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History of Orange County
Town of Newburgh
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Mr. Alexander Ross, whom we have previously named, continued to reside on his paternal estate during his life, and died some twenty years since. He was esteemed by his neighbors as an honest and upright citizen, and discharged the duties of several civil and military offices. William Ross, his brother, was educated to the law, and practised in the village of Newburgh. For many years he conducted an extensive and lucrative business in his profession. Though not a well read or deep thinking lawyer, nor yet well versed in the technical rules of special pleading, he so managed as always to have in his employ, or associated with him in business, those who were competent to manage and safely conduct the various and oftentimes difficult and abstruse cases of law and equity committed to his care in the business of his profession. Mr. Ross did not possess a legal mind—it was too scattering, diffusive and undisciplined for concentrated thought, or clear continued conception of difficult questions. Things pertaining to a legal case, which laid on or near the surface and within the grasp of ordinary minds, he saw clearly, and would seize, apply and explain them with great power, and declaim for a moment in the most eloquent and masterly manner; but was incapable of confining his mind and undivided attention to a close chain of argumentation through a case involving difficult points of law. His mind was better calculated for a jury than the bench. Perhaps the estimate of his legal abilities might have been higher if he had been compelled to cultivate and apply his talents, which certainly were not below mediocrity, for we have heard him utter some of the prettiest ideas that ever fell from a public speaker.
Mr. Ross for many years, in the early part of his life, was as deeply engaged in politics as in law, and fully as influential. He happened to be on the right side—stepped in when the flood tide was strong, and rode most gallantly on its topmost waves. There was a time when his influence warn absolutely supreme in the County. No man in it had greater with his party, and he always turned it to his personal advantage. Whether the circumstances and condition of things which surrounded his party and gave it a paramount control in the County and State, or Mr. Ross himself, by force of his own talent, created the personal influence of which we speak, we are too uninformed particularly to assert. We have heard it said that he was vain of his supposed personal influence at home and abroad; but of this those who knew him best were most competent to judge; we pass it by as if it were a slander.
Mr. Ross was free and open-handed, and among the number who aimed to improve the village and forward the true interest of the State and society at large. As a friend and neighbor, obliging; and if you deposited your confidence in his personal exertions and influence while a member of the State Senate, he would exert them strongly in your cause. He held many honorable and responsible official stations as a politician through a long period of years, and generally discharged their duties with the fidelity of a politician, and in a manner acceptable to his party and friends. The latter portion of his life was not as pleasant and full of sunshine as the earlier part, and seemed to be embittered by pecuniary embarrassments and worldly afflictions of some kind, of which we are not sufficiently informed to speak.
We name but one additional locality in this part of our paper. The vicinity of Orange Lake was partially settled quite early. The first man we trace there was Mr. Moose; but who he was, where from, and when he located, are wholly covered up by the lapse of time. It would seem he abided sufficiently long to give his name to the pond. He probably left or died without descendents. William Wear, the ancestor of William Wear, Esq., settled close on the western margin of the Lake, while James Waugh, Robert Waugh, and the Beatty family, were located in the vicinity. All these last named signed the pledge tendered them by the government in 1775, and mentioned more particularly hereafter. It was not till after the war that Capt. Machen and the Crowell family located here.