George Geddes (February 14, 1809 – October 7, 1883) was an American engineer, agronomist, historian and politician from New York.

Life

He was the son of engineer, surveyor and Congressman James Geddes. George Geddes studied engineering and surveying in Middletown, Connecticut, and law in

Skaneateles, New York Skaneateles ( , ) is a town in Onondaga County, New York, United States. The population was 7,112 at the 2020 census. The name is from the Iroquois term for the adjacent ''Skaneateles'' Lake, which means "long lake." The town is on the western ...

. He was a member of the New York State Senate (22nd D.) from 1848 to 1851, sitting in the 71st, 72nd, 73rd and

74th New York State Legislature The 74th New York State Legislature, consisting of the New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly, met from January 7 to July 11, 1851, during the first year of Washington Hunt's governorship, in Albany. Background Under the provisi ...

s. He was one of three state senators instrumental in the passage of the 1848 New York State law permitting women to hold property independently of their husbands, the first of its kind in the United States. He served on the New York State Senate's Indian Affairs committee and wrote articles about

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

history and archaeology. Originally a Whig, he later joined the Republican Party. He was a moderate abolitionist. Geddes was well known nationally in agricultural circles for his model farm at Fairmount, and was an occasional agricultural and political columnist for the New York Tribune. He was an early mentor to

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co ...

. He also built the first plank road in America, at North Syracuse, New York, in 1846. In 1861, he was president of the New York State Agricultural Society. His son James Geddes (born November 19, 1831) was a civil engineer, agriculturist, and assemblyman in 1883.

References

Bibliography

*Holt, Michael (1999). ''The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. *Mitchell, Broadus (1924). ''Frederick Law Olmsted: Critic of the Old South''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. * Stanton, Elizabeth Cady et al. (1887). ''History of Woman Suffrage''. Rochester: Self-published. {{DEFAULTSORT:Geddes, George 1809 births 1883 deaths New York (state) state senators People from Camillus, New York 19th-century American politicians Burials at Oakwood Cemetery (Syracuse, New York)