Walter WOOD
1975 - Legends in the dust Fillmore and Judge Wood By SHEILA TUCKER

1812 home in Montville

Judge Walter Wood home in Montville built in 1812, now owned by Mr. and Mrs. James P. Ventura. Millard Fillmore studied law with Wood from 1819 to 1821.


Legends in the dust Fillmore and Judge Wood
By SHEILA TUCKER

Millard Fillmore, a wool and cloth carder apprentice and self-educated son of a hardtimes farmer in 1819 moved with his father from his boyhood home in New Hope to Montville. Montville with its ample water power was then the hub of industry in the area. The local entrepreneur of Montville was Judge Walter Wood who had served as the first judge of Cayuga County from 1810 to 1817.

Wood and his wife, Paulina Mosher Wood, had been among the first Quakers to arrive in Cayuga County and he was appointed deputy clerk of Onondaga County that same year, 1794. He settled in Aurora and led the unsuccessful drive to have Aurora remain the county seat after Seneca County was created in 1804. He encouraged the Pace brothers to establish their weekly "The Aurora Gazette" and in 1805 built a county court house in Aurora mostly at his own expense.

His law practice flourished in Aurora and he was actively involved in the settlement of bogus military tract land claims. In 1811 Wood moved to Montville where he created a small pioneer empire. He owned most of the homes, erected a store, hotel, scythe factory, nail factory, tannery, grist mill and school house.

In 1819 he was advertising for "a young man to teach an English School in Montville as well as a shoemaker, tailor and scythe maker."

The few industries in Montville that he didn't own he had a financial interest in. In an 1813 agreement that he made with John Stoyell, Wood paid Stoyell $750 for a half interest in a "mill seat upon the Great Creek with 10 acres of land." In this transaction Wood reserved the
right to become a partner if Stoyell built the saw mill.

Wood's Montville property in 1831 was described as "a farm of about 160 acres, whereon is a neat and compact little village containing about 35 framed buildings, including dwelling houses, a store, tavern, various mechanic's shops, grist mill, saw mill, small woolen factory, timber and woodland as well as the Mansion House of Wood."

Fillmore's father, Nathaniel, asked Wood if Millard could study with him for a few months before he returned to his wool carding apprenticeship. Wood agreed and young Fillmore in recalling this period of his life wrote:

"I went immediately into Judge Wood's office, and he handed me the first volume of Blackstone's Commentaries, and said, 'Thee will please to turn thy attention to this.' I commenced reading, but without understanding much that I read. I soon, however, discovered, that I was reading the laws of England, and not of the State of New York. Not having been told that the laws of New York were founded upon the English law, I feld sadly disappointed, as my study seemed a waste of time. I however continued to read, as directed; but received no instruction or explanation from Judge Wood. I was occasionally sent out to attend to some business in the country, among the Judge's numerous tenants; and so far as I know I discharged the duty satisfactorily.

"When I was about to leave the office and return to my apprenticeship, the Judge said to me, 'If thee has an ambition for distinction, and can sacrifice everything else to success, the law is the road that leads to honors; and if thee can get rid of thy engagement to serve as an apprentice, I would advise thee to come back again and study law.' He said i can give thee some employment in attending to my business in the country; and, if necessary, I will advance thee some money and thee can repay it when thee gets into practice.'

"All this seemed very generous and kind; but how was I to get released from my engagement to serve as an apprentice? To serve out my time, was to waste a precious year and a half in learning a trade that I never intended to follow, and to lose so much precious time for the study of the law. I had not the money to buy my time, nor any friend from whom I could borrow it. True, I was not bound by any legal indenture, but I had given my word, and that in my estimation was equal to my bond. So I saw no way in which my rising ambition could be
gratified; and I returned, rather dejected, to my apprenticeship.

"In the meantime one of my employers, Mr. Cheney, had quit the business and gone to farming. During the summer and autumn I sounded Mr. Kellogg on the subject of purchasing my time; and, finally, he consented to give up my last year, if I would relinquish any claim I might have for the increased compensation which I was to receive for that year, and immediately took a school for the winter, borrowing one or two law books from Judge Wood, to read mornings and evenings. When my school closed, I went into his office again, and continued my studies until the next winter, when I took the same school, and at its close, returned to my law studies.

"During the summer of 1821, the Fourth of July was celebrated in the village of Montville, where I was living, and by request I delivered a short address. I am sure it had no merit, but it gave me a little notoriety in the vicinity, and a gentleman having a suit before a justice of the peace in the adjoining town, came and offered me $3 to go and pettifog for him. I got leave of absence, and went; but, fortunately for my untried powers, the suit was settled, and I got my first fee without exposing my ignorance.

"Judge Wood, however, soon got wind of it, and enquired of me about it; and I frankly told him the whole truth. He said he did not approve of my attending causes before justices of the peace. He instanced several cases of the injurious effect of this, and among others that of Elisha Williams, who, he said, 'would have been an able advocate were it not for the slang he acquired in attending causes before justices of the peace.'

"I pleaded my poverty, and the necessity I was under of earning a little something when such opportunities presented. But he was inexorable, and said I must promise not to do it again or we must separate. I became suspicious, and perhaps unjustly, that he was more
anxious to keep business by looking after his tenants, than to make a lawyer of me. But I was resolved to be a lawyer and nothing else. I therefore, after expressing my gratitude for his favors and my regret at leaving, for it seemed to dash all my hopes, told him with great emotion that I would go. We settled, and I owed him $65, for which I gave him my note, afterward paying it with interest; and this is the only aid I ever received in obtaining my profession.

"My father had then become a resident of Aurora, in the County of Erie; and with $4 in my pocket—three dollars of which was my fee aforesaid—I started for his house, and arrived there the last of August or first of September, 1821."

Fillmore with his $4 walked out of his native Cayuga County forever only to return on brief visits and to marry on Feb. 5, 1826 in Moravia, Abigail Powers, the daughter of the Baptist preacher, Rev. Lemuel Powers. In Buffalo he was elected to the Assembly and later to the office of State Comptroller. As a florid party regular he became the vice presidential candidate and in 1850 upon the death of "Old Rough and Ready" Zachary Taylor became the 13th President of the United States.

Judge Wood, the man who aided Fillmore in pursuing a legal career, continued with his vast land interests until his death on Sept. 8,1827 at age 62. He was survived by 10 children and left his property, valued at $500,000, to each of them, reserving the northwest room and chamber over it as well as the hall, cellar and courtyard of his Montville House for the use of his wife. He established a trust for the Cayuga Academy which he had helped found in Aurora and also designated that his pew at the Aurora meeting house be used by the female students attending that academy.

The executors of his estate delayed the distribution of Wood's land holdings and it wasn't until the Chancery Court in 1831 ordered the distribution to the heirs that his land in Montville was finally subdivided.

Wood's Montville home, presently owned by Mr. and Mrs. James P. Ventura, has been nominated to the Historic Trust as a structure in Cayuga County with documented association with Millard Fillmore. Fillmore in 1825 by deposition stated that he overheard a conversation either at Wood's home, in his office or at Moses Deshon's Tavern, thereby documenting his presence in the home.

(Author's Note: The above reprinted from the "Buffalo Historical Society Millard Fillmore Papers, Volume One, 1907" furnished by James P. Ventura, and from "A Brief History of Aurora" by Temple R. Hollcroft furnished by Mrs. Edward Kabelac of Aurora.)


The Citizen
Auburn, New York
Sunday, August 24, 1975

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