30th New York State Legislature

30th New York State Legislature
← 29th 31st →
The Old Albany City Hall (undated)
Overview
Legislative body	New York State Legislature
Jurisdiction	New York, United States
Term	July 1, 1806 – June 30, 1807
Senate
Members	32
President	Lt. Gov. John Broome (Clintonian)
Party control	Clintonian
Assembly
Members	100
Speaker	Andrew McCord (Lewisite)
Party control	Lewisite-Federalist (53-42) [1]
Sessions
1st January 27 – April 7, 1807

The 30th New York State Legislature, consisting of the New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly, met from January 27 to April 7, 1807, during the third year of Morgan Lewis's governorship, in Albany.

Background

Under the provisions of the New York Constitution of 1777, amended by the Constitutional Convention of 1801, 32 Senators were elected on general tickets in the four senatorial districts for four-year terms. They were divided into four classes, and every year eight Senate seats came up for election. Assemblymen were elected countywide on general tickets to a one-year term, the whole assembly being renewed annually.

In 1797, Albany was declared the State capital, and all subsequent Legislatures have been meeting there ever since. In 1799, the Legislature enacted that future Legislatures meet on the last Tuesday of January of each year unless called earlier by the governor.

State Senator Ebenezer Purdy resigned on March 16, 1806, to avoid being expelled for bribery, leaving a vacancy in the Southern District.

In 1806, three new counties were created: Allegany County was split from Genesee County, but remained with Genesee and Ontario County in one Assembly district. Broome County was split from Tioga County, but remained with Tioga in one Assembly district. Madison County was split from Chenango County, and was apportioned two seats in the Assembly, taken from Chenango.

At this time the politicians were divided into two opposing political parties: the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. ^[2]

In 1805, the 28th Legislature had chartered the Merchant's Bank of New York which had been founded by Federalists in competition to the Democratic-Republican Bank of the Manhattan Company. The Democratic-Republican majority of the 27th Legislature had not only refused to grant a charter, but actually ordered the Merchant's Bank to shut down by May 1805. During the next session, the bank bribed enough legislators to have the charter approved, although the Democratic-Republican leaders advocated strongly against it. Gov. Morgan Lewis spoke out in favor of granting the charter ^[3] what was resented by the party leaders DeWitt Clinton and Ambrose Spencer, and soon led to the split of the party into "Lewisites" and "Clintonians". ^[4]

Elections

The State election was held from April 29 to May 1, 1806. Senators James Burt (Middle D.) and Jacob Snell (Eastern D.) were re-elected. Jonathan Ward (Southern D.), Elisha Barlow (Middle D.), John Ballard, Salmon Buell, Jacob Gebhard and Nathan Smith (all four Western D.) were also elected to the Senate. Assemblyman Benjamin Coe (Southern D.) was elected to fill the vacancy. Burt, Barlow and Snell were Lewisites, the other six were Clintonians.

Sessions

The Legislature met at the Old City Hall in Albany on January 27, 1807; and adjourned on April 7.

Lewisite Andrew McCord was elected Speaker with the help of the Federalists, with 53 votes against 40 for Clintonian Alexander Sheldon, the Speaker of the previous session. ^[5] Lewisite Gerrit Y. Lansing was elected Clerk of the Assembly, defeating the Clintonian incumbent Solomon Southwick by a majority of 6 votes. ^[6] On February 2, Southwick was elected Clerk of the Senate.

On February 3, 1807, the Legislature re-elected John Smith (Dem.-Rep.) to a full term in the U.S. Senate.

State Senate

Districts

• The Southern District (6 seats) consisted of Kings, New York, Queens, Richmond, Suffolk and Westchester counties.
• The Middle District (8 seats) consisted of Dutchess, Orange, Ulster, Columbia, Delaware, Rockland and Greene counties.
• The Eastern District (9 seats) consisted of Washington, Clinton, Rensselaer, Albany, Saratoga, Essex and Montgomery counties.
• The Western District (9 seats) consisted of Herkimer, Ontario, Otsego, Tioga, Onondaga, Schoharie, Steuben, Chenango, Oneida, Cayuga, Genesee, Seneca, Jefferson, Lewis, St. Lawrence, Allegany, Broome and Madison counties.

Note: There are now 62 counties in the State of New York. The counties which are not mentioned in this list had not yet been established, or sufficiently organized, the area being included in one or more of the abovementioned counties.

Members

The asterisk (*) denotes members of the previous Legislature who continued in office as members of this Legislature. Benjamin Coe changed from the Assembly to the Senate.

District	Senators	Term left	Party	Notes
Southern	DeWitt Clinton*	1 year	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian	until February 1807, also Mayor of New York City
	William Denning*	2 years	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	Benjamin Coe*	2 years	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian	elected to fill vacancy, in place of Ebenezer Purdy
	Thomas Thomas*	2 years	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite	elected to the Council of Appointment
	Ezra L'Hommedieu*	3 years	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Jonathan Ward	4 years	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
Middle	Joshua H. Brett*	1 year	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	Robert Johnston*	1 year	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Samuel Brewster*	2 years	Dem.-Rep.
	Stephen Hogeboom*	2 years	Dem.-Rep.
	Peter C. Adams*	3 years	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	James G. Graham*	3 years	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	Elisha Barlow	4 years	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	James Burt*	4 years	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite	elected to the Council of Appointment
Eastern	Edward Savage*	1 year	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite	elected to the Council of Appointment
	John Tayler*	1 year	Dem.-Rep.
	Thomas Tredwell*	1 year	Dem.-Rep.
	John Woodworth*	1 year	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite	also New York Attorney General
	Stephen Thorn*	2 years	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Adam Comstock*	3 years	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	John Veeder*	3 years	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Joseph C. Yates*	3 years	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Jacob Snell*	4 years	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
Western	Caleb Hyde*	1 year	Dem.-Rep.
	Henry Huntington*	2 years	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Jedediah Peck*	2 years	Dem.-Rep.
	Nathaniel Locke*	3 years	Dem.-Rep.
	John Nicholas*	3 years	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite	elected to the Council of Appointment
	John Ballard	4 years	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Salmon Buell	4 years	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Jacob Gebhard	4 years	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Nathan Smith [7]	4 years	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian

Employees

• Clerk: Henry I. Bleecker
  • Solomon Southwick, from February 2, 1807

State Assembly

Districts

• Albany County (6 seats)
• Allegany, Genesee and Ontario counties (3 seats)
• Broome and Tioga counties (1 seat)
• Cayuga County (2 seats)
• Chenango County (2 seats)
• Clinton County (1 seat)
• Columbia County (4 seats)
• Delaware County (2 seats)
• Dutchess County (7 seats)
• Essex County (1 seat)
• Greene County (2 seats)
• Herkimer County (3 seats)
• Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties (1 seat)
• Kings County (1 seat)
• Madison County (2 seats)
• Montgomery County (5 seats)
• The City and County of New York (9 seats)
• Oneida County (3 seats)
• Onondaga County (2 seats)
• Orange County (4 seats)
• Otsego County (4 seats)
• Queens County (3 seats)
• Rensselaer County (5 seats)
• Richmond County (1 seat)
• Rockland County (1 seat)
• Saratoga County (4 seats)
• Schoharie County (2 seats)
• Seneca County (1 seat)
• Steuben County (1 seat)
• Suffolk County (3 seats)
• Ulster County (4 seats)
• Washington County (6 seats)
• Westchester County (4 seats)

Note: There are now 62 counties in the State of New York. The counties which are not mentioned in this list had not yet been established, or sufficiently organized, the area being included in one or more of the abovementioned counties.

Assemblymen

The asterisk (*) denotes members of the previous Legislature who continued as members of this Legislature.

District	Assemblymen	Party	Notes
Albany	David Bogardus	Federalist
	Asa Colvard*	Federalist
	Johann Jost Dietz	Federalist
	Daniel Hale	Federalist
	Joseph Shurtleff*	Federalist
	Jacob Veeder	Federalist
Allegany, Genesee and Ontario	Alexander Rea*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Philetus Swift	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Asahel Warner	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
Broome and Tioga	John Miller*	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
Cayuga	John Grover Jr.*	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	Amos Rathbun*	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
Chenango	Obadiah German	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Joseph Simonds	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
Clinton	Nathaniel Z. Platt	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
Columbia	Elisha Gilbert Jr.	Federalist
	Peter Sharp	Federalist
	Gainus Stebbins	Federalist
	Anson Pratt	Federalist
Delaware	John T. More	Federalist
	Joshua Pine	Dem.-Rep.
Dutchess	John Haight	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	Aaron Hazen	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	Theron Rudd	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	John Storm	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	Tobias L. Stoutenburgh	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	Martin E. Winchell	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	Veniah Woolley*	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
Essex	Stephen Cuyler*	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
Greene	Samuel Haight	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	James Thompson*	Federalist
Herkimer	John Kennedy	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	George Widrig*	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	Samuel Wright*	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence	Moss Kent	Federalist
Kings	John Hicks*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
Madison	Erastus Cleaveland	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Sylvanus Smalley*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian	previously a member from Chenango Co.
Montgomery [8]	Lawrence Gros	Dem.-Rep.
	James Lansing
	Alexander Sheldon*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	William Van Olinda
	Harmanus A. Vedder
New York	John Bingham	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Francis Cooper*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Clarkson Crolius*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Benjamin Ferris*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	William W. Gilbert*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Henry Rutgers	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Samuel Russell*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Arthur Smith*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	James Warner*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
Oneida	George Brayton*	Dem.-Rep.
	Uri Doolittle	Dem.-Rep.
	Charles Z. Platt	Dem.-Rep.
Onondaga	Ozias Burr	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Squire Manro	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
Orange	William Crist*	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	Andrew McCord*	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite	elected Speaker
	Abraham Shultz	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	John Wood*	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
Otsego	Thomas Brooks	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Gurdon Huntington*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Robert Roseboom	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Henry Scott	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
Queens	Stephen Carman	Federalist
	William Mott	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	John W. Seaman*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
Rensselaer	Gilbert Eddy	Dem.-Rep.
	Asa Mann	Dem.-Rep.
	William W. Reynolds*	Dem.-Rep.
	Robert Woodworth	Dem.-Rep.
	Adam Yates	Dem.-Rep.
Richmond	David Mersereau	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
Rockland	Samuel G. Verbryck	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
Saratoga	Chauncey Belding	Dem.-Rep.
	Gideon Goodrich	Dem.-Rep.
	Jesse Mott*	Dem.-Rep.
	David Rogers	Dem.-Rep.
Schoharie	Henry Shafer	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	Peter Swart Jr.	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
Seneca	Cornelius Humfrey*	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
Steuben	John Wilson*	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
Suffolk	Israel Carll*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	David Hedges*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	David Warner	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
Ulster	John Conklin	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	Jacob Marius Groeen	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	Jacob Rea	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
	Peter P. Roosa*	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite
Washington	Kitchel Bishop*	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Peleg Bragg	Dem.-Rep.
	John Gray	Dem.-Rep.
	James Hill	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Jason Kellogg	Dem.-Rep.
	William Robards	Dem.-Rep.
Westchester	William Barker	Federalist
	Benjamin Isaacs	Federalist
	Samuel Marvin	Dem.-Rep./Clintonian
	Abraham Odell	Dem.-Rep./Lewisite

Employees

• Clerk: Gerrit Y. Lansing
• Sergeant-at-Arms: Thomas Donnelly
• Doorkeeper: Benjamin Whipple

Notes

1. This is the average of the five votes taken for Speaker and Council of Appointment, see note below. There were 18 Federalists who combined with the Lewisites to form a majority. Many Lewisites had already been elected with Federalist endorsement in the districts, the Clintonians being the majority faction of the Democratic-Republican Party.
2. The Anti-Federalists called themselves "Republicans." However, at the same time, the Federalists called them "Democrats" which was meant to be pejorative. After some time both terms got more and more confused, and sometimes used together as "Democratic Republicans" which later historians have adopted (with a hyphen) to describe the party from the beginning, to avoid confusion with both the later established and still existing Democratic and Republican parties.
3. Lewis put thus his personal opinion above party discipline. He had been Chief Justice and was wealthy beyond corruptibility—nobody ever accused him of taking a bribe—and formed his opinion on legal and technical grounds. On the other side, he had been elected governor with the help of a minority of Federalists against his party-splitting opponent Aaron Burr.
4. see Hammond, pg. 219f
5. Hammond says McCord was elected with a majority of 11, see pg. 237. Two votes were lost because McCord's name was misspelled, so that on the opening day the majority was actually 55 to 40. Later, at the election for the Council of Appointment, the majorities varied from 54-41 to 51-44.
6. see Hammond, pg. 237
7. Nathan Smith (ca. 1769-1836), of Fairfield, First Judge of the Herkimer County Court 1814-1821; see bio in A History of Herkimer County by Nathaniel S. Benton (pages 357ff)
8. Montgomery had 1 Federalist, 1 Clintonian and 3 Lewisites; see The Balance, and Columbian Repository (Vol. 5; page 183) [the totals add up, differently, to 17 Federalists, 40 Lewisistes and 43 Clintonians]

Sources

• The New York Civil List compiled by Franklin Benjamin Hough (Weed, Parsons and Co., 1858) [see pg. 108f for Senate districts; pg. 119f for senators; pg. 148f for Assembly districts; pg. 180 for assemblymen]
• The History of Political Parties in the State of New-York, from the Ratification of the Federal Constition to 1840 by Jabez D. Hammond (4th ed., Vol. 1, H. & E. Phinney, Cooperstown, 1846; pages 235-245)
• Election result Assembly, Albany Co. at project "A New Nation Votes", compiled by Phil Lampi, hosted by Tufts University Digital Library
• Partial election result Assembly, Allegany, Genesee and Ontario Co. at project "A New Nation Votes" [gives only votes from the Town of Angelica]
• Partial election result Assembly, Broome and Tioga Co. at project "A New Nation Votes" [gives only votes from Tioga Co.]
• Election result Assembly, Delaware Co. at project "A New Nation Votes"
• Election result Assembly, Dutchess Co. at project "A New Nation Votes"
• Election result Assembly, Greene Co. at project "A New Nation Votes"
• Election result Assembly, Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence Co. at project "A New Nation Votes" [omits votes from St. Lawrence Co.]
• Election result Assembly, Kings Co. at project "A New Nation Votes"
• Election result Assembly, Madison Co. at project "A New Nation Votes"
• Election result Assembly, Orange Co. at project "A New Nation Votes"
• Election result Assembly, Queens Co. at project "A New Nation Votes"
• Election result Assembly, Richmond Co. at project "A New Nation Votes"
• Election result Assembly, Rockland Co. at project "A New Nation Votes"
• Election result Assembly, Suffolk Co. at project "A New Nation Votes"
• Election result Assembly, Westchester Co. at project "A New Nation Votes"
• Partial election result Senate, Southern D. at project "A New Nation Votes" [omits votes from New York City]
• Partial election result Senate, Middle D. at project "A New Nation Votes" [omits votes from Columbia and Ulster counties]
• Partial election result Senate, Western D. at project "A New Nation Votes" [gives only votes from Allegany and Madison counties]
• Election result, Speaker at project "A New Nation Votes"
• Election result, Council of Appointment at project "A New Nation Votes"