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 Middletown is a city in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. Located along the Connecticut River, in the central part of the state, 16 miles (25.749504 km) south of Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford. Middletown is the largest city in the L ...

, and law in

Skaneateles, New York Skaneateles ( , ) is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Onondaga County, New York, Onondaga County, New York (state), New York, United States. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 7,112. The name is from the Iroquois term ...

. He was a member of the

New York State Senate The New York State Senate is the upper house of the New York State Legislature, while the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Established in 1777 by the Constitution of New York, its members are elected to two-year terms with no term l ...

(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 provis ...

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 ( ), also known as the Five Nations, and later as the Six Nations from 1722 onwards; alternatively referred to by the Endonym and exonym, endonym Haudenosaunee ( ; ) are an Iroquoian languages, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Ind ...

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 The ''New-York Tribune'' (from 1914: ''New York Tribune'') was an American newspaper founded in 1841 by editor Horace Greeley. It bore the moniker ''New-York Daily Tribune'' from 1842 to 1866 before returning to its original name. From the 1840s ...

. He was an early mentor to

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

. He also built the first

plank road A plank road is a road composed of Plank (wood), wooden planks or wikt:puncheon#Noun, puncheon logs, as an efficient technology for traversing soft, marshy, or otherwise difficult ground. Plank roads have been built since antiquity, and were comm ...

in America, at

North Syracuse, New York North Syracuse is a village in Onondaga County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 6,739. North Syracuse is located in the towns of Cicero and Clay, north of the city of Syracuse. History The village was origi ...

, in 1846. In 1861, he was president of the

New York State Agricultural Society The New York State Agricultural Society was founded in 1832, with the goal of promoting agricultural improvement. One of its main activities is operating the annual New York State Fair. Activities A major activity of the society is running the ...

. 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 Burials at Oakwood Cemetery (Syracuse, New York) 19th-century members of the New York State Legislature