NJGenWeb ~ Morris County, New Jersey

It seldom falls to the lot of a single individual, even in this country of unparalleled opportunity and wonderful accomplishment, to achieve in the line of public service such a vast and lasting benefit to mankind as is credited to Augustus W. CUTLER, of Morristown. During his double term in Congress, extending from December 6, 1875, to March 3, 1879, he introduced the first bill ever presented to that body creating a department of agriculture. This measure was referred to the committee on agriculture, by whom it was laid aside without further action. He reintroduced it in the next session, and supported it with a speech that attracted more than ordinary attention at the time, and elicited hearty commendation from the great mass of people who were the most immediately interested in its provisions. This time he met with a little better success. The bill was passed in the house, but when running the gauntlet of the senate it was killed. His effort, however, was not wasted. He had planted good seed in rich soil, and in a succeeding session the ripe fruitage appeared in the adoption of his measure.

While his record, both as a state and national legislator, was rounded out with other achievements that have growing importance with the increase of years, this single measure will remain most conspicuous because of what the department of agriculture has become—one of the most potent executive branches of the national government. Under it are the weather bureau; the bureaus of animal industry, agricultural chemistry, entomology, biological survey, plant industry, and soils; the agricultural colleges and experiment stations; the office of public roads, and the newly expanded forest service. Fostered by it the farms and farm property in the United States reached a value in 1900 of $20,514,001,838; the domestic exports of farm products were valued at $1,055,000,000 in 1907, when for the first time in the history of the world a country exported agricultural commodities of home production exceeding one billion dollars in value; and the value of the wealth produced on the farms in 1908 reached the most extraordinary total in the country's history—$7,848,000,000, or four times the value of the productions of the mines. When the creator of the national department of agriculture was drafting the bill which ultimately gave it life, he doubtless foresaw a vast benefit would accrue to the farming community; but no prescience could then gauge the enormous importance which the agricultural industry has now reached under the active and diversified promotion of the department.

Augustus W. CUTLER (baptized William Augustus), lawyer, legislator, and public benefactor, was born in Morristown, Morris county, New Jersey, October 22, 1829. On both the paternal and maternal side he was of distinguished and patriotic lineage. He was a son of Joseph CUTLER, a brigadier-general of New Jersey cavalry in the War of 1812; a grandson of Abijah CUTLER, who achieved distinction in the Revolutionary War; a great-grandson on the maternal side of Silas CONDICT, a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1781-84, president of the New Jersey committee of safety in the Revolutionary War, and speaker of the New Jersey house of assembly for several years. He was also a direct descendant of John and Priscilla ALDEN.

His early youth was passed on his father's farm, where he acquired a fondness for agricultural and horticultural pursuits and investigations that remained strong with him through life. He attended the Morris Academy and then prepared for Yale College, but was not allowed to complete his college course by reason of ill health. After a course of study in the office of Daniel HAINES, subsequently twice governor of New Jersey, and a justice of its Supreme Court, at Hamburg, Sussex county, New Jersey, he was admitted to the bar in 1850, and soon afterward entered into active participation in local and county affairs.

In 1854 Mr. CUTLER became a member of the board of education of Morristown, in which he served for twenty-one years consecutively, and of which he was president for several years. In 1856 he was chosen prosecutor of the pleas, and he filled this office with signal ability for five years. Originally and old-time Whig, when that party was dissolved he allied himself with the Democratic party, and in 1871 was its successful candidate for the New Jersey State senate, where he served until 1874. During this period he was also a member of the State Constitutional Convention (1873). Mr. CUTLER's service to his native State extended over many years, and comprised a number of reforms of enduring value. Of all the compliments paid him during his active life he was probably proudest of being acknowledged as the father of the free-school system of New Jersey. As early as 1861 he had drawn up the original free-school bill, and in 1864 he had initiated a memorable contest against the railroads of the State to secure the control of the riparian lands and the application of the proceeds of their sales and rentals to the promotion of free schools. He won this contest, and during the first year of the operation of the law the state free school fund received over $1,000,000 from this source. He also introduced and vigorously supported the bill making women eligible to the office of school trustee, introduced the general railroad act (1874), and was ever alert in promoting the interests of the colored race.

Mr. CUTLER was first elected a representative in Congress in 1874, when he received a majority of seven votes over William Walter PHELPS, a widely popular Republican opponent, later a member of Congress and American minister to Germany. In 1876 he was reelected by a majority of about 1,400, and in 1878 he was renominated for a third term, but declined to accept. What has been assumed as his most beneficial service in Congress has been detailed in the introduction of this sketch. Not only in Congress, but throughout the remainder of his life he was an earnest advocate of whatever measures would conduce to the welfare of the great farming community, and in his private life he applied much of his time to practical demonstrations on several farms he had acquired. He was most truly a representative of the people of his congressional district. He gave up his law practice in order to familiarize himself with the conditions and needs of his constituents, and he personally studied their interests in mills, factories, mines and other industrial centers. In Congress, too, his old-time fervor for free schools again manifested itself, when he introduced and urged with characteristic enthusiasm a bill to appropriate the proceeds of sales of public lands to the different states and territories, according to their population, for the benefit of free schools.

Next to the farmer and free school his most active zeal was shown in safe-guarding the interests of the soldier of the Civil War. Under the original enlistment act a soldier was entitled to a pension from the date of his disability; but Congress, in considering appropriations for pensions, reckoned from the time of granting the pensions, thus leaving a considerable gap unprovided for. Unable to secure from the pension office a statement of the amount necessary to cover this gap, the committee on appropriations failed to make an enlarged appropriation. In this emergency Mr. CUTLER introduced a bill to appropriate $100,000,000, "or as much thereof as shall be necessary to meet this deficiency and to carry into effect the provisions of the bill." This was the first bill ever introduced into Congress so worded, now a common practice. The appropriation committee adopted it, and so remedied an injustice to the soldier.

In 1895 Mr. CUTLER made an open canvass for the gubernatorial nomination, for which his name had been mentioned several times. The prize, however, went to Chancellor Alexander T. McGILL, and in the political landslide of that year the entire Democratic ticket was lost. In the following year Mr. CUTLER supported the presidential ticket for Bryan and Sewall, and was again a candidate for Congress, but in the later contest he was defeated by Mahlon PITNEY, who had carried the district two years before. This closed his public career. In December, 1896, he underwent a surgical operation, from which he died at his home on January 1, 1897. Mr. CUTLER, happily, lived to see his most cherished public measures enacted into permanent laws. Every cause designed to advance the welfare of humanity founding him a staunch supporter. Integrity and love of truth, courage in defending the right and great tenacity of purpose, together with unfaltering faithfulness in his performance of duty, were the dominating features of his character, and account for the success of his many public undertakings.

In 1854 Mr. CUTLER married Julia R. WALKER, of Albany, New York, a lineal descendant of Peregrine WHITE, the first American child born in New England after the landing of the Mayflower Pilgrims. Three sons were born of this union:

• Willard Walker, of whom sketch follows;
• Condit Walker, who adopted the profession of medicine, and
• Frederick Walker, who entered the ministry of the Presbyterian church.

Copyright ©1999-2018 by Brianne Kelly-Bly, all rights reserved.