Chenango & Unadilla Valleys

The Chenango and Unadilla Valleys Fifty Years Ago

by Samuel Sidwell Randall

Chenango Telegraph, May 15, 1872

 

Guilford

 

Guilford was formed from Oxford in 1813, under the name of Eastern, and originally constituted a part of the township of "Fayette."  The village situated in the valley of Guilford Pond Creek, contains three churches, a hotel, a foundry and machine shop, several stores, mills and manufactories and about 300 inhabitants.  Guilford Centre contains two churches and some twenty dwelling houses;  East Guilford, a church, a hotel, a mill, and about 100 inhabitants;  Mount Upton, on the west bank of the Unadilla, two churches, a hotel, several mills, manufactories, stores and shops, and about 250 inhabitants, and Rockdale, also on the Unadilla, a church, hotel, several mills, a store and about 100 inhabitants.  Rockwell's Mills a short distance north of Mount Upton, contains a church, a saw mill, and an extensive woolen factory owned by Chester W. Rockwell.

 

The first settlement of the town, according to Child's Dictionary, was made by Ezekiel Wheeler, in 1787, a little north of the present village of Mount Upton on the farm since occupied by his grandson Silas Wheeler [in 1872].  In 1780, Joshua Mersereau, and his brother, from France, settled at the mouth of Guilford Creek, and erected the first mill in the town; in 1790, James Phelps Sullivan Reynolds and a Mr. Button settled near the present Rockdale; in 1791, Robert McL--d, Isaac Fuller, from Guilford, Conn., and Lemuel Cornell; in 1792, Daniel Savage, John Nash and Nelson Robbins, from Ballston Spa, near the Four Corners; in 1793, Daniel Johnson, John Secor, Gurdon and Wyatt Chamberlin, at Mount Upton and William and Nathaniel Hyer in the east part of the town.  Among the other early settlers, were John Dibble, who kept a hotel in 1798, where the Guilford Hotel now stands [in 1872], and died in 1801, Samuel Mills in 1798, Ira Hays in 1795, and Benjamin Yale in 1799.  The latter died only a few years since in the 103d year of his age.  Daniel Cornell, died in 1871 was also one of the oldest settlers, and Mrs. A. Wood, daughter of Daniel Savage, another David Hays, son of Ira Hays, born in 1798, is probably the oldest person in the town born there.  Major Richmond and his sons Joseph and Seth, Asa Haven, Daniel T. Dickinson, father of the later Senator, Caleb Burdick, Paris Winsor, Samuel A Smith, Samuel Ives, and Joel and William Hendrick, came into the town early in the present century [1800s].  In 1805, the Academy at Guilford Centre was built, and placed under the charge of Daniel Mills, as Principal, and in 1812, the Congregational Church in the same place organized with twelve members under the pastoral charge of Rev. John L. Jones.

 

The first child born in town, according to the same authority, was Prudence Fuller, in April 1791; the first marriage that of Mr. Powell to the widow of Isaac Fuller, in 1793; and the first death that of Isaac Fuller, a few months previous.  The first inn was kept by Ezekiel Wheeler, in 1796 and the first store by Sullivan Reynolds, in 1790.  He also erected the first mill on the Unadilla, in the same year.  The first school was taught by Nathan Bennett in 1794.  The first church, was the Baptist, formed by Elder Orange Spencer, in 1803.  The first town meeting was held at the house of Jehiel Parsons.