January 13, 2021 www.porcupinesoup.com Tracing Your Roots in Greene County By Sylvia Hasenkopf Revisiting the birth of the nationalist movement

The founding of the Party and its surprising ties to Greenville

One of the rewards of running the Tracing Know Nothings. Your Roots in Greene County website O.H. Wright writes, “my school flourishes as (www.tracingyourrootsgcny.com) is that users of or even better than I expected. I’ve had some the site often contact me to share items that they reverses lately caused by the infatuated Know have in their personal archives. Nothings, The most vile, polluted, degraded & Such was the case of Burt Wright from God neglected tribe that has been since the California a number of years ago. He is builders of the Tower of Babel. They stole into descended from the Wrights of Wright Street in my Academy in the darkness of night (a time the town of Durham and he had asked me to do most fit for the transactions of such business as some research for him on the family. One day, I theirs) with a false key, left my rooms in the opened an email from him, which contained a most gormandizing & hoggish condition.” scan of a letter that he had in his possession. It This peaked my interest as I had never heard was a rather angry letter written by his great- of this group before. Who were the Know grandfather, O. H. Wright, who had been the Nothings and why did they exist? It all came principal of the Greenville Academy in the down to feelings of fear and the mass hysteria 1850’s. that was fomented by politicians. I had read the letter with great interest, as I By the mid 1800’s, immigration to the United was always fascinated by the establishment of States was soaring. Between 1845 and 1854 the Greenville Academy in 1816. Written on more than 2,900,000 European immigrants November 11, 1854 to his brother, the letter is landed in the United States, mostly from chatty in parts—sharing news of family and Germany and Ireland, and the majority of them friends. However, the majority of the letter was were practicing Catholics who were fleeing a diatribe against a group of men called the sectarian and religious strife in their homelands. The New World beckoned, offering jobs, Representatives for three terms, from 1845- religious freedom and opportunity for 1851. His powerful oratorical skills whipped up advancement. anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant feelings in In 1843, in reaction to surging immigration, a in a series of riots on May 6-8 and new political movement made itself known in July 6-7, 1844, which resulted in the deaths of New York City. The American Party was 20 Irish immigrants and the burning of three oftentimes called the Native American Party, Catholic churches in the area. referring not to Native American peoples, but With so many Catholics immigrating to rather to descendants of early European settlers America en masse, fears ran rampant that the in the New World. Pope would influence American politics The American Party was an anti-immigrant, through newly elected Catholic politicians. This anti-Catholic, populist movement, but is also fear spread across the country. embraced many social issues that appealed to But, why did so many Protestant Americans its lower middle-class and skilled working- fear Catholics? This is a very complicated class base—labor rights, opposition to slavery, response, steeped in centuries of war between the expansion of the rights of women, Protestant Kings and Catholic Kings on the regulation of industry, and increased European continent. Protestants alleged that governmental spending. Pope Pius IX was an opponent of liberty, Considered to be the first leader of the democracy and Republicanism. American Party, Lewis Charles Levin was an Republicanism was a concept that enshrined American politician who represented the core values of liberty, unalienable ’s 1st District in the U.S. House of individual rights and the limitation of

www.porcupinesoup.com The Greenville Academy, circa 1880s. Photo courtesy of Orrin Stevens. corruption and greed. It embraced the idea that Banner. citizens should do their civic duty without This was an oath-bound society. In order to compensation and that elected officials should join, a man had to be at least 21 years of age, a give up their own interests for the actions of the Protestant, and willing to obey the Order’s common good. mandates, without question. When questioned Small nativist groups sprung up in most about the Society, members were instructed to major metropolitan cities. In New York City, say they “knew nothing” and before long the Charles Allen created a secret society in 1849, group became known as the “Know Nothings”. calling it the Order of the Star Spangled Over time, members of the Order of the Star

www.porcupinesoup.com Spangled Banner would form the nucleus of the nativist American Party. A slogan of the Know Nothings was, “I know nothing but my Country, my whole Country, and nothing but my Country.” By 1854 the Know Nothings had burst onto the political scene and presented a united and viable political party. By the end of 1855 there were 8 elected governors and over 100 congressmen and the mayors of Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Chicago, not to mention a slew of other local officials, who hailed from the American Party. The American Party shaped American politics in another, even more profoundly way. Prior to the 1840s, immigrant men primarily voted either for the Democratic Party or the Whig Party (the precursor to the American Party). Once the American Party was founded, their anti-immigrant and anti -Catholic rhetoric pushed the immigrant vote solidly into the Democratic Party fold. The impact of the Know Nothings in Greene County politics is unclear. However the frustration of O.H. Wright Citizen Know Nothing. Circa 1854.

www.porcupinesoup.com in Greenville is abundantly clear. His letter went on to say that he had submitted his resignation because of the vandalism in his school by the Know Nothings. He felt that some of the Trustees of the school were the leading men of the vandals. Cool heads prevailed and the remaining Trustees convinced O.H. Wright to continue as the principal of the school. The minute book of the Greenville Council No. 502 of the American Party is housed in the Stevens Collection at the Vedder Research Library in Coxsackie, NY. James Stevens was named the organization’s first Secretary and wrote the minutes for the very first meeting on September 23, 1854. I have often pondered which James Stevens this could possibly be. James Stevens was a very popular name in the 19th century in the Greenville area. The Stevens family were very early settlers in Greenville, arriving in what would become Greenville a few years before the dawn of the 19th century when the area was still part of the town of Coxsackie. Captain James Stevens in the early 20th The elder James Stevens was born on November 13, century. Photo courtesy of Orrin Stevens.

www.porcupinesoup.com 1771 in Stamford, Fairfield County, Greenville Chapter of the American Party, it Connecticut, the son of Reuben Stevens and his was apparent that the members met every few wife Mary Williams. Along with his brothers days, usually at the Greenville Academy. Reuben, Samuel and Thaddeus and great-uncle Unfortunately, the details of their conversations Admire and his son Solomon, James made the were not recorded in the minutes, but one must perilous trek in the mid-1790s to the wilds of wonder what they discussed. The last minutes what would eventually be known as Greenville. for the Chapter were recorded on November 1, By 1854, when the Know Nothing Party 1856. established its Greenville chapter, James would A membership list can be found in the have been elderly and infirm. Political causes minute book, listing 179 men of Greenville and require men of conviction, strength and good the surrounding area. Some members were health. It seems likely that the James Stevens expelled, others withdrew and yet others were who became the Secretary of the Greenville recorded as having died. Chapter of the American Party was most likely The entire membership list is rather James Steven’s grand-nephew James, the exhaustive, but I did recognize some of the grandson of his brother Samuel, whom the names listed: Amos Smith, Jr., Reuben E. childless James Sr. had named his heir. Green, George Bushnell, Sylvester R. Palmer, James Stevens Junior is better known in Lewis Haines, Gurdon S. Welch, Jonathan Greenville as Captain Jim, a nod to James’ Brundage, Curtis Knapp, Jacob Baldwin, service in the Civil War. James would become William Barker, Samuel Stevens, Reynolds J. the founder of the widely-respected Pioneer Welch, Egbert Yeomans, Philip E. McCabe, Insurance Company in Greenville. Alexander W. Bentley, Asher Norton, Ambrose In looking through the minute book of the B. Hall, Darius Ingalls, Benjamin F. Hisert,

www.porcupinesoup.com Newman Waldron, Josiah Palmer, Elisha P. expansionist vision, the newly formed Smith, George Ingalls, Benjamin N. Finch, Republican Party. John W. Castle, James Scofield, William Fast forward about 160 years and we see Fancher, Edward Collins and George Hopkins. some of the same rhetoric in the political The Know Nothing Party achieved only short discourse of the recent election. It all boils -term success and considerable notoriety. In down to a fear of change. Our country is 1854, some members allegedly stole and changing, as new immigrants are arriving who destroyed the block of granite contributed by oftentimes do not speak English, practice a Pope Pius IX for the Washington Monument. faith alien to the Judeo-Christian values we Violence and ballot-rigging also dogged their have been accustomed to, and do not look like steps. the Europeans who have dominated our society By 1856 the power and influence of the since the founding of Jamestown, Virginia in American Party was on the wane. Bitterly 1607 and the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620 in divided over the issue of slavery, the party was Plymouth, Massachusetts. marginalized by the 1860 national election. I am hopeful that time will heal the political Many people who had voted for the American and societal wounds of the last number of Party shifted their support to a new party – one years. If history provides any beacon of hope, a which appealed to a westward looking, new beginning, in time, will offer itself.

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