The pioneers of Unadilla village, 1784-1840

by Francis W. Halsey; Gaius Leonard Halsey

Frederick A. Sands was born in Bainbridge February 19th, 1812. Following his employment as a clerk in the Wright store, Mr. Sands engaged in business first with Christopher D. Fellows, under the name of Fellows and Sands, and next with Mr. Watson as Watson and Sands. He then removed to Oxford where he was active in business with his brother-in-law, James W. Clark, along with whom and an old personal friend, Henry L. Miller, and others, he became interested in the First National Bank of that place, an institution that has had a prominent and successful career. Mr. Miller and he were lifelong friends. They were buried at the same hour and on the same day in 1886.

On the death of his father in 1868, Mr. Sands, who was executor and trustee of the estate, abandoned his mercantile pursuits and devoted himself to the affairs of the estate, which was a large one for that period. In his management of this property the necessity never arose for a lawsuit. He possessed what Matthew Arnold called “sweet reasonableness.” When he died, it was said of him that “few men have done so much business with so little litigation.” He was familiar with real estate titles in the neighborhood where he lived, and his papers have been described as “models of neatness and brevity and always as correct as care and labor could make them.” With this scrupulous exactness went also a fine integrity. In politics Mr. Sands was a democrat, though he had small liking for the profession of politics. Official place he never sought. Mere office could scarcely have added anything to the esteem in which for two generations he here was held.

Mr. Sands’s first wife was Maria, daughter of Sherman Page. Two years after the marriage she died. In January 1841 he married Clarissa A., sister of the late Henry R. Mygatt of Oxford, who survived him only a few months. Mr. Sands had dwelt in both of the stone houses in the centre of the village, having built the western one and enlarged the other, which was his home for more than forty years. Between these ancient dwellings his son, J. Fred. Sands, in later years erected a beautiful modern home, and far to the rear of them, on an elevated plateau where agricultural fairs were annually held long ago, opened up streets and erected a number of houses.

The story of this Main and Mill Street centre, of the Academy and the old brick store, connects itself closely with the life of another citizen of the village who was Mr. Sands’s son-in-law. In the Academy building Frank B. Arnold’s life in the village had its beginning. In the brick store he had his office and there he died. He lived in Unadilla more than twenty years, and first came to take charge of the Academy. Dr. Odell and Mr. Thompson were the trustees who engaged him. He was from Gilbertsville, where he had just been graduated from the school, and now wished to teach in order to help himself through Hamilton College. Under Mr. Arnold the Academy became very prosperous, and never was teacher more popular with students. A memorial of his career may be seen in the trees that still stand near the side-walk in those school grounds. They were planted by the hands of Mr. Arnold and his pupils.

Having read law and been admitted to practice, Mr. Arnold soon removed to Nebraska, but he came back in a few years and thenceforth always lived in the village. Although a Republican, he was several times elected supervisor in this Democratic town by majorities as large as were ever given to any candidate. In 1885 and 1886 he was elected to the Assembly and in 1887-1888 served in the Senate. He became the Republican candidate for Congress in 1890, but was defeated by a small majority. His health was seriously undermined at this time, and on December 11th he died in his office at Main and Depot Streets.

Mr. Arnold made a distinct mark in the Legislature and became known throughout the State. He had many attractive personal qualities, with tastes quite apart from those which the law and politics fostered. He had read extensively in general literature and had collected many books. His law library was the one which formerly belonged to Daniel S. Dickinson. Mr. Arnold was born in Ireland and came to this country when a child. His father settled in East Hartford, Connecticut, where some years later the boy was seen by Major C. P. Root of Butternuts, and under his influence made his home in Butternuts.

On this corner in Roswell Wright’s store the business life of Samuel North in Unadilla was begun. His age was fourteen when he arrived in May, 1828, remaining in the store until he was twenty-one. The history of his family goes back to pioneer days in the valley of the Delaware. The Norths are of Long Island origin and of English ancestry. At Newtown the line comes down from Thomas to Benjamin and then to Robert, who in 1784, with twenty other persons, mostly from Long Island, set out for what is now the village of Walton by crossing the wilderness from Kingston to the Delaware. With Robert North came his wife and an infant son named Benjamin who was the father of Colonel North. Mrs. North for the last portion of this journey rode on horseback with her infant in her arms and with a bed and pieces of furniture fastened on the horse behind her.

The owner of the Walton patent was William Walton, a man of much note and affluence in New York at that time. He had offered to give a tract of land in his patent to the first male child born there on condition that the child should bear his name. The first child thus born was a son of Robert North. Mrs. North had wished to call him Samuel, and, in spite of the offer, the name Samuel was adopted. This boy went to Albany as a clerk in the Assembly, and afterwards became a lawyer, but died in early life. Long after this event Samuel’s brother Benjamin became the father of a son, in whom was revived the name of Samuel. This was Colonel North, who for many years was probably the most distinguished citizen of the village.

After leaving Unadilla when he became of age, Colonel North pursued his mercantile calling for a time in New York. Returning to Walton he became colonel of a regiment of Hamden and Walton militia which was called out during the Anti-rent difficulties. He once more settled in Unadilla and in 1849 was elected County Clerk. In 1853 he was made principal clerk in the appointment division of the General Post Office Department in Washington, and soon afterwards was made special agent of the department for a portion of New York and New England. He was a delegate to the Charleston convention of 1860 and voted for Stephen A. Douglass. By this act he incurred the displeasure of President Buchanan and lost his position. Returning to Unadilla he engaged in the hardware business. While acting as one of the fifteen special agents of the Post Office Department he had been rated as No. 1 as to the value of his services.[23]