“I find in the “Newburgh Telegraph” of April 21, 1836, the following notice:

“Died--In this village on Wednesday last, aged about 54 years, Ward M. Gazlay, Esq., for many years a magistrate of Newburgh, and editor and proprietor of the “Political Index,” from about the year 1806 to 1829, at which latter period the present proprietor of the “Newburgh Telegraph” purchased his establishment and changed the political character of the paper. To some peculiarities, and a few faults, Mr. Gazlay united many excellent qualities both of head and heart. His early career as a magistrate was marked by strict probity, and a sound, discriminating judgment, united to a fixedness of purpose and an impartiality in his decisions which saw no difference between the rich and the poor--the peasant and the king. A wide circle of friends deeply sympathize with the family.”

“To the above, little can be added from facts in my possession. Mr. G. was not an ambitious or an industrious editor. He wrote little, and that little usually limited to home or local matters, dispatched with great brevity. If a steam boiler burst at the dock and killed a dozen of his neighbors and friends, a few brief lines told the whole sad tale in his columns. He was never excited; never lost his unbounded self-respect, nor his self-possession; never was disconcerted. He presided in his court with Oriental dignity; and in the presence of delinquents his austerity was a terror which few had the courage to brave a second time. His decisions and sentences, upon all such, came like successive claps of thunder after frightful lightning, dealing summary and irrevocable justice. A glance from his sunken and lusterless eye often made evil-doers quail. Indeed, it was his boast that he ‘could awe the lion-hearted rogue with the power of his eye.’

“Mr. Gazlay’s personal appearance was not remarkably prepossessing. His stature was under medium size; shoulders and whole man broad and thin; carriage ungainly; gait shuffling, the heels of his untied shoes clapping the pavement audibly as he sidled along; his head hugged his right shoulder, and in his mouth was always seen the stump of a cigar, the smoke of which curled up into his enormous nose and half closed eyes, with the greatest possible apparent satisfaction to their complacent owner. All these unamiable and even forbidding aspects, however, belied the inner man. He had a glowing heart towards poverty, misery, and suffering, and would beg or die before doing a mean or dishonest act to win gold or favor.

“Of his birth-place I know nothing, but I think he hailed from Pennsylvania. That, and his age, family &c., were topics which he thought it puerile to dwell upon. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Jonathan and Bridget Carter, and left three sons.”³