days later the Philadelphia Press
refers to the nomination as having been
received with especial favor by the press of
of the state, and *' given universal satisfac-
tion." But the Republican party throughout
the country was entering upon an unfortunate
campaign. The second election of Grant had

178 ARTHrR GEORGE OLMSTED

left the party disrupted. Powerful leaders,
including Greeley and Sumner, had been
alienated. In a protesting convention of
Labor Reformers, Governor Geary had led
on the informal ballot for the presidential
nomination. The resumption of specie pay-
ments had been a source of division. The
country was slowly recovering from the
financial panic of 1873. An era of hard
times had set in, and agitation had begun for
an inflation of the currency. The Ku-Klux
Klan had generated the obnoxious Enforce-
ment Acts of Congress. Official complicity in
the frauds of the *' Whisky Ring,'* exposed by
the Secretary of the Treasury Bristow, and
the impeachment of Secretary of War Belknap,
had not been without adverse effect upon
Republican prestige and prospects. Party
leaders in Pennsylvania were uniting upon the
presentation of Governor Hartranft for the
presidential nomination of 1876, and the
agitation of a third term for General Grant
was a disturbing cause. The Democrats with
great skill turned to their account every
point of vantage. The October elections in
Ohio and Indiana resulted in favor of the
Democratic party, and this had its disheart-

STATE LEADER 179

ening effect in the Republican *'rank and file."
It is hardly a matter of wonder that the
elections in November proved a Waterloo for
the Republican party. The Democrats swept
the country and won a majority in the lower
house of Congress for the first time in eighteen
years. But Pennsylvania was a Republican
state. Two years before the Republican
candidates had carried the state by a majority
of 140,000. It was, nevertheless, a ques-
tion whether the party could stem the
adverse currents sweeping across the country.
Besides, there were unfavorable conditions
in the state. Local option was a vexatious
issue.

The new constitution had not been put into
operation without some friction. Friends of
Governor Hartranft and former Governor
Geary were not in accord. But Republicans
in Pennsylvania, handicapped as they were,
entered upon the canvass bravely and with
enthusiasm. A stronger ticket could hardly
have been nominated.

After the campaign had been running
nearly two months, and the wisdom of the
convention had commended itself in the
public mind, a leading Republican journal of

180 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

Philadelphia alluded to the head of the
ticket as follows:^

"Mr. Olmsted's record as a loyal man is as
somid as that of any man in the state, and
his character as a legislator is above reproach.
No man has ever dared to charge him with
corruption. His votes and his voice in the
halls of legislation were always on the side of
right, and his manly devotion to the National
Government in the hour of its peril, and to
his state, are part of the proud records of the
commonwealth . ' '

It now seems incredible that at so late a
day there should have existed in Pennsyl-
vania, particularly in the counties of the
Southern Tier, a serious apprehension of
negro usurpation as a result of emancipation.
Nevertheless, Democratic distrust over against
Republican pride, in respect to the liberation
of the slave, constituted throughout the can-
vass a theme of animated discussion. Latta,
the Democratic candidate for Lieutenant-
Governor, speaking in the Senate on a bill to
give colored passengers equal rights on public
conveyances, was quoted as follows:

> Philadelphia Press editorial, October 8, 1874.

STATE LEADER 181

"Any law which proposes to raise them to
an equality with the white men of America,
is a step towards the formation of a monarchi-
cal form of government."

Judge Olmsted, on the contrary, was re-
garded as the champion of the rights of the
freedmen.

It is needless to follow Judge Olmsted in
the course of his attendance at the great
gatherings which greeted him throughout the
state. It will suflSce to mention the single
grand Philadelphia ratification meeting, which
had been called to be held in Horticultural
Hall on the tenth of October. A Pennsylvania
canvass, state or national, reaches its climax
in that metropolis. In no large city of the
Union does such a meeting become so dis-
tinctively a matter of the populace. It is an
assemblage of the people of Philadelphia.
To the candidate it is almost a crucial test.
If he should fail on the occasion, or if the
meeting should lack the aspect of an out-
pouring of the people, these circumstances
would forebode disaster.

On this October night the auguries were
favorable. No indication of success was
lacking. On the balcony in front of the hall

182 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

Beck's Philadelphia Band rendered patriotic
music. Sky-rockets were sent up on Broad
Street, and the splendid thoroughfare was
ablaze with red and blue lights. The spacious
hall was crowded to overflowing. Prominent
citizens occupied seats on the platform.
Among them were Hon. A. E. Borie, of the
Navy portfolio in the Grant cabinet; Hon.
William D. Kelley, protection leader in Con-
gress; General H. H. Bingham, afterwards
known from his long congressional service as
"Father of the House;" Hon. A. C. Harmer,
M. C; Seth Comly, a leader of the Pennsyl-
vania bar; Jeremiah Nicholson, and others.
Benjamin H. Brewster, then at the head of the
Philadelphia bar, and later Attorney General
of the United States, was chosen to preside.
At least two hundred and fifty vice-presidents
were named, including such widely known
Philadelphians as William E. Cramp, John
Stackhouse, Edwin H. Fitler, Samuel Bisp-
ham, Samuel J. Reeves, Anthony D. Lever-
ing, Thomas Dolan, Dr. F. H. Gross, and
General Robert Thompson. Among the secre-
taries were Robert Patterson, General Louis
Wagner, Hamilton Disston, George Graham
and Simon Gratz. Besides Judge Olmsted,

STATE LEADER 183

General Charles Albright and Hon. George
Lear were to speak, but Judge Olmsted was
to precede them. He had not been previously
heard by a Philadelphia audience, nor had
it been his fortune to ever before address an
assemblage of such magnitude, nor one includ-
ing so many citizens of distinguished attain-
ments and superor intelligence. But he had
not been placed at the head of the Republican
state ticket merely because of his qualifica-
tions for the performance of the duties of
the oflSice of Lieutenant-Governor. He was
chosen as the forensic champion of the party,
its ablest platform advocate, at a time when
it was beset with scandal and criticism and
danger, when it was charged with the prev-
alence of hard times, when its policies
respecting the freedman and the enforcement
of his civil rights were challenged, in short,
when the party needed in the field its ablest
exponent and defender. Judge Olmsted was
the very incarnation of the Republican faith.
Into it he had been born and bred. He
breathed its spirit and believed in its mission.
He knew its history by heart. Its achieve-
ments and purposes were at his tongue's end.
They fairly shone as he recounted them.

184 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

His address was not only a closely knit
argument, meeting his adversaries at every
point of dispute, and advancing the standards
of his party, but it was illuminated with
historic incident, with imagination and vision,
rising often into periods of eloquence, which
won from the audience their frequent applause.
While it fitted the need and the hour, it
remains as a classic of masterly exposition and
defense. It will repay future study, not only
by students of our political history, but also
by American youth seeking models of forensic
speech.

When the applause following Judge Olm-
sted's introduction had subsided, he spoke
as follows:

"Almost unceasing attention to affairs of a
political character seems to be a duty under a
government framed like ours: *A govern-
ment of the people, by the people and for the
people.* Not so under a government despotic
in its form, where all power springs from the
sovereign, and the people, in the language of
one of England's hereditary lords, have
nothing to do with the laws except to obey
them.

"The people of this country, under our
republican form of government, while looking

STATE LEADER 185

after affairs of state are simply attending to
their own business and discharging a duty as
much incumbent upon the citizen as the
affairs of his own household,

"In a republic a bad administration of pub-
lic affairs for any length of time is an im-
possibility if the citizen attends to his duty.

"I speak of these things, fellow-citizens,
because I know from my own experience, as
well as from observation, how wearied the
citizen is apt to become of these constantly
recurring political excitements. Yet the
demagogue and the political aspirant is never
tired of his occupation, and the public inter-
ests are never in danger except in times of
calm indifference.

"Dangerous political heresies are short lived
where the people are all attention. Danger
lurks, and lurks only, on a smooth political sea.

"Many men are anxious about the future of
the country. Give yourselves no concern
about that. The future is boundless, and is
counted by eternities; it will take care of
itself. It is only the present, illuminated by
the past, with which we have to do. Dis-
charge your duty, whatever it may be, and
trust that he who comes after you will do his
also, enlightened by your example. We learn
the danger and the policy of the present
hour, from our knowledge of the past. It is
our teacher and in its light we go forward.

186 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

The Choice of Administration:

"We come again to the question so often
presented to us, whether it is best for the
interests of the country, that the party that
defended its unity and integrity should still
exercise a controlling voice in its management,
or whether it shall be controlled by the party
in the South that sought its destruction by an
appeal to arms and the party in the North that
acts with it politically. It is a living vital
question today, as it was when the air was
black with the coming of the armed hosts of
treason, and the soil of Pennsylvania was
polluted by the tread of the invader.

"True it is, thank God, that the confused
noise and bloody garments of war have passed
away, and that peace and prosperity reign
in their stead. True that the government
is united, and not divided, and that from the
pine forests of the northern lakes to the orange
groves of the Rio Grande the sun never rises
upon a master nor sets upon a slave. And
to whom do M^e owe all this.'* To the Republi-
can party. It, and it alone, sustained always,
without qualification and without hesitation,
whether upon the tented field, in the political
gathering, or the legislative council, the policy
that led to this grand fruition. While upon
the other hand, the great majority of those
who now say that they shall control the gov-
ernment were in arms against it, seeking its

STATE LEADER 187

destruction, and the establishment of another
government, based upon the crimson suicide
and madness of American slavery, while the
lesser portion of that party, distributed
through another section, without actual trea-
son, gave but a hesitating, doubtful, fault-
finding and qualified adhesion to the govern-
ment. These things have happily passed
away, and I take no pleasure in referring to
them, but, as I have already said, the light
of the past shines upon the present, and by
it we go forward. (Applause.)

Probation for the South:

"Upon this subject I wish to be understood.
There should be no lines of distinction, so
far as political privileges and the rights of
citizenship are concerned. While the people
of the country yield assent to the grand idea
worked out by the war, that the govern-
ment must exist as a unity, and that it pos-
sesses the inherent and constitutional power
to maintain that unity against domestic as
well as foreign foes, it does not follow from
these premises that the man who so recently
sought to destroy the government is as safe
to intrust with the reins of control as he who
imperiled his life to maintain it. (Good !)

"The recollection of the past is yet too vivid
all over the land, and will remain so until
experience has abundantly demonstrated that

188 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

the fire has ceased to burn in the hot and
smouldering ashes of treason.

"We passed through a political campaign
recently in which we were constantly told that
it was the duty of the American people to for-
get the war, its blood, its trials and its conse-
quences. It was said to be the duty of the
people to think and to act as though it had
never been. We were asked to do an impos-
sibility. It can never be forgotten. The
Lethean river of the Greek mythology could
not produce such oblivion. The people of
this country never did forget a war. Did
they forget that there were Tories in the
Revolution? After many years they removed
the political disabilities from them, but was
one of them ever intrusted with political
power by the suffrage of the people? Not
one instance in all history. (Applause.)

"Did the people forget that portion of the
Federal party that arrayed itself in even a
qualified opposition to the War of 1812? They
placed no political disabilities upon them, yet
as a political party it was destroyed forever.
And how with the Mexican War? The Whig
party filled the army with its brave young
men, and furnished many of its best oflScers,
yet the party at home opposed it as a war
without suflScient cause, and for doubtful pur-
poses, and it died utterly from that opposition.

"No political party in this country, as a

STATE LEADER 189

political party, has survived opposition to any
war in which the government engaged. Much
less can it be so of a war that involved the
life of the nation itself; and why should it not
be so? Pray tell me, where is the motive, the
incentive to patriotism, if, when the struggle
is over, he who sought to destroy the govern-
ment to which he owed allegiance, is to be
exalted over him who imperiled his life in its
defense? The young men of the country
should be taught no such lesson. No govern-
ment on earth could maintain itself under
such a policy.

"Mr. Chairman, the hope and safety of the
country today, as in the past, exists in the
continued success of the Republican party. It
is not faultless, and bad men can be found in
its ranks, as everywhere else in human society;
but its face is set in the right direction, its
vision is forward, not backward; it reaches
upward and not downward, while all experi-
ence shows that the Democratic party cannot
safely be intrusted with power. Wherever it
has won but the slightest foothold it has
betrayed its old spirit with all of its reaction-
ary tendencies. It crops out today all over
the South in the form of White Men's Leagues
and other organizations formed for the pur-
pose of ostracising a race of black men and
all white men that dare differ from them.
These are but the inspiring effects of Demo-

190 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

cratic victories in some of the Northern
states, which lead a bad element in the South
to hope for Democratic ascendancy, and show
clearly — far too clearly — what the condition
of every man in the South, white or black,
who sustained the government during the
war, would immediately become should that
event occur.

Pledge of Security to the Freedman:

. "I would say nothing to exasperate the pub-
lic mind upon this or any other question; but
it is but just to say that a disposition now
seems too manifest to undo the work of
reconstruction, and to crush the black man
betwixt the upper and the nether millstone,
to make his condition worse than though he
were a slave, to make his liberty and his
right of suffrage but as ashes and apples of
Sodom in his possession. They mistake the
public sentiment. The negro stood faithful
to his country's blue and when he went down
into the thick of the battle with you and your
sons and brothers on behalf of a government
that had previously but done him wrong, the
people of the country swore, as by an inspira-
tion coming from the great source of all justice,
that though the tongue should cleave to the
roof of the mouth, and the right hand forget
its cunning, yet the negro should have his
right forever : and they will keep that oath.

STATE LEADER 191

"By the memory of common cause and com-
mon suffering, by all the early political his-
tory of this nation, and by all the patriot
blood that has been shed, the people have
decreed that, while the escutcheons of social
equality are beyond and outside of the
province of government, yet civil equahty shall
belong to all the inhabitants of this land
forever.

Tested by Deedy not by Profession:

"There are but two great political parties in
the country, and all political history has
demonstrated that there can be but two great
parties in the field for any length of time,
each contending against the other. The
country, therefore, must be governed either
by the party that fought for the Union, or by
the party the majority of whom fought
against the Union. Choose ye between the
two. Are you willing as Republicans, are
you willing as citizens, that this great and
mighty change should occur in the administra-
tion of either state or national affairs? What
has the Republican party, as a party, done
that it should forfeit the public confidence?

"Saying nothing of the past, what has the
Democratic party of the present hour to offer
to you as an inducement to make this change?
It passes volmnes of resolutions, I admit, in
favor of economy and honesty, and, as the

192 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

New York Tribune recently said of the
Democratic platform of a neighboring state,
*It is always refreshing to read resolutions
upon this subject, passed by a party out of
power, and seeking for power.' But what has
it done in the way of reform in any state in
which it has been intrusted with power, that
commends it to your confidence? Has its
legislation been superior to ours? Has its
management of state finances excited admira-
tion? There is scarcely a Northern, Eastern,
or Western state but what, under Republican
rule, has either diminished or entirely wiped
out its state indebtedness; while Tennessee,
under Democratic administration, has in-
creased her indebtedness thirteen millions, and
Virginia, a state claiming to be a model of
Democratic government, has increased hers
by twelve millions, the State of Mississippi,
controlled absolutely by Republicans, and,
for the most part, by very black Republicans
(cheers), has increased her indebtedness but
three millions, an indebtedness she will pay,
and not repudiate, as under a former admin-
istration (prolonged applause); and in Ken-
tucky, if we may believe the utterances of
the great Democratic organ of the South-
west, the Louisville Courier- Journal, a state
of lawless anarchy exists; and in Missouri,
under the Democratic administration, human
life has been rendered so unsafe, and her debt

STATE LEADER 193

has increased so frightfully, that the people,
with Carl Schurz at their head, are aroused
as by a sense of impendmg ruin, and will hurl
the Democratic party to the earth at the
coming election, with all its false pretensions
of honesty upon its head. (Applause.)

"Yet, in the face of these facts, the Demo-
cratic party, strengthened by the financial
troubles of the country, are seeking to per-
suade the people to reinstate it in place and
power. They mistake both the intelligence
and patriotism of the people. They are not
ready yet to take so important and dangerous
a step, and they cannot be persuaded to do so
by the mere catchword of politicians, and by
vague and unmeaning charges against those
whom they have heretofore delighted to
honor. ('That's so!') If reform is neces-
sary, they will seek to accomplish it through
the party whose movements are forward and
not backward, and not through a party that
has been shown by an experience of years to
be incapable of reforming itself.

" The river Rhiue, it hath been shown.
Doth wash the city of Cologne;
But, oh ye gods ! what power divine
Can ever cleanse the Rhine?'

Republican State Administration:

" I now turn abruptly for a few moments to a
discussion of the affairs of our state, for this

194 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

is to be an election of state as well as of
national importance, and it is proper that they
should be discussed. For fourteen years the
Republicans have had the management and
responsibility incident thereto of the legisla-
tion and the financial affairs of Pennsylvania,
and, I say, now, in this great presence, and
with some knowledge of the truthfulness of
what I say, that the financial management of
the State of Pennsylvania for these fourteen
years challenges the admiration and approval
of the intelligent world. They came into
power at the commencement of the war, with
a debt upon the commonwealth, funded and
unfunded, of over forty millions of dollars,
with her credit in doubt and her securities
depreciated everywhere. In the foreign mar-
kets her bonds were but the subject of ridicule
and jest. And during these fourteen years
they have reduced the state debt by an
annual average of over one million dollars.

"In addition to this they paid a temporary
war loan of three millions of dollars. They
have appropriated from five hundred thou-
sand to one million dollars per annum to the
support of the common schools, and for the
last eight years have appropriated annually
from three to five hundred thousand dollars
to the maintenance of soldiers* orphan
schools — the noblest charity the sun ever
shone upon. They have appreciated the

STATE LEADER 195

bonds of the state until they are sought for
in financial circles everywhere as permanent
investments, her six per cent currency bonds
being worth at last quotations eleven per cent
premium.

"To accomplish all this have they increased
taxation? Have they laid burdens upon the
shoulders of the masses grievous to be borne?
No. They have reduced taxation on personal
property from three mills to two and one-
half mills per cent, and in 1866 they swept
the state tax entirely off real estate, from
which the commonwealth derived an annual
income of one million four hundred and
fifty thousand dollars. (Applause.) They
have reduced taxation for state purposes, and,
in every way possible, lightened the burden
of the state government. (Applause.) Could
our Democratic friends have done better than
this, had they been in power? Has any one a
complaint to make? Does any one believe it
to be the best policy for the state government
to turn out of power the party that has accom-
plished these reforms and made this reduction
in our state debt, for the purpose of reinstat-
ing the party that made the debt? (Cries of
'No?' 'No!')

"In the State of New York for 1872 the
state taxes were $18,550,000. In Massachu-
setts the same year, with the population more
than one-third less than ours, the state

196 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

taxes were $11,874,000, while in Pennsylvania
they were but $7,076,000.

"And during all these years of Republican
control, notwithstanding the vague talks
about 'Rings,' and frauds and corruption,
in which our opponents have indulged them-
selves, no man can point to a dollar lost to
the treasury by the default or negligence of any
one of its treasurers.

"I say again, that our administration of
state finances commends itself to the admira-
tion of the world. The New York Evening
Post, in October last, although a paper of
such eminent conservatism that it finds but
little in the world to commend, published an
editorial upon the financial policy of Penn-
sylvania, and concluded by declaring that in
no state in the Union were the state taxes so
cheaply collected, and so directly and hon-
estly disbursed, as in this state.

"No state has excelled ours in its magnificent
appropriations to public charities, and when
it was determined to celebrate the Centennial
of our American Independence in this, the
city of its birth, she patriotically stepped to
the front with her contribution of one million
of dollars.

"Every citizen of Pennsylvania, whatever
his political proclivities, has just reason to be
proud of our present state administration,
particularly of its chief executive officer. Gov-

STATE LEADER 197

emor John F. Hartranft. He was a true and
brave officer during all the long years of the
war. He was an upright and just Auditor
General for more than six years. Yet the
Democratic efforts for his defeat when a
candidate for the position he now holds are
unparalleled in the history of political war-
fare. He was covered with shame and
reproach as with a garment. Yet he was tri-
umphantly elected, and from the hour of his
inauguration until the present moment, no
newspaper in the conunonwealth or else-
where, no individual of any shade of political
behef, has been able to point to a single act
of his administration that will not bear the
light of the most intelligent and scrutinizing
criticism.

Personal Detraction as a Political Weapon:

"It seemed to me, during that contest, that
the time had come in American politics where
there was no longer any motive or incentive to
honesty among public men. The charge of
dishonesty and corruption is as easily made
against an individual of unflinching integrity
as against an abandoned thief. And, indeed,
this system of personal detraction has been
carried to such an alarming extent that the
public can no longer discern, from the surface
of a campaign, between an individual fit for
public station and one utterly unfit, and I

198 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

know of really no policy for the political
aspirant to pursue except to stand to his integ-
rity, preserve his own self-respect and let the
storm of personal detraction pass over him as
it may.

The Democratic Record:

"What are the distinctive principles of the
Democratic party today, and what have they
been during the entire period of Republican
ascendency? What were they during the
war, except dissent from every position
assumed by the Republican party, step by
step, and year by year, as time rolled on and
taught its lessons of public emergency and
public necessities?

"First came the declaration of the utter
want of constitutional power in the General
Government to coerce a rebellious state, then
an utter dissent from all measures to which the
administration resorted to raise money neces-
sary for the maintenance of the army and
the public credit.

"You all remember with what utter con-
tempt they received the first issue of govern-
ment paper money. Not a Democratic print
in the whole land but pronounced the whole
issue as unconstitutional and valueless. In
that hour of extremity, when the issue of
paper money must be made or the government
utterly fail, but three Democratic members of

STATE LEADER 199

Congress could be found to vote for the bill,
and yet at the last session, when the extreme ne-
cessity had passed away, the Democrats in the
House of Representatives voted thirty -six to
thirty -four in favor of issuing more of the same
currency. Then, in the order of events, came
the most violent and unrelenting opposition
to Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation;
then opposition to putting the negro into the
army that he might fight for his freedom and
his country; then came determined opposition
to the reconstruction amendments of 1866;
then opposition, long and prolonged, to the
amendment granting suffrage to the colored
man, and yet, in 1872, they adopted the Cin-
cinnati platform, which cordially approved of
all these measures, and took Horace Greeley,
who had but recently been the representative
man of the opposition, as their candidate for
President. (Loud cheers.) The Cincinnati
platform went even further than this, and
declared as resolution No. 1: 'We recognize
the equality of all men before the law, and
hold that it is the duty of the government in
its dealings with the people, to mete out
equal and exact justice to all, of whatever
nation, race, color or persuasion' (applause),
embodying in the strongest Anglo-Saxon
words to be found, the very essence of Sum-
ner's Civil Rights bill of the last session,
against which every Democratic Senator voted.

200 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

I have said that the Democratic party was
reactionary in its tendencies.

"In its platform at Pittsburgh, it declared the
principles of the Civil Rights bill to be inju-
rious to the black man as well as to the white,
and that it was *an unconstitutional invasion
of the rights of the states.' These words,
*an unconstitutional invasion of the rights
of the states' were thrown in because they
had them still on hand. They can be found
in every Democratic platform, state or na-
tional, from the inception of the war to 1872;
applied to every measure of the Republican
party for the suppression of the rebellion
and the government of the country, and
as they travel backwards they begin again
to use them, and now all over the South
they form White Men's Leagues and
prattle again about a white man's government.
(Applause.)

Responsibility for Hard Times:

"What new principle in government, or
what earnest elaboration of old principles do
they now present to the popular consider-
ation? None whatever. Hanging upon
'craggy edges of remorse, anxiety and
despair,' the panic is the breast from which
they suckle the hope of success, and in their
platform at Pittsburgh they actually charge
responsibility for the panic upon the admin-

STATE LEADER 201

istration. Just how the administration
could be charged with the financial disturb-
ances in the country, they, of course, fail
to state.

"They might as well have held the party in
power responsible for the visit of the grass-
hopper or the potato bug. Who ever heard the
administration of James Buchanan charged
with the far greater financial troubles of 1857,
or an earlier administration charged with the
disasters of 1842.'* Who ever heard the Brit-
ish Parliament or the British Queen held
responsible for the various financial diflB-
culties encountered in England during the
last fifty years? Nobody is responsible for a
panic. They come unannounced, unexpected
and unexplained. They puzzle the philosophy
of the wisest, and set at naught all business
rules; but if the billion and a half of gold and
silver that has been mined in this country
since 1850 had been kept in the country
instead of being sent abroad to purchase
articles that we might have manufactured
ourselves, no panic would have occurred.
(Tremendous applause.)

"When we are wise enough to adopt the
great principle of self-protection, which is as
applicable to nations as to individuals, our
era of panics will have passed away.

"But I am trespassing upon patience, and
must hurry these remarks to a close.

202 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

Republican Achievement:

"I have said that the Republican party was
not without its faults, but it differs from any-
other party of which the world has knowledge.
It exposes its own corruptness to the public
gaze, treads it under foot and moves onward.

"The present Congress at its last session
paid its own postage — a thing no Democratic
Congress ever did It repealed the back sal-
ary law and annulled the Sanborn contracts.
It cut down the annual expenses of the govern-
ment by seventy-seven millions, and the
reduction of the public debt still goes on.

"The Republican party, during all its years
of supremacy, has accepted with sublime
courage the duties of the hour. It sup-
pressed a gigantic rebellion and emancipated
4,000,000 slaves, and decreed universal suf-
frage and equal citizenship; it established a
uniform national currency and sustained the
public debt under most extraordinary bur-
dens; reduced national taxation from the
fearful rate imposed at the close of the war
till its burden is unfelt and unappreciated by
the citizens, and at the same time reduced the
national debt at an annual average of one him-
dred millions of dollars; it established a great
principle of national rights and national
responsibilities, and recovered thereby fifteen
millions of dollars from the British Govern-
ment for the Alabama claims, teaching all

STATE LEADER 203

the world that 'peace hath her victories no
less renowned than war.' (Enthusiastic
applause.) Is any one weak enough to
believe that the people will now intrust the
government to the control of any party or
combination of men that opposed, for the most
part, every step of this great progress? No;
the Republican party has established its prin-
ciples in the laws and in the constitution of
the country, in the hearts of the people, in the
very soil of the American continent, and it will
govern the country it has saved." (Applause.)

The text of this address, or oration, as
termed in the newspaper head-lines, was
published at length in several of the Philadel-
phia journals on the day following its delivery.
The manner in which it was received by the
public is not only to be determined by the
applause with which it was greeted at the
time, but also by such editorial comment as
the following:

"There was great interest evinced to hear
Judge Ohnsted speak, for the position of
Lieutenant-Governor is so distinguished a
one that it is felt only a man of signal ability
should be elevated to it. If there were any
doubts entertained by those who did not
know Judge Olmsted, of his pecuhar fitness
for the oflBce to which he was nominated, they

204 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

were removed before he had spoken five
minutes. His strong, incisive language, cloth-
ing profound thoughts, immediately stamped
him as one of the most brilliant thinkers
and orators ever heard in public in this city,
and proved the wisdom of his selection by
the convention."'

Up to the very eve of election a majority for
Judge Olmsted was counted upon with con-
fidence. As late as October 29th, the Phila-
delphia Press said editorially:

"Hon. Arthur G. Olmsted will carry the
West like a storm."

The election occurred on the 3d of Novem-
ber. On the 5th of that month the Daily
Evening Telegraph said:

"Judge Olmsted, Republican candidate for
Lieutenant-Governor, leads his ticket here
and elsewhere, and may possibly be elected
by a small majority, but the chances appear
to be against him."

For three days the result was in doubt.
On Wednesday the Philadelphia Press (Repub-
lican) claimed the election of the state ticket.
On Thursday it said: *'We do not give up

> Daily Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia, October 12, 1874.

STATE LEADER 205

the state." On Friday it printed a table
showing a plurality of 356 for Latta. His
plurality, as officially recorded, was 4,679.
The temperance candidate received 4,649
votes. Hence if Judge Olmsted had received
the temperance vote, to which his principles
and services in the cause of prohibition
entitled him, he would have lacked but
thirty-one votes of a majority. It is plain
that he, a most effective advocate of tem-
perance, having a prohibition county behind
him, was defeated by the prohibitionists and
liquor men together, a result that has doubtless
retarded the cause of prohibition in Penn-
sylvania. Although Judge Olmsted may
have regarded the result

"As the struck eagle stretched upon the plain
Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart,"

nevertheless he was always unswerving in his
devotion to the cause. When the question
of repeal of prohibition in Potter County
subsequently arose. Judge Olmsted was quoted
as unalterably opposed to it.

The general reverse of the Republicans
throughout the country amounted, however,
to a landslide, and sufficiently accounted for

206 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

the result in Pennsylvania. It must have
been a matter of some personal gratification to
Judge Olmsted that his vote exceeded that of
General Beath, the exceedingly popular can-
didate for Secretary of Internal Affairs, and
that of the late Chief Justice Paxson for
Justice of the Supreme Court.

The high-water mark had been reached in
the history of the Republican party of Penn-
sylvania. It had come to the turning point.
Hitherto its policy had been guided by the
wisdom of such counselors as Stevens, Wilmot
Ulysses Mercur, Thomas Williams, Alexander
McClure, W. D. Kelley, Glenni AV. Scofield,
Edward McPherson and Arthur G. Olmsted.
If Senator Olmsted had, by the turn of a vote
here and there in less than half the precincts,
or say, a single vote in two-thirds of the wards
and townships, been elected Lieutenant-
Governor, he, instead of Wallace, in the
natural course of events, would have passed
from the presidency of the Pennsylvania
Senate to the Senate of the United States;
the need would not have arisen to call the
younger Cameron from the presidency of the
Northern Central Railroad, nor to have
sought new leadership for the party, which,

STATE LEADER 207

however sagacious and skilful, should be
destined to bring a degree of reproach rather
than of honor to the commonwealth, and to
inflict upon it the loss in good measure of the
prestige to which it had become entitled as
the birthplace of the party of Fremont and
Lincoln, in whose borders it had rung the
bell of liberty to the Southern slave, and
raised the standard of protection to American
labor.

CHAPTER XII

As Lawyer and Judge

THE will of the people had been regis-
tered in the established way, the
Pennsylvania Legislature elected a
Democratic Senator, and both branches of
Congress passed into Democratic control.
Judge Olmsted returned to the long-deferred
demands of his profession. It can hardly
be said that his practice had suffered in
his absence, for in his several legislative
terms, as well as through his judicial experi-
ence, his reputation for learning and legal
ability had become enhanced, so that upon
return to his office abundant professional
business awaited him.

In his own and adjoining counties he
was retained in nearly all important litiga-
tion so long as he continued in practice.
Contemporary lawyers speak of him in
reminiscent letters. Hon. J. C. Johnson,
hereinbefore quoted, a former member of the
state legislature, and for many years at the

(208)

AS LAWYER AND JUDGE 209

head of the bar in Cameron County, thus
writes:

"Upon my admission to the bar in 1866
he came mider my observation as a lawyer.
When I began practice, - Cameron County
was in the old fourth judicial district with
Potter County. Hon. Robert G. White was
the president judge and Hon. Henry W.
Williams associate judge. The latter suc-
ceeded Judge White as president judge, and. in
1871 Stephen F. Wilson became associate
judge. In 1882 Judge Ohnsted succeeded Wil-
son as associate judge, and in 1883 he became
president judge of the 48th district, com-
posed of Potter and McKean counties, and
he retired at the end of his term, in 1902, as
president judge of the 55th district, the
county of Potter. His long career at the
bar was during a period of great advancement
and important development in the northern
counties of Elk, Cameron, McKean, Pot-
ter and Tioga, where he had an extensive
and lucrative practice. He was always a
leader at the bar. His learning was acknowl-
edged, his keen judgment of men and his
knowledge of affairs, and his remarkable
power of clear and logical statement won ver-
dicts from juries and decisions from judges,
and gave him acknowledged leadership. His
integrity was of such a well-known and high
character that his friends sometimes said he

210 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

was so straight that he leaned backwards —
intending to express the opinion that in a con-
troversy where a friend of his was interested,
he was so careful not to be chargeable with
partiality that there was a probability that
his friend would suffer.

"The period covered by Judge Olmsted's
active life was for the old fourth district a
very important one. The counties of Tioga,
Potter, McKean, Elk and Cameron con-
tained great wealth that awaited develop-
ment: Lumber, coal, clay, oil and gas.
There was need of new and important legis-
lation and the interpretation of new laws.
Railroads were to be constructed. Booms
for lumber operations and highways were to
be opened. Schools were to be provided and
all the needs of a rapidly increasing popula-
tion were to be provided. Judge Olmsted
has left the impress of his ability upon this
work perhaps more than any other citizen of
Potter County.

"He was successful also in business, as the
magnitude of his estate attests. He never
attempted to reap where he had not sown, and
his success in business came through his fore-
sight and good judgment and his confident
reliance on action as they directed him.

"Judge Olmsted was admirably equipped for
the practice of the law in the field where he
undertook it at the time he was admitted.

AS LAWYER AND JUDGE 211

He both knew and understood the plain peo-
ple. He could talk with the coimtryman about
the things that he knew interested him in his
daily life. He knew as well courtly people
and readily carried on negotiations with
dignitaries who held the highest state interests
in their hands. He was possessed of a high
degree of intellectuality. His tastes led him
in legal battles into the center of the arena.
He enjoyed the legal conflict and he broke his
professional lance with the opponent, and
bore off on his shield the honors of the fray
with great dignity.

"He knew literature and history, and he
appropriated and enjoyed the wisest sayings
and brightest scintillations of master minds.
He was learned in the law, and was able to
command his most effective weapons for
instant use in the heat of the conflict with
either court or jury. He came on when titles
were open to contest and land law became
important. In the courts common law forms
had given way to modern and practical direct-
ness and simpUcity, and the mind of the
lawyer and the judge was free to grasp the
essentials in his case. Judge Olmsted entered
the lists under favorable conditions for the
practice of the law, and was called upon in
his early practice to work out first-time solu-
tions of difficult questions arising in and relat-
ing to land titles and the lumber industry.

212 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

"He was a most companionable man, and
yet he lacked some of the elements of a popu-
lar and appealing character. I mean that he
was not a wit and raconteur as Wilson was,
and did not attract the following of the ' boys '
as Wilson did.

"I recall when he was candidating for his
first nomination as judge we had a protracted
contest. Wilson could corral the delegates
and entertain them so they would shout with
glee, while Olmsted could only retreat to some
place where unsavory fragments of the stories
could not offend his ears. When the vote
was counted, however, it was found that
Wilson had only the 'hurrahs;' Olmsted had
the votes.

"Judge Olmsted's career was successful and
honorable as a man, a citizen, a lawyer and a
judge, and affords an example for us all."

In the memorial resolutions adopted by the
Potter County bar, this passage occurs:

"In all the traditions of his successes, his
singular resourcefulness, shrewdness, and abil-
ity, and his instant grasp of every legitimate
advantage in the practice of law, there is no
hint or insinuation of any action on his part
not in strict accord with the highest ethics of
the profession. His former associates always
commented upon the wonderful accuracy with

AS LAWYER AND JUDGE 213

which he forecast the procedure of his
adversary,'*

So also the bar of the City of Bradford, in
its resolutions, declares that

"In the culminating period of his practice
at the bar, no lawyer in Western Pennsylvania
was considered more effective before a jury
or in the argument of questions of law."

The following is the estimate of a cotem-
porary journalist:^

"As a lawyer he was keen, analytical, tact-
ful and resourceful. In those early years
'decided cases' had not so thoroughly out-
lined the legal practice as at the present time,
and the legal practitioner was often compelled
to resort to reason and logic, to supply the
place of the judicially determined law, to win
his cases. His ready wit and keen insight into
human character made him a formidable
opponent and a successful trial lawyer. The
great number and variety of suits arising out
of early oil operations in McKean and War-
ren counties gave full opportunity for a dis-
play of his legal learning and ability, and he
was engaged in nearly every important suit
of that busy and litigious period. Often
hundreds of thousands of dollars hung in the

' Potter Journal, September 23, 1914

214 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

balance in suits where the skilful turning of a
legal hair decided the matter in controversy.
He was constantly in contact with many of
the highest legal minds of the state, but
never at a disadvantage or discredit to him-
self. He was strong, not only with the
court, but also before the jury. He was
recognized as one of the most capable advo-
cates in the state. The chief element of his
success before both judge and jury was his
conservatism. He never made a statement
to either judge or jury that he had not first
convinced himself was strictly true. His
appeals were to the reason rather than to
the passions. Apparently trivial incidents in
a case were so tactfully handled as to become
the turning point in many a legal battle.
His practice extended over Potter, McKean
and Cameron counties, often reaching into
other courts in occasional important cases."

Judge Olmsted enjoyed the relaxation from
the strain of political excitement and public
service. In the service of his country and
his commonwealth he had well-nigh given his
life. For the highest measure of success in
civil life the physical powers are requisite
which are demanded for military service.
The impairment of his health was a matter of
grave solicitude to his friends throughout the

AS LAWYER AND JUDGE 215

stale, often manifested in their correspon-
dence. He was glad to take up the responsi-
bilities and duties of common citizenship, and
to enjoy its varied compensations. It pleased
him to have thrust upon him, as it were, the
appointment of street commissioner,^ and he
undertook the duties with much zeal and char-
acteristic efficiency. The soldiers' monument
subscription had flagged in his absence. He
resumed responsibility for it, and in due time
published, over his own signature, a carefully
itemized account of receipts and expenditures.
The subscription list included the names of
Peter Herdic, Judge Williams, Judge Wilson,
M. E. Olmsted, Captain J. C. Johnson, Col.
W. Dwight, Stebbins, Mann, Jones, Ross,
Knox, Ormerod, and many others. Up to
that time the work had cost $1,177.21. The
excess of payments over receipts was $248.95.
The contract was let to Joseph Schwartzen-
burg for $750.00, but the price was inadequate.
*'It cost at least one hundred dollars," says
the report, *'to move the three large stones
from the quarries to the place where they were
finally dressed. This work was generously
done by farmers in the vicinity, who had

» Potter Journal, March 11. 1875.

216 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

suitable teams, without charge." The initial
meeting in this public enterprise was held
September 20, 1869, at which time the project
was put in the hands of a committee of four:
Captain Kinney, Captain Horton, Hon.
Arthur G. Olmsted and S. S. Greenman. The
memorial column was raised December 20,
1874, but it was. not until April, 1887, that
the statue of a soldier was placed on the
shaft.

During all these years there was no relin-
quishment of the railroad project which was
to connect Coudersport with the civilized
world, and bring to the inhabitants of the
county the blessings and advantages which
its means of development would afford. Judge
Olmsted was still the central figure at the
hearthstone within which the fire of this
purpose was kept burning. At a meeting of
the stockholders of the Jersey Shore, Pine
Creek and Buffalo Railway Company, held
January 14, 1878, John S. Ross was elected
president, and Arthur G. Olmsted, Arch F.
Jones, Charles H. Armstrong, Pierre A. Steb-
bins, Jr., William K. Jones and D. C. Larrabee
were elected directors. Between Jersey Shore
and Coudersport the project had become

AS LAWYER AND JUDGE 217

stalled. The Reading Railroad Company,
which had assisted, withdrew its co-operation,
and in 1876 work had ceased. Attention was
finally directed to securing by an independent
movement the right of way between Couders-
port and Port Allegany.

About this time, in the winter of 1879, the
Tidewater Pipe Line Company established a
telegraph office at Coudersport. The Phila-
delphia Record, in its issue of the 20th of
February, said:

"We welcome the people of Coudersport
into the electric circle that holds the world
together in quick intelligence."

The Potter Journal^ in a little later issue
(March 6), hailing this achievement, reviews
the steps of progress since its establishment in
1848, when there was neither railroad nor
telegraph nearer than Hornellsville, a distance
of fifty -four miles. On the 12 th day of
February, 1851, the cars ran through to Cuba,
and soon after a daily stage was started,
and the mail was carried six times a week
thenceforward between Wellsville and
Coudersport. It mentions the completion of
the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad to Em-

218 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

porium in October, 1863, soon after which a
daily mail was carried between Emporium and
Coudersport. The Buffalo, New York and
Philadelphia was completed January 1, 1873,
from Emporium to Buffalo.

"These progressive steps," said the Journal
"have all worked great improvements in this
coimty, and taken all together have reduced
the price of goods in Coudersport at least
fifty per cent, and have added that much to
the comfort of living here."

Noting the completion of the Tidewater
telegraph line through to Williamsport, it
proceeds to say:

"The pipe line which is being pushed with
great vigor is soon to follow, and then we hope
the crowning step — the railroad! Why not?
Is there not as much undeveloped wealth
waiting for the railroad to give it activity, as
for the pipe line?"

In 1881 George Magee and his associates
had come into control of the right of way
between Coudersport and Port Allegany, and
Judge Olmsted, together with F. W. Knox,
having organized sufficient capital among the
citizens of Coudersport, Olean and Smethport,

AS LAWYER AND JUDGE 219

negotiated with Magee for the right of way,
and finally consummated the purchase.
Thereupon they procured incorporation first
as the Coudersport and Olean Railroad Com-
pany, but afterwards changed the name to
Coudersport and Port Allegany Railroad
Company. Eight directors were chosen,
namely: F. W. Knox, president, Arthur G.
Olmsted, Isaac Benson, F. H. Root of
Buffalo, A. M. Benton of Port Allegany, B. D.
Hamlin of Smethport, C. S. Cary and C. V. B.
Barse of Olean, and F. H. Arnot of Elmira.
The road was constructed, and on the 26th day
of September, 1882, the first passenger train
ran over it from Port Allegany to Coudersport.
The great enterprise which had so long
engaged the hopes and fears of the people of
Potter County had at last been consummated.
Further development of railroad lines
through the county came in rapid sequence
by logical stages. The conversion of the
great forests into lumber and chemical wood
necessitated the establishment of mills and
factories of immense capacity, particularly at
Austin and Galeton, and the extension to them
of railroad facilities. The discovery of natural
gas and petroleum along the western border

220 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

of the county, where the timber had already
been depleted, afforded a considerable re-
inforcement of the material resources of the
county now being rapidly developed. The
prediction of Judge Olmsted, addressing the
Pennsylvania Senate, of the disclosure of
unbounded natural wealth, is being verified.
The population of Coudersport, which in 1880
was less than seven hundred, rapidly ran up
to more than three thousand. So throughout
the county new towns have been established,
and old towns have prospered. The enter-
prise of the citizens of the county seat under
the quickening hand of Judge Olmsted kept
pace with the public need. Thus, in 1882,
together with F. W. Knox and R. L. Nichols,
he organized the Citizens' Water Company for
the supply of water to the inhabitants. The
need of such a supply, not only for domestic
uses, but also for fire service, had been
keenly felt, for, in 1880, on the 25th of May,
the business center of the borough was fire-
swept, three whole squares having been de-
stroyed, including blocks of stores on Main
Street and on both sides of Second Street.
The oflSce of Olmsted and Larrabee on Second
Street was burned. They found temporary

AS LAWYER AND JUDGE 221

desk-room in the sheriff's office in the court-
house.

The time came when the inhabitants of
Coudersport were eager to enjoy the advan-
tages of natural gas for light and fuel.
Through the efforts of Judge Olmsted, W. I.
Lewis and others, a natural gas company was
organized and incorporated, of which Judge
Olmsted was chosen president, and by means
of which the inhabitants of the borough were
afterwards supplied with natural gas.

Throughout this period of his political
inactivity, Judge Olmsted's counsel was occa-
sionally sought respecting party policy. Once
when factional division became threatening
and the forthcoming state convention prom-
ised to be turbulent, an exigency requiring
the services of a veteran parliamentarian,
cool, impartial, experienced, skilful — ^he
yielded to the call, and presided over the
convention with distinction and success. The
interval of eight years succeeding the disas-
trous canvass of 1874 enabled Judge Olmsted
to carry through the railroad project upon
which he had set his heart, and bring to a
consummation other matters affecting public
interests, as well as his own.

222 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

In 1882 he succeeded Hon. Stephen F.
Wilson as additional law judge of the fourth
judicial district, composed of Potter, Tioga,
McKean and Cameron, and the following
year, upon a reapportionment, he became pre-
sident judge of the forty-eighth district, com-
posed of the counties of McKean and Potter.
In 1892 he was re-elected and by subsequent
re-apportionment Potter was created an inde-
pendent district, of which he became president
judge. His second term expired in 1902.
Hence his services on the bench were con-
tinuous for a period of twenty years, during
which exactly one hundred volumes (102d
to 202d) of Supreme Court Reports were
issued. Comparatively few appeals were
taken from his decisions, and he was rarely
reversed. Among the appealed cases most
frequently cited were the following:

Jones vs. Backus, 114 Pa., 120;
Short vs. Miller, 120 Pa., 470;
Taylor vs. Wright, 126 Pa., 617;
Gates vs. Watt, 127 Pa., 20;
Pullman vs. Smith, 135 Pa., 188;
Titus vs. Railroad Co., 136 Pa., 618;
Edgett vs. Douglas, 144 Pa., 95;
Genesee-Fork Imp. Co. vs. Ivers, 144 Pa.,
114;

AS LAWYER AND JUDGE 223

Wilmoth vs. Hensel, 151 Pa,, 200;

Goodyear vs. Brown, 155 Pa., 514;

Warren Gas Light Co. vs. Penna. Gas Co.,
161 Pa., 510;

Strong, Deemer & Co. vs. Dininney, 175 Pa.,
586;

National Transit Co. vs. Pipe Line Co.,
180 Pa., 224;

Miller vs. Bradford, 186 Pa., 164;

Western New York & Penna. R. R. Co. vs.
Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Ry. Co.,
186 Pa., 212.

Other cases came to trial which at the
time were regarded as of transcendent impor-
tance. About the year 1890 a series of eject-
ments were instituted in McKean, Elk and
Cameron counties, wherein the McKean and
Elk Land and Improvement Company, of
which the venerable Hon. Henry M. Watts,
formerly Supreme Court reporter, and later
United States Minister to Russia, was then
president, was plaintiff, and William Hacker
and Harry G. Clay, prominent citizens of
Philadelphia, were defendants. These suits
were brought to recover large tracts of land
whose value, by reason of the discovery of
oil and gas in the vicinity, had risen to great
magnitude. The first of the series was tried

224 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

at Smethport. Judge Olmsted presided. Dis-
tinguished non-resident lawyers were present
and took part in the trial, including Franklin
B. Go wen and William W. Wiltbank of
Philadelphia (and later George A. Jenks of
Brookville), for the plaintiff, and John G.
Johnson and E. Hunn Hanson of Philadel-
phia, M. F. Elliott of Wellsboro and C. H.
McCauley of Ridgway, for the defendants.
Verdict was entered for the defendants. The
second case was tried at Ridgway before Judge
Charles A. Mayer, with like result. Upon
appeal from the Elk County judgment the
decision was affirmed. Incidentally, this
determination was a judicial vindication of
the course of General Thomas L. Kane in the
transactions involved.

The divorce proceeding of Theodore N.
Barnsdall (reported in 171 Pa., 625), also tried
before Judge Olmsted, at Smethport, in which
numerous able lawyers were employed, at-
tracted wide attention, chiefly because of the
prominence of the plaintiff in business circles,
his reputation as a pioneer oil producer and
later as the most extensive individual operator
in the United States. The litigation resulted
in a verdict for the defendant, and the

AS LAWYER AND JUDGE 225

decision rendered lost its value as a precedent
by reason of a supplemental enactment pend-
ing the appeal.

The late Hon. Thomas A. Morrison, a judge
of the Superior Court, and for several years
officially associated with Judge Olmsted as
additional law judge, in an admirable remi-
niscent address, spoke as follows:

"My first personal acquaintance began
with Judge Olmsted early in the year 1880,
although I knew him well by reputation as a
distinguished lawyer and legislator for many
years. During all my intimate relations
with Judge Olmsted as a lawyer and judge,
I never discovered any wavering on his part
from a desire to discharge his duty in a just
and equitable manner on all occasions. The
friendship that existed between him and me
extended over many years, and while occasion-
ally we differed upon legal questions, there
never was to my knowledge the slightest
interruption of the warm friendship that
existed between us. When we could not
agree as to the law governing a case, we were
always able to agree that the one who ought
to decide the case should proceed with it, and
if the counsel desired to except, we always
gave him that privilege so that he could carry
his case to the Supreme Court and have it

226 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

determined by that body. I am confident
that nobody ever heard Judge Ohnsted criti-
cise any judicial action on my part, and I
am sure that I never said anything reflecting
on Judge Ohnsted's great ability and judicial
fairness. I have already indicated that I
regarded Judge Olmsted as a very remarkable
man; I consider that he had one of the finest
minds of any man whose personal acquaintance
I was privileged to form. He was a close
thinker, and one of the clearest reasoners on
the bench in Pennsylvania. His mind
always seemed to seek for the correct solu-
tion of every question that came before him
judicially."

Near the close of his judicial career, his
**home paper," the Journal,^ said of Judge
Olmsted :

"The retirement at the end of his term was
with the approving plaudit of the people of his
district as having been an honest, fearless,
capable and upright judge. Soon after his
accession to the bench he came to be recog-
nized as one of the most capable judges in the
commonwealth. His legal opinions were
quoted with high respect throughout the
courts of the state, and in the Supreme Court
they were received with notable considera-
tion. He suflfered as few reversals, in propor-

' FotUr JoumaL

AS LAWYER AND JUDGE 227

tion to the litigation, as any judge in the
state. His despatch of the business of the
courts became particularly marked. He
caught legal propositions quickly, and was
prompt and decisive in his rulings, and vigor-
ous in the disposition of business. He held
the respect of the entire bar, and his rulings
were gracefully received. In all his decisions
in which judicial discretion was exercised, his
rulings were invariably in the interest of
public morals and the uplifting of society."

The bar of the district during the respective
terms of Judge Olmsted's judicial service, as
well as in the preceding period of his practice,
was of superior rank. McKean County was
the first to be developed, and the richest in
resources of the counties of the Northern Oil
District of Pennsylvania. Titles began to be
contested, and transfers and contracts to
multiply until litigation of importance arose,
and the court-room at the stated terms was
fairly crowded. Lawyers of distinction from
other counties came not infrequently, particu-
larly on the opening days of the terms. C. B.
Curtis and Ross Thompson came from Erie,
Brawley and Douglas from Meadville, Roger
Sherman from Titusville, Mason from Mercer,
Hancock, Lee and Osmer from Franklin,

228 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

Rasselas Brown, C. W. Stone and W. D.
Brown from Warren, George A. Jenks from
Brookville, John G. Hall from Ridgway, M. F.
Elliott from Wellsboro, and C. S. Gary from
Olean. The McKean bar was itself exception-
ally strong, including, among others, Byron
D. Hamlin, John C. Backus, David Sterrett,
Henry King, E. R. Mayo, Thomas A. Morri-
son, E. L. Keenan, J. W. Bouton, Sheridan
Gorton and John Apple, of Smethport; George
A. Berry, N. B. Smiley, A. Leo Weil, W. J.
Milliken, Eugene Mullin, W. B. Chapman
and J. M. McClure, of Bradford; John E.
Mullin, of Kane; S. W. Smith, of Port Alle-
gany; W. E. Burdick, of Duke Center,
and P. R. Cotter, of Eldred. It is probable
that there were notable days within Judge
Olmsted's recollection when there were more
lawyers of distinction in the court-room
at Smethport than were ever assembled
at one time in the court-room of any other
district court in the commonwealth.

The Potter bar during the same period
included, among others, D. C. Larrabee,
H. C. Dornan, W. I. Lewis, W. F. DuBois,
W. K. Swetland, John Ormerod, Fred C.
Leonard, A. S. Heck and Newton Peck.

AS LAWYER AND JUDGE 229

To have so presided in the respective courts
of a district of such considerable importance,
during a period of its development of such
historical consequence, as to win at the end
the unqualified commendation of the members
of its bar, was the fittest crowning of Judge
Olmsted's judicial service.

When the opportunity came to the bar of
Potter County, it thus placed its estimate upon
his judicial career:

"His judicial experience was state-wide,
as was his reputation as an upright and able
jurist. During more than a quarter of a cen-
tury of continuous judicial service, it became
his duty to pass upon many principles there-
tofore judicially undetermined, and the large
number of leading cases in which his judg-
ment was confirmed by the appellate courts
evinces the clarity of mind with which he
applied the fundamental principles of justice
to such questions.

"He was quick to appreciate the essen-
tials involved in any litigation, or to draft
the intent and weigh the merit of a legal
argument. The fact that during his entire
judicial career, no improper motive was
attributed to any judicial act of his even by
disappointed litigants, indicates the contem-
poraneous recognition given his strict integ-

230 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

rity, not only in his judicial capacity, but also
in his private affairs."

The bar of McKean gave its concurrent
expression:

"His wide learning," said the resolutions,
"his clear mind, his unblemished integrity,
raised him to eminence among the judges of
the commonwealth, and among the ablest and
most honored of those judges he ranked as a
distinguished peer."

Not less affirmative was the testimonial of
the bar of the City of Bradford :

"He was invariably patient, conscientious,
able and learned. The trials which he con-
ducted were often illuminated by jQashes of
humor of which he had a fine appreciation."

In a recent address W. J. Milliken, Esquire,
has spoken of Judge Olmsted's conservative
caution :

"This did not spring," said he, "from self-
distrust, nor from mere timidity, but from his
trained habit of careful investigation, which
sought to know whether propositions ad-
vanced, or conditions asserted to exist, had
any true foundation, either in fact or prin-
ciple. Though a thing seemed plausible,
whether in law or anything else, it did not

AS LAWYER AND JUDGE 231

gain his acceptance without rigorous demon-
stration. In all things his sympathies and
feelings were made subordinate to his reason."

He presided over the court with true
dignity, without ostentation, oblivious to the
galleries. The prosaic procedure of the court-
room was often enlivened by his quaint humor.
Intense situations were relieved by it. To a
lawyer who urged that on a former hearing of
the case he had forcibly argued his present
contention, the Judge dryly interjected:

"I remember the argument, but I do not
remember the force."

To a grand juror begging to be excused from
attendance because of his deafness in one ear,
the Judge replied :

"You will do. You are only to hear one
side of the case."

The bar repeatedly sought to do him honor
at banquet or reception, but he always eluded
it. Whenever caught for an after-dinner
speech, he spoke with grace and fluency and
wit becoming the occasion, but he was known
to light his cigar and walk out before he could
be called upon.

232 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

The duties of the bench were not distateful
to him, although their responsibility he keenly
felt. He appeared to have no ambition for a
seat in either of the appellate courts. It is
doubtful whether he would have enjoyed a
position where his strong individuality would
have been measurably tempered or in some
degree restrained. He seconded no move-
ment in that direction, although once or
twice it was put on foot without his instigation.
Particularly when a vacancy on the Supreme
bench was caused by the death of Justice
Williams, the Bradford Evening Star^ men-
tioned Judge Olmsted as "eminently quali-
fied," and added that his appointment would
be *'a strong acquisition to the bench of the
highest court. He has figured prominently in
state affairs, and his reputation as an able and
impartial jurist extends from one end of the
commonwealth to the other." The Port
Allegany Reporter and Austin Autograph
commended the suggestion. Other papers
in the same quarter of the state expressed
regret that his illness might preclude the
merited honor.

> Bradford Evening Slar, January 80, 1899.

AS LAWYER AND JUDGE 233

In fact, his health was not equal to the
strain which the duties of such a position
would have exacted. As his judicial service
came to a close, he fairly coveted the relaxa-
tion of private life. He was then seventy -five
years of age. He might say, with Emerson:

" It is time to be old.
To take in sail: —
The god of bounds,
Who sets to seas a shore
Came to me in his fatal rounds,
And said: No more!"

CHAPTER XIII

Rounding the Years

E was entering upon the period of
retrospection.

"Coming into the county as a boy,"
observes an editorial neighbor/ "when it was
new, his life has been a part of its history and
occupies a conspicuous place in it. He knew
the county when it was little more than a
wilderness, its citizens suffering all the incon-
veniences and trials of the backwood's settler
life. He knew their privations and sympa-
thized with their hardships. He has lived to
see all the early settlers pass into the Great
Beyond, and the rugged forests change into
beautiful fertile farms. He has witnessed the
passing of the log cabin and seen it replaced
with neat, comfortable homes. He is the
last remaining member of the old Potter bar
which was composed of as vigorous and active
class of men as were to be found in the pro-
fession anywhere."

In the language of another journalist writing
at the time:

> Potter Journal

(234)

ROUNDING THE YEARS 235

"He knows every hill and dale, and it is
given to him to know the people as few people
know them. He knew the rugged pioneers
who conquered the wilderness, and their joys
and sorrows were an open book.**^

His judicial duties had not taken him very
far, nor often, from his own fireside, and had
comported better with his physical condition
than would the duties of political leadership,
involving, perhaps, congressional service.
When the time was opportune for such
service, he had felt unequal to the test which
it would have put upon his impaired vitality.
In the national arena he would have added
new luster to the statesmanship of the
Northern Tier. It has already much to its
credit. It has been the nursery of great
cardinal governmental policies.

First, the Free School System. A third of a
century before the State of New York estab-
lished such system, the Connecticut settlers of
the Wyoming Valley^ under the leadership of
Timothy Pickering,^ a delegate in the Consti-

'Bolivar Breeze.

' Three shares of land were set apart, one for the maintenance of public schools,
another for the erection of a meeting-nouse, and a. third for the support of a minister .
— Matthews on Expansion of New England.

• Wickersham's History of Education in Pennsylvania, 259. Timothy Pickering,
Postmaster General, Secretary of War, Secretary of State, took a Connecticut title,
as Ethan Allen did, but he wisely foresaw the ultimate supremacy of Pennsylvania,

236 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

tutional Convention of 1790, who had brought
from Massachusetts to Wyoming the germ of
its policy, successfully resisted Thomas
McKean, who, at a critical juncture, although
a powerful friend of the cause of education,
mistakenly sought to restrict the public schools
to the indigent; and thus the system in
Pennsylvania was early planted upon a broad
and enduring foundation.

Second, the Wilmot Proviso. This prop-
osition, of which David Wilmot^ was the
recognized sponsor and able champion, if not
the author, became the rock upon which polit-
ical parties were wrecked and the country
divided — a division which resulted in civil
war and eventually in the abolition of
slavery.

and exerted his distinguished ability to procure effective compromise legislation.
He lived at Wilkes-Barre for several years prior to his summons to Washington's
cabinet. The dwelUng house which he built and occupied on South Main Street
is still standing and little changed. On his return from Washington in 1800, he
retired to his farm in Susquehanna County, which he named Harmony (Lanesboro),
and while engaged in clearing it lived in a primitive log-house. When John Adams
came to the Presidency he preferred another for the office of Secretary of State.
Estrangement grew into dislike and the cjuarrel resulted in the retirement of Adams
from public life. On the contrary Pickering's friends urged hig return to Massa-
chusetts from which state he was ultimately elected to the United States Senate.
Criticising the statement of Adams (in 1809) that "Great Britain is the natural
enemy of the United States," Pickering with great courage and almost prophetic
wisdom expressed himself as follows:

"A new reason now urges the United States to maintain a friendly connexion
with Great-Britain: Hers is the only free and independent country in Europe; and
Ours the only other country in the World in a condition to cooperate with Britain
in sustaining the cause of Liberty on the Earth."

I Son of Randall Wilmot, of Woodbridge, Connecticut, and hereinbefore men-
tioned.

ROUNDING THE YEARS 237

Third, the Homestead Law.* Controversy
over the titles of the Connecticut claimants,
incidental adjudication, and ultimate recogni-
tion of their homestead rights, and the incor-
poration of the principle involved into the
law of the commonwealth, generated under
the championship of Galusha A. Grow^ a like,
though broader, homestead policy for the
general government.

There are national exigencies, too, such as
the existence of war, when congressional
leaders are demanded, of rare wisdom, saga-
city, patriotism, and in such time of need the
Northern Tier has not failed to respond.
Glenni W. Scofield,^ second only to Thaddeus
Stevens, led the Pennsylvania delegation dur-
ing the contest between the North and the

1 It is to be noted that eleven years before the Homestead Law was enacted by
Congress, the Potter County^ pioneers in their Free Soil Convention of 1851, herein-
before mentioned, declared in favor of "land reform" in its broadest sense, that
every familjr may have a home exempt from levy and sale by execution."

* Born in Ashford, Windham County, Connecticut. " A man who has con-
tributed, as Galusha Grow has, to the lasting welfare of millions, is entitled to the
gratitude, not only of his country, but of the world." — John Hay.

When the late Czar of Russia was asked by General Nelson A. Miles what he
intended to do with Siberia upon the completion of the East and West Railroad,
ECs Majesty replied:

" We intend to do with it what your great statesman, Mr. Grow, did
with the public domain of the United States. In due time we shall give it
to the people, because we are convinced that the Homestead Law is the
most valuable enactment ever placed on the statute books of nations. "
' Son of Darius Schofield, of Stamford, Connecticut.^ Judge Scofield represented
in Congress the Warren- Venango district of Pennsylvania for twelve years, covering
the period of the Civil_ War, during which he was chairman of the Committee on
Naval Affairs. Referring to instances of promotion from the House to the Senate
and to the Cabinet of members who had been prominent in the debate upon the
Xlllth Constitutional Amendment, Seilhamer says: But Glenni W. Scofield and
M. Russell Thayer, being Pennsylvanians, went unrewarded of the higher prefer-

238 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

South, and Charles W. Stone^ held no lower
place of influence during the Spanish-American
War. But there was an era in the history of
these counties when they had a cause without
a leader, and their cause lingered and suffered
in consequence. In the category it may be
designated as follows:

Fourth, Corporation Restraint. It was in
the oil region of Pennsylvania, particularly
the northwestern counties of McKean, Craw-
ford and Venango, that a popular revolt first
occurred against corporate aggression. It
arose in the first instance by reason of freight
discrimination in favor of the Standard Oil
Company, and became more and more intense
as corporations multiplied, combined and
coalesced into obnoxious trusts. A delegation
was sent to Washington, and the attention
of Roscoe Conkling, the distinguished Senator

tnent that Pennsylvania has always denied to her ablest men in the House." —
Hist. Rep. Party, 171.

• A native of Groton, Massachusetts, first Republican Lieutenant-Governor
of Pennsylvania, Senator and Representative, Secretary of the Commonwealth.
He represented in Congress the district, including Warren, from 1890 to 1899. He
was chairman of the Committee on Coinage, Weights and Measures during the
free silver agitation. He was repeatedly mentioned for the oflBce of Governor.
Senator Quay opposed his nomination, and in the Republican convention of 1890
sacrificed the election to prevent it. The candidate whom he named suffered an
anticipated defeat at the polls. In the convention of 1894 Stone's nomination was
prevented by a change of seven votes after the arrival of Quay. Farmer Governor
Pennypacker, in his Autobiography (p. 323), relates that when the name of a dis-
tinguished jurist was suggested for promotion to the Supreme Bench Quay said,
"No, I will oppose him. He is one of those Yankees from around Wilkesbarre, and
you cannot trust one of them." It was not Senator Quay's habit to be looking for
leaders, but always for followers. He and they constituted The Organization.

WiLMOT

Grow

ROUNDING THE YEARS 239

from New York, was engaged. Some forma-
tive progress was made. It was at this
juncture that the movement called for its
own representative in Congress, one having
the ability, the legal knowledge, the legisla-
tive experience and parliamentary skill of
Arthur G. Olmsted. He seemed born for the
mission, trained for the crisis, the man for
the hour. Under such leadership, springing
from the body of the people under oppression,
and yet possessing in large measure the con-
fidence of corporate interests, appropriate
constructive measures might have been de-
vised, which, while effective for the primary-
purpose, would yet have been less destructive
and grinding in their operation. But the
leader which the times indicated, and whom
the course of events had thus selected, was
unable to respond. The cause of the people
was passed on to Senator John Sherman, of
Ohio, of like Hartford and Essex ancestry,
who, by a single act, laid the foundation for
a new governmental policy toward corpora-
tions. But it was like a seed that is planted
and left for years to germinate.

Judge Olmsted's private affairs now de-
manded undivided attention. His invest-

240 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

ments had become large and varied. They
included material interests in the South, as
well as in corporate and kindred enterprises
in his own county. Besides, he had made
many loans to farmers and mechanics, in and
near Coudersport, to whom he gave at need
numerous renewals and extensions.^ He had
meditated, too, upon certain projects of
advantage to the community at Coudersport.
In 1890 he had presented the Coudersport
fire department with a hose-cart. In 1895
two hose companies were organized and
chartered, one in the first ward to be known
as A. G. Olmsted Hose Company. In 1905
he began the erection of the present fire
station which, costing when completed $4,000,
together with the equipment costing $551.00,
he, on the 17th day of August, 1905, presented
to the fire department. Another institu-
tion, in the organization of which Judge
Olmsted was instrumental, is the Citizens'
Trust Company, a company which, from its
nature, its powers under the law, is calculated
to be of much service to the community, and
to be an important instrumentality in the

> Observing that his will directed that no inventory should be filed, Judge Ham-
lin said he doubted not that it was because Judge Olmsted did not wish it to be
known how many liens he had lost by indulgence.

ROUNDING THE YEARS 241

material advancement of the county. A
condensed milk factory was organized in
1900, of which Judge Olmsted was chosen
president; J. Newton Peck, vice-president;
M. S. Thompson, treasurer, and A. B. Mann,
secretary. Judge Olmsted had builded for
the borough and the county better than he
knew. He never spoke of anything he had
done as in the nature of a benefaction to the
community, nor, in fact, looked back to see
what he had accomplished. He would not
willingly have listened to the enumeration:
the railroad that opened up the wilderness,
the telegraph, the library, the soldiers' monu-
ment, the water supply, the gas supply, the
fire protection, the trust company. Besides
his very life had been a public service, in the
cause of freedom, of temperance, for the
Union, in the House, in the Senate, on the
bench. The county had been his companion.
They were young together. He had kept step
with it. It had grown old along with him.
Its hundredth anniversary approached. He
may have urged its recognition, and willingly
taken some minor part in promoting its cele-
bration. But it was not for him to speak the
praises of the century. To the gathered

242 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

multitude on the tenth day of August, 1904,
President Colcord fitly said:

"The voice of a hundred years has called
to the people of Potter County, bidding them
pause for a brief while and take note of the
flight of centuries;"

and then he introduced Hon. Marlin E.
Olmsted, LL.D.,^ of Harrisburg, as the anni-
versary orator, saying:

"I shall introduce him as a Potter County
boy, who from this humble village went out
into the world in early life to seek his fortune,
and as we listen to his voice this afternoon, we
will not forget that that voice in the halls of
Congress, and in the councils of the nation,
commands respectful attention from the fore-
most statesmen of America.'*

The oration which followed was replete
with historical incident. It narrated the
purchase of 1784 from the Six Nations of all
this region for $5,000 and the later purchase of
the same lands from the Wyandot and

' A biographical sketch of the speaker in Genealogy of the Olmsted Family in
America says, inter alia: "In 1869 he was, through the influence of Senator Olm- •
sted, tendered a position in the State Treasury, but the then State Treasurer, Robert
W. Mackey, learning of his youth and inexperience, traded him off, as it were, to
Auditor General Hartranft, in whose office he rose to the responsible position of
Corporation Clerk, re-drafted the general revenue laws, afterwards entered upon the
stuoy of law; was admitted to practice, rapidly rose in his profession, was elected to
Congress and reelected, attaining high distinction as a legislator and parliamen-
tarian.

ROUNDING THE YEARS 243

Delaware tribes for $2,000, and how the deed
was signed by the sachems, Half King, Sweat
House, the Pipe, the Present, the Council
Door, the Big Cat, The Twistmg Vine, The
Volunteer, The Desire of All, with their own
peculiar devices, such as a bow and arrow, a
spear, intertwining vines. He mentioned the
fact that when the act of January 13, 1804,
was passed creating the present counties of
Potter, McKean, Jefiferson, Clearfield, Tioga
and Cambria, the legislature was in session
at Lancaster. As the act passed the House,
the county of Potter bore the beautiful Indian
name Sinnemahoning, and it was proposed to
substitute Potter for the name of McKean, but
in perfecting the measure Sinnemahoning was
sent back to its own wild waters, gathered
from its sources in both counties, singing its
way to the Susquehanna.

"When," said the orator, "The legislature
of 1804 promised the future settlers that a
part of the sovereign power of the state should
be theirs to exercise, it had faith that the
hardy pioneers who should first cultivate these
beautiful and fertile valleys, breathe this pure
air, imbibe these crystal waters and drink in
the spirit of freedom among these hills, would

244 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

be men in whom that trust might be safely
reposed. Most gloriously has that confidence
been justified. No country was ever won from
the wilds by men more deserving or more
patriotic than those who, from that remarkable

SoTJHCES OF Population
Potter and McKean were settled by three streams of immigra-
tion (a) from the old Wyoming district, (b) from New York and New
England, following Wayne's victory and Indian treaty of 1795,
(c) Scotch-Irish and Quakers from Philadelphia and the West Branch,
including Fair-Play Men.* The countries west of the Allegheny,
Warren, Crawford, Erie, Mercer and Venango received their early
settlers from the same sources in the same decade.*

1 For many years some doubt existed whether the Indian name Tiadaghton was
intended to identify Lycoming Creelt or Pine Creek aa a boundary under the purchase
of 1768, and white settlements were consequently made on the rich lands between.
These settlements were repudiated by the government at Philadelphia. There-
upon the settlers organized their own government under the name of Fair Play Men,
electing a committee of three to arbitrate all differences. They held their ground
until a decision was obtained in their favor. _ Itis an interesting historical incident
that, having learned from the East of a growing inclination towards a declaration of
independence, the Fair-Play Men determined upon the same course,^ and having
assembled on the plains above Pine Creek, on the 4th of July, 1776, without means
of knowledge of the actual events of the day in Philadelphia, adopteda resolutioB
renouncing allegiance to Great Britain and declaring themselves free and independent.

' The superior Nordic type, represented by these several strains, which thus
peopled the Northern Tier, although since somewhat^ depleted by war, has prob-
ably suffered less deterioration here than in other sections of the Commonwealth.
Moreover, in the last half of the nineteenth century it was reinforced by a con-
siderable influx from Scandinavian countries, which are now, says the ethnologist,
Madison Grant, " as they have been for thousands of years, the chief nursery and
broodland of the master race."

ROUNDING THE YEARS 245

beginning, have made Potter County what it is
today. Though not blessed with an over-
abundance of this world's goods, they were, in
the main, educated, sturdy, intelligent, fear-
less, liberty-loving, law-abiding, God-fearing
men. They had religious services before they
had church edifices, and even before they had
preachers; and realizing the value of educa-
tion, they had classes and schools before they
could afford schoolhouses."

The speaker mentioned instances of legisla-
tion peculiar to the times. Upon the day that
the Governor approved the act locating
Coudersport, he also signed one making
squirrel and crow scalps receivable for taxes.
Later the commissioners of Potter County
were authorized to pay fifty cents for fox and
seventy-five cents for wolf scalps, and still
later twenty-five dollars for a full grown wolf
and half price for puppies; sixteen dollars for
a panther and nine dollars for puppies.
Touching salient points in the county's his-
tory, the orator finally reached the great
county railroad enterprise, the Coudersport
and Port Allegany, which he pronounced *'a
monument to the wisdom and patriotism of
its promoters and of untold value and impor-
tance to the county."

246 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

"Its first effect," said he, "was to encourage
the manufacture of lumber at home. This
was greatly increaseb when Frank H. Good-
year, having from *The Lookout' conceived
the idea of hauling that great forest in manu-
factured form, up hill, to Keating Smnmit and
thence to Buffalo, built the Sinnemahoning
Valley Railroad from 'Squire Austin's house to
Keating Summit. It was six miles long, and,
as he delights to say, *all under one manage-
ment.' It is related that a lady passenger
on one of the first trains said she could get off
and walk faster. Asked by the conductor why
she did not, she replied that she would, except
that her folks would not be expecting her so
soon. The business in connection with that
little railroad became so extensive that the
owner induced his brother, C. W. Goodyear,
then a prominent young Buffalo lawyer, to
join him in the enterprise. Together they
have extended it into a great system, with
eight or ten millions of stocks and bonds, and
nearly two hundred miles of railroad, which
will soon afford another outlet to Buffalo.
And they have caused great mills to be erected
along its line so that the logs which would
otherwise have been floated to the Williams-
port boom, have been manufactured at home.
The wealth and business interests of the county
have been thereby vastly increased, and
'Squire Austin's farm,' which, twenty years

ROUNDING THE YEARS 247

ago, stood in the wilderness, is now covered with
dwellings, stores and churches. If the promo-
ters have made great fortunes for themselves,
they have also done much for the county."

The oration concluded as follows:

"As the headwaters of the Genesee, the Sus-
quehanna and the Allegheny, springing from
that wonderful watershed in Allegheny and
Ulysses townships, and flowing, respectively,
northward to the St. Lawrence, southward to
the Chesapeake, and yet further south to the
Gulf of Mexico, refresh many counties and
many states, and, uniting with other streams,
form mighty rivers bearing many burdens and
turning many wheels, until, at length, they
pour into the ocean and help to bear the
mightiest vessels, so the love of liberty and of
country and the unalterable sentiments of
loyalty and devotion ever present, and ever
forming, among the old green hills of Potter,
will continually flow forth and, joining with
and encouraging similar streams from every
part of this fair land, help to swell the great
and everlasting ocean of national patriotism
upon which our Ship of State may ever safely
ride, while 'Old Glory,' now proudly and
peacefully waving over forty-five states and a
myriad of islands on the sea, emblem of free-
dom and of protection to eighty millions of
people, shall grow even brighter in the
blessed radiance of its own increasing stars."

CHAPTER XIV

Four-Score and Seven

THIS celebration, at which were gath-
ered the sons and daughters of the
pioneers, the companions of Judge
Olmsted's youth, home-coming from far and
wide, his surviving comrades in the civic
battles he had won, his associates in the
enterprises he had founded, at which were
recounted the events of which he had been
a part, was a fitting culmination of his
public life. And yet there were years of
usefulness before him, restful years when he
brought minor purposes to fruition, years in
which he sat in the twilight as the sage of
Coudersport, the general counselor, helpful to
many, concerned for the future comfort of
his invalid wife and family, his children and
grandchildren. He was fond of his carriage
horses, and reluctantly yielded to the substi-
tution of the automobile. He drove daily in
good weather, and, as if by instinct, back to
Ulysses, not alone because it was still the

(248)

FOUR-SCORE AND SEVEN 249

home of his kindred, but also for a sight of
the parental homestead of his boyhood, to
which he fondly directed the attention of his
fellow-passengers. For dull days he had the
excellent companionship of his private library
to which he had made important additions in
recent years. In his files he could turn to
interesting letters, especially letters written
during the period of his legislative service.
Among his correspondents were Governor

Geary, General Hartranft, Chief Justice
Woodward, General Kane, Treasurer Mackey,
the Republica leader in Pennsylvania during
the Civil War, and Senator Rutan, his first
lieutenant. Senators Strang and Stinson, Col.
Walton Dwight, Captain J. C. Johnson, Peter
Herdic, United States Senator J. Donald
Cameron, Dr. S. D. Freeman, Representatives
H. Jones Brooke and Lucius Rogers, Editor
Bowman, Thomas A. Scott, vice-president of

250 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and
Assistant Secretary of War. Lon M. Konkle,
of Philadelphia, wrote, in 1871, offering eight
lots in Coudersport for one hundred dollars,
and Samuel Lewis, of Pottsville, wrote in the
same year offering seven hundred and fifty
acres of ''valuable timber land'* in Potter at
ten dollars an acre.

Recalling this quiet period of Judge Olm-
sted's life, the late Thomas H. Murray, of
Clearfield, a leader of the bar in Western
Pennsylvania, and prominently mentioned
both for judicial and gubernatorial honors,
about a year before his death wrote the
following appreciative letter:

Recollections of Arthur G. Olmsted.

Judge Olmsted was of a type of men who are
now fast disappearing. Other examples of
his class were William L. Corbet of Clarion,
John H. Orvis of Centre and Simon P. Wolver-
ton of Northumberland. They will not be
reproduced. The conditions which made
them, or rather which enabled them to make
themselves are here no longer. The older
lawyers of today who came to know them well
are better lawyers and better men because of
their life and example. Their distinction was
not merely their intellectual stature, but the

FOUR-SCORE AND SEVEN 251

individuality that forged their way through
barren soil and unfriendly environment to
high rank in their great profession.

Theirs was the day and place of the weekly
mail — of the log school house with its slab
benches and tin plate stove. The preacher
came, if at all, once in three or four weeks.
Whatever church he came from he was a circuit
rider, — or walker; anyway he had a circuit.
This class of lawyers had a personality which
protected them from the dwarfing and enervat-
ing influences which ensnare so many weaker
men under modern conditions of life. Theirs
was not a race for the least work and the most
leisure, but for the highest achievement.
Therefore were they able to come up well
equipped from the time of the weekly mail, —
to a time when they could, at the breakfast
table, read a verbatim report of the speeches
made the night before, — at the banquet of
the Lord Mayor of London.

I first saw Judge Olmsted about thirty
years ago at Harrisburg. He was presiding at
a Republican State Convention. I observed
him closely, for I had heard much of him, and
was then impressed with his self-poise and
his entire freedom from mannerisms. He
next appeared in May, 1891, at this place to
try a land case, involving only title, but with
many complications. I tried the case for
the plaintiff and Judge Orvis appeared for

252 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

the defendants. We were both pleased with
his spirit of fairness and his apparent familiar-
ity with the questions raised.

For about six years before retiring from
active practice I had a number of cases in
Potter County, and was at Coudersport
once or twice a year, either to court or to
prepare for these cases. Two cases were
for a local railroad in which Judge Olmsted
was a stockholder. During these times I
came closer to him and saw more of him.
In the summer of 1905 when I went to court
there Mrs. Murray accompanied me. One
evening we took supper with him and Mrs.
Olmsted. In a trip that included Sraethport,
Buffalo, Detroit and Mt. Clemens, we met
nobody who left with us such pleasant and
lasting recollections as these substantial
people who had brought down into a life of
plenty that genuine hospitality which is
usually found at its best — and unmarred by
present-day conventionalities — in a sparsely-
settled and primitive community. After
supper the Judge talked of the books he was
then reading. He prefaced what he said of
them by the statement that he had not
opened a law book for some years. He was
reading a book on St. Paul I had never seen.
I was much interested in the book and as
much in what he said about its contents.
He had another book on the distribution of

FOUR-SCORE AND SEVEN 253

the races of men over the earth, and spoke
particularly of the dominant power of the
Aryan people and their language, and of how
much of our present-day civilization related
back to them. Of the great judges of Penn-
sylvania, like most of the big lawyers of the
olden time, he put Tilghman, and not Gibson,
first. He said "his opinions were so exhaus-
tive that when you read one of them, there
seems to be nothing left to be said on the
subject."

The next day he drove us about the hills and
valleys where the years of his life had been
spent, and in which much of the thrift and
economy of those years had been invested.
Judge Olmsted's characteristics were: his
substantial and reliable character that ren-
dered him a man of force in the community
and part of the state of which he was such a
distinguished representative. There were
some things he stood for, and these were the
better things of life, and there was no diffi-
culty in finding what they were. His clear
vision enabled him to so master the mysteries
of the law as to reach a top place in his pro-
fession. This quality also enabled him,
when yet young, to so direct his thrift and
energies as to early acquire a competence that
protected his declining years from care and
anxiety. He lived to a ripe age, honored alike
by his people and by the profession which he

254 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

adorned both by his learning and by the
integrity of his life purpose.

Clearfield, Penna.,
November 18, 1914.

With increasing age Judge Olmsted and his
wife felt more keenly the severity of the
northern winter. They journeyed one or
two seasons to resorts in the South, and,
finally, he having acquired interests with
Hon. Henry Hamlin, of Smethport, in South-
ern timber lands, was able to content himself
repeatedly for a few weeks in Florida, upon
a satisfying theory of combined business and
recreation. Judge Hamlin was occasionally
his companion at the most famous of the
hotels of Palm Beach. Speaking reminis-
cently some time later. Judge Hamlin was
heard to say that he had sat beside Judge
Olmsted while he was in conversation with
men of culture and education from the East
and elsewhere, and that he never suffered in
comparison; that his fund of information on
all topics seemed inexhaustible. At length
Judge Olmsted gave up these winter trips, and
shortened his daily rounds. Long after he

FOUR-SCORE AND SEVEN ^55

was able to give consecutive attention to
matters of business, he yet went regularly to
his office, to the bank and to the nearest
store, where he learned all that for the day it
sufficed him to know. His son Robert was
his business confidant.

More and more the circle of his interest
narrowed to his own home and to the house-
holds of his son and daughter. The world
seemed to have fallen away from him in the
course of time, and left him solitary. His
professional associates of other years, Knox,
Mann, Benson, Ross, Larrabee, all had gone
before him. He had formed many new asso-
ciations, it is true, but such friends were far
and wide. Political issues and party adminis-
tration were no longer such as engaged the
statesmanship of the earlier days. With the
religious creed of his fathers he was perfectly
familiar, but he seemed to have quietly
recognized and accepted the modifications
which time and modern scholarship had
contributed. Reverent of spirit, he rarely
spoke of religion, never to disparage, nor even
to discuss it. He recognized it as a social
factor, but for himself, it had only negative
value. His mind seemed already filled with

^56 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

other sources of reflection. In his reading
he preferred history and biography. Perhaps
he regarded religion as only a means to an
end, and that the end was an upright life.
The sunset of his days had for him only clouds
of silver lining, and he enjoyed his comforts,
his little circle, his car, his books, his cigar.
He had rare, reminiscent moods. Unfortunate
it is that the incidents he recalled, his estimates
of the elder statesmen and of events once
crucial, were never recorded. By and by,
his former associates, his old companions, the
lawyers who had once been with him at the
bar, were again alive. He forgot the cir-
cumstance of death, and inquired of their
doings from his visitor. His memory lost its
tenacity of dates and then of names. His own
he would sometimes forget. Pathetic it was
beyond expression when one day, so at a loss,
he put on his hat and walked down to the
store that he might ask Mr. Thompson to be
good enough to tell him who he was. One of
Emerson's biographers, writing of him, says:

"The failure of his mental machinery to
respond to his will left his personal charm
singularly undimmed. An artist, who came
to his house to paint his portrait after his

FOUR-SCORE AND SEVEN 257

memory was nearly gone, said of him: *I see
Mr. Emerson every day, and every day he
asks me afresh my name — and I never saw
a greater man.' This dominating virtue of
personaHty was long held to accomit for his
pre-eminence among his contemporaries, but
time has proved it, so far as it existed apart
from his thought and vision, merely the lovely
light in which the enduring features of his
genius were at once made beautiful and to a
degree obscured."

Thus relinquishing his faculties by degrees
he became finally quite detached from the
community. Though slightly bowed, his
presence was still distinguished. As this
venerable man walked with measured step
along the street or passed by in his car, his
townsmen came to regard him very much as a
personage from abroad, an ambassador, as it
were, from an historic land, of which they had
dim knowledge, soon to depart for a country
unknown but not far distant. The announce-
ment of his departure came without surprise.
The contact between life and death had been
gentle. The physical infirmity which in
other days had held him back from the great
tasks his country would have put upon him,
held him no longer. His death occurred on the

258 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

eighteenth day of September, 1914, twelve
days before his eighty-seventh birthday. As the
news spread abroad from farm to farm through
the countryside, and from county to county of
the Northern Tier, it awoke the memories of
other days. The great account of the hfe
that had Hngered in the shadow so long was
retold at many a fireside — the story of the
boy orator of Ulysses, the student lecturer for
the library, his later scathing arraignment of
the liquor license, his denunciation of chattel
slavery, his leadership in the Free Soil move-
ment, his thrilling appeals to the people which
rallied the soldiers of Potter County for the
defense of the Union; the pride which the
people had in him as their representative, his
statesmanship in the House and in the Senate;
how his failing health had recalled him from
a distinguished career; and he had come
home, by his ability and genius to dispel the
darkness of the wilderness with the search-
light of the locomotive, and make his later
years an epitome of the industrial history and
material development of the county. Was
it any wonder that when, on the following
Monday, the funeral services were held, his
doorway should have been crowded within

FOUR-SCORE AND SEVEN 259

and without, and that representative citizens
should have come from WiUiamsport, Buffalo,
Olean, Bradford, Wellsboro, Smethport,
Eldred, Austin, Emporium, as well as from
the smaller towns of the county to join in
tribute to his memory? The body, almost
matchless in its proportions, which through its
eighty-seven years had borne his undaunted
spirit in its high endeavor, found its last
resting place at the spot in the cemetery
which he had carefully indicated, almost
beside the glistening waters of the beloved
Allegheny whose banks he had in youth so
often trod.

County bar associations adopted memorials
and public journals extolled his services.
These are seemly, but passing tributes. If
in the years to come another generation shall
turn these pages and gather from their imper-
fect record some inspiration towards an
upright and effective life, a citizenship of a
high order, a superb patriotism, an undeviat-
ing devotion to human rights, a high concep-
tion and conscientious discharge of public duty,
then to the children of Arthur George Olmsted,
and his children's children, it will, as the
years go by, be the most gratifying memorial.

260 ARTHUR GEORGE OLMSTED

It is, after all, as if he were in truth born
in old Essex, seeing the masts above the
Braintree docks, daring the sea for freedom
of the conscience, nurtured at Hartford in the
new school of liberty, the American university
of human rights; born again at Ridgefield, the
Connecticut Lexington, to stake his life against
the old world tyrant; reappearing at Ballston
in the uniform of the Revolution, and once
more, in the wilderness at Masonville, to
learn the added lessons of border life, finally
bringing to Ulysses the undiminished inheri-
tance of this rare lineage, here to respond again
to the call of human freedom, and to be highly
exemplified, not only in the story that has
been written, but in many unnoted deeds, and
to pass on into the lives and memories of the
generations to come.

INDEX.

FAQS

Academy, Coudersport, its equipment and oflScial list 60, 62

Addresses: Before the Baptist Conference 76

The Sons of Temperance 79

The County Bar Association 82

Allegheny Plateau, The Divide, or "Endless Mountains" 98

Allegheny Indian Reservation 47

Allegheny, State of, blocked by railroad extension 98

Allen, Gen. Ethan, participant with Connecticut Title Claim-
ants 46, 48

Allen, Harrison, Auditor General 164, 175

Allen Joseph C, a Potter delegate to National Free Soil Con-
vention 88

American Mediterranean, contemplated by Southern statesmen, 97
Armstrong, Charles H., corporator of Jersey Shore, Pine Creek

& Buffalo R. R. Co 216

Arnold, F. H., associate judge, business associate 151

Arnot, F. H., of Elmira, railroad corporator 219

Austin, Edwin O., lawyer, founder of Austin 69

Bar, admission to 69

Backus, Seth, of Smethport, business associate 151

Barse, C. V. B., of Olean, N. Y., corporator C. & P. A. R. R. Co., 219
Bartholomew, Benj., non-resident member of Potter County Bar, 69

Battle of Ridgefield, in the American Revolution 34

Beath, Gen. Robert B., candidate for Secretary of Internal

Affairs 175, 206

Beebe, N. B., a Potter delegate to National Free Soil Convention, 88

Bennett, Jane (Robertson), wife (2d) of Daniel Olmsted 66

Benson, Isaac, lawyer, corporator, loyal to the Union ... 69, 106, 219
Benton, A. M., assemblyman, representing Clearfield, Jefferson

McKean and Elk 118, 141, 219

Bingham, William, U. S. Senator, land proprietor 47, 55

Bliss, Horace, non-resident member of Potter County Bar 69

Bowman, C. O., House colleague 116

Boyer, T. J., assemblyman representing Clearfield, Jefferson,

McKean and Elk 118

Boyhood days 59

Boundary between McKean and Warren 119

Bradford, William, Attorney General 47

Braintree, English port of embarkation, on the Blackwater 21

"Border Ruffians," their invasion of Kansas 96

Border raids during the Civil War 114, 115, 120

Brewster, Benj. H., Attorney General of United States 144, 183

(261)

262 INDEX

FAGB

Beaver, General James A., confirmed as Major-General .... 165

Brodhead and Sullivan, their expeditions against the Indians, 38

Brown, Rasselas, of Warren, distinguished lawyer 171

Brown, W. D., judge, legislator, representing Warren and

Venango 118, 124

Buckalew, Charles R., constitutional lawyer, U. S. Sen-
ator 144, 161, 173

Bucktail Rifle Regiment 102, 129

Butter worth, A. H., delegate from Potter to National Free Soil

Convention 88

Butterworth, W. C, editor and lawyer 69, 88

Candidature of Fremont for President 99

Cary, C. 8., of Olean, N. Y., Solicitor-General, railroad corpo-
rator 219

Cases, important, tried during judicial presidency 222

Cartee (Cartier) settlement 44, 108

Catoonah, Indian Sachem, purchase of lands from him 31

Centennial Celebration, Senate Committee service 164

Chairmanship Republican State Convention 221, 251

Clark, Nelson, a vice-president, Free Soil Convention of Potter

County 88

Chase, D. C, a Potter delegate to National Free Soil Convention, 88

Clark, Junius, of Warren, a professional associate 171

Citizens' Trust Company, organization 241

Citizens' Water Company, organization 221

Civil War, its darkest days 119, 120

Connecticut Title Controversy 36, 46-48

Crest, The, fountain of far-flowing rivers 49

Chancellorsville, Battle of, description of 127

Colcord, M. J., editor, president Centennial Day 102, 242

Cole, L. B., non-resident member of Potter Bar 69

Committee assignments in House 115, 118

in Senate 145, 148, 164

Constitution of Pennsylvania, consequences of revision, 116, 117, 126
Constitution of United States, 15th Amendment in Pennsylvania

Senate 145

Constitutionality of Conscript Law denied by Supreme Court . . 122

Contemporaries in Congress and Cabinet 115

Cooper, J. A., principal Lewisville Academy 61

Correspondence with soldiers 128

with civilians 249

Cornplanter Indian grant 47

CoWser, Charles B., member of the Bar 69

Condersport Fire Department 240

Coudersport fire of 1880 220

Coudersport Natural Gas Co., organization 221

Coudersport Milk Factory, organization 241

Coudersport & Port Allegany R. R. Co 219, 246

County Agricultural and Horticultural Society 110

Court-house built and rebuilt 66

Cromwell, Oliver, his purpose to join the emigrants 19

Curtin, Andrew G., War Governor 94, 102, 114

Cashing, Lucas, pioneer and proprietor temperance hotel, 48, 66, 73

INDEX 263

PAGE

Dent, H. H., land proprietor 66

District Attorney, first election 71

DuBois, William F., lawyer, married Nellie, only daughter of

Arthur G. Olmsted 109

DuBois, Arthur William, eon of William F. and Nellie (Olmsted)

DuBois 109

Dwight, Walton, commanding 149th P. V 105, 128, 249

East and West Highway 48, 72

Election to the House, 111 ; re-election 118

Election to the Senate 140

Early, C. R., representative from Elk 115-118

Elizabeth, Queen, her economic maxim 19

Fair Play Men, a source of population 244

Fizzell, Kathryn, married Robert Arch Olmsted 110

Freeman, S. D., of Smethport, Civil War Army Surgeon 102, 249

Free Soil Convention at Coudersport 88

Free School Law of Pennsylvania, in its inception 68, 235

Gamble, James, a non-resident member of Potter Bar 69

Geary, John W., Gen., Governor of Kansas and Pennsylvania,

162. 171, 179, 249

Glacial onset along the highlands of the Allegheny 51

Goodyear, Frank H. and C. W., lumber manufacturers 246

Gorton, Samuel, his new theology 26

Gould, Jay, historian of Delaware County, N. Y 39

Graham, James L., senatorial contemporary 146, 176

Graves, W. B., a Potter delegate to the National Free Soil Con-
vention 88

Greeley, Horace 69, 94, 178

Grow, Galusha A., father of Homestead Law 115, 126, 237

Grover, Martin, M. C, of Wilmot Proviso Committee, judge. . . 92
Guernsey, John W., of Wellsboro, House colleague 118

Racket, F. B., of Emporium, who aided recruiting in 1861 102

Hamlin, Byron, lawyer and state senator 161

Hamlin, Hannibal, Vice-President and Senator United States . . 151

Hamlin, Henry, banker, associate judge 240, 254

Hamlin, Orlo J., legislator, member of Pennsylvania Constitu-
tional Convention 69, 71

Hampden, the great English Commoner 19, 27

Hartranft, General John F., Governor, confirmed Maj.-General,

144, 165, 174-17S-79, 249
Heath, H. 8.," president Potter Coimty Free Soil Convention,

79, 88, 109
Hicks, Capt. Thomas, of New York Volunteers in the Revolution,

37-42

Hooker, Thomas, minister and Colonial leader 18, 21-24, 27, 76

House, Col. E. M. (see Jonathan, a Revolutionary soldier, and

Seclendia, ancestors of Ellen (Ross) wife of A. G. Olmsted), 108

264 INDEX

FAQB

Indian Wars, ending in treaty of peace 38

Issues, State and National, in 1874 184, 203

Ives, Timothy, academy director, state senator 62

Jersey Shore, Pine Creek and Buffalo R. R. Co 99, 149, 218

Jinks, Nelson B., secretary Potter County Free Soil Convention, 88
Johnson, J. C, captain in Civil War, assemblyman from

Cameron 105, 112, 209, 249

Johnson, S. P., prominent lawyer and judge 69, 79

Jones, Arch F., a corporator of J. S., P. C. & Buffalo R. R. Co. 216
Jones, W. K., a corporator of J. S., P. C. & Buffalo R. R. Co.. . 216

Jones & Storrs, general merchandise, Coudersport 74

Judge, appointment and elections 171, 209

Eane, Thomas L., General, first president State Board of Public

Charities 102, 106, 148, 225, 249

Keating, John, land proprietor 60

Kelley, W. D., Protection Congressional leader 182, 206

Kelly, Martin, a Bucktail Arnold of Winkelried 103

King Phillip's War 29

Knox, F. W., lawyer and business associate, 45, 63, 70, 106, 151,

218, 220
Know Nothing Party 93, 94

Labor and capital, first arbitration commission reported .... 167, 169

Larrabee, Don Carlos, law partner 216

Lawyers, distinguished in attendance at Smethport 224, 227

of McKean Bar during judicial presidency 228

of Potter Bar during judicial presidency 228

Law of the lumber business 143

Lear, George, lawyer and Republican orator 172

Lewis, O. A., a Coudersport delegate to National Free Soil

Convention 88

Lewis, Seth, law student admitted to practice 141

Lewis, W. I., prominent lawyer and citizen 221

Lewis, Thomas, a Coudersport delegate to National Free Soil

Convention 88

Library, Public 65

License petition revised 80

Lieutenant-Governor nomination in 1874 176

Lincoln, Wilmot, Sumner, Banks, Wilson, Clay and Giddings,

unsuccessful candidates for Vice-President in 1856 92

Log jam, description 101

Lowry, Morrow B., a senatorial contemporary 146, 161

Lyman, Burrel, a vice-president Coudersport Free Soil Con-
vention - - 88

Mackey, Robert W., State Treasurer and political leader 144

Mann, A. B., secretary condensed milk factory 241

Mann, John S., lawyer, legislator, abolitionist 64, 69, 70, 81,

88, 106, 140, 145

Mann, Joseph, agent Oswayo Lumber Association 74

Masonville, N. Y., description of the region 41

INDEX ^65

FAGBl

Mayo, E. R., of Smethport, lawyer, captain in Civil War 114

Maynard, L. F., lawyer, secretary of Coudersport Academy. . .62, 69
McClure, Alexander K., distinguished editor, assemblyman from

Perry 91, 124, 176, 206

McKean, Thomas, Governor, Chief Justice, President of Con-
gress 47

McDougall, William W., editor 73-74, 88

McNamara, T. B., a Coudersport delegate to National Free Soil

Convention 88

McPherson, Edward, Republican party leader 206

McKean and Elk Land and Improvement Co. vs. Wm Hacker

and Harry G. Clay 223

Melvin's Case 170

Memorial resolutions 212-14

Mercur, Ulvsses, M. C, a Congressional leader, Chief Justice

of Pennsylvania 173, 206

Morrison, Thomas A., Superior Court judge, reminiscences 225

Murray, Thomas H., of Clearfield, an appreciation 250

Natural resources, development legislation 125, 165-66

Nature's highways, navigable by law 142

New county project defeated 167

Nichols, R. L., corporator of Citizens' Water Company 220

Niles, John E., non-resident member of Potter Bar 69

Northern Tier, nursery of important governmental policies . . . 235-38
Norwalk, Conn., its settlement, 28; destruction 35

Ole Bull, his settlement in Potter 72

Olmsted (1) Richard, earhest known ancestor, born in England

about 1430 20

(2) James, a descendant of Richard, born about 1524, 20

(3) James, Jr., of Great Leighs, Essex, born about 1550, 20

(4) James, son of James, Jr., emigrated to America. . . 21

(5) Richard, born in 1611 (son of Richard), nephew of

James, arrived with his uncle at twenty-one
years of age, founded Norwalk, legislator,
sergeant 22, 28

(6) John, lieutenant and selectman at Hartford, son of

Richard 30

(7) Richard, captain (son of John), who, with his

brother Daniel, purchased lands from
Catoonah, and founded Ridgefield 31

(8) Daniel (son of Richard), Revolutionary soldier,

pioneer on the headwaters of the Delaware,

32, 34-40

(9) Seneca (son of Daniel), settler at Masonville, N. Y.,

migrating with his brother and family to

Pennsylvania 43, 44, 54

Gardner Hicks, son of Seneca 43, 64, 66

(10) Daniel (son of Seneca), removed to Pennsylvania

frontier at Ulysses, Potter County. . .45, 46, 55-57

Henry Jason (eldest son of Daniel) 55, 64, 66

Marlin E., M. C, son of Henry Jason 104, 215, 242

^Q6 INDEX

PAGE

(11) Arthur George Olmsted, subject of this Hography,

second son of Daniel, events in his life, 55, 68, 69,

76, 79, 82, 88, 89, 94, 116, 118, 106, 124, 127,

139-40, 176, 184, 251

Sarah Elizabeth, his sister 65

Daniel Edward, his brother 55

Seneca Lewis, his brother 65

Herbert Gushing, his brother 65

(12) Nellie, only daughter of Arthur George Olmsted,

married William F. DuBois 109

DuBois, Arthur WilHam, son of William F. and

Nellie (Olmsted) DuBois 110

(13) Robert Arch Olmsted, only son of Arthur George

Olmsted, married Kathryn Fizzell 109, 255

Arthur George, Warren William, Margaret Ellen
McLeod, children of Robert Arch and Kathryn

(Fizzell) Olmsted 110

Orator for the Union 95, 102, 105

Oswayo Lumber Association 74

Parsons, A. V., Deputy Attorney General 69

Payne, Hiram, editor and lawyer 69

Paul-Revere ride of Daniel Olmsted 34

Paxson, Edward M., Chief Justice of Pennsylvania 175, 206

Pennsylvania Legislature concedes slavery as a constitutional

right . 146

Pennsylvania Reserve Corps 120

Pennsylvania statesmen of 1868 144

Peace faction in the North 122

Pension Law of 1865 : 127

People's Journal, herald of liberty to the pioneers 74

Period of retirement 248-54

Peck, J. Newton, lawyer, vice-president condensed milk factory,

228-241

Pequod War 23

Persecution of Puritans 17

Pioneers of the Upper Delaware 39-40

Pickering, Timothy, exponent of free school system, cabinet

oflBcer and senator 235-36, 247

Philadelphia Republican mass meeting in 1874 181-82

Political upheaval of 1873-4 178-79

Pollock, James, Governor 93-97

Population, sources of 244

Portage township, detached to Cameron 110

Potter County Centennial 241

Potter County Prohibition Law 82

Potter County Volunteers in Civil War 104

Potter County, its natural characteristics 49

Prehistoric drainage of Western Pennsylvania . , . , 61

Quakers, exiled, took part in the Hartford settlement 26

Quay, Matthew S., representative from Washington and Beaver,

United States Senator 124, 144

INDEX 267

Reminiscences and appreciation 209-14, 225, 229, 250

Republic, foundation of, at Hartford 24

Republican party prestige overwhelmed in 1874 by "Hard
Times," Enforcement Acts, Local Option, "Third Term,"

"Whiskey Ring" and Belknap impeachment 178

Republican party turning point in Pennsylvania 206

Republican party defeat of 1874 discussed 204-206

Rockefeller, John D., Jr., his creed 79

Rogers, Lucius, of Smethport, Senate clerk 148, 249

Root, F. H., of Buffalo, railroad corporator 219

Ross, Bobieski, M. C, business associate 108, 151

Ross, Ellen, daughter of David Ross, wife of Arthur G. Olmsted, 108
Ross, David, a Revolutionary soldier at fifteen, father of Ellen

(Ross) Olmsted 108

Ross, John L., president J. S., P. C. & Buffalo R. R. Co 216

Rutan, James L., Republican leader and State Senator 164, 249

Scott, Thomas A., Assistant Secretary of War 249

Scofield, Glenni W., M. C, a Congressional leader in the Civil

War 206, 237

Scofield, Lucy Ann, wife of Daniel Olmsted, daughter of Lewis

Scofield 45

Seward's bloodless national triumph 97

Blade, 8. A., a Coudersport delegate to the National Free Soil

Convention 88

Slavery, abolition of 74, 86, 88, 95, 146

Soldiers' monument at Coudersport, subscribers 215-16

Spafford, L. D., president Coudersport Academy 62

Special legislation, era of 117

Special session of General Assembly in 1864 117

Smith, A. W,, principal of Coudersport Academy 61

Speeches: In the Senate on railroad bill 152, 161

At Philadelphia in campaign of 1874 184, 203

Stage route, Bellefonte to Smethport 72

Stebbins, Pierre, Jr., director in J. S., P. C. & Buffalo R. R., 215, 216
Stevens, Joseph W., a Coudersport delegate to the National

Free Soil Convention 88

Stevens, Thaddeus, "American Commoner" 58, 115, 126, 206

Stinson, Charles H., of Norristown, Speaker of Senate, 144, 171, 249

Stone, Samuel, teacher and religious leader 18, 21, 22, 23, 75

Stone, Charles W., M. C, Congressional leader in "Free Silver"

and Spanish War eras 167, 238

Stone, General Roy, commanding "Bucktail" Brigade 129

Strang, Butler B., Speaker of the House afterwards Senator,

151, 161, 249
Susquehanna Company, townships of, 1796 47

Temperance cause in its early organization 69, 79

Thirteenth U. S. Constitutional Amendment 124

Thompson, M. B., treasurer condensed milk factory 241, 256

Tubbs, Charles, historical address cited 44

Turnpike, Jersey Shore to Olean 71

268 INDEX

PAGB

Ulysses Township, its soil and character 60

Veto of J. S., P. C. & Buffalo R. R. bill 162

Wallace, William A., distinguished U. S. Senator, Democratic

leader 144, 146, 161, 164

Warner, Oliver C, a Coudersport delegate to National Free Soil

Convention 88

War scandals in Pennsylvania during Civil War 120

Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers 38

Wellsville Plank Road Company 75

White, Gen. Harry, M. C, State and Congressional leader,

144, 161, 164, 168

White, Robert G., of Wellsboro, judge 141, 209

Williams, H. W., Supreme Court Justice 141, 209, 215, 233

Williams, Roger, founder in New England of Baptist faith, 21, 26, 75
Williams, Thomas C, a Congressional leader in CivU War. .115, 208

Williston, Horace, of Wellsboro, judge 69

Wilson, Joseph, non-resident member of Potter Bar 69

Wilson, Stephen F., M. C, of Wellsboro, judge 209, 212, 215, 222

Wilmot, David, M. C, of Towanda, a noted Congressional

leader 91, 93, 237-38

Wilmot Proviso 91

Winthrop, John C, Colonial Governor 21, 23, 26

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