Novatus Mapes Blish (1828-1905)

From the Hobart Independent, February 28, 1905.

  For many years a farmer in Delaware County, New York, Novatus Mapes Blish was also active in local politics in his region, serving as a justice of the peace and justice of the session. Possessing a truly unique first name (the first such instance of which this author has located), Blish earns a spot here on the site due to his being a delegate to the 1880 Republican National Convention from New York. The son of Novatus (1795-1848) and Mary Mapes Barlow Blish (1804-1884), Novatus Mapes Blish was born in Roxbury, New York on July 16, 1828.

  The Blish family removed to the town of Stamford, New York while Novatus was still a child and here purchased a 150-acre farm, which would later be enlarged by an additional 100 acres. Young Novatus would attend the district school and later studied at the Hanford Academy in Hobart, New York. Left fatherless at age 19, Blish would take on the day to day management of his family's farm, as well as a small store that came with the original property. He married on September 22, 1851, to Marietta Cowan (1830-1893). The couple's four decades of marriage saw the births of four children, Charles Addison (born 1852), Helen Mary (1855-1878), John Cowan (born 1858), and Marietta Louise (born 1861).

   After selling the store on his property in 1861, Novatus Mapes Blish continued operations with his farm, which would eventually consist of 430 acres and a dairy. Blish's obituary in the Hobart Independent also denotes his involvement with a hardware store in Hobart, which he operated with two partners. A devout Presbyterian, Blish served as a deacon in the Hobart Presbyterian Church and for many years served as church treasurer. He undertook further religious work with the Delaware County Sunday School Association (being that organization's secretary) and was also connected with the New York State Sunday School Association.

  An active Republican in Delaware County, Blish held the office of justice of the peace for twelve years and from 1858-1859 served as a justice of sessions for the county. In 1880 he was selected as part of the New York delegation to that year's Republican National Convention in Chicago that nominated James A. Garfield for the Presidency. Blish also had some oddly named company at the convention, his fellow delegate being Cyrillo Southworth Lincoln (1830-1900), a former Ontario County state assemblyman featured on this site in August of 2012.

  Following his service as a delegate, Blish found prominence in the state grange, representing it before the state assembly in 1883-84 "in promotion of legislation for the benefit of agricultural interests. In 1892 he retired from farming, turning over ownership of the farm to his son John. Widowed in 1893, Novatus Blish made his home with his daughter Marietta Blish Griffin in his later years and died at home on February 19, 1905, aged 76. He was later interred at the Locust Hill Cemetery in Hobart.

From the Jefferson New York Courier, February 1905.

Gleason Burnham Speenburgh (1907-1971)

Portrait from the Binghamton Press, February 26, 1958.

    A practicing attorney in the Delaware County, New York area for over three decades, Gleason Burnham Speenburgh was elected to multiple terms as District Attorney of that county. His lengthy tenure in that office ended under cloudy circumstances in 1958 when he resigned due to income tax evasion. Born in Margaretville, New York on November 15, 1907, Gleason B. Speenburgh was the son of Delmar and Jessie Dewel Speenburgh. He graduated in the class of 1926 from the Milne School in Albany and married in that city in 1934 to Ms. Dorothy Regan (1909-1986), to whom he was wed for over thirty years. The couple would remain childless through the entirety of their marriage.

Speenburgh's portrait from the 1926 Milne Crimson and White yearbook.

   Admitted to the New York Bar in 1931, Speenburgh would later establish a law firm with George A. Speenburgh (presumably a relative), operating under the name Speenburgh and Speenburgh. Their firm would continue until its dissolution in 1946. In 1937 Gleason Speenburgh emerged as one of three candidates for District Attorney of Delaware County and in that year won the election. He would be returned to that office in 1940 and 1942 and in the last named year was "reelected in absentia", due to his service in the ongoing war effort. Stationed as a captain in Washington, D.C., Speenburgh would reach the rank of first lieutenant and during his service, Layman G. Snyder served as acting district attorney

  Speenburgh was reelected as district attorney in 1946, 1949, 1952, and 1955. In the late 1950s, rumors began to leak out about alleged income tax evasion on the part of Speenburgh, and in 1958 it was revealed that he had indeed falsified his income tax return in 1951 in order to avoid "payment of  nearly $4,000 in taxes." On February 25, 1958, Speenburgh appeared at the U.S. District Court at Utica, where he pleaded guilty. He was subsequently fined $5,000. 

  Despite this hefty fine, Speenburgh's problems with the tax man weren't over yet, as his "returns for several other years" were under scrutiny. By 1961 the U.S. government had leveled a claim that "Mr. Speenburgh owed $32, 733.98 in income taxes and penalties during a seven year period ending in 1954", and in April of that year settled the case "for some $37,000."

From the February 26, 1958 issue of the Binghamton Press.

   Little could be found on the remainder of Speenburgh's life following his income tax problems. He continued to reside in the Delaware County area until his death on November 25, 1971, ten days following his 64th birthday. The Catskill Mountain News reported that Speenburgh suffered a fatal heart attack behind the wheel of his jeep while on a hunting trip with his wife. Unable to move him from the vehicle, Mrs. Speenburgh walked over a mile through snow to get aid for her stricken husband, who was later pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in Margaretville, New York. Following his death, Speenburgh was interred at the Clovesville Cemetery in Fleischmanns, New York.