Talked up for governor’s race, he stayed in the back rooms

There was a big push for women’s suffrage in New York in 1894 as the state constitutional convention was set to begin.

Former U.S. Rep. Henry Gordon Burleigh, R-Whitehall, who was weighing a run for governor, was not ready to fully embrace the “petticoat platform” of the suffragettes.

“Ex-Congressman Henry G. Burleigh of Whitehall hurried into the Fifth Avenue Hotel as if something of extraordinary importance was on his mind,” The New York World reported in an article republished May 25 in The Granville Sentinel.

Former Rep. George West, R-Ballston Spa, had offered to endorse Burleigh for governor if Burleigh would run on a suffragist platform.

But Burleigh wanted to consult with Republican bosses Thomas Platt and Warner Miller before responding.

“He saw them both,” the World reported. “Afterward he said that, while he endorsed some parts of the petticoat platform, he promised to study others very carefully before committing himself unequivocally to it.”

West, who was known as “Uncle George” and also as the “paper bag king” for his ownership of a number of paper mills, did endorse Burleigh.

“I am seventy years old, have gout in my foot, rheumatism in the other and lumbago, and yet I am working actively in the interest of ex-Congressman Henry G. Burleigh,” West told reporters at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City, The Morning Star reported on Aug. 6.

“I think Burleigh is the man to nominate for governor,” West continued. “He knows everybody, too, and when elected he will not have to be introduced to the people of the state. I hope he will be nominated, and if he should be, he will be elected.”

Burleigh had business and social connections in Lake George and Ticonderoga, where he had begun working at age 14 and was involved in the lumber, coal and transportation industries. He was elected town supervisor of Ticonderoga in the 1860s and served as a local bank president, then moved to Whitehall as his transportation business grew. There, he served as a state assemblyman for a time before winning his seat in Congress.

In the end, Burleigh did not formally enter the governor’s race in 1894. But he did remain a key player behind the scenes.

He took part in a meeting in Albany at which GOP gubernatorial hopefuls Warren Miller, James A. Roberts and supporters of Leslie Russell met to discuss pooling their bases of support in an attempt to prevent former Vice President Levi P. Morton from getting the nomination, The Evening World of New York reported on Sept. 5, 1894.

Morton went on to win the Republican nomination, however, by garnering an overwhelming majority in the first ballot at the state GOP convention. Nominations in that era were decided by party conventions instead of primary elections.

Morton went on to defeat Democrat David Hill, a former governor attempting a political comeback, in the general election, winning by about 12 percentage points.

 

Reformers or renegades?
The 1894 race was not the first time that Burleigh had considered a run for governor.
In 1890, Burleigh, along with U.S. Sen. Chauncey Depew, U.S. Secretary of War Elihu Root and others, was part of “The Miller Men,” a close-knit group that sought an alternative 1891 GOP gubernatorial candidate to state Sen. Jacob Sloat Fassett, the choice of influential state Republican leader Thomas Platt.

Former U.S. Sen. Warner Miller, the losing GOP gubernatorial candidate in 1888, was leader of the group. (New York governors served three-year terms then.) Miller felt that Platt had purposely not done enough to support his candidacy.

Several newspapers suggested that Burleigh, himself, should run for governor.
“Governor Burleigh! That’s what they are calling our Henry G. in New York now, and that’s what they are talking of making him when Senator Fassett comes up for that office,” The Glen’s Falls Messenger reported on May 9, 1890, republishing an editorial from the Troy Budget. “Governor Burleigh! Verily, that hath a pleasant sound, like music blown over a bank of violets, or like one of Patti’s upper register trills ground out of a loaded phonograph! Gov. Burleigh! By all means!”
A week earlier, The Morning Star of Glens Falls had reported about “a tilt” between Burleigh and Fassett when Burleigh was at the state Capitol lobbying on transit legislation.

Burleigh owned a large fleet of steamboats and had interests in banking, iron ore, lumbering, ice harvesting and papermaking.

“The latter accused Burleigh and his friends of splitting the Republican Party, and Burleigh retorted that Tom Platt was sending the party over Niagara Falls as fast as he could,” The Morning Star reported.

“Burleigh and his friends” considered themselves reformers. Others viewed the group as renegades.

The Buffalo News called the Miller group “Tammany Republicans,” suggesting their purpose was to provide “cover” for Democrats.

Burleigh did publicly endorse and campaign locally with Fassett in the fall of 1890.
But in December, the Miller group met at the Windsor Hotel in New York City and rescinded their support of Fassett.

At the state Republican Convention in June 1891, Burleigh backed U.S. Rep. James Wadsworth, who finished a distant second of five candidates on the first ballot, which Fassett handily won.
Burleigh said Fassett had been his second choice.

“Ah! Here is our old friend Burleigh. Henry G. Burleigh of Whitehall — familiarly known as the Bouncing Burleigh,” the Buffalo Courier wrote in a sarcastic editorial. “He is the most genial, bustling, ubiquitous Republican in the state.”

In the general election, Fassett lost to Democrat Roswell Flower by about 48,000 votes, doing particularly poorly upstate.

Burleigh, Miller and their friends, of course, got the blame.
The mood at the state Republican headquarters changed dramatically when upstate returns started to come in, the Pittsburgh Dispatch of Pennsylvania reported on Nov. 9, 1891.
“Until these returns began to come in, there was rejoicing,” the paper reported. “When their import was fully understood, there was bad language.”

 

Maury Thompson was a reporter for The Post-Star of Glens Falls for 21 years before retiring in 2017. He now is a freelance writer focusing on the history of politics, labor and media in the region.