Redrawn political map set stage for 1890s GOP drama

Legislative redistricting in 1893 created a new regional state Senate district of epic proportions in northern New York — encompassing Warren, Washington, Essex, Franklin, Clinton, Hamilton and Fulton counties.

The change shook up the region’s representation in Albany, as two incumbent Republican senators wound up losing their party’s nomination for the seat to a new standard-bearer.
The new district “takes in all of the northeastern part of the state,” The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported on Aug. 19, 1893. “It is at least 150 miles in length and 75 miles in width.”
North Country state Senate districts of similar configuration have been common in recent decades, but such a large district was unusual in the late 19th century.

The People’s Journal of Greenwich reported on Aug. 31, 1893 that the new “gerrymandered district” had 229,036 constituents — 74,000 more than the average population of Senate districts in the new redistricting plan.

Democrats, who had taken control of the state Senate, wanted to shore up their three-seat majority by adding districts in metropolitan New York City while reducing the number of districts upstate, which then as now was considered mainly Republican territory.

Under the previous apportionment, which had been in place since 1879, New York City, Westchester and Rockland counties had 12 Senate districts, The Argus of Albany reported on April 19. Under the new apportionment, New York City, Westchester and Putnam counties had 15 Senate districts.

The Democrats’ goal of padding their majority ultimately backfired, however. The Morning Star reported on Nov. 13 that Republicans won a six-seat Senate majority in the 1893 election.
The new, seven-county 21st Senate District retained a strong Republican enrollment advantage.
“The 21st District is hopelessly Republican,” The Argus reported on Aug. 24.

That meant the local political drama was focused on process of securing the GOP nomination.
“Nomination is tantamount to an election,” The Elizabethtown Post reported on May 18.
The redistricting placed two incumbent Republicans in the same Senate district — Sen. Louis Emmerson of Warrensburg, who had represented Warren, Essex and Clinton counties for two two-year terms, and Sen. John Derby of Sandy Hill, who had represented Washington and Rensselaer counties for one term.

But other Republicans were interested in competing for the seat, and a season of political calculating unfolded.

“The local politicians are having their first opportunity to study politics under the new apportionment,” The Morning Star reported on Aug. 19. “The senatorial fight will break the boys in pretty well.”

As it turned out, neither incumbent won the Republican nomination, which went to Frederick Kilburn, a lawyer and banker from Malone who previously had served as Franklin County district attorney, county treasurer, clerk of the county Board of Supervisors and as Malone town clerk.
Kilburn had laid ground work to run for state Senate in 1891, but dropped his candidacy after Franklin County GOP leaders promised to back him in 1893, The Elizabethtown Post reported on May 18, when Kilburn announced his candidacy.

“The senatorial bee has been in his bonnet for some time,” the paper reported.
Delegates from Hamilton and Fulton counties, the two least populous of the district’s seven counties, would decide the outcome at the Republican Senate District nominating convention in Lake George. (Nominations in that era were decided by a nominating convention instead of primary.)

The convention process placed control of the nomination in the hands of political bosses but could still be contentious, with competition and shifting alliances among geographical factions.
Emmerson withdrew from contention early on.

“Sen. Emmerson, of Warren, was not in the fight, and had not been from the outset,” The Morning Star reported on Aug. 23.

Warren and Washington counties joined forces behind Derby, while Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties lined up behind Kilburn.

Derby’s supporters argued that there was a tradition of having the Senate seat would rotate between counties, with each senator serving two terms before stepping down. Derby was entitled to serve for two more years, they said.

Kilburn’s supporters said that tradition no longer was practical in such a geographically large district, where the full rotation would take 28 years.

Going into the convention, Fulton and Hamilton counties, which together had seven delegates, were undeclared.

Derby needed the votes of all seven of the undeclared delegates to win the nomination. Kilburn needed the votes of at least two of those delegates to win the nomination.

Delegates and onlookers began arriving in Lake George the day before the Aug. 22 convention, which was to be held at the Crosbyside Hotel. More arrived on the morning of the convention.
“At least 100 persons were present to take part in or witness the proceedings,” The Morning Star reported on Aug. 23.

The 1 p.m. scheduled opening of the convention was delayed.
“The hour named in the official call came and went. The clock sounded two, and yet the delegates had not been called to order,” the newspaper reported. “The delay was due, it was alleged, to the inability of the representatives of Fulton and Hamilton counties to reach an agreement as to who they would support.”

In time, the two counties backed Kilburn, who, once the outcome was clear, won the nomination on the first ballot in a 25-13 vote. A second symbolic vote was held to make the nomination unanimous.

There did not appear to be lingering animosity.
“While Washington County would have been pleased by the nomination of Senator Derby, who ably represented the district during the past two years, its interests will be safe in the hands of Mr. Kilburn,” The People’s Journal wrote in an editorial on Aug. 31, 1893. “He is a ready speaker, is possessed with intellectual brilliancy, and will doubtless occupy a prominent place among the Republicans in the Senate.”

The Malone Palladium of Franklin County, in an Aug. 24 editorial, praised the nomination of Kilburn.
“He is a positive partisan with a fervor of faith in Republicanism that makes active political service seem to him a duty which he ought no more neglect than any other obligation of citizenship,” the paper wrote.

Kilburn, as expected, won the November general election, defeating Democrat John B. Hagerty of Plattsburgh, a longtime party operative who at the time served as a tax collector, and two third-party candidates.

Kilburn served one two-year term in the Senate and introduced a number of bills related to the Adirondack Park. In 1896, Gov. Levi Morton appointed him state banking superintendent, a position Kilburn held for a decade. Kilburn later was president of Fidelity Real Estate Co.
Derby, a paper mill executive who had interests in utilities and banking, remained active behind the scenes in Republican politics.

Emmerson, who had interests in manufacturing, banking, logging and hotels, served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, from 1899 to 1904, and was influential in Republican politics for the rest of his life.

 

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.