Early Norwich, NY Settlement

 Incidents of the Early Settlement of Norwich

By Charles Burlingame

Chenango Union, Norwich, NY, January 30, 1873

A man by the name of Powers was the first to settle in this town.  He came here in the year 1792 and settled on what is now [in 1873] known as the Randall farm, about two miles south of Norwich, down by the toll gate.  Hascall Ransford and the Graves came about the same time, and in the fall of 1794, my father moved into the town.  He came from about four miles below Oxford.  There was at that time no road on either side of the river, so he came up the river in a small boat, made by digging out a log like an Indian canoe.  For a time the people of this section went to mill to Chenango Point (now Binghamton) in a similar boat, or with an ox team went to Mercereau Mill, at Shaver's Corners, at the outlet of Guilford Creek.  Quite a contrast to the present mode of travel.

My first recollections of a visit to what is now known as the village of Norwich, date back to the year 1805. We crossed the river at the point where the covered bridge now [in 1873] stands, and by taking great care to shun the stumps and logs, we got along through the timber that then extended all the way from the bridge to the present site of the Piano Block, except about two acres where Asa Pellet, deceased, formerly lived. The old pettifogger, Sheffield, lived there then in a log house.  I recollect that about twenty-five rods west of where Stephen Cahoon now lives, there was a very large pine stump, right where the road now runs, and three years ago, before the road was turnpiked up, the roots of that stump were visible, and sound as ever.  At that time there was considerable pine on these flats.  On what is called Charles York's flats, south of the York knoll, the pine timber was plenty.  On this piece of ground Thomas Snow cut his famous pine.  From one tree he cut fourteen logs, each fourteen feet in lgneth, and the smallest one over a foot in diameter at the smallest end.  This I can vouch for as a fact.

When I first went into the village, there were only three dwelling houses.  One on the corner where T.D. Miller's Drug Store now stands, and one on the public square north of Miller & Daniels' store which was owned by a man named Smith, who built a grist mill across the creek opposite Guernsey's stone mill. The other house was situated near what is now the residence of E.T. Hayes, Esq.

I have lived to see the village and surrounding country grow to their present prosperous proportions.  Seventy years have made very great changes. At the same rate of progress, what will seventy years more do?