Historical Sketch, Settlement of New Berlin, Chenango Co. NY

 Historical Sketch of the Settlement of the Town of New Berlin

by John Hyde

New Berlin Gazette, New Berlin, NY, April 21, 1877

The next class after pioneer farmers who made settlements in New Berlin were mechanics, manufacturers, and tradesmen.  Some of the individuals have already been mentioned.  As early as the beginning of the precent century [1800s], workers in wood and iron and in other manufacturing trades commenced building work shops along on either bank of the village creek from near its source down to its termination in the Unadilla River. The course of the stream is nearly east and runs about through the center of the village.

On the head waters of the stream near the west line of the village, Thomas Medbury, a gunsmith, built a shop where he manufactured rifles and smooth bore shot guns for which he found purchases among the Nimrods of up-country backwoodsmen, whose exploits, are not their histories written in the chronicles of hunting scenes of former times.  Mr. Medbury's dwelling house is the same owned and occupied by John Low.  Barnabas Brown, Jr. purchased the house and shop of Mr. Medbury, and made the gunshop into a clothing and cloth dressing establishment and with Buel Sherman, whose wife was his sister, carried on the cloth dressing business several years and then sold the premises and purchased a village lot on South Street and built a dwelling house thereon, where he resided until his death some years ago.  The gun shop and cloth dressing house and apparatus have long since disappeared.

Next down the creek was the Knap & DeForest woolen factory mentioned in a former number.  James Denison purchased the factory buildings and water works and entered into the business of making ropes from flax.  While Mr. Knap owned the establishment, Aschel Edson carried on the business of carding wool in the same building.  Mr. Denison sold the premises to Thomas Chapel who made the building into a dwelling house and built a brewery nearby and made strong beer.  Also, he had a cider mill for grinding apples by waterpower on the premises.  On the decease of Mr. Chapel, the property passed into the possession of other owners, and is no longer used for any manufacturing purpose whatever.

Knap's oil mill, where he made oil out of flax seed, stood on the creek near the place where Benjamin Haight has a workshop for planning boards by water machinery and a furnace for casting some kinds of iron ware, and down the creek below its junction with the north branch in the paper mill pond, are yet to be seen the remains of an old sawmill, whose water preserved timbers antedate this generation's memory as to the time when the mill was built or by whom owned.

Up the north branch of the creek there stood another sawmill, also a carding machine and a cloth dressing establishment.  An accidental fire destroyed all the buildings with much of their contents.  No mills were afterwards erected, and the creek was left to tumble over a beautiful cascade and wind its way through a deep rock-bound channel amid wild overhanging shrubbery fording splendid scenery of nature's works in the midst of our village civilization. The old Blakelee's paper mill, after it came into the possession of Daniel Harrington, was destroyed by fire and he has erected a more commodious and elegant structure in its place. The elephantine machine with its fifty working men power might perhaps have survived the burning building from total loss if the village corporation had sooner become the owner of so valuable an acquisition.  It is a problem remaining to be solved, should an occasion hereafter occur to test its capacity.  May such a calamity never call into action our village firemen, but the old fire engine be permitted to always remain in its snug carpeted building, uncalled for and its powers untested.

The ancient gristmill owned by Blakeslee and Mallet and lately owned and occupied by Nichols, who also attached thereto a cider mill and cooper shop, is next below the paper mill.

Below the gristmill, at the foot of the hill, on the south bank of the creek, where now [in 1877] stands a dwelling house built by Chauncey Babcock was a distillery where rye was made into whiskey before temperance societies had their being.

Next in order were Knap's tannery and Field's trip hammer works.  The tannery on the south bank and the trip hammer on the north bank of the creek. Both were supplied with water from the same pond.

Goodrich's tannery near the junction of the creek with the river, terminated the long row of ancient workshops and the waterpower labor of the creek in aid of human industry.  In the bygone days when all these workshops were in full operation, the village mechanics made their own wares and supplied the neighbors with the products of their own labor.  No readymade clothing or ready-made boots and shoes were imported from abroad to compete with the industry of our own mechanics.