Historical Sketch of New Berlin, NY (1877)

 Historical Sketch of the Settlement of the Town of New Berlin

By John Hyde

New Berlin Gazette, New Berlin, NY, June 30, 1877

Daniel Hills was an emigrant from the Yankee land of New England.  He came to New Berlin [Chenango Co. NY] in 1815 and settled on a farm on the bank of the Unadilla River, about a mile below the village.  He was a cabinet and chair manufacturer by occupation and worked at this business in conjunction with the cultivation of his farm.  His cabinet and chair materials were of the substantial kind and found a ready market among the old settlers who found them more convenient and commodious than they were wont to have for household furniture.

The old cabinet and chair shop which he built and in which he and his sons Spaulding [Hills] and Albert [Hills] worked many years is yet standing there [in 1877].  Mr. Hills was much respected by his neighbors and acquaintances and was a fair and honest dealer in his business.  His children inherited his property and his son Albert Now owns and lives on the farm [in 1877].

Joseph and Seth Hooper settled on farms above Mr. Hills.  Joseph Hooper was a chair maker and a house painter.  Many of the old village buildings were indebted to his paint brush for the new dress coat of paint.   He left his property to his son Alva [Hooper], who lived on the farm some years after his father's death and finally sold the farm to Thomas Beatty, whose heirs now are the occupants [in 1877].  Seth Hooper was a blacksmith.  On his decease his farm passed into the hands of strangers.  Robert Jeffrey is now its owner and lives on it, and by his practical farming operations, has greatly increased its value.

On the mountain ridge between the river and Great Brook emigrants from the Eastern States made lodgment, built log cabins and founded a settlement conjunctly with the lowland river settlements.  Joel Moffatt and Elijah Moffatt, his brother, pitched their habitations on lands near what in former times was known as the Swan farm, who sold it to Levi Blakeslee, and the farm is now owned and occupied by David Baird, a thrifty farmer.  The Moffatts were active, energetic and persevering backwoodsmen.  In the spring rafting time, the owners employed them to run their rafts of pine lumber down the river to the Baltimore market.  They were skilled pilots and were much employed in the rafting business. They left New Berlin many years agone, to find new homes in a distant western State.

Alpha West and his brother, David [West] were among the first settlers in the neighborhood of the Swan farm.  It was the custom then to have company trainings, officer trainings and regimental trainings yearly and Alpha and David performed their military duties as musicians, making the wild woods ring with martial music on parade days.  They too went West a long time ago to seek their fortune in other lands.

Abner Angel, a brother of Asa Angel, settled on a lot near the Swan farm, about the same time his brother settled on his river farm.  He was esteemed as an honest, upright neighbor and a good citizen.  He left children to inherit his property, and one or more of his grandsons now live on the old homestead farm.

On the creek which has its source some distance north of the old Thomas Brown farm, and running southerly nearly the length of the mountain ridge, then turning east, pours down the hill into the valley and mingles its waters with the Unadilla River, sawmills were built, the first one near the source of the stream by David Adams and Thomas Brown who owned and occupied it several years after it was erected.

William Hill owned another sawmill near where the creek began to descend into the valley and the Davises had another sawmill on the creek in the valley, near where the river road crossed the creek.

Charles Cowan was a silversmith and a dealer in time keeping instruments.  He came to New Berlin about the time the village was incorporated in 1816 and built unto himself a workshop on the bank of the village creek, which building is now owned and occupied by Almon Babcock.  In this shop Mr. Cowan repaired, regulated and put in order old family clock, old men's watches (in those early days of prudence and economy, boys did not possess watches), hammered out and fashioned Spanish milled dollars into silver tablespoons and silver teaspoons, and made and sold other trinkets.  He introduced among the old settlers more expensive and elegant luxuries and wares than they had been wont to enjoy.  He owned and occupied the gabled roofed house on East Street, now owned by Mrs. Rhodes, which being on a former occasion, the type settler described as a "gambled log house."  Mr. Cowan remained in the village a few years, sold his estate and moved to an Eastern city.

Fabius M. Bradford was the next silversmith after Mr. Cowan.  He worked in the same shop, married the eldest daughter of Peleg Field, Esq. and built his dwelling house on North Street, which is the same dwelling house now owned and occupied by Mrs. Dodge.  After the death of his wife, Mr. Bradford sold his place and went away to reside elsewhere.  Other workers in the silversmith business have in modern times carried on their business in the village, supplying the present generation with modern regulators of time and modern fashionable gold and silver ware.