AUBURN, N. Y. -- On the last Monday of March, Alaskans observe the anniversary of the treaty that transferred Russian America to the United States in 1867.
Seward's Day usually doesn't see much in the way of celebration. Few if any parades, department store sales, buffets or joyful public assemblies, even in Alaska. And, of course, no one outside Alaska cares.
Except here, the adopted hometown of William H. Seward, the 24th U.S. secretary of state, Abraham Lincoln's "indispensable" political ally, resourceful diplomat and the man who single-handedly acquired the greatest chunk of American territory since the Louisiana Purchase.
On a recent visit to Auburn, I was struck by posters advertising a Seward's Day Trivia Contest. It will take place in the popular Prison City Pub and Brewery. (There's usually a waiting list to get in.) Highlights include the release of a new blonde ale dubbed "Seward's Folly." One dollar from each pint sold will be donated to the Seward House Museum.
"We're trying to raise awareness and interest in the younger generation for our favorite Secretary of State," said Mitchell Maniccia, facilities manager for the museum, which is actually Seward's home.
It's worth noting that Auburn will observe the 149th anniversary of Seward's Day on Wednesday, March 30, the date when he negotiated the purchase of Russia's New World claims, not the last-Monday-in-March state holiday in Alaska.
Civic ambiance
In 1872, the year Seward died, the population of Auburn was 17,000. Today it is just under 30,000.
One suspects that Seward would easily find his way around town should he happen to materialize there today. Many of the Victorian-era homes of his friends still stand, some evocative of the Addams Family. Most look carefully maintained.
The downtown has a lot of old buildings in service. The Prison City Pub, for instance, is in a Civil War armory. Auburn also has a fine art deco movie palace listed on the National Register of Historic Places and apparently shut down, just like Anchorage's. But while the downtown has some of the empty storefronts typical of many small towns, they are not derelict. Several show signs of being remodeled for pending tenants.
Auburn feels less frantic than many cities. It's an easy place to walk around. Church bells ring at 6 p.m. There are mailboxes every few blocks. The parking lot of the largest supermarket, Wegmans, has no delinquent shopping carts left helter-skelter by shoppers too busy or too important or too lazy to return them to the store.
There is an air public responsibility and civility here. The name of the local newspaper is The Citizen. The 200-year-old paper lists the names of people who have written bad checks. It also lists those who have made good their debts. Front-page stories detail exploits of area school students at intellectual competitions and sometimes reports of crime -- in the biggest nearby cities, Syracuse and Rochester.
Not that there are no fallen angels in Auburn. A clerk at the Subway shop told me she needed to move the tip jar after someone walked off with it earlier in the week.
Most criminals in Auburn reside at the Auburn Correctional Facility, the mother house of the present U.S. penal system of mass incarceration. Started in 1816, Auburn Prison became famous for experiments in rehabilitation quickly adopted elsewhere. Promoted as more humane or efficient ways to treat prisoners, the enforced silence, lockstep, lash and freezing shower baths have passed into history.
The visitors' gate in the middle of a residential neighborhood has the look of a Medieval Times restaurant front, with two storybook stone turrets. But looks can be deceiving. The Auburn prison is considered one of the most secure in the U.S., and the amusement park façade can't obliterate a certain vibe of horror that comes from the old bricks. The first execution by electric chair took place on the other side of these walls.
History in a home
A few blocks from the prison is Seward's house, a large yellow brick structure. Even with a public parking lot pressing against it, it has a grand dignity -- though without the showy columns topped by Ionic capitals that can be found on some of the more ostentatious mansions. Construction began under Seward's father-in-law 200 years ago and the building has been enlarged and updated over the years. Seward moved in after his marriage in 1824 and, though he spent many years in Albany, Washington, D.C. and traveling, it was his primary residence until his death.
Open to the public, the Seward House Museum is largely furnished with items from Seward's lifetime. The grand dining table is crowded with fine china, silver and glassware. "Everyone wanted to be invited to Seward's dinner parties," Maniccia said. Above the table is the enormous painting of Seward and the Russian minister finalizing the Alaska treaty, painted by Emanuel Leutze, the artist best known for "Washington Crossing the Delaware."
To one side sits a humidor with Seward's cigars, some previously lit, puffed, then put aside for later savoring. A bedroom features the world's fanciest honey bucket, the upholstered "invalid's chair." Flushing water closet toilets were not added until after Seward's death. The library holds his history and law books on shelves that can only be reached by a ladder. A bust of his friend Abraham Lincoln gazes out the window.
One glass case holds the books that belonged to his daughter Frances, novels by Sir Walter Scott and the girls' tales by Ann Fraser-Tytler, a rage among Victorian tweens. Seward placed them in the case himself after her death at a young age.
Treasures collected from Seward's trips to Europe and Asia hang on the walls or adorn the shelves. Collections and Exhibits manager Matthew MacVittie said a full set of Tlingit armor, baskets and other souvenirs from his visit to Alaska in 1869 are in storage and will be put on display next year, the 150th anniversary of the purchase treaty.
The museum has the carriage Seward was riding in when he suffered a serious accident shortly before the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Seward, too, was a target of the assassins and a cloth with his blood is displayed. So are a hundred or so photos of important people Seward met during his lifetime, Queen Victoria, the Emperor of Austria, Presidents Lincoln and John Quincy Adams. "It's like his Facebook wall," said Maniccia.
Seward called it a gallery of his "tormentors."
Visitors are shown his study, the couch on which he died and, in the basement, a room said to have been used to shelter blacks escaping slavery via the Underground Railroad.
Tributes to Tubman
Seward and his wife were ardent abolitionists and friends with Harriet Tubman, the plucky little woman said to have guided thousands of enslaved people to freedom. The Sewards helped Tubman obtain property down the street from their house where she eventually lived, built a hospital and maintained a home for the elderly.
Tubman's personal dwelling, a two-story brick structure, is undergoing renovation, but ground floor rooms of the senior citizen residence are open to tour groups. So is a visitor's center where programs on Tubman's life and times are presented. It features artifacts, photos and information along with an excellent wall-length timeline putting her adventures into perspective with national events.
The Tubman-Seward connection is even celebrated in local advertising. The two are shown in modern dress in a mural along the side of the Liberty clothing store.
I stopped at the Tubman house on March 10, which I learned was the 103rd anniversary of her death. That prompted me to find her grave at Fort Hill Cemetery. It wasn't hard to do. Next to it someone had placed the red, black and green "Pan-African" or "Black Liberation" banner. The modest headstone was covered with stones and pennies, tributes from visitors, a way of saying "you are not forgotten."
The grave is also marked by a special stake reserved for those who served in the Union Army during the Civil War. Tubman was a scout who led raids behind lines. Though she didn't hold a formal rank, associates referred to her as "General Tubman."
Up the hill from Tubman's grave, one comes to the Seward family plot. The row of sarcophagi is not the most ostentatious monument in a graveyard full of towering obelisks and looming mausoleums. But the arrangement speaks of dignity. Seward lies under a case of white marble, his wife on his left, his daughter and other children on his right. Other members of the extended family surround them.
The grave has an urn, modestly ornate by the standards of Fort Hill, with the words, "He was faithful." Aside from his name and dates there is no information. Nothing about being governor, senator, secretary of state, world traveler. Nothing about Alaska.
The other family graves are similarly plain, though William Seward Jr. has a Union Army marker like the one seen at Tubman's grave. But on a rainy afternoon in early March, I saw what looked like a small bronze button placed in the center of the cross on the top of Seward's sarcophagus. It seemed out of place so I came closer.
Someone had left a penny.