Dr. Rush, by reason of a liberal education, supplemented by medical study in the capitals of Europe, and on account of his high social, professional and literary standing, greatly outshone his coworker, the struggling country doctor on the frontier of Northern New York. But these two greatest factors in the advent of the temperance reformation, and who, it should be said, were acquaintances through the medium of correspondence, each performed his peculiar part, and who can determine which is entitled to the greater honor. Dr. Rush manufactured the ammunition, but Dr. Clark fired the gun, his match being organization.
The idea of forming a temperance society had perhaps been suggested to Dr. Clark by his connection with the Saratoga County Medical Society, the first institution of its kind in this state, and of which he was the founder. He had attempted early in April, 1808, to interest prominent men, whom he had met at Ballston Springs at a session of court, in his projected temperance enterprise. His plan may have been to establish a central society at the county seat and to encourage the organization of branches in the surrounding towns; but, to use Dr. Clark's own words, "they with one accord began to make excuses and brand our scheme as Utopian and visionary." Previous to this, however, he had taken the initiative in the work among his neighbors, for he says: "I returned to Moreau like a bow well bent that had not lost its elasticity, and resumed the labor there." The determination he exhibited was remarkable, and one cannot dwell upon the difficulties with which he contended and meditate upon the unselfish, devoted and humanitarian spirit by which he was actuated without expressing admiration.
The first successful step in the sublime drama of the temperance reformation took place in the same month of April, referred to a moment ago, when Dr. Clark made his memorable visit to his minister. I quote from Armstrong:
"After having projected a plan of a temperance organization, the doctor determined on a visit to his minister, the author of these memoirs, who was then the pastor of the flourishing Congregational church in the town of Moreau. The visit was made on a dark evening, no moon and cloudy. After riding on horseback about three miles, through deep mud of clay road, in the breaking-up of winter, the doctor knocked at his minister's door, and on entrance, before taking seat in the house, he earnestly uttered the following words: 'Mr. Armstrong, I have come to see you on important business.' Then, lifting up both hands, he continued: 'We shall all become a community of drunkards in this town unless something is done to arrest the progress of intemperance.'"
The poet has sung in soul-stirring numbers of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. There are, indeed, certain resemblances between it and Dr. Clark's historic adventure. It was night; there was national peril; heroes were in the saddle, and the voices of their fervent appeals were destined to reverberate down the aisles of time—"words that shall echo forevermore."
Due notice having been given to the people of the towns of Moreau and Northumberland, a meeting for the purpose of forming a temperance society was held at the public house of Captain Peter L. Mawney, at Clark's Corners, on April 13, 1808. Resolutions were adopted, the chief of which was that "in the opinion of this meeting it is proper, practicable and necessary to form a temperance society in this place; and that the great and leading object of this society is wholly to abstain from ardent spirits." A committee, of which Dr. Clark was chairman, was appointed to prepare the Bylaws for the organization, and twenty-three persons enrolled themselves as members.
The following is the list of the signers: Isaac B. Payn, Ichabod Hawley, David Parsons, James Mott, Alvaro Hawley, Thomas Cotton, David Tillotson, Billy J. Clark, Charles Kellogg, Jr., Elnathan Spencer, Asaph Putnam, Hawley St. John, Nicholas W. Angle, Dan Kellogg, Ephraim Ross, John M. Berry, John T. Sealy, Cyrus Wood, James Rogers, Henry Martin, Sidney Berry, Joseph Sill, Solomon St. John.
The meeting having adjourned one week, to April 20, at the Mawney house, a long and comprehensive system of By-laws was then adopted. Article I stated that "This society shall be known by the appellation of Union Temperance Society of Moreau and Northumberland." Like Dr. Rush's essay, the Constitution of the society took grounds only against spirituous liquors, making exceptions regarding the use of them in circumstances of religious ordinances, sickness and public dinners.
It was not until 1843 that the society "after a long season of declension," on a motion put by Dr. Clark, adopted a resolution of total abstinence.
Col. Sidney Berry, ex-judge of Saratoga county, was chosen president and Dr. Clark secretary of the new society. As there exists an apparent contradiction as to the particular roof under which this historic meeting was held, one account stating that it occurred at the Mawney house and another at the neighboring school house, it is proper to say here that this discrepancy is removed by the statement made in Judge Hay's book, page 22, that the session opened in the Mawney house, but that "the society completed its organization" in the school house. In the association, as a coherent institution, coming into existence within the walls of such a building, may be found a prophecy of what the temperance movement in the future was to lay particular stress upon—that is, upon temperance teaching in the public schools. Indeed, it should be said that the Moreau society itself was an educative organization as well as a moral one, having a circulating library and maintaining a lyceum.