Nevada Northrop Stranahan (1861-1928)

 

Portrait from Prominent and Progressive Americans, Vol. II, 1904.

  "Mr. Stranahan's career is distinguished by a series of success achieved by few men of his age...such achievements speak louder than words, and as an expression of regard for his attainments from the people of Oswego County must ever be a gratification of Mr. Stranahan. In the prime of manhood and with a wide experience of finance, he is eminently fitted to cope with the duties of the Collector of the Port."

  Such was the character assessment of Nevada Northrop Stranahan, one of the more unusual names on the New York political stage at the turn of the 19th century. Stranahan served multiple terms in both houses of the New York legislature, was District Attorney of Oswego County, and in 1901 was named as Collector of the Port of New York. The son of Smith and Lucelia Higgins Stranahan, Nevada Northrop Stranahan was born in Granby, Oswego County, New York on February 27, 1861. The origins of Stranahan's first name remain unknown but is believed to be connected to the like-named state, which had come into existence as a U.S. territory around the time of his birth.

  Stranahan's youth was spent on his family's farm and he was a student in schools local to his hometown, including the Valley Seminary. Deciding upon a career in law, Stranahan enrolled at the Columbia College Law School in the early 1880s and in 1884 was admitted to the state bar. Stranahan married in April 1885 to Elsie Merriman, who predeceased him in 1922. The couple were wed for nearly forty years and had one daughter, Louise. 

  After being admitted to the bar Stranahan established his law practice in Fulton, New York, and made his first foray into politics in September 1889 when he was nominated for the state assembly at the Oswego County Republican convention. He was elected that November and after taking his seat in January 1890 was named to the committees on Claims and Privileges and Elections. He was renominated for a second term in August 1890. He was acknowledged by both the Syracuse Standard and Buffalo Courier as a "faithful, competent member" and "one of the most talented young men of the county."

From the New York Red Book, 1892.

  Stranahan won a second term that November and in January 1891 was named to the committees on Codes and Gas and Electricity. He won a third term in late 1891 "with an 825 plurality" over two opponents and throughout the 1892 session authored several pieces of legislation, including "authorizing towns and villages to establish free baths", a bill to prevent diseases in peach trees, and a bill for holding town meetings in Oswego County. The New York Red Book also notes that Stranahan took "front rank as a debater", and during his term held the additional post of vice president of the Fulton and Oswego Falls Railroad.

  After his third term in the assembly, Stranahan was elected as Oswego County District Attorney, serving from 1893 to 1895, during which time "he filled that place to the satisfaction of the county." Stranahan continued his political ascent in 1895 when he was elected to the state senate "by a majority of 9,839" over Democratic nominee William Baker. During the 1896 term, he chaired the committee on Cities and served on the committees on Privileges and Elections, and Taxation and Retrenchment. He won a second senate term in November 1898, polling 16,270 votes, and again chaired the committee on cities. Stranahan coasted to a third term in the Senate in November 1900 when he defeated Democrat Charles Remick by a vote of 18,295 to 10,332. The 1901-02 session saw him chair the committee on cities for a third time and also continued on the Finance and Taxation and Retrenchment committees.

From the Mt. Vernon Argus.

  Late in his third senate term Nevada Stranahan's name was put forward as a possible successor to George R. Bidwell, the retiring Collector of the Port of New York. A coveted federal office, the New York Port Collector had charge of the collection of import duties on foreign goods that entered the United States via the port of New York. In November 1901 President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Stranahan to that post, with his duties to begin in April 1902. Stranahan's succession to that office was met with wide praise by newspapers of the time, with the Troy Times describing him as "one of the ablest and most honorable men in the legislature." Further character praise was given by the Brooklyn Eagle, which remarked:

"He is a politician, whose integrity, liberality and honorableness, as well as whose learning and public service, entitle him to be called a statesman. He is in thorough sympathy with his party on the line of its best intents. He is a scholarly and cultivated gentleman."

  In 1902 Stranahan resigned his senate seat and formally entered into the collector's office on April 1. His tenure extended until December 1907 when he resigned due to health concerns, and in the latter part of that year undertook a trip to Europe in the hope of regaining his health. Following his resignation his service was lauded by Treasury Secretary George Cortelyou, who noted:

"It was with great reluctance that the department accepted this resignation, and only upon his instistance. He retires from this office to the great regret of all, and with the acknowledged reputation of having been one of the best collectors that New York has ever had."

  Stranahan continued residency in New York until 1911, and in March of that year announced that he and his family would be moving to Great Britain, in the hope of bettering his health. On March 29, 1911, he and his wife were feted with a farewell dinner by the citizens of Fulton, and shortly thereafter left for Europe. Little is known of his time in Great Britain. Widowed in 1922, Stranahan resided at the home of his daughter Louise in Peterborough following his wife's death and died in that city on July 6, 1928, aged 67. He was later interred alongside his wife at the Winwick Churchyard, Winwick, Cambridgeshire, England.

From the New York Tribune, April 5, 1902.

From the Brooklyn Times Union, July 12, 1928.

Dolphus Skinner Lynde (1833-1902)

                                                       Portrait from the Watertown Herald, February 27, 1897.

  Dolphus Skinner Lynde was for many years a political power player in St. Lawrence County, New York, being a four-term assemblyman and three-term state senator from that county. Mr. Lynde has been on my radar since locating his name via a New York Red Book way back in 2003, and for twelve years time no picture of him could be located (despite my best attempts at searching for one!) Earlier yesterday afternoon a newspaper print of him was (to my great surprise) finally located, via a February 27, 1897 edition of the Watertown Herald.
   A life-long New Yorker, Dolphus Skinner Lynde was born in Antwerp, Jefferson County, New York on July 1, 1833, being the eldest of eight children born to Benjamin Franklin and Catherine Cheney Lynde. His education began in the common schools of Jefferson County and as a youth attended the Gouverneur Wesleyan Seminary. Early in his life he would take work as a bookkeeper under Antwerp iron manufacturer James Sterling and remained in his service for three years. 
  In the early 1850s, Lynde left Antwerp and resettled in the town of Hermon, located in St. Lawrence County. Lynde married in Hermon in 1853 to Esther Caul (1837-1936), to whom he was wed for nearly fifty years. The couple would have no children of their own but would adopt a daughter, Grace Pauline (1872-1961). Lynde's residency in Hermon saw him become a founder and stockholder in the Cooper's Falls Iron Works, and would accumulate a small fortune "selling goods, milling, buying and selling cattle and real estate."
   Prior to 1864, Lynde pledged allegiance to the Democratic Party, and in that year changed parties when he cast his ballot for Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. From 1868-1871 he served as Township Supervisor of Hermon and served on the St. Lawrence County Board of Supervisors. In November 1870 he was elected to his first term in the New York State Assembly and would be returned to that office on three further occasions in 1872, 1873, and 1874. Lynde would chair the assembly committee on Internal Affairs during the sessions of 1872, 1873, and 1874, and in 1873 was a member of the committee on Railroads, Engrossed Bills, and State Prisons. During his final term, assemblyman Lynde introduced the Compulsory Education Act, a piece of legislation passed by the legislature that required:

"All parents and those who have the care of children shall instruct them, or cause them to be instructed, in spelling, reading, writing, English grammar, geography and arithmetic. And every parent, guardian or other person having control and charge of any child between the ages of eight and fourteen years shall cause such child to attend some public or private day school at least fourteen weeks in each year."

   Following a three-year absence from the New York political scene, Lynde reemerged as a candidate for the State Senate in 1877, hoping to represent the state's 17th district. That November he would defeat Democratic nominee James McNaughton "by a 5,859 majority." Lynde's first senate term saw him chair the committees on Manufactures and Agriculture and he would win a second term in the senate in November 1879, soundly defeating his Democratic opponent Albert Andrus by a vote of 18,922 to 10,179.

From the Norwood News, Sept. 9, 1879.

   The citizens of Lynde's senatorial district would elect him to a third term in the senate in 1881, and during the 1882-83 term was a member of the finance committee. In the mid-1880s, he and his family removed from Hermon and settled in the neighboring town of Canton. In 1887 he assisted in the founding of the town's First National Bank, serving as its president until January of 1898. A series of "financial reverses" marred Lynde's last years, and just a few days before his death had filed for bankruptcy, with his debts being recorded as "over $13,000." Lynde had died on June 30, 1902, just one day before his 69th birthday. His cause of death was attributed to a stroke suffered on the piazza of his Canton home, with death occurring later that evening. He was survived by his adopted daughter Grace and his wife Esther, who died a year short of her hundredth birthday in 1936. The entire Lynde family was later interred at the Evergreen Cemetery in Canton.

Lynde's obituary from the Potsdam Junction Commercial Advertiser, July 1902.

Clermonte Getman Tennant (1880-1955), Claremont Rennison Smith (1859-1948), Clermont Colfax Smith (1868-1939)

  Officially plucked from the depths of obscurity, Clermonte Getman Tennant was a leading attorney in Cooperstown, New York, a town known more for baseball than for yielding oddly named political figures. A practicing lawyer for nearly fifty years, Mr. Tennant was an unsuccessful candidate for the New York State Senate in 1908, running on the Democratic ticket. In addition to his Senate candidacy, Tennant would also serve as Deputy Attorney General of New York for several years.

  Born in Richfield Springs, New York on September 19, 1880, Clermonte G. Tennant was the son of Judge Albert Clermonte and Lizzie Harter Getman Tennant. Clermonte attended the Albany Academy as a youth and went on to enroll at the Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, graduating in the class of 1904. Following his graduation, Tennant studied at the Albany Law School and after the death of his father in 1905 returned to Cooperstown to establish a law practice. He married in that village on September 5, 1908, to Florence S. Bundy (1885-1961), with whom he would have one son, Robert Clermonte Tennant (1909-1972). Shortly after establishing his career as an attorney, Tennant was named to the position of Deputy Attorney General of New York, serving in this post for "a number of years", according to his 1955 Otsego Times obituary. In 1908 he was nominated by the Democratic Party to represent the 37th District in the New York State Senate, and the Hamilton Literary Magazine, Volume 43 took note of Tennant's candidacy, remarking that: 

"Next to Willis S. Mills '94, Mr. Tennant holds that best record for memory tests made in the College. His tenacious memory may assist him in handling the intricate and diffuse problems of a political campaign. All success to the Hamilton man in politics."

  Tennant's Republican opponent in that year's election was another oddly named man, Jotham Powers Allds (1865-1923) of Chenango County. A seasoned politician, Allds had served in the state assembly from 1896-1902 (including three years as majority leader) and had been the senate incumbent since 1903. Despite a spirited contest, Tennant came up short in the vote count, losing to Allds by a vote of 14,623 to 18,775. Despite his defeat, Tennant continued in his public career for many years afterward, while Jotham Allds' political career was derailed in 1910 by his resignation from the senate on account of bribery. An electoral result from the 1908 Tennant-Allds Contest appeared in that year's New York State Red Book and is shown below.

  While coming out on the losing end in his state senate candidacy, Tennent continued to be politically active, serving as a  member of both the New York State Democratic Committee and the Otsego County Democratic Committee. He would hold a seat on the New York State Tax Commission as a representative for the county of Otsego, and in 1937 formed the law firm Tennant and Tennant with his son Robert, which continued until the senior Tennant died in 1955. In addition to this partnership, Clermonte Tennant served as village attorney for Cooperstown for over two decades.

   Busy as an attorney and with local political affairs, Tennant was also active in several local fraternal organizations, holding memberships in the Oneonta Lodge of Elks, the Otsego Lodge #134 of Free and Accepted Masons and the Cooperstown Rotary Club. He was a past president of the Otsego County Bar Association and is noted by his Utica Observer obituary as being "widely known as a stamp collector and had a valuable collection including many commemorative U.S. issues on which he concentrated in recent years." Clermonte G. Tennant continued an active schedule well into his 75th year until illness took a toll on his health. He died at his home in Cooperstown on October 28, 1955, after "an illness of six weeks" and was later interred at the Lakeview Cemetery in Richfield Springs, New York.

From the Utica Observer, October 30, 1955.

From the Indianapolis News, January 13, 1925.

   A one-term member of the Indiana House of Representatives from Marion County, Claremont Rennison Smith spent a good majority of his 88 years as a Hoosier but was not born a resident of that state; his birth instead occurring in Fairfield County, Ohio on December 17, 1859. The son of Seneca A. and Nancy Ellen (West) Smith, Claremont Rennison Smith married in Morrow County Ohio in December 1881 to Eva May Bennett (born 1859) and later had two sons, Harry Crawford (1882-1962) and Frank Clairville (1885-1960). 

  Prior to 1891, Smith suffered the death of his wife Eva and in May 1891 remarried to Agnes V. Murphy (1860-1927) in Morrow County. This marriage would see the birth of a third child, Nellie Mildred, in 1895, and by this time Smith and his family were residents of Shelby County, Indiana. By 1910 the family had resettled in Marion County, where Smith is recorded as a "master mechanic in Indianapolis." 

  Acknowledged by the Indianapolis News as a "Republican worker for over forty years", Smith launched his political career in 1924 at age 64 when he won the primary vote for state representative from Marion County. He would win the election that November and after taking his seat at the start of the 1925-27 session made note that he was:

"Prepared to support legislation in favor of the farmer's co-operative marketing plan, for a better school program, for economy in taxation, for the abolishment of useless state boards, and for the re-establishment of local self government so far as possible."

From the Indianapolis News, January 13, 1925.

  Smith proved to be busy as a first-term legislator, chairing the House Committee on Statistics and Immigration, as well as serving on the committees on the Affairs of Indiana, Benevolent and Scientific Institutions, Public Printing, and Rights and Privileges. Smith's term in the legislature concluded in January 1927 and was widowed for a second time in February of that year with the death of his wife Agnes. Little else could be found on Smith's life after 1927, except mention of his removal back to Ohio, where he died aged 88 on January 25, 1948, in Columbus. He was later interred at the Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis. 

From the Indianapolis Star, November 6, 1924.

Portrait courtesy of the Iowa Legislative Database.

   Hailing from the county of Butler in Iowa, Clermont Colfax Smith represented the aforementioned county in the Iowa State Senate for three terms in the late 1930s, dying in office in December 1939. The son of Josephus and Elizabeth Lambert Smith, Clermont Colfax Smith was born in Adair County, Iowa on November 28, 1868. He attended the public schools of that county and graduated from high school in the city of Harlan, Iowa. 

   During his adolescence, Smith taught school for a time and after a short period at college assumed the superintendency of the Fontanelle, Iowa school system. He would later resign from this post and begin the study of medicine, attending the Northwestern Medical School, and graduating in the class of 1904. Smith would later marry Ms. Rachel C. Corrough (1871-1944) and the couple would become parents to two daughters, Selma Louise (1899-1984) and Marian Elizabeth (1904-1970).

  After spending a good majority of his life as a practicing physician, Claremont Smith won election as a Republican to the Iowa Senate in the 1934 election year, serving during the session of 1935-37. He was reelected to the Senate in 1936 and 1938 and was a sitting senator at the time of his death on December 5, 1939, several days following his 71st birthday. Following his death, Smith was interred at the Lynwood Cemetery in Clarksville, Iowa.

Lispenard Stewart (1855-1927)

   This unusually named member of the New York State Senate was born on June 19, 1855 in Westchester County, New York, the son of Lispenard and Mary Rhinelander Rogers Stewart. Being a child born into wealth (one of his relatives was famed dry goods merchant and millionaire Alexander Turney Stewart), Lispenard Stewart received his education at private schools in New York City and later attended Yale University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1876. After his tenure at Yale, Stewart began the study of law at the Columbia College Law School, receiving his law degree in 1878. Stewart is also recorded as being a lifelong bachelor, making him one of the few politicians profiled thus far to have never married.
   The name of Lispenard Stewart grew to be a prominent one in New York social circles during the late 19th century, and he was often named to various positions of public trust. In 1885 he was named to the Committee of 100 important New York citizens to accompany President Ulysses Grant's body from his home in Saratoga, New York to its resting place in New York City. Stewart was also named to the Citizen's Committee that put together the celebration for the 100th anniversary of President Washington's inauguration in 1889.
  While active in the social life of his native city, Lispenard Stewart was acknowledged as a skilled politician. A "staunch Republican", and for many years he was selected as a frequent delegate to New York Republican party conventions. In 1888 he was named as a Presidential Elector for New York and attended the Republican National Convention in Chicago that nominated Benjamin Harrison for the Presidency.
   In the year following his service as Presidential Elector Stewart was nominated for a seat in the New York State Senate. He would win that election, and in that year (1889) became the only Republican State Senator elected in New York. During his Senate service, Stewart gained lasting notoriety by introducing the bill that created the Rapid Transit Commission for New York City. An excellent write-up on Stewart's Senate tenure was given in the 1890 Annual Record of the Assemblymen and Senators from the City of New York, which notes that he: "is a man of large means, and spends most of his time attending to real estate matters, practicing law incidentally." Stewart's character is also attested to, with passing mention going to his opinions "being sought with respect", and that "already a useful member, Mr. Stewart could,  with greater independence, easily wield a weighty influence for good."
   Following his stint in the state senate Stewart continued to be politically involved, serving again as a Republican National Convention delegate in 1896. He was named to a seat on the New York State Commission of Prisons from New York's 1st judicial district and would serve as its President from 1895-1902. A biography on Stewart (featured in the 1898 work Representative Men of New York, Volume II) states that he also enjoyed traveling and hunting, visiting countries such as Tunis, Russia, Mexico, and Egypt. The book further attests that "many heads of moose, elk, caribou, bear, manitou sheep, and deer testify to his skill with the rifle."
   Stewart spent his final years engaged in business and charity endeavors, dying at age 72 on October 15, 1927. He was subsequently interred in a lavish mausoleum at the Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. The rare portrait of him shown above was discovered in the earlier mentioned Representative Men of New York, Volume II. In addition to that portrait, another rare picture appeared in an 1890 edition of the Frederick, Maryland News in an article about "eligible bachelors of New York" and is shown below.

         This Lispenard Stewart obituary appeared in the Oct. 22, 1927 edition of the Newport Mercury.