Historic Sketch, 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, September 2, 1876

Charles Knap came to New Berlin in the spring of 1801 and commenced the business of tanning leather.  the same spring, he married Betsey Loomis, a daughter of Thomas Loomis, a soldier of the Revolution.  He had learned the trade of James Averil, of Cooperstown [Otsego Co. NY] as an apprentice. When he commenced the tanning business his means were limited to a few vats, a small building to work in and an old fashioned mill with a large stone wheel propelled by an old horse driven by a boy round a circle to furnish the bark for his little tannery which by the careful management and industrious habits of Mr. knap gradually increased in capacity until from small beginnings his tannery became  a large and profitable establishment and enabled him to extend his business into other branches of industry.  He built an ciy-mill to manufacture flaxseed into oil and erected a woolen factory and made cloth from sheep's wool and built the brick store now owned [in 1876] by Capt. J.S. Bradley.  In the business of merchandise and manufacturing of woolen cloth, Gen. H. DeForest was a resident of New Berlin and then owned the premises where S. L. Morgan now resides [in 1876].  Mr. Knap was once the president of the Chenango County Bank, and his son Tracy S. Knap was the president of the First National Bank of New Berlin on its organization.  Mr. K. and his wife were members of the Episcopal Church and among its main supporters.  Some of their children were also members.  Mr. Knap was a hardworking, industrious man always prudent and economical, and his wife was a willing and skillful helper in all that pertained to domestic indoor household affairs.  They were much esteemed and respected in society.  Amiability and genial hospitality made pleasant the family mansion.  It's now silent, deserted rooms attest the fact that the Knap family are no longer among the living.

Joseph Moss was one of the early settlers of New Berlin.  For a time he boarded with Josiah Burlingame and paid his board bill by cutting the firewood, which service was performed mornings and evenings; the intervening time he was engaged in his daily labor of making leather into shape to fit customers. That economy of time in the beginning saved his trade later earnings and laid the foundation of his afterlife success. The young mechanics of modern times, if they would take heed, might profit by such examples.  In 1812, the Farmers and Mechanics Manufacturing Company was chartered, and Mr. Moss was made agent of the company.  In this new capacity he devoted himself with untiring zeal.  Under his supervision a dam across the Unadilla River was made and a canal from thence to the place of business, a small wooden building, where the manufacture of cotton cloth was commenced.  The yarn was spun by waterpower machinery but wove into cloth by hand as waterpower looms were not yet in use.  Weavers from near and distant neighborhoods were employed to weave the yarn into cloth.  The weavers took the yarn at the factory, carried it to the baffle, wove the yarn into cloth and returned the cloth back to the factory. The quantity of yarn was ascertained when taken and the number of yards of cloth was found by measurement when returned, leaving no loophole wherein dishonesty might enter to disturb the quiet of fair dealing between the parties.  By the strict, prudent and careful management of the factory interest, the business of making cloth increased to such an extent that it was deemed advisable to enlarge the buildings, accordingly, in 1827, a large stone factory building was erected, and waterpower looms supplied the place of hand looms.  That building caught fire by accident in the same season and was destroyed, and was rebuilt in 1828, and the business was continued under the agency of Mr. Moss, until 1849, when the business agency was terminated.  The company business by the prudent and careful management of Mr. Moss and his son, Horace Moss, yielded goodly profits to the owners, and the toilers were liberally paid for their labor.  Mr. Moss accumulated a fair compensation and heritage for the faithful performance of the trust.  The family mansion built by Mr. Moss is now owned [in 1876] and is the residence of his son Horace Moss and family.

The factory having passed into the possession of new owners and being no longer under the control and guidance of its once careful, experienced and capable directors, success was transient and uncertain.  With one owner it was a sorry jade and proved a failure.  With another a glimmering of success marked its onward course, passing from one owner to another until finally the old business amid the whirl of its wheels and spindles and weaving looms, a little pebble ignited the mass of combustible cotton and the ruins now show where once stood the old cotton manufactory building.