Obadiah Sands

Biography

The Pioneers of Unadilla Village, 1784-1840

Two Men of Note, 1828-1835

At the junction of Main and Mill Streets two other men, destined to notable distinction in village annals, began their careers. Each had been born in another place, each came to Unadilla as a young man, each spent here the most of his remaining days, and here finally each was to pass away and be buried in the old churchyard, the one fifty-one years afterwards, the other sixty-six Frederick A. Sands and Samuel North.

Mr. Sands, as early as 1835, was a clerk in the Wright store. He had come to the village from Franklin and was a son of Judge Obadiah Sands, a native of Sands Point on Long Island, descended from Captain James Sands*, an Englishman, who came to this country about 1642, landing at Plymouth. Capt. Sands had been born at Reading, England in 1622.

Benjamin Sands of Sands Point married Mary Jackson, and Obadiah Sands, the father of Frederick A. Sands, was their son.[124] Leaving Sands Point in May 1795, when in his twenty-first year, Obadiah, fifteen days later arrived at Cookoze, now Deposit, then a large centre of the lumber industry.

He had with him as cook a colored boy who was a slave. Mr. Sands engaged actively in lumbering and dealt in real estate, following these pursuits at Cookoze until 1802, when he settled in Delhi, remaining there three years. He then removed to a place in Sidney, about three miles below Franklin village on the turnpike, and in the same year was married to Elizabeth Teed of Somers in Westchester County. In 1811 he removed to Jericho*, afterwards Bainbridge Village, where he engaged largely in the purchase and sale of real estate.

Mr. Sands afterwards purchased a tract of land in Franklin, one mile east of the village, and in 1818 went there to live. On this farm Abel Buell of Lebanon, Connecticut, had settled in 1790, or earlier, and thus was near his old Connecticut neighbor, Sluman Wattles. Franklin thenceforth until 1840 continued to be Judge Sands's home. For a short time afterwards he lived in Meredith and in 1845 went to Oxford where he died in 1858. He was buried on the farm in Franklin, but his remains were afterwards brought to Unadilla and now rest in the churchyard.

He had six sons and three daughters. All but three of them survived him. The survivors were Dr. William G. Sands of Oxford, Jerome B., of Bainbridge, Marcellus, Dr. A. Jackson, who lived many years in Unadilla, Frederick A., and Elizabeth E., who became the wife of Joshua C. Sanders and is still living in New York.

Frederick A. Sands was born in Bainbridge February 19th, 1812. Following his employment as a clerk in the Wright store, Mr. Sands engaged in business first with Christopher D. Fellows, under the name of Fellows & Sands, and next with Mr. Watson as Watson & Sands. He then removed to Oxford where he was active in business with his brother-in-law, James W. Clark, along with whom and an old personal friend, Henry L. Miller, and others, he became interested in the First National Bank of that place, an institution that has had a prominent and successful career.

Mr. Miller and he were lifelong friends. They were buried at the same hour and on the same day in 1886.

On the death of his father in 1868, Mr. Sands, who was executor and trustee of the estate, abandoned his mercantile pursuits and devoted himself to the affairs of the estate, which was a large one for that period. In his management of this property the necessity never arose for a lawsuit. He possessed what Matthew Arnold called "sweet reasonableness."[126] When he died, it was said of him that "few men have done so much business with so little litigation." He was familiar with real estate titles in the neighborhood where he lived, and his papers have been described as "models of neatness and brevity and always as correct as care and labor could make them. "With this scrupulous exactness went also a fine integrity.

In politics Mr. Sands was a democrat, though he had small liking for the profession of politics. Official place he never sought. Mere office could scarcely have added anything to the esteem in which for two generations he here was held.

Mr. Sands's first wife was Maria, daughter of Sherman Page. Two years after the marriage she died. In January 1841 he married Clarissa A., sister of the late Henry R. Mygatt of Oxford, who survived him only a few months. Mr. Sands had dwelt in both of the stone houses in the centre of the village, having built the western one and enlarged the other, which was his home for more than forty years. Between these ancient dwellings his son, J. Kred. Sands, in later years erected a beautiful modern home, and far to the rear of them, on an elevated plateau where agricultural fairs were annually held long ago, opened up streets and erected a number of houses.

The story of this Main and Mill Street centre, of the Academy and the old brick store, connects itself closely with the life of another citizen of the village who was Mr. Sands's son-in-law.[127] In the Academy building Frank B. Arnold's life in the village had its beginning. In the brick store he had his office and there he died. He lived in Unadilla more than twenty years, and first came to take charge of the Academy. Dr. Odell and Mr. Thompson were the trustees who engaged him.

He was from Gilbertsville, where he had just been graduated from the school, and now wished to teach in order to help himself through Hamilton College. Under Mr. Arnold the Academy became very prosperous, and never was teacher more popular with students. A memorial of his career may be seen in the trees that still stand near the side-walk in those school grounds. They were planted by the hands of Mr. Arnold and his pupils. [Francis Whiting Halsey]

• The name in England was originally written Sandys and is supposed to have been derived from a place in the Isle of Wight called Sande.
  Leaving Plymouth, Capt. Sands lived for a time in Taunton and then joined sixteen other persons in purchasing land on Block Island, where he lived until he died. During King Philips's War he built a stone house of which use was made as a defense against the Indians. The place was twice plundered by the enemy. Three of his sons removed to the north shore of Long Island, purchasing a tract of land at the place now called Sands Point.

• The name Jericho came from the Vermont town of that name twelve miles east of Burlington and was bestowed upon the place by Vermont settlers.

findagrave;91931680

Obadiah Sands, born 22 Aug 1774 Died: 30 Jan 1858 (aged 83) buried Saint Matthew's Cemetery Unadilla, Otsego County, New York,

• Benjamin Sands, 1735–1824

• Mary Jackson Sands

1739–1798

• Spouse Elizabeth Teed Sands

1778–1837

• Siblings Jerusha Sands Sands

1766–1795

• George Guthrie Sands

1770–1811

Children

• William Guthrie Sands 1810–1889

nyslavery.commons.gc.cuny.edu

Record Type Slave Owner, 1790, Owner: Sands, Cornwall County or Borough Orange, Locality New Cornwall, Number of Slaves 1, Number of All Persons 6, U.S. Census1790

• https://nyslavery.commons.gc.cuny.edu/search/?appSession=57LZ7J76VU3IHE0F2F8NB4YGG3F86OU8U21PRC7IG4G194X36VZSR569D5A2P1X90DL45Y55MP084Q8848UP5E0Y4M949DVZ3SJR1PWL70S8TO33VD8A64FV91L092Q0

Sources

• Francis Whiting Halsey, "The Old New York Frontier." The Pioneers of Unadilla Village, 1784-1840, Unadilla, 1902.
• https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LH2V-SDW/benjamin-sands-1735-1824
• Temple Prime, Descent of Comfort Sands and of His Children, with Notes on the Families of Ray, Thomas, Guthrie, Alcock, Palgrave, Cornell, Dodge, Hunt, Jessup, De Vinne Press, 1886
• Scoville, Joseph Alfred. The Old Merchants of New York City. New York: Carleton, 1870.
• http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/bhs/arc_096_sands/bioghist.html