Craft Masonry in Oneida County, New York - Onondaga and ...

land was not sold initially to settlers but leased to tenant farmers. This quasi-feudal system, once prevalent in eastern New York
State, was broken by the Anti-Rent Rebellion of tenant farmers prior to the Civil War. If Sanger Hill recalls grand country houses of
landed English families, deriving income from tenant farmers, the allusion may not be coincidental, for the Sangers indeed were an
aristocratic, landed family.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Platt
Jonas Platt (June 30, 1769 Poughkeepsie (Wappingers Creek), New York, Dutchess County,
New York – February 22, 1834 Peru, Clinton County, New York) was an American lawyer and
politician from New York. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives. He
was the son of Zephaniah Platt. He attended a French Academy at Montreal, Canada, studied
law, and was admitted to the bar in 1790. He married Helena Livingston (1767-1859, sister of
Rev. John Henry Livingston), and they had eight children, among them Michigan Attorney
General Zephaniah Platt (1796-1871).
He practiced law in Poughkeepsie and served as the county clerk of Herkimer County, New
York, from 1791 to 1798. He was also the county clerk of Oneida County, New York, from 1798
to 1802. He was a member of the New York State Assembly in 1796.
Painting by Samuel F. B. Morse
Platt was elected as a Federalist to the Sixth Congress, and served from March 4, 1799, to
March 3, 1801. He was the chairman of the United States House Committee on Revisal and
Unfinished Business. Afterward, he resumed the practice of law and served as a general in the
Cavalry in the New York State Militia. In 1810, he was an unsuccessful candidate for governor.
He was a member of the New York State Senate from 1810 to 1813. He was also a member of the Council of Appointment in 1813.
From 1814 to 1821, he was an associate justice of the New York Supreme Court. He was a delegate to the New York Constitutional
Convention in 1821. He was buried at the Riverside Cemetery in Plattsburgh. State Treasurer Charles Z. Platt was his brother.
http://www.iment.com/maida/familytree/henry/epithalamium.htm
Jonas Platt was born and raised at the family place on the flats along Wappingers Creek, north of Manchester Bridge, and originally
owned by Madam Brett. After finishing preparatory studies at a French academy in Montreal, he entered the law office of Richard
Varick in New York City and was admitted to the Bar in 1790, the year of his marriage. He was County Clerk of Herkimer County
1791-98, and of Oneida County (after it was set off from Herkimer), 1798-1802. In 1796, he was a member of the State Assembly in
Albany and in 1810-13, he represented his constituents in the State Senate. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a
Federalist he served throughout the Sixth Congress 1799-1801, and he was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor, in 1810, being
defeated for that office by a very small majority by Daniel D. Tompkins, who was running for re-election. He was the first to have
proposed a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson, and his resolution in the Senate was seconded by DeWitt Clinton, whom he had
enlisted in the project. In 1814 he became an Associate Justice of the State Supreme Court, with Kent and Spencer as colleagues,
and remained in office until the adoption of the Constitution in 1821, of which he was the one of the framers (Biog. Cong. Dir. 1934,
p. 1416; Platt Lineage, 1891, pp. 117-18).
Whitesboro’s Golden Age, p. 87
The year before E.K. Kane was born, in 1794, there settled in Whitesboro another lawyer, Arthur Breese, who subsequently became
prominent in the politics of the county. That lawyer was a native of New Jersey, graduated at uthorizi College, read law in
Philadelphia with the celebrated Elias Boudinot, was admitted to the bar in 1792, and when he located in Whitesboro was but
twenty-five years old. His wife was a sister of Mrs. Jonas Platt [Catharine was the NEICE of Helen Livingston Platt], and as Mr. Platt
was county clerk of Herkimer county in 1794, he made Arthur Breese, the lawyer alluded to, deputy county clerk.
In 1796 Mr. Breese was elected to the Assembly, as successor to Jonas Platt in that body, and when Oneida county was formed, in
1798, Mr. Breese was appointed the first surrogate, and held that office for ten years afterward; surely those brothers-in-law had
their share of offices. A law partnership between Messrs. Platt and Breese was formed, and their marriage, business, social and
political ties were strong indeed.
Jonas Platt was a mentor to Henry’s daughter Catharine and son Henry Welles. He was also helpful to Catharine’s son, Sidney
Breese.
Memoir of DeWitt Clinton – Letter from DWC to Jonas Platt
On the 8 th of October [1823] the first canal boat will pass into the Hudson at this place, and a celebration will take place under the
direction of the citizens and corporation of Albany, correspondent with this auspicious event. Your signal services in initiating, and
promoting, our great system of internal navigation will be remembered to your honour when we are no more.
[It was Jonas Platt who first proposed that the Erie Canal be created.] . . . [note: there some debate on this . . . there is a separate
digital archive in the holdings of OMDHS which address this issue – g.l.h.]
http://www.iment.com/maida/familytree/henry/history/eriecanal/index.htm
ALBANY, Sept. 29, 1823.
MY DEAR SIR,
On the 8 th of October the first canal boat will pass into the Hudson at this place, and a celebration
will take place under the direction of the citizens and corporation of Albany, correspondent with
this auspicious event. Your signal services in initiating, and promoting, our great system of
internal navigation will be remembered to your honour when we are no more.
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