Devereux Block

John Devereux was born in 1774 in Wexford Ireland and was the second oldest of nine children. The Devereux were an old, well-to-do, respected Roman Catholic family in which lost lives and money in the short but bloody Irish Rebellion of 1798.

John had fortunately left Ireland before the troubles of 1798, and after a sojourn in France arrived in the United States in mid-1796. In September of that year, "John C. Devero, Dancing Master, lately from Europe" advertised that he was opening a Dancing School in Hartford Connecticut. Two years later he advertised that he was teach­ing in Windham and Tolland. He taught also in the Connecticut towns of Middletown and Norwich, Pittsfield and elsewhere in Massachusetts, and in Troy, New York.

The family tradition from John's mouth is that he "danced one thousand dollars out of the New Englanders", and this $1,000 started the immensely successful Devereux merchant business. When John opened his store in 1802, Utica was a hamlet of a few hundred persons. Judging from the Utica store advertisements of the Devereux and others of that time, the merchandise sold included whiskey, gin, wine, brandy, cigars, tobacco and snuff. John did well enough so that by 1805 he had bought property in Utica, and then by 1806 on the waterfront of Sackets Harbour, where he and his brother Nicholas later had a store.

Devereux Building circa 1960s

In 1814 Utica was growing rapidly. He was joined by his brother Nicholas and the firm became John C. and Nicholas Devereux. At this first recorded partnership of John and Nicholas, John was forty, having arrived in America at the age of twenty-two, eighteen years before. Nicholas was twenty-three, with widely varied and helpful experience. These two brothers, with their initiative, ability, and seventeen year age-gap, were destined to leave a notable record in Utica, a community that grew at mushroom speed during their lifetimes.

On July 4, 1817, work was started on the Erie Canal. The first excavation was at Rome, near Utica, and the canal eventually became the base for their operations. Two years later the canal became a reality; on October 23, 1819, a canal boat of officials opened the first section-Utica to Rome.

In 1821 the canal was opened to the east as far as Little Falls. This, with the already opened western stretch, created a "Throughway" across the village. Business then gravitated to the canal banks, about half a mile south of the old center which was near the Mohawk, and based on Bagg's Square. John C. and Nicholas Devereux bought property on the south side of the canal and west of Genesee Street. Part of this later became the site of the "Devereux Block", still a landmark; but their first buildings here were a store and a warehouse. Devereux dealt extensively in imported goods, and the quantities make it clear they were wholesalers. The business was very extensive with tavern­ keepers and store keepers of the smaller towns.

Devereux Home

In 1823 John, then forty nine, retired as an active partner and bought the Jeremiah Van Kensselaer house at the edge of the village. The land had a frontage of 416 feet on the east side of Genesee Street, running south from a point just south of Elizabeth Street. It totaled seven acres and eventually became the center of the Utica business district.

The Devereux's banking interests had started in 1819, for with so much "canal money" around, the Devereux brothers began a savings bank. This bank paid regular dividends to its depositors and the bank was incorporated two years later, March 21, 1821. John was president of the Utica Bank for Savings, about which we know nothing except that it is listed in the Utica Direc­tories of 1832-1834.

The Devereux brothers were founders and original board members of the Utica Savings Bank. The Utica banks had survived the troubled finan­cial years but an institution for savings was needed. John was elected president and remained so until his death in 1848. By the time his widow died in 1868, the one thousand dollars that John had danced out of the New Englanders had become a fortune of $450,000.