Bovina Ex-Pat: Isaac H. Maynard – Lawyer, Judge and Politician

Isaac Horton Maynard
from Munsell's History of Delaware County, 1880

Isaac Horton Maynard was a grandson of the early Bovina settler Elisha Maynard. Born on April 9, 1838, in Bovina, he was the son of Isaac Maynard and Jane (Falconer) Maynard. He spent his childhood and early adulthood in Bovina, leaving to attend Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He was valedictorian of the class of 1862. From there, he came back to the area to study law in Delhi when he was admitted to the bar in 1865. 

Maynard didn’t move very far from Bovina. He settled in Stamford where in 1869 he was elected Town Supervisor for the Town of Stamford. He was re-elected in 1870. In his second year, he also served as chairman the Board of Supervisors of Delaware County. He continued his political career at the state level, serving as a member of the New York State Assembly in 1876 and 1877. He was elected County Judge and Surrogate of the Delaware County Court from 1878 to 1885.

In 1883 he tried for statewide office when he ran for Secretary of State of New York. He was the only candidate defeated on the Democratic ticket. In 1886, he was appointed First Deputy New York Attorney General. In 1887, he was appointed to national office as Assistant U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and remained in office until the end of the First Cleveland administration in 1889.

Afterwards he was appointed Deputy New York Attorney General again. At was at this point that his career took a major hit when he became involved in a case of electoral fraud in Dutchess County. In November 1891, he was counsel to the State Board of Canvassers. The Republican State Senate incumbent, Gilbert A. Deane, had received more votes than his Democratic challenger Edward B. Osborne. The Dutchess County Board of Canvassers did not allow thirty-one votes because of stray ink marks on the edges of the ballots, though many thought the marks could have been made in the process of printing the ballots. Osborne was declared elected, but the Republicans challenged the County Board's decision in court, and on December 5, the judge ordered the thirty-one votes to be counted and instructed the County Clerk to send the corrected result to the State Board. Another judge ordered a stay of the first judge's decision. On December 19, the New York Supreme Court vacated the previous stay, and the County Clerk mailed the corrected result to Albany.

On the same day however, the appeals court stayed the Supreme Court’s decision. The county clerk traveled to Albany and went to Isaac Maynard's home demanding to have the corrected result returned to him. They went to the New York State Comptroller's office, and Maynard retrieved the letter from the incoming-mail pile and handed it over to the county clerk. Subsequently, the original result was canvassed by the State Board, and the Democratic candidate was declared elected, giving the Democrats a majority in the New York State Senate.

In January 1892, Maynard was appointed to the New York Court of Appeals to fill a vacancy. Two weeks later, his connection with the Dutchess County election problem became known to the public. The New York State Legislature, having a Democratic majority, continued to support Maynard, but public indignation never subsided.

In January 1893, Maynard was re-appointed to the Court of Appeals, to fill another vacancy, although the Bar Association had urged the Governor against it. At the New York state election that fall, Maynard ran on the Democratic ticket for a full term on the Court of Appeals. Not only did Maynard lose the election, he dragged down the whole ticket, leading to a Republican victory. 

Maynard continued his legal practice in Stamford and made frequent trips to Albany. It was while on one of these trips in 1896 that he died suddenly of a heart attack in his room at the Kenmore Hotel in Albany. Maynard was buried at the Woodland Cemetery in Delhi.