Historic Sketch of the Settlement of New Berlin, Chenango Co. NY

Historic Sketch of the Settlement of the Town of New Berlin

by John Hyde 

New Berlin Gazette, New Berlin, NY, October 7, 1876

Artemas Herrick with some kinsmen and families moved up country and settled on lot 74 in New Berlin while the town was a wilderness, except here and there a small bit of clearing and a log house where the smoke in curling circles arising above the forest treetops showed the advance of civilization into the western wilds and the places where it was being commenced.  Marked trees exhibited the line of communication and forest paths the common road for wayside travelers.    Gideon Peck and his wife were an aged couple when they left their native home in Connecticut to make their abode in a new country log cabin, but they lived to see large, improved farms take the place of the wild woods, their own log cabin changed into a comfortable framed dwelling house and grandchildren growing up around them and that they were ending their days in a thickly settled neighborhood.  They were respected for their kindness and hospitality.  The 10-acre lot which Mr. Peck owned is the same lot that Mr. Porter now owns [in 1876], and the log house stood on the hill to the west side of the road and the framed dwelling house in which they lived afterwards stood at the foot of the hill on the east side of the road.  Both buildings have long since been torn down and removed.

Mr. Artemas Herrick was an enterprising, energetic pioneer in the new settlement.  He erected a dam across the Unadilla River adjoining his farm and built a gristmill and sawmill, two things much needed.  They were the first mills built on the Unadilla River, with the exception of Job Vail's mill, which dates about the same time.  It was a great benefit to the inhabitants when the mills were completed and commenced business.  It relieved them of the burden of traveling to a distant mill to have their grain ground, or the more tedious process of pounding it in a mortar, which necessity sometimes required the first settlers to do.

The Herrick farm and the Herrick mills, also the Herrick brook, once a fine trout stream which ran through the farm were familiar names to the ancient inhabitants, but do not dwell in the memory of the present generation.  After the farm was sold to pay debts which Mr. Herrick had incurred in building the mills and making other improvements which he was unable to pay for, and he had gone to other lands, the brook was called the Aunt Pat brook, the pet name of a celebrated ancient landlady whose husband kept a tavern a few rods over the line in another town, which name it retains to the present day [1876], although the landlord, the landlady and the tavern itself have long ago ceased to exist, and the mills passing to other hands are now known as the Red Mills and owned by Mr. Low, who changed the grist mill into a cheesebox factory, but now it stands there idle, unused and a wreck of its former usefulness.  The scenery around the old Red Mills is romantic.  Far up the valley may be seen the river winding its way through cultivated meadows and pasture lands on each side until for a while its course is staid by an artificial dam built for the use of the mills, then regaining its current and tumbling over the obstruction, risking a beautiful cascade amongst the surrounding shrubbery.  The river rolls up against the rock-bound mountain on the east side or bank and then turns down the valley to be lost in the distance.  Near where the course of the river is arrested by the mountain rocks is suspended a bridge, the eastern end resting on the rocks.  One of the first bridges built across the Unadilla was erected at the place where the present bridge stands.  Not many years ago a man and his wife were proceeding across the bridge in a wagon when an accident happened, and they were separated forever.

What caused it remains a mystery.  Whether the mountain goblin spirits were holding their nightly revels around the place and barred the passage, or some unseen power controlled her destiny, is to mortal ken unknown.  The old horse turned and made a backward movement.  The husband rushed from the impending danger and ignobly left his wife, who, for an instant hung suspended, then dropped into the floating waters, that closed around her, and the sum of human life was extinguished.  Her body was afterwards found among some floodwood about 100 rods below where the catastrophe happened.  The man, horse and wagon were saved.

Mr. Herrick's wife was the daughter of Gideon Peck.  Mr. Herrick sold to Enos Kimball the farm now owned [in 1876] by Mr. Hothe(?) Ward.  Mr. Kimball was one of the early settlers and a good, respectable farmer.  He was a saving, prudent man and his little farm was productive.  His income enabled him to be able to loan little sums of money about the neighborhood, at 16 percent in the hard time accompanying the war of 1812, and in his visits with his paste board revolving interest table under his arm, going along the village streets indicated that he was on his semiannual collection tour, after his interest crop.  But he was not overbearing to the debtor.  In those times money was not as easily obtained as in these piping times of inflation.  Mr. Kimball ended his days with his son-in-law, William D. ---ap in New Berlin Village.

Mr. Lord, another early settler, purchased of Mr. Herrick the place afterwards owned by James Eaton, and is part of lot 74.  Mr. Lord was a hatter.  He built his dwelling house on the knoll.  It was a large two-story building and made a fine appearance.  He and his wife were a sociable, pleasant couple.  They came from Burnhill, in old Norwich town, in Connecticut, where it was the invariable custom to heat the oven and bake a kettle of beans and loaves of rye and Indian bread on Saturday, preparatory to the Sabbath rest.  This bake bean custom Mr. Lord brought with him and adhered to it always.  He and his family are no longer known to this generation, having long since passed away.  

Mr. Sabin Warner, another settler on a part of lot 74, was a thrifty farmer and brought green peas to an early market.  His wife is yet living [in 1876] on the farm with one of her sons, who now manages it.  All the first settlers on Mr. Herrick's lot 74, have now been mentioned but Mr. Richard Stoneman who will be discussed in the next number.