Some Things of Early Chenango - Read at the Chenango County Dinner
John C. Wait
Chenango Union, March 14, 1907
What became of the "Agriculturist" in Mr. Curtis' hands I am not informed, but in 1829 Elias P. Pellett and B.T. Cooke began the publication of the Anti-Masonic Telegraph, which became in 1835 the Chenango Telegraph. Elias was the father of the late Major E.P. Pellett, who, though for many years a resident of a foreign country, retained the most affectionate endearances of our Chenango. The county which harbored the strongest Anti-Masonic elements in 1829 has become and is a stronghold of the society.
I have thus gone into the history of our newspapers and their editors because Clark in his history makes no mention thereof. The reason for this omission is not obvious and it is a cause for some curiosity.
Our Soldiers--Chenango's existence post dates the Revolutionary War; and we have no native white heroes of that struggle. She was second to no county in enthusiasm for the measure of strength in 1812. After General Hull's surrender, August 16, 1812, Chenango rose to arms to wipe out the defeat and disgrace; and September 8, under Thomas Meade, as Lieut. Colonel, John Randall, Major, and Judge John Noyes, as Adjutant, they received marching orders. They marched via Sherburne and Cazenovia to Buffalo, took position opposite Queenstown Heights, on the American side of the Niagara River. This contingent was engaged in the bloody battle of Queenstown Heights opposite Lewiston, N.Y. October 13, 1812. The Americans were defeated and Chenango's men who survived were made prisoners at Newark, Canada. They were liberated on parole after a week's confinement and returned not long after. Chenango sent two companies to Sackett's Harbor in 1813.
The war of 1812 hardly deserves the name of a war when compared with the bloody Rebellion of 1861-64. It was then that the heroic men of Chenango went to the front in gallant forces to battle in the foremost ranks for their country's rights. The deeds of the 114th Infantry have been told by Dr. Beecher in his book, and the daring deeds of the 89th Cavalry are in the records of the War Department, carefully preserved and treasured as a monument to our citizens.
Our military heroes are many, but there is one, the hero of twenty-two battles, the son-in-law of the second president of the United States and an aide to Washington,--Col. William S. Smith, perhaps the earliest and greatest of those buried in the West Hill Cemetery at Sherburne, his grave marked by an unpretentious marble shaft.
Thoroughfares--There are two, one called the Great Western Turnpike, from Albany via Cherry Valley, Cooperstown and Sherburne to Homer; the other in the southeastern corner, running from Bainbridge to the mouth of Page Brook, and thence three miles south of Chenango Forks, known as the Chenango Road, probably from its leading to the Indian village of Otsiningo or Chenango. It was supposed to have been cut by Sullivan's army on its march in 1779. These roads were soon followed by the river roads and as the country was cleared by cross and intersecting ways.
Frontier Life--October 24, 1768, at a conference between the English Indian Agent Johnson and 3,000 Indians at Fort Stanwix, the eastern boundary (the Tianaderha or Unadilla River) of our county became the boundary between the English and the Indians. So that in 1768 our eastern boundary was the frontier of civilization, and in 1785 our western boundary was the frontier bordering upon the Military Tract, created by act of legislature, February 26, 1789. The purchase of 1785 opened this territory to colonists and after the surveys had been made the settlement was effected very rapidly from Montgomery, Saratoga and Albany Counties and from New Jersey and the New England States. The lands were put up for sale and purchased in large tracts by speculators from Albany and New Jersey and New England. The first patent was dated December 29, 1792, to Mr. Cutting. Others followed to the Smiths, Livingstons, Thompsons, Taylors and others.
The first white pioneer is said to have been one Avery Power, who came to the present site of Norwich and lived near the Indians' Castle in 1788. He is believed to have been a tenant of the Oneida Indians. Power was followed by David Fairchild, Silas Cole, William Smiley, Nicholas Pickett and Major Thomas Brooke in 1790 and 1791. They were frontiersmen and, with the exception of Fairchild, after a brief stay continued westward with the advance wave of pioneer life.
Following their footsteps of husbandry was the period of mills, factories, asheries, distilleries and tanneries. With these came churches, schools and courts, which brings us down to about 1830, within the memory of the present generation. This period, 1790-1830, of forty years brought to the county the pioneer families whose names have been prominently identified with its growth and prosperity. There were John Randall, Sr., Joseph Skinner, who came about 1799, Elias Breed, Major Thomas Brooks, the three Graves boys, Josiah Brown, John Wait, Capt. John Harris, the three Ransfords, William Hascall and Richard Miller, Lobden Jaynes and -?- Gibson. They were settlers and their descendants still live in various parts of the county, where they have intermarried, one with another, until their genealogical trees have become a jungle which almost defies any attempt to unravel.
To be Continued
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