The Chenango and Unadilla Valleys, Fifty Years Ago
By S.S. Randall
Chenango Telegraph, May 15, 1872
I now propose, with my readers leave, to take up some few missing stiches in my hasty sketches of New Berlin, Columbus and other towns [Chenango Co., NY]--from materials procured from such authorities as are within my reach, or have been obligingly furnished me by those of my friends in Chenango and elsewhere, who have taken a kind interest in my labors. I find it impossible to avoid a liberal intermixture of my own personal recollections and remembered legends of many of the personages and events thus recalled to mind, and can only throw myself upon the indulgence of my patient auditors for a few more brief numbers.
New Berlin
The first settler in the present town of New Berlin--which was taken from Norwich in 1807--was, according to Mr. Childs, Daniel Scribner, from Ballston, Saratoga county, as early as 1790. During the first year of his residence, he was obliged to go in canoes down the Unadilla and Susquehanna to the present site of Binghamton, and thence up the Chenango to the Forks, below the present village of Greene, for the purchase of grain for the substance of his family, and having effected such purchase of the raw material, to return by the same route, passing up the Susquehanna to Wattles Ferry, the nearest grist-mill, thence to the mouth of the Unadilla, and up that stream to New Berlin--a trip of nearly two hundred miles and occupying eighteen days. Such were some of the hardships of frontier life eighty years since, in the Unadilla Valley. His widow died not many years since, at the advanced age of ninety-eight years.
Among the early settler in the town not heretofore enumerated, were Nathaniel and Joseph Medbury, who located themselves on the Great Brook, and Thomas Sarle, Samuel Anderson, and Silas Burlingame, on the site of the present village, where they were joined by Levi Blakeslee, Charles Knapp, Jeremy Goodrich, and Joseph Moss. Daniel Burlingame, the son of Silas Burlingame, was one of the pioneer Methodist preachers of the country, "and though somewhat eccentric," observes Mr. Childs in his Gazetteer, "was spoken of with veneration, and regarded as a man of great piety, peculiarly impressive in his sermons and exhortations." He was the grandfather of the Hon. Anson Burlingame, member of Congress from Massachusetts, from 1854 to 1861, subsequently Minister to Austria and China, and more recently distinguished as the first ambassador from China to the United States and European powers, and the negotiator of an advantageous treaty with our government. He was born in New Berlin in 1822, and his father, Joel Burlingame, soon afterwards removed with his family to Ohio, and from thence to Michigan. Richard Stoneman, grandfather of Maj. Gen. Stoneman, of cavalry notoriety during the late rebellion, was also one of the early settlers of this town. Daniel Schribner kept the first inn. Levi Blakeslee opened the first store and the first blacksmith was Peleg Field, father of George and Orrin Field, who emigrated hither from Rhode Island as early as 1796. Louisa Bancroft was the first child born in 1797, and the first marriage that of Daniel Williams to Phila Parker in 1794. Josiah Burlingame taught the first school. Jeremy Goodrich erected the first framed building in 1798, Charles Knapp established the first tannery in 1802, and Joseph Moss the first cotton manufactory a few years later. The village was incorporated in 1816, and now contains a population of about 1000, four churches, a flourishing academy, two hotels, and several stores, St. Andrew's Episcopal church was organized in 1814, by the Rev. Daniel Nash, its first pastor, and consecrated in 1816 by Bishop Hobart. The Baptist church in South New Berlin was organized in 1804, with Elder Hosmer as pastor, on 1817 it was removed from the White Store now in Norwich, as original place of worship, to its present location, and remained under the pastoral charge of Elder Windsor, until 1826, when Elder Chamberlin was called to its pulpit, which he continued to occupy for twenty-three years consecutively, and after an absence of fifteen years, returned again in 1864, and still, I believe, remains in charge of his faithful flock. he was an eminently good, worthy and pious man, of primeval simplicity and purity of life, and an ornament to his profession.
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