While Orville watched over the store, Foster would head to Albany in mud wagons and sleighs and then make the arduous week-long trek to Manhattan via sloop to purchase supplies before returning to Watertown.

Hungerford made frequent trips to New York City to sell potash from his ashery in Watertown and purchase wares to bring back to his store.

For example, he helped fellow merchants promote the "Air-Tight Rotary Cook Stove", which used one third less wood, as advertised in local newspapers such as the Northern State Journal.

[36] Orville Hungerford's success was a direct result of the support given by his wife Betsey: "She was a woman of beautiful character and disposition, and an efficient colaborer with her revered husband in all his benevolent works.

[41] In 1816, Jabez Foster, at the time Orville Hungerford's mercantile business partner, along with others, successfully petitioned the legislature to establish the Jefferson County Bank.

[16] At some point Orville Hungerford and Jabez Foster owned a "Flouring or Grist mill" located on the north side of the Black River (New York) as indicated on an 1836 map of the Village of Watertown in Jefferson County, N.Y. drafted by John Deneson.

A July 9, 1942 newspaper article in the Watertown Daily Times described the "semi-circular garden" in the front yard of the Hungerford home on Washington Street, which was originally planted by Betsey Hungerford 118 years earlier: "Many of the same plants and shrubs are still there-the big barberry bush at the corner, the bleedinghearts by the doorway, the white roses scattered all through and the snowdrops that clothe the whole garden with their nodding bells almost before the snow has melted.

In support of its requested designation, the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form filed in December 2013 stated the following: Similar to the nominated Losee house, Hungerford's residence was a five-bay, center-hall form, embellished with Federal detailing, including a main entrance almost identical to the Losee house—a six-paneled wooden door recessed into an elaborate moulded wood surround, emphasized with recessed panels, sidelights, a full moulded entablature supported by engaged columns, and surmounted by an arched limestone architrave with a projecting keystone.

[88]After the Hungerford stone mansion was moved and rebuilt, the original site on Washington Avenue in Watertown became a hotel known at the Carriage House Inn,[89] later operated under the Best Western brand.

In 1829, a Boston Masonic newspaper, citing the Watertown Freeman publication, reported that a mere 69 people marched through the city to protest the abduction of Morgan when hundreds were expected.

The Washington Street building was destroyed in a fire on January 27, 1851, and the Eastern Light Lodge moved temporarily to an Odd Fellows Hall and then to several other locations.

Diarist Benjamin B. French stated: "As a Freemason, [Hungerford] was a constant visitor to our Chapters and Lodges in the District, and never declined any duty that he was asked [to] perform.

The citizens of Jefferson County met in Watertown, New York on December 19, 1827 "for the purpose of devising means and raising funds for the relief of the oppressed and suffering Greeks.

[117] On August 1, 1828, a man by the name of Barney Griffin, who had travelled from Syracuse to the Village of Sackets Harbor several days earlier, ended up dying in the Jefferson County Poor House.

[70] In 1820, Perley Keyes ran for a New York Congressional seat against local attorney Micah Sterling, who graduated from Yale College along with his classmate John C.

[130] That newspaper evolved into the Eagle and Standard, whose editor Alvin Hunt, enthusiastically endorsed the political ambitions of Orville Hungerford and his Democratic ticket throughout northern New York.

[139] The President's two sons followed their father in a carriage accompanied by the Secretary of War's wife, Mrs. Joel R. Poinsett, and Watertown attorney, Micah Sterling[138] A mile-long procession stretched behind.

Orville Hungerford often followed the political lead of his mentor, Judge Perley Keyes, a "dextrous lieutenant[]" of one of the founders of the Democratic Party, Martin Van Buren.

[153] On April 2, 1846, Hungerford voted with the almost unanimous Democratic majority in the 29th Congress to pass "A Bill to Provide for the Better Organization of the Treasury and for the Collection, Safekeeping, Transfer and Disbursments [sic.]

Crossing party lines Hungerford voted with the Whigs on February 16, 1847, and on March 3, 1847, to endorse the Wilmot Proviso, which added to the "$3,000,000 bill" a provision excluding slavery from territories newly acquired by treaty.

[160] Benjamin had a wool-carding and cloth-dressing mill in West Sparta, New York and had convinced Millard's father to have the fifteen-year-old boy learn the trade under his tutelage as an apprentice.

Clarke convinced his fellow masonic brother and the area's premier business person, Orville Hungerford, that Watertown was doomed as a backwater without a more modern connection to the commercial hub of the country, New York City.

Yet they sought to bring into Northern New York, there at the beginning of the third decade of the nineteenth century, hardly emerged from primeval forest, the highway of iron rail, that even so highly a developed civilization as that of England was receiving with great caution and uncertainty.

[172] In 1848, Orville Hungerford and Major Edmund Kirby from Brownville, N.Y. managed to raise enough capital via subscriptions to complete the railroad, which cost $15,000 a mile to build.

[179] Unfortunately, Hungerford never got to see a train complete a journey to Watertown because he died shortly before the inaugural run on May 29, 1851, covering the 53-mile stretch between Rome to the hamlet of Pierrepont Manor (originally called Bear Creak).

[188] After a 12-day illness starting out as "bilious cholic", which then affected his brain in the form of paralysis, Orville Hungerford died on Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m. on April 6, 1851.

[190] The Reformer newspaper of Watertown, New York, reported the following: The deceased retained the use of his mental faculties till a few hours before his death – he held frequent conversations on business matters during his sickness, giving the necessary directions preparatory to his submitting his stewardship to other hands, and sought the consolations of the Gospel, which shed its joyous light on his path-way to the tomb.

"[192] On April 15, 1851, The New York Herald published a more in depth obituary, stating Orville Hungerford's "public reputation, doubtless, rests mainly on his talents as a financier.

The gothic structure, made from bird eye limestone and brownish cast stone, is supported by twelve pier buttresses, punctured by trefoil windows on each side, and graced with an octagonal spire sheathed in slate.

The New York Herald, a newspaper with one of the largest readerships in the country, ended up publishing a full obituary for Orville Hungerford, concluding that "[h]is public reputation, doubtless, rests mainly on his talents as a financier.