09/16/2025
The Honorable Seward Barculo
Sitting on top of a hillside and overlooking the Hudson sits a monument to a man who had faith in his God and in his country’s system of justice. The epitaph inscribed therein gives us a possible glimpse of who he was “In Society an Ornament; In the State, a Judge, fearless, dignified, and incorruptible; In Habit, Simple and Pure. He died young, but mature in usefulness and fame. Adorning Jurisprudence by the clearness of his decisions, and Illustrating Religion by the Strength of his faith!” To this modern writer, that sounds like quite a man, and a character that just doesn’t exist anymore. But who was Seward Barculo anyway? Was he really all of the things that his headstone claims he was?
The pastor of the Dutch Reformed churches in Hopewell and New Hackensack The Reverend George Barculo was overjoyed on September 22nd 1808 when his wife Hannah gave birth to their son, Seward. Though his father thought he would be a farmer, Seward’s uncle Jacobus Swartout couldn’t help but notice that the boy enjoyed reading and learning at an early age, so it was decided that he should receive a proper education. He was sent off to the Academy at Fishkill and then prepped for college before entering Yale in 1828. He studied both at Yale and Rutgers before coming to Poughkeepsie to study law with a local attorney Stephen Cleveland. He was finally admitted to the Bar in 1834, which is also the same year he married Cornelia Tallman. He very quickly discovered a passion for debate and was heard to tell his friends “learn to speak, argue, and debate! Without this you can never make yourself felt.”
Barculo became a partner with Stephen Cleveland and very quickly took over the office at Poughkeepsie and was in high demand with his clients. He became well known for his silent stare in the courtroom, and rising at the appropriate times to deliver well arranged statements with calmness and care. After only serving in the courts for a little over a decade, New York Governor Silas Wright appointed Barculo First Judge of the County Court here in Dutchess. Two years went by before in 1847 when the State’s new constitution went into effect, Barculo was then elected to serve as a Justice of the Supreme Court for the 2nd District. He had also made Poughkeepsie his home with a house near Mansion Square Park.
Perhaps the most infamous case that he proceeded over during this time was in March of 1852, “The People vs. Ann Hoag” in which Mrs. Hoag was put on trial for the poisoning of her husband Nelson Hoag. Barculo, the jury, and hundreds of spectators listened intently as the horrible story of a young woman consumed with greed and lust unfolded before them. Mrs. Hoag had done a rather poor job of covering her tracks in the purchasing of arsenic and then feeding it to her husband in front of his sisters (who she detested as well). She even made the mistake of telling people that her husband would surely die soon (spoiler alert, he did!). Barculo gave a lengthy statement to the jury before sending them off to make their decision
“Gentlemen, you have an important and responsible duty to perform. The crime with which this woman is charged is one of the most diabolical that can enter the human heart. It is one easily perpetrated; it requires neither age, nor strength, nor skill, nor courage. The merest child or feeble woman can by means of poison, destroy a whole family. If this horrible crime has been committed by this prisoner it should be punished. You stand between her and the public, your duty points to both. If she is innocent you must preserve her from the sword of the law which is now suspended over her head. You are not to presume her innocent because she is a woman nor because she has children, nor because of the punishment, but because she is innocent and not proved guilty” She was found guilty and it was Justice Barculo’s job to sentence her to death by hanging. She was the first woman to be executed in the City of Poughkeepsie, right inside the County Courthouse where Barculo had heard her trial. In his six and a half years as a Supreme Court Justice, this case received more attention (for obvious reasons) than any other he had seen.
Besides his love of debate, he was a lover of reading, sailing, and horticulture. He was devoted to his children especially his son Sidney who (strangely enough) followed his father in death just a few months after in September of 1854 when the child was running around the campus of the Dutchess Academy and ran head first into another student. He died several hours later, he was just 13 years old. Justice Barculo had also known good health until the last few months of his life when while traveling abroad, suddenly began to suffer from a horrible case of chronic diarrhea (which if left unchecked,was a very real cause of death in the 19th century). He tried to get back home in time to pass in the peace of his home but died in the residence of his father-in-law in New York City on the 20th of June, 1854. He was only 45. His remains were brought here to Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery, not far from some other well known judges and lawyers of Poughkeepsie’s past.
References:
Poughkeepsie Journal: Mar 20 1852, Nov 24, 1855, Sept 9, 1854
Brooklyn Eagle: Jun 16, 1854
“The Life and Confessions of Lucy Ann Hoag” 1852 - NYS Archives
Seward Barculo - Ancestry.com - https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/seward-barculo-24-6g4m9k
