Chenango & Unadilla Vallys in 1820s

The Chenango and Unadilla Valleys Fifty Years Ago

by Samuel Sidwell Randall

Chenango Telegraph, May 15, 1872

 

Columbus

Columbus, a few miles north of New Berlin village, was formed from Brookfield, Madison county, and a part of Norwich, in 1805 and 1807.  The village, situated near the center of the town, contains three churches, a hotel, tannery, several stores and shops, and some twenty or thirty dwellings.  The original patent for the lands included within its boundary, was granted to John Taylor, in3 1790, at 60 cents per acre.  Col. Converse, according to Mr. Child, was the first settler, in 1791.  In the succeeding year, Henry, Daniel and James Williams, from Rhode Island, removed into the town, and in 1794, Thomas Howard from Rhode Island, Israel Greenleaf, from New Hampshire, Gilbert Strong,  Josiah Rathbone, and Melica Tuttle effected settlements.  Mr. Tuttle was still living in 1869, at the advanced age of 94, with his great-grandchildren, on the farm where he originally settled, and where in 1795 with the aid of his boys and a large dog, he slew a ferocious bear weighing two hundred pounds.  Joshua Lamb came to Columbus from Worcester, Mass., in July, 1804.  At the first town meeting in 1805, held at the house of Jonathan Brownell, Tracy Robinson was chosen Supervisor, Ambrose Hyde, Town Clerk, and Joshua Lamb, Collector.

 

The first birth in the town was that of Sally Williams, the first marriage that of Joseph Medbury to Hannah Brown, in 1794, and the first death that of Mrs. Dorcas Howard, in 1797.  Nicholas Page taught the first school, Col. Converse kept the first inn, and Amos C. Palmer the first store, in 1797.  Job Vail built the grist and saw mill in 1794-5.  the last "wolf's long howl on Unadilla's shore" was heard in 1803 on the birth day of Amos Tuttle.  The entire population of the town is about 1,500 [in 1872].