He created our common school system, and suggested carrying into effect the law of 1805, which created the common school fund, whose interest was to be distributed among the schools of the State. . . . One of his last acts as governor of the State, the special message which he sent to the legislature February 24, 1817 -- the day he resigned as governor,-- carried the recommendation for the abolition of domestic slavery in the State, to take

HISTORY

WESTCHESTER

COUNTY

effect July 4, 1827. In accordance with this proposition, the legislature passed an acton the 31st of March, 1817, and at the prescribed time slavery was wiped off the statute books of the State of New York. " Of all the able men who have occupied the chair of governor of New York State, none ever sustained the onerous and overwhelming responsibilities with more conscientiousness, or guarded the destinies of his State and his people with more fidelity. He was more than a great man; he was a great patriot, a great martyr. He gave his services, his fortune, his reputation, and his life, that his country should maintain its position among the nations of the earth, and for the transcendent results he achieved he deserves the imperishable gratitude of his countrymen."

Ill the same year that Tompkins was elected governor, lttOT, occurred an event of peculiar interest to the people of Westchester County residing on the banks of the Hudson River. This was the passage up the stream, on its trial trip to Albany, of Robert Fulton's steamboat, the " Clermont." It came almost unheralded on the afternoon of September 11, and to most beholders must have been an had been to object quite as astonishing as Hudson's "Half-Moon" the Indian aborigines two hundred years before. Although it was known to specially well informed people that some surprising experiments had been made in the waters surrounding New York City with a vessel propelled by steam, the rustic classes had never heard of the ship.