After graduating at Williams, and studying law at New Haven, he set his face toward western New York, then more remote from New England than Oregon now is. He made an exquisite choice of a place of residence, the village of Canandaigua, then only a hamlet of log huts along the border of one of the lakes for which that part of the State is famous. The first step taken by the young lawyer after his arrival fixed his destiny. He was assigned by the court to defend a man charged with murder--a capital chance for winning distinction in a frontier town. Myron Holley, however, instead of confining himself to his brief and his precedents, began by visiting the jail and interviewing the prisoner. He became satisfied of his guilt. The next morning he came into court, resigned the case, and never after made any attempt to practice his profession. He was, in fact, constitutionally disqualified for the practice of such a calling. Having a little property, he bought out a bookseller of the village, laid out a garden, married, was soon elected county clerk, and spent the rest of his life in doing the kind of public service which yields the maximum of good to the country with the minimum of gain to the individual doing it. The war of 1812 filled all that region with distress and want. It was he who took the lead in organizing relief, and appealed to the city of New York for aid with great success. As soon as the war was over, the old scheme of connecting Lake Erie with the Hudson by a canal was revived. It was an immense undertaking for that day, and a great majority of the prudent farmers of the State opposed the enterprise as something beyond their strength. It was Myron Holley who went to the legislature year after year, and argued it through. His winning demeanor, his persuasive eloquence, his intimate knowledge of the facts involved, his entire conviction of the wisdom of the scheme, his tact, good temper, and, above all, his untiring persistence, prevailed at length, and the canal was begun. He was appointed one of the commissioners to superintend the construction of the canal at a salary of twenty-five hundred dollars a year. The commissioners appointed him their treasurer, which threw upon him for eight years an inconceivable amount of labor, much of which had to be done in situations which were extremely unhealthy. At one time, in 1820, he had a thousand laborers on his hands sick with malaria. He was a ministering angel to them, friend, physician, and sometimes nurse. He was obliged on several occasions to raise money for the State on his personal credit, and frequently he had to expend money in circumstances which made it impossible for him to secure the legal evidence of his having done so.