With the presidential election a month away, thoughts in the Capital Region turned to an American president from the 19th century at a ceremony Friday.
Chester A. Arthur was born October 5th, 1829 in Fairfield, Vermont. The 21st president also lived in communities across upstate New York, including Lansingburgh, Schenectady, Hoosick, and Greenwich.
Arthur's grave at Albany Rural Cemetery is marked with a large angel sculpture, a stone sarcophagus, and a flagpole.
Marking his birthday Friday with a wreath laying ceremony, author and historian David Pietrusza recalled the words of journalist Alexander McClure.
“No man ever entered the resident presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted as Chester Alan Arthur, and no one ever retired more generally respected alike by political friend and foe,” Pietrusza said.
The church where Arthur’s father, the Reverend William Arthur, preached, is now the Newtonville Post Office in Colonie.
Pietrusza quoted Arthur ally Elihu Root, noting the Republican entered office under a cloud of suspicion, ascending to the presidency after the death of President James Garfield, who died of an infection in September 1881 weeks after being shot.
“He took up his heavy burden surrounded by dislike, suspicion, distrust and condemnation as an enemy of the martyred Garfield and the beneficiary of his murder,” Pietrusza said.
Major General Michel Natali is Assistant Adjutant General for Joint Forces Headquarters New York, based in Latham. He says Arthur, a graduate of Union College in Schenectady and lawyer by trade, was an early promoter of civil rights. He notes Arthur’s role in Jennings v. Third Avenue Railroad Company, an 1854 case where 24-year-old Black schoolteacher Elizabeth Jennings was carried off a Manhattan streetcar by its conductor and a police officer after refusing to get off.
“During the course of his arguments, Arthur detailed that it was illegal for the streetcar company to segregate passengers based on race. This case is thought to have contributed to the complete desegregation of public transit in New York City by 1861,” Natali said.
Natali adds Arthur also revolutionized the federal government during a time when the spoils system was commonplace.
“His administration reformed the federal civil service system. The Pendleton Act passed in 1883 establishing the Civil Service Commission and merit-based employment practices at the state and local levels,” Natali said.
As part of the ceremony, wreaths were laid at Garfield’s tomb, one from the White House and the other from Colonel George L. Willard Camp #154 Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.
Monday marks the 180th anniversary of Albany Rural’s consecration. More than 135,000 people now call the grounds their eternal home.
