The Utica Riot of 1835 exposed the deep divide between abolitionists and their opponents in both the North and the South. As six hundred abolitionists from across New York State and beyond assembled here on October 21, 1835, Alvan Stewart, Esq., Rev. Beriah Green, and others began the convention an hour early because they feared conflict. Shortly after a resolution established the New York State Anti-Slavery Society, a large mob that included several prominent Uticans descended on the gathering. Led by Oneida County Judge Chester Hayden and United States Congressman Samuel Beardsley, the mob, known as the Committee of 25, burst into the church demanding that the meeting end and that those assembled leave town at once. The Liberator quoted Beardsley as saying that holding an abolition convention in the city was a deeper disgrace than twenty mobs and that it would be better to have Utica razed or destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah than to let the convention meet there. The mob shouted for Utica resident and convention organizer Alvan Stewart, and plans to burn his home near present-day Stanley Theater stopped only when the crowd learned it was well defended. At the same time, The Oneida Whig reported that the printing materials of the abolitionist newspaper in the city had been thrown out of the windows onto the walk. After the mob cleared the church, Utica-born Gerrit Smith invited the delegates to reconvene on his estate in nearby Peterboro. The next day three hundred abolitionists made the twenty-seven-mile trip to complete the organization of the society. The establishment of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society marked Oneida County as a center of the abolitionist movement, and local delegates Gerrit Smith, James DeLong, Spencer Kellogg, Alvan Stewart, and Beriah Green went on to become notable leaders locally and nationally. Despite efforts by angry locals to stop the convention, a movement in Oneida County was under way.