NewYork’s
Farmer
Governor

Edward A. Hagan

Edward A. Hagan, the author of several local history books, edited the Historical Review from 1981 until 2001. He left an unfinished biography of Gov. William C. Bouck when he passed away last May 19. His notes are typed and well organized into five loose-leaf binders.

I PREFER to call this a history rather than a biography. After all my research, I really do not know the intimate, the private William C. Bouck – what he thought, what his ambitions were, how he regarded his wife and eleven children. I have found little written by friends, associates or family. If he kept a diary, its whereabouts are unknown at this time. What we do have is a fairly complete record of his accomplishments.

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Governor Bouck operated a farm on an island in the Schoharie Valley through years of change. The world that he left in 1859 was vastly more complicated than that which existed on January 7, 1786, when he was born.

Schoharie was one of 16 districts of Albany County when baby William was born. He was the great-grandson of a Palatine settler and the economy centered around farms like that on which young William would be raised.

Farm life was, for the most part, self sufficient. The wood lot furnished fuel and logs for the home. Home-grown flax, wool from sheep, the spinning wheel and the loom made one’s clothes. Residents grew vegetables and fruit, and hunted and fished. Religious needs were taken care of by the circuit rider and news was spread by word of mouth.

As farms clustered, hamlets formed. A community church was built, then a parsonage, a school house, a tavern. Pathways became roads that were almost impassable in the spring mud, and hamlets grew into villages and became the center of economic life.

Transportation improved with toll roads, canals, and the railroads, and the economy shifted to cities. Industrialization began and factories produced the necessities of life.

By the time of Gov. Bouck’s death, mechanical cultivators, mowers, reapers and harvesting machines were used on farms. Robert Fulton had perfected the steam ship and steamers regularly traveled form Albany to New York, along the coast and even to Europe. A cable brought news by telegraph from across the Atlantic. Ether, aspirin, photography, the sewing machine and Darwin’s theory of natural selection were among the many things that changed a way of life. Issues such as the ownership of slaves and states rights became challenges.

Bouck was the great-grandson of Christian Bouck, a German Lutheran who fled from persecution in the Palatinate with many fellows of his faith. Christian’s son and the future governor’s grandfather, Wilhelmus Bouck, was the first male child born in the valley of white parents.

“Now being safely arrived in the first week,[1] three children were born, namely Johanes Earhart, Wilhelmus Bouck and Elizabeth Lawyer, they found the land good, and much of the flats clear,” wrote Judge John M. Brown in his 1823 Brief Sketch of the First Settlement of the County of Schoharie by the Germans.

The Boucks settled in Weisersdorf, the present-day Middleburgh. In 1755, Wilhelmus Bouck, Jacob Lawyer and Nicholas York patented from King George II about three thousand acres of land on both sides of the Schoharie creek and now embraced in the towns of Fulton and Middleburgh. Wilhelmus Bouck’s share in this tract was inherited by his three sons, Christian (father of the future governor), John and William, and formed a part of the farm that would be owned and occupied by William C. Bouck.

Wilhelmus, the valley’s first-born white male, lived through the Revolution. Jeptha Simms’ Frontiersmen of New York[3] records the following incident during one of the Indian raids in the Schoharie Valley during the revolution.

Christian Bouck, father of the governor, married Margaret Borst of a German family which was among the first settlers of Schoharie district. William C. Bouck was born on the 7^th day of January, 1786, three years after the War of the Revolution ended, on the family farm that had been occupied by his father and grandfather.

At the time of Bouck’s birth, most of the people in the valley were living in log cabins. Six years earlier the British, tories and Indians had laid waste most of the homes in the Schoharie Valley.

 “Until I was twenty-two years of age,” he said in a letter to a friend, “no common laborer on my father’s farm did more work than myself, either in clearing land, or in the harvest field. Often have I gone to the plough before daylight, and from it after dark.” His formal education consisted of attending the first English speaking rural school in the town and a short period of reading law in the office of George Tiffany, a former New York state senator.

A Democrat of the Jefferson and Madison school, Bouck became a follower of Governor Daniel D. Tompkins, in whose administration he was made sheriff of Schoharie county on March 10, 1812. In 1813, he was elected to the assembly.

One of Bouck’s father’s most intimate friends was Timothy Murphy, the skilled rifleman of Schoharie whose Revolutionary War exploits are still preserved in history and tradition. The friendship of Murphy for the father descended to the son and it is said that the latter owed his first election to the assembly to the influence and zeal of his father’s friend.

In his later years, Timothy Murphy seems to have had a passion for politics. For many years he exerted a powerful influence in the political ranks of Schoharie County. He was active in bringing his young friend and neighbor into public notice and indirectly contributed not a little to his subsequent distinction. Of his will, Murphy’s son Peter said “he dictated on his deathbed to his friend William C. Bouck.” The will is dated June 15, 1818. Bouck was also one of the executors of the will. One of Timothy Murphy’s granddaughters married Charles Bouck, a son of the governor.

In the spring of 1807, at 21 years of age, Bouck was chosen clerk of Middleburgh and for the two following years he was elected its supervisor. In 1811, he was nominated by the Republican[4] convention for sheriff, which was then filled by appointment of the governor and council, but he declined. The next year, he was a delegate to the senatorial convention held at Onondaga, and took an active part in its proceedings. In the same year of 1812, he accepted the office of sheriff and was duly appointed by Governor Tompkins and the Republican council. He was removed from office by the Federalists when they took power in the Council of Appointments in 1813.

Bouck had now become a leading politician in Schoharie. Immediately after his removal from the office of sheriff in the Spring of 1813, he was elected a member of the assembly by the Republicans of Schoharie. He was twice re-elected to the same position, in 1814 and 1815, and returned a fourth time in 1817. At the April election in 1820, he was chosen one of the senators from the then middle district of the state, and he was returned the following year.

Very soon after he entered public life, Bouck meet Martin Van Buren. Both were in the legislature and Van Buren became Bouck’s political friend, a friendship which continued at least until the end of Van Buren’s presidential term.

In the legislature, Bouck was not distinguished as a debater. It is said he was rarely seen upon the floor. But in the committee room and in the private consultations of members, his judgment and discernment were highly prized and were often of great service to his constituents. His shrewdness and tact, his prudence, and his address in the management of men were invaluable to his party.

By an act of the legislature passed in 1821, provision was made for the appointment of an additional canal commissioner. The people of the interior counties thought they were entitled to a commissioner. Bouck received the unanimous nomination of the Republican legislative caucus and was chosen to fill the office.

Assigned to the western section of the Erie canal, he superintended its construction from Brockport to its termination at Lake Erie, including the passage at the Mountain Ridge at Lockport, the most difficult part of the entire line. I quote from History of the Holland Purchase:[5]

It was not until the fall of 1825 that the barrier of the Mountain Ridge was finally overcome. This was the last obstacle between the Hudson and Lake Erie. On September 29, Bouck was able to announce to the president of the canal board that the unfinished parts of the canal would be in readiness to admit passage of boats on the 26^th of October.

The work at Mountain Ridge was completed on the evening of October 24, the guard gates were raised, and the filling of that level commenced. On the 25^th, the entire canal from Albany to Buffalo was navigable. On the following day, the packet-boat the “William C. Bouck” was selected to be the first boat to pass the locks at Lockport and ascend to the Lake Erie level to meet the boats from Buffalo which carried Governor Dewitt Clinton and his suite.

Besides superintending the construction of the western section of the Erie Canal, Bouck was also selected by his associates to take charge of the work on the Cayuga and Seneca, the Crooked Lake, the Chemung, and the Chenango Canals. All of these canals were constructed under his supervision.

The Chenango Canal, which extended from Binghamton to Utica, crossed the Cherry Valley Turnpike at McClure Settlement. Although Schoharie County has done little to perpetuate the name of Governor Bouck, this small community changed its name to Bouckville in honor of canal commissioner Bouck.

Bouck became convinced the canal was not large enough to handle the business of the growing west and was one of the first to suggest enlarging the canal.

For nineteen years, Bouck continued in office as canal commissioner. When the Whigs secured a majority in both branches of the legislature in 1840, it was proposed to remove him. Political consideration decided the question and he was removed during the legislative session that year.

The impact of the Erie Canal on New York was huge. “New York was not always first in commerce and industry,” wrote the state engineer, Roy G. Finch, in 1925. “The turning point came with the completion of the original Erie Canal.” Growth of communities along the canal was phenomenal: between 1825 and 1835, Albany, Troy, Utica, Syracuse and Lockport doubled in population, Rochester nearly tripled and Buffalo almost quadrupled. “The opening of the Erie Canal clinched New York [City]’s position as America’s premier port,” wrote F. Daniel Larkin in his 1998 New York State Canals a Short History.

Removal of “the Old White Horse,” as Bouck was called in reference to a favorite animal he rode for many years, was widely regretted. Public sentiment was strongly in his favor and the sympathies of his party were so warmly aroused that he was regarded as the prominent candidate for the gubernatorial nomination long before the convention in the fall of 1840. When the convention met, he was unanimously nominated as the Democratic candidate for governor.

Daniel S. Dickinson of Broome County was selected as the candidate for lieutenant governor. 440,000 votes were cast. His opponent, Governor William H. Seward, was seeking re-election and defeated Bouck by a little over 5,000 votes. Despite his defeat, Bouck continued to be the prominent candidate for the next gubernatorial nomination.

Bouck and Dickinson were unanimously nominated at Syracuse on Oct. 7, 1842. There were two factions in the Democratic Party: conservatives or “Hunkers” who favored completing public works projects and commencing others that promised to be profitable, but did not favor increasing debt to a large amount; and radicals or “Barnburners” who were opposed to the construction of any work that would not pay for itself, and to any increase in the state debt.[6] The main cause of difference was the canal and the financial policy of the state. Bouck was a Hunker.

Bouck won the election by about 22,000 votes over Luther Bradish. On Jan. 1, 1843, he took the oath of office as governor. It was evident that a collision would soon take place between the two factions of the Democratic party.

Governor Seward commenced preparation for leaving Albany. His private secretary was busily aiding him in completing his correspondence, arranging his papers and turning over the business of the state to Governor Bouck. Governor Bouck had not yet come to town. He would find trouble enough before he got through his first term.

 “Governor Bouck arrived here on Saturday; on Tuesday he called upon me,” said Seward on Dec. 23, 1842. “His manners are easy and fascinating, and I think he lacks neither dignity nor grace; but my taste, you know differs from the prevailing one. He is evidently a kind, honest, amiable, and sagacious man. He was at first quiet, reserved, and manifested a sense of restraint. I told him much that was important to know, tendered to him every explanation and aid, and assured him that, do as he might, I would never write at him in the newspapers as my predecessor had written against me. The good man relaxed... His house is neatly furnished... Mrs. Bouck came to town a day or two since. I call upon her tomorrow.”[7]

Governor Bouck took the oath of office and Governor Seward congratulated him on the high distinction conferred on him by the people of the state. The prevailing topic in political circles was the message of the new governor. Your view of the governor depended on what paper you read.

 “Governor Bouck’s message was very different from the productions of most of his predecessors. It was much shorter, made no pretension to literary style, and indulged in fewer ‘Glittering generalities’ on the philosophy of government, but was notably direct and lucid in expression and instinct with shrewd sense.” [8]

“Although shrewd, honest and sincerely and diligently devoted to the public service according to his light, he was somewhat narrow in his views, had little force of character, and was void of the essential capacity of leadership. The result was that instead of healing the breach in the party he made it worse.

From the Schoharie Patriot, Jan. 6, 1842: “Governor Bouck has appointed Lyman Sanford Esq., his son-in-law, Adjutant General of the State; James M. Bouck is his Private Secretary; C.W. Bouck his Military Secretary; and his nephew had been appointed Messenger. Two sons, one son-in-law and a nephew snugly provided for. ‘Who so provideth not for his own and especially his own household, is worse than an infidel.’ Editor.”

“Would that all men in office would be as careful not to set a bad example as was Governor William C. Bouck.”

Being the first Democratic executive after a Whig administration of four years, Bouck was called upon to exercise the appointing power to a greater extent than his predecessors. It was impossible for him to avoid incurring the hostility of those who were disappointed. The radicals united with the Whigs to defeat the nominations of Governor Bouck to which they objected.

It was to be supposed that Bouck, a Hunker, would find his official associates in the ranks of that faction. Immediately after his election, the radical press began discussing, suggesting, and all but dictating who should be his appointees to office and who should be his advisors. The unity which seemed to prevail in the campaign of 1842 was entirely superficial and the resolution of the convention approving his administration was merely a campaign device. During the two years of Bouck’s administration the Democrats had control of both branches of the legislature but the contest between the Barnburners and the Hunkers interfered with much of the legislative business.

On a visit to Westchester County in 1843, Governor Bouck said, “It has been my aim to faithfully discharge the duties which a too partial and indulgent people have devolved upon me. In the administration of the government, it had been a cardinal object with me to promote the public welfare. That I should have erred in some instances, among the various and peculiar duties, and the numerous appointments to office, the results of political change and reorganization in the affairs of state, no man who considers the responsibilities and difficulties under which an executive, coming for the first, and under such circumstances, to the performance of these labors, will wonder.”

In his annual message of 1843, Bouck recommended the subject of internal improvements by roads and canals to the legislature but cautioned against increasing the state debt unwisely. In the message of 1844 he expressed the same sentiments.

Among his recommenda­tions was passing a law to close the locks on the canal on the Sabbath. He also is­sued a proclamation that Thursday, December 14, was to be observed as a day of prayer, praise and thanks-giving to almighty God for the numerous and nu­merated blessings of the year.

There was a strong movement afoot to hold a constitutional convention. Bouck did not regard this as necessary or desirable, but he suggested the adoption of 20 amendments.

During his administration, common schools were expanding rapidly and there was increasing dissatis-faction with the quality of teachers. The legislature passed a bill providing for a normal school at Albany. A small school of 200 to 400 students, it was the fore-runner of the University at Albany.[9]

The great battle of the session occurred over his canal proposal. The radicals rose against the governor. Just before the adjournment of the legislature, both conservative and radical Democratic members held a caucus. A bitter fight arose over commending Governor Bouck’s administration. A commendation was finally adopted but many of the radicals refused to agree and published a statement to that effect.

At the Democratic convention on Sept. 4, 1844, in Syracuse, Bouck was defeated for renomination The vote was Silas Wright 95, Bouck 30. Some people have written that Bouck was not reelected because he was not a good governor, but the next seven governors of New York State – including Silas Wright – were also not reelected to a second term.

Shortly before the close of the administration of Governor Bouck, the public peace was again disturbed by a renewal of the outrages on manoral lands. Bands of anti-rent tenants had armed and disguised themselves as Indians and in December of 1844, official papers of the Columbia county sheriff were forcibly taken from him and burned. At a meeting of anti-renters, a young man was shot dead.

Bouck consulted with state officers and governor-elect Wright and it was decided to order out an armed force to assist Columbia county authorities in maintaining order and enforcing the law. This was Bouck’s last official action.

In 1846, a convention was called to revise the state constitution. Governor Bouck, still popular among his old friends and neighbors, was chosen a delegate. He served as chairman of the committee on the elective franchise. During the convention in June, 1846, he was appointed by President James Polk to be assistant treasurer in the city of New York, a position he held until May, 1849, when he was removed by President Zachary Taylor. Then, he returned to his island farm in the valley of the Schoharie to enjoy retirement.

The state census of 1855 gives us a picture of Governor Bouck’s farm. It was being run by his son Charles. The frame house was valued at $2,000, William C. Bouck was listed as a farmer, 69 years old, his wife Catherine, 68. The farm was in the first election district of the town of Fulton. Thirty-five families lived in log houses in the district. There were one cooper shop, three shoemakers, ten sawmills, one waggoner, one barrel and firkin^[10] factory, one harness maker, five blacksmiths, one union church, one inn, two retail stores and four schools listed in poor condition in the district.

The farm consisted of 230 improved acres, 150 unimproved acres, 75 plowed acres, 70 acres in pasture and 40 acres of meadow. There were 25 tons of hay, 16 bushels of grass seed, 35 acres of winter wheat (150 bushels harvested), 30 acres of oats (900 bushels harvested), 10 acres of corn (500 bushels harvested), ½-acre of potatoes (75 bushels harvested), 75 bushels of apples, 75 bushels of carrots valued at $25.00, tobacco (received 5½ cents a pound), cattle – three under one year old, 14 over a year, two cows, two working oxen, one cow killed for beef, two cows milked and 250 lbs. of butter, nine horses, 21 swine and 21 sheep. Four fleeces (13 pounds of wool), special manure, 2,000 lbs. of gypsum, 18 yards of fulled cloth, six yards of flannel cloth, and brooms were listed under other articles of domestic manufacture.

Four years after the census and at age 73, Governor Bouck was taken ill.

Joseph leaves today and I have given him express directions, that if you are in danger or seriously ill, to send to Albany for me and telegraph from there.

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Death of Ex-Gov. Wm. C. Bouck

The Assembly also adopted the resolution and appropriate remarks were made.

Governor Bouck was buried in the family cemetery on Bouck’s Island and later moved to the Middleburgh cemetery.

Born in 1786 just after the War of the Revolution, Governor Bouck died in 1859, just before the Civil War. In the seventy-three years of his life, the country had grown from 13 states to 33 states.

Born during the administration of George Clinton, the first governor of New York, Governor Bouck died during the administration of the Edwin D. Morgan, the 21^st governor. In 1783, 4,747 people voted in the gubernatorial election. In 1858, 544,816 people voted.

New York consisted of 10 counties in 1776. Schoharie was but one of 16 districts in Albany County. In the census of 1790 there were 2,073 people in the district, including 152 slaves. By 1860, Schoharie was a county of 16 towns and a population of 34,469, a number greater than today’s population.

Political parties in New York State were:

Federalists (1789-1816) Democratic Republicans (1796-1824)

Whigs (1836-1852)        National Republicans (1828-1832)

Republicans (1856 -        Democrats (1828-

William C. Bouck saw many changes during his life. Travel was at first on foot over Indian trails and then by horse and carriage, and wagon, over dirt, plank and toll roads and through covered bridges. He saw drovers take their animals to market by foot. Finally, travel was by canals, railroads and steamships.

Threshing, long done in a barn with a flail and winnowing basket, was replaced by an invention of George Westinghouse that was manufactured in Central Bridge – a threshing machine. Cast iron plows replaced the wooden plow and were being turned out at the iron foundry in Middleburgh. Reaping machines were taking the place of the hand cradle.

Bouck’s great-grandfather Christian, grandfather Wilhelm and father Christian were among those who transformed the Schoharie wilderness into a rich farm land. William C. Bouck, the thirteenth governor, was among those who transformed New York into the Empire State.

Sources

Adams, Samuel Hopkins, Erie Canal, Random House, New York, 1953.

Notes

[1] 1712.