DANIEL WARDWELL
The Wardwell family in America descends from a name prominent in the early days of the Massachusetts colony and in Revolutionary times, and numbers among its members many representatives who have
been conspicuous in State and nation. William Wardwell, who was born in England in 1604, immigrated to this country with the Pilgrims and became a member of the first Congregational church of Boston,
which was organized in 1633. His son, Urial, born in February, 1639, settled in the town of Bristol, R. I., in 1681, and married Grace Giddings, by whom he had a son John, who married Phebe, daughter
of Samuel Howland, on October 11, 1741. Samuel Howland was born in Bristol, R. I., May 24, 1686, and on May 6, 1708, was married by Rev. Mr. Sparhawk to Abigail Cary. Mr. Howland’s father,
Jabez born in 1649, was a very active and enterprising officer under Captain Church in King Philip’s war, and in 1681, after the conquest of Mount Hope, settled in Bristol. He was a son of John
Howland, who married Elizabeth, daughter of John Carver, the first governor of Massachusetts. John Howland and Governor Carver were both members of the immortal band of Pilgrims who came over in the
good ship Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock on December 22, 1620. The children of John and Phebe (Howland) Wardwell were John, born in June, 1742, married Sally Swan; Nathaniel, born March 29,
1744; Joseph, born March 21, 1747, married Betsey May; Phebe, born January 23, 1749, married James Smith; Susannah, born January 15, 1751, married Daniel Gladding; Mary (Mrs. Sanford Munoe and
afterwards Mrs. Jonah Smith), and Elizabeth, twins, born January 6, 1753; Samuel, born April 25, 1755; Tabitha, born November 25, 1757, married Samuel Bosworth; Daniel, born March 29, 1760, died at
sea; Allen Cary, born June 5, 1752; and Allen born March 1, 1765, married Abigail Smith. Of this large family Joseph, the third, served in the General Assembly of Rhode Island in 1803. An ardent
patriot during the Revolution his name appears in a list of subscribers to a fund raised by the people of Bristol, R. I., for the relief of the sufferers in Boston caused by the enforcement of the
Boston Port bill. Samuel, the eighth, was a member of the Rhode Island Assembly in 1791-93, 1793-97, 1809, and 1810, or nine years in all. Subsequent assemblymen bearing the name were Nathaniel in
1821-23, Hezekiah C. in 1849-51, and William T. C. in 1870-71, and 1875. The latter was state senator in 1872.
Samuel Wardwell, above mentioned, father of Judge Daniel Wardwell, enlisted at the age of twenty in the Rhode Island militia and served two years in the Revolutionary war, being taken prisoner by the British and confined in a prison ship in New York. After the war he became prominent in the military service of Rhode Island. In June, 1794, a charger was granted to the Bristol Train of Artillery, the charter members being Mr. Wardwell, William De Wolfe, Samuel V. Peck, and John Bradford, and at the first election of officers on April 7, 1796, Samuel Wardwell was chosen captain with rank in the militia of lieutenant-colonel. This company, by its charter, was made independent of all regiments; when in active service it was to be under the command of the governor of the State only. Its members, which, exclusive of officers, "must not exceed sixty-four in number," were exempted from bearing arms or doing military duty in the militia of the State. In 1797 two brass fieldpieces, said to have been captured from the British at the surrender of Burgoyne, were presented to the company by the State, "to be fired on all public occasions," and they are still used for the purposes specified. Col. Samuel Wardwell, under the firm name of Bourne & Wardwell, was also prominently identified with the commerce of Bristol prior to the beginning of this century. The firm owned at one time forty-two vessels and for many years carried on an extensive shipping business. The year Oneida county was formed (1798) Colonel Wardwell purchased in one body 4,000 acres of land in the town of Ellisburg (now Jefferson) then in the county of Oneida. This purchase included the site of the present village of Mannsville. In 1812 he settled at what is known as the "Ridge" in Rome, N. Y., were then located a grist mill and saw mill. There he purchased 285 acres of land, tore away the old gristmill and erected a new one (on the site of the Rome water works), which stood until 1868. In 1815 he sold forty acres and the business part of the "Ridge Mills" to David Driggs, and the remainder of his land to the grandfather of the late Dr. M. Calvin West.
The children of Col. Samuel and Lydia (Wardwell) Wardwell were Nathaniel, born September 20, 1778, married Dolly Fales, and died in Ellisburg, N. Y., November 16, 1857; Nancy, born September 25, 1780, married John M. Bourne, and died at Providence, R. I., in 1856; Jonathan, born January 30, 1783, died at sea in 1805; Sarah born January 21, 1785, married Thomas Peckham; Lydia, born September 10, 1786, married Allen Smith; Samuel born June 14, 1788, married Hannah Monroe, and died at Mannsville, N. Y., in 1857; Mary born November 28, 1789, married Joseph C. Wood, and died at Ellisburg, N. Y., in June, 1819; Daniel the subject of this memoir, hereafter mentioned; Henry born July 9, 1792, was made lieutenant of board the privateer "Yankee" in October, 1814, in the war of 1812-15, and died at Havana, Cuba in August, 1816, Abby, 1st, born September 17, 1793, died in infancy; Abby, 2nd, born December 31, 1794, married Henry Wright, and three who died in infancy.
Hon. Daniel Wardwell was born in Bristol, R. I., May 28, 1791, was graduated from Brown University in his native state in 1811, and in 1812 removed with his father to Rome, Oneida County, where he entered the law office of Judge Joshua Hathaway, one of the pioneer lawyers of Fort Stanwix. In 1813 Mr. Wardwell became a student in the office of Gold & Sill, of Whitestown; in 1814 he was admitted to the Court of Common Pleas in Jefferson County, and in January, 1815, he was admitted to the Supreme Court as attorney. In those years he was residing in Adams and Ellisburg, looking after the large landed interests and other property of his father in that part of Jefferson County. In 1816 he became a resident of Rome village, where he practiced his profession during that year and 1817. He then returned to Jefferson County and remained until 1821, when in January he was admitted to the Supreme Court as counselor. Early in 1821, he opened a law office in Utica and in August was admitted as counselor to the U. S. District Court. In 1822 he took up his permanent residence in Mannsville, N. Y., where he and his brother-in-law, Major H. B. Man, erected a large cotton factory, which was totally destroyed by fire in 1827, when just ready to begin operation. Its destruction entailed a loss to the owners of $10,000.
In 1824 Mr. Wardwell was appointed by Governor Yates side judge of Jefferson County, where he was elected to the Assembly in 1825, 1826, and 1827. In 1826 he caused considerable commotion in Albany, New York, and the river counties by introducing and advocating in the Assembly a resolution favoring the removal of the State capital to Utica or some other central point. In 1828 there was great political and anti-Masonic excitement in this State. Gen Andrew Jackson was running for president, De Witt Clinton for governor, and Judge Daniel Wardwell for State senator--all strong Masons highest in the order. It was one of the anti-Masonic years. The State was then divided into eight districts, with four senators from each district, and one senator elected in each district every year. The Fifth district then comprised the counties of Oneida, Jefferson, Herkimer, Lewis, Madison and Oswego. The term of Charles Dayan, of Lewis County, as senator, expired and in 1828 Judge Daniel Wardwell and William H. Maynard, of Utica, were opposing nominees. Mr. Maynard was one of the brightest legal luminaries of the Oneida county bar; the anti-Masons endorsed him and as Judge Wardwell was never afraid to "wear his principles on his coat sleeve," he was defeated by about 300. In return the Jefferson county congressional district elected him to Congress for three successive terms, beginning in 1830. He had as his colleague during his entire congressional service his first fellow law student, Hon. Samuel Beardsley, with whom he retained a warm personal and political friendship for many years, especially during Andrew Jackson’s stormy administration, of which they were staunch supporters, both being warm personal friends of the president. Judge Wardwell was elected for the fourth time from Jefferson County in 1837, and that year was a member of the committee on ways and means. In 1860 he removed to Rome, where he died, universally respected, in March, 1878.
In politics, Judge Wardwell was a staunch Democrat of the Jacksonian school until the division of the Democracy in 1848, when he affiliated with the "Free Soil" wing. In 1856 he was a delegate to the Pittsburgh convention which nominated John C. Fremont for president, and ever after was as firm a Republican as he had been a Democrat in the palmy days of "Old Hickory." Judge Wardwell was not a legal advocate, nor did he engage to any extent in the argument of causes in courts; but he was a good, sound lawyer and a safe counselor, one whose judgment and legal advice were sought after by a large clientage and always relied upon as entirely safe to follow the law, but also for his many attributes of head and heart. His integrity was never questioned. As a legislator he always labored conscientiously and unceasingly for the interest of his constituents and fully merited the trust and confidence which he received at their hands. He was kind, generous, and indulgent to the poor, a friend whose advice and counsel were often sought, and a man upon whom was placed the utmost reliance.
Judge Wardwell was married at Whitesboro, N. Y., on July 20, 1815, by Rev. John Frost, to Miss Hetty Mann, daughter of Hon. Newton Mann (whose sketch appears in this work). She was born at Attleboro, Mass., December 16, 1796, and died at Mannsville, N. Y., September 28, 1858. Their children were Abby Mann, born April 11, 1817, married Robert B. Doxtater, and died in 1884 (Mr. Doxtater was the first superintendent of the Rome and Watertown railroad and held that position until his election as president of the Michigan Southern railroad; while riding over that line, attending to his duties, he was stricken with apoplexy, and died suddenly at La Porte, Ind., May 15, 1853, aged thirty-nine years, at the early dawn of a bright and auspicious future); Henry, born July 11, 1819, deceased; Newton Mann, born February 12, 1821, married first Elizabeth Jones, deceased, and second Mrs. Antionette (Waite) Sutton; Samuel, born November 14, 1822, admitted to the bar in 1847, married Mary A. Stillman in 1848, and now cashier of the Farmers National Bank of Rome; Julia Doolittle, born January 13, 1828, died June 11, 1831; Charles Carroll, born December 4, 1829, died May 7, 1859; William Wilberforce, born January 15, 1834, married in January, 1860, Elizabeth W. Smith, and now a leading hardware merchant in Rome; John Howland born December 29, 1837, married Cornelia Comstock; and Edward Herbert born April 28, 1841, married first Josephine Hitchcock, of Utica, deceased and second her sister, Harriet. October 4, 1859, Judge Wardwell married for his second wife at Adams, N. Y., Letetia W. Smith, who survives him and resides in Rome.
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