ughter, while
the jury and even the judge had to press their lips to retain their
gravity, and were not always successful. More than once Stewart was
interrupted by Starkweather for bringing in matters not related to the
subject under litigation, or for making statements not warranted by the
facts. Stewart stood blinking at him until he had finished, then turned
beseechingly to the judge; when the decision was against him he struck
out into some other line of buffoonery equally grotesque. In conclusion
he came down to argumentation, bringing his logic to bear upon the few
points that he had not involved with absurdities, and sat down in
triumph.

When the verdict had been rendered in Stewart's favor, Starkweather
strode forth from the court room in a rage, muttering fierce
imprecations against a man who was capable of overmatching reason and
justice by low buffoonery.

But none could be long angry at Stewart. He had no personal enmities and
no enemies. Later in life he became an anti-slavery agitator and
temperance lecturer pledged to total abstinence, the latter a much
needed measure of reform in the case of Alvan Stewart.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 75: _Noted Men of Otsego during the Early Years_, Walter H.
Bunn, Address at the Cooperstown Centennial.]

[Footnote 76: _Random Sketches of Fifty, Sixty and More Years Ago_,
Richard Fry, in the _Freeman's Journal_, 1878.]

[Footnote 77: _History of Otsego County_, 1878, p. 283.]

[Footnote 78: Moved to the north of the residence, 1917.]

[Footnote 79: _Reminiscences_, Levi Beardsley, 223.]

[Footnote 80: Walter H. Bunn.]

[Footnote 81: Richard Fry.]

CHAPTER IX

FATHER NASH

The saintly life and strange personal charm of the Rev. Daniel Nash, the
first rector of Christ Church, made a deep impression upon the village
of Cooperstown in its early days; and the wide range of his apostolic
labors as a missionary gave him a singular fame, during half a century,
throughout Otsego county, and far beyond its borders. The grave of
Father Nash is in Christ churchyard, marked by the tallest of the
monuments along the driveway, at a spot which he himself had chosen for
his burial.

Daniel Nash was born in Massachusetts at Great Barrington (then called
Housatonic) May 28, 1763.[82] At the age of twenty-two years he was
graduated at Yale in the same class with Noah Webster. He was originally
Presbyterian in his doctrinal belief, and in polity was sympathetic with