Erbin Cone Wattles (1825-1909)

    Today's profile is a return to a local oddly named politician from Chautauqua County, New York--Erbin Cone Wattles. This interestingly named man with impressive facial hair served as Township Supervisor for the town of Ripley during the mid-1870s. Although his political career didn't extend past the confines of his hometown, Wattles was nevertheless a prominent figure in Ripley, New York for many years.
   Erbin Cone Wattles was born in Ripley on February 21, 1825, the son of Gurdon Huntington and Lucretia Phelps Wattles. Erbin's father Gurdon was also a prominent Ripley resident and served as Township Supervisor in 1835 and 1836. Erbin received his education in Ripley and in 1845 married a woman who also had an unusual name--Wealthy Ann Tennant. The couple was married for nearly sixty years until he died in 1909. Four children were eventually born to the couple and are listed as follows: Gurdon Moses, Sarah, Burt, and lastly, Jay B.
   The few sources that mention Wattles show that he purchased a large farm in Ripley in 1859 and resided here with his family for many years. His obituary in the Buffalo Express also notes that Wattles was a school teacher and music teacher during his life, and makes light of his service as Ripley Town Supervisor. Wattles was elected to this office in 1873 and served two more terms in 1874 and 1875. A roster of past Ripley supervisors has been posted below, with Wattles's name highlighted in yellow.

 In addition to his tenure as town supervisor, Wattles was also a devoutly religious man and was a prominent member of the Ripley Baptist Church. At some point during the late 1870s, Wattles and his family resettled in Buffalo, New York and he resided there until his death on April 17, 1909. He was subsequently buried in the Quincy Rural Cemetery in Ripley and was survived by his wife Wealthy, who died in 1916. 

                         Wattles's obituary in the April 21, 1909 edition of the Buffalo Express.

   On April 27, 2012, this author and two "blog friends" made a visit to the Quincy Rural Cemetery to photograph Erbin C. Wattles's gravesite. The Quincy Cemetery houses quite a few interesting graves, including those of NY State Assemblyman Jeremiah Mann (1800-1868), New York State Senator Joseph A. McGinnies (1861-1945), and U.S. Congressman Charles Mann Hamilton (1872-1941). Interestingly, two of these men are buried near the Wattles plot. I had made an earlier visit to this cemetery in March 2012 to photograph the grave of Charles M. Hamilton but was unable to find it at the time. That being said, it certainly pays to have two extra pairs of eyes with you when seeking out gravesites!

  The above picture is of the Wattles plot, which houses both Erbin, his wife, and their children. To the left in the background of this picture, you'll notice a large white obelisk, and this happens to be the gravestone of the earlier mentioned Jeremiah Mann, who represented Chautauqua County in the NY State Assembly in 1845.

                                           The gravemarker of Erbin C. Wattles, 1825-1909.

Orindatus Simon Bolivar Wall (1825-1891)

    Today's profile centers on a very new political name discovery--the intriguingly named Orindatus Simon Bolivar Wall. Wall has the distinction of being the first African-American profiled here on the site, and this unjustly forgotten man forged a distinguished political and military career for himself in a time when it was difficult for any black person to receive even the most basic rights, let alone hold public office. The rare engraving of him shown above was originally featured in Joseph Thomas Wilson's The Black Phalanx: A History of the Negro Soldiers of the United States, published in 1890 (a year before Wall's death) and this book can be found in its entirety on the website www.archive.org.
  Orindatus (or "OSB", as most sources list him) was born in Richmond County, North Carolina on August 17, 1825, the son of a white plantation owner named Stephen Wall. OSB's mother was one of Stephen's slaves, whose given name was Priscilla. Orindatus's unusual first and middle names are historically based, "Datus" being a Latin deviation from the word "given" and "Simon Bolivar" having come from the famed Venezuelan military and political leader Simon Bolivar (1783-1830).
   OSB Wall was granted his freedom by his father at a young age, and in 1838 was sent by him to Harveysburg, Ohio. An excellent up on Wall's life and family, Daniel Sharfstein's The Invisible Line, notes that he was raised and educated in Harveysburg by a family of Quakers. During the 1840s Wall began learning the shoemaking trade and plied his craft in Harveysburg for several years before moving to nearby Oberlin, Ohio in the early 1850s. 
  The town of Oberlin was then regarded as a haven for the abolitionist movement, and within months of his arrival, Wall had reestablished his profession as a cobbler. Also during this time, Wall became prominent in the anti-slavery movement in Oberlin and married here in October 1854 to Amanda Thomas, a free woman. Born in Virginia, Amanda was later a classmate of OSB's sister Caroline at Oberlin College. Just seventeen at the time of her marriage to Wall, their union produced eight children. Amanda Wall would forge an important career for herself following the Civil War, teaching newly freed slaves reading and writing skills, and was an advocate for women's suffrage.
   As a prominent cobbler in Oberlin, Wall was afforded an opportunity few blacks had at the time: to make a name for themselves in the realm of business and public affairs. While Wall's stature in Oberlin is of some note, his role as an early civil rights activist is an integral part of his overall life story. In 1858 he became a pivotal player in the Wellington-Fugitive slave rescue. In this case, a group of Oberlin citizens (including Wall) forcibly rescued John Price, a runaway slave from Kentucky who had been captured by slave catchers. After retrieving Price, Wall and the other rescuers (37 people in total) returned with him to Oberlin and within a few days Price was spirited away to Canada, thus earning his freedom.
  Despite their heroic actions in John Price's rescue, Wall and the other rescuers were indicted for aiding him under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Nearly all of the rescuers (Wall included) were soon released from custody, and a daguerreotype of these heroic men was taken in front of the Cuyahoga County jail. The aforementioned portrait (originally published in the 1943 work A History of Oberlin College) has been posted below. In this rare photo, OSB Wall stands second from left and can be identified by his top hat.

   In the years following his actions in Oberlin, Wall became an attorney and during the Civil War served as a recruiter for the famed Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Infantry. In March 1865 Wall gained lasting distinction when he was commissioned as a Captain in the Union Army, one of the first African Americans to be so honored. In that same year, he was named as a Quartermaster for the newly organized Bureau of Freedman, Refugees, and Abandoned Lands, located in Charleston, South Carolina.

  In the 1860s the Wall family relocated to Washington, D.C., where OSB found employment as a police magistrate. He also became active in politics around this time, and in 1872 was elected to the Washington, D.C. Territorial House of Delegates. Wall was re-elected to the legislature the following year, and it is noted in the earlier mentioned The Invisible Line that during his two terms, Wall represented a district that had a white majority! A roster from the legislative sessions in which he served has been posted below.

   In addition to his terms in the legislature, Wall served in Washington as a notary public, justice of the peace, and president of the Howard Hill Aid Society. He also continued with the practice of law, and was praised in an 1890 edition of the Washington Post as "one of the best-known colored lawyers in the city". This same newspaper also mentions that in April of 1890, Wall suffered a paralytic stroke while engaged in work at the police court in Washington. He never fully regained his health and died at age 65 on April 26, 1891, at his home. He was subsequently buried in the Graceland Cemetery in Washington but was exhumed four years after his death and was reburied at the Arlington National Cemetery. His wife Amanda was interred alongside him following her death in 1902.

A Visit With O.S.B. Wall

  On May 8, 2o17 I was lucky enough to track down and photograph Orindatus Wall's gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery. One of over a dozen gravesites photographed during my near month-long stay in the nation's capital, other figures photographed on this day were former U.S. Representative and Commissioner of Pensions Green Berry Raum, Assistant U.S. Treasury Secretary Alvred Bayard Nettleton, and former Minnesota Governor and U.S. Senator Cushman Kellogg Davis. And now a photo of the trip!

Alvarus Eleazer Gilbert (1825-1891)

From the History of Waukesha County, 1880.

   The life of obscure Wisconsin political figure Alvarus Eleazer Gilbert is profiled today, and the following article will be one of the more somber ones you'll read here. Mr. Gilbert served two terms in the State Assembly during the late 1870s and was considered a figure of distinction in the county of Waukesha both before and after his election. Gilbert's life ended under tragic circumstances in August 1891 when he committed suicide by hanging, in what was described by the Waukesha Freeman newspaper as a "fit of insanity". 

   Alvarus Eleazer Gilbert was born in the small town of Alexander, New York on August 17, 1825, one of the ten children born to Daniel and Catherine Showerman Gilbert. The Gilbert family resided in Alexander until August of 1839 when they relocated to Milwaukee. Their stay here was short-lived, and after a few weeks resettled in the town of New Berlin. The History of Waukesha County ( published in 1885), notes that the Gilbert family resided in a single-room log house with the ten-member Hiram Hollister family for a short period, and this author is amazed that one log cabin could support twenty-two people! It should also be noted that Daniel Gilbert later erected a cabin of his own, and also had numerous acres to go along with it.

   Alvarus Gilbert attended schools local to the New Berlin area and was engaged in farming for most of his adolescence. In October 1849 he married Harriet Hollister (daughter of the aforementioned Hiram Hollister) and eventually became the father to six children: Minnie, Willis, Florence, Herbert, Ernest, and Willie. Alvarus and his family removed to Illinois in the early 1850s and following his settlement engaged in railroad work, being the head of a construction crew. During their Illinois residency, two of Gilbert's young sons (Willie and Ernest) died and in 1861 the family returned to the New Berlin-Prospect, Wisconsin area. Shortly afterward Alvarus purchased a 190-acre farm where he would reside for the remainder of his life. 

  Gilbert first became active in public office during the 1860s when he was elected as New Berlin town clerk. He would go on to serve in other local offices, including stints as town treasurer, town supervisor, and as a member of the Waukesha County Board of supervisors. In 1877 he was elected to the Wisconsin State House of Representatives, representing Waukesha County in the session of 1878. In the following year, Gilbert eked out a narrow reelection victory (1476 votes to 1326) over his Democratic opponent, William E. Hennessey. A passage with those election results was featured in the 1879 Wisconsin Blue Book and has been posted in its entirety below. The Blue Book also notes that during his second legislative term, Gilbert held a seat on the committee on Incorporations.

  Gilbert returned to his farm at Prospect Hill, Wisconsin following his term and is mentioned as being involved with the "town insurance society". Little else could be found on his later years with the exception being his death. An archived version of the August 27, 1891 edition of the Waukesha Freeman, details the circumstances of his death. The accompanying information and snippets were located in the aforementioned newspaper.

  

   As the Freeman related in its coverage of the incident, Gilbert had been in impaired health for at least a few months before his suicide and notes that he had never been confined to his home because of it. Curiously, the Waukesha Freeman gives no mention as to what his illness may have been but does note that he was "known to be in a serious condition. His family and friends were especially concerned over the deep melancholy  in which he was constantly brooding." This seems to imply that Gilbert suffered from a deep depression for at least several weeks before his death.

   In the above passage, we can read that Gilbert's "mind had become obviously affected, and so melancholy and dejected did he become that his family feared suicide, especially as he was wont to discuss the question of self destruction in a manner that left no doubt as to his wishes." Gilbert's disturbed state of mind worried his family to such an extent that they began keeping a "strict watch" on his behavior, but all to no avail.

   The Waukesha Freeman notes that in the early hours of August 20, 1891, Alvarus E. Gilbert dressed, took his hat and cane, and made his way to a barn located on his property. It was here that he hanged himself from a barn timber, using "a rope halter used in tying stock". His body was discovered by a family member a few hours later and a certain Dr. Ingersoll concluded that Gilbert's death was caused "by his own hand while in a state of insanity was rendered."

   One can only wonder what underlying mental illness Gilbert may have had, and one could also venture a guess that monetary or business problems could have been a contributing factor in his taking his own life. The newspaper mentions "illness" numerous times but gives no clue as to whether or not he was ill with cancer or some other malady.