Egbert N. Clark painted this local historical scene

The mid-1790s was a time of discontent for many pioneers who lived along Herkimer County’s western frontier. They longed for a county of their own.  They wanted to govern themselves, enact and enforce their own laws, have their neighbors represent them in the State Assembly, set up their own fire and police protection and court system and decide for themselves where and when their roads would be built.

Most of all, they were weary of having to travel 20 miles and more over narrow, rugged dirt roads to Herkimer to conduct legal and other business.  What they did about it ... and the distinctive geographical location they chose for their new county would shape the future of Oneida County.

Hugh White, who founded White’s Town in 1784, was one of the discontented.  Jedediah Sanger, founder of New Hartford in 1788, was another. So was Moses Foot of Clinton and James Dean of Westmoreland.  They and their neighbors were of tough stock strong, courageous men and women from places like Connecticut and Massachusetts who left their homes in the mid-1780s, journeyed up the Mohawk River and set­tled in the river’s upper region. They had tamed its wild woods and harnessed the raging power of its many creeks and rivers.

Logging camp at Verona Beach in 1908

Many were veterans of the just-ended Revolutionary War who left New England, marched to and fought at places like Fort Stanwix (where Rome is today) and beyond. They saw firsthand the region’s fertile soil and lush forests with countless trees with which to build homes and boats, and abounding in animals large and small to hunt and trap. They spent the late 1780s spreading the news back in New England of the many attractions along New York’s western frontier.

By the 1790s, though, they were a discontented lot and had begun to lobby Albany for a local government of their own.  Over two hundred years ago ... on March 15, 1798 ... they got their wish. The State Legislature took tens of thousands of acres from vast western Herkimer County and formed an Oneida County ... so named, legend has it, by a gentleman at a White’s Town meeting who admired the Oneida Indians, but whose name is lost to history.

The new county ... which was the home of the Oneidas for many years ... was vast, too, extending north to what today is Lewis and Jefferson Counties, and west to include part of today’s Oswego County.  But it was its unique geographical location and not its vastness that would influence greatly its inhabitants through the years and determine where and how many of them would work, pray, learn and socialize and the routes they would travel. It was a location that would make Oneida County different from neighboring Herkimer, Madison, Lewis, Otsego and Chenango counties and contribute to its emergence as the region’s most populated county with the two largest cities ... Utica and Rome ... the most manufacturing industry and the center of higher education.

Drawing of Fort Schuyler

Long before permanent settlers arrived in what now is Oneida County, members of the Oneida Indian Nation lived in the region. “Onia” meant “stone” in their native tongue so they were called “Oneyotka-ono” or “Oniota­aug” since they were known as “the people of the upright stone,” which alluded to a large stone that was sacred to them. They built their villages in the region, planted their corn and squash and conducted their council gatherings around their sacred stone. They also hacked trails through virgin forests to the two most vital sites in the region ... sites where later would grow the cities of Utica and Rome.

The first was a fording place in the then-very wide and turbulent Mohawk River. It was the only place in the river that was so shallow they easily could wade across and head north to the Adirondacks to hunt and fish. In the 1750s, during the French and Indian War, the British built Fort Schuyler near the ford to serve as a supply fort and a garrison if the French tried to capture the strategic site (they never did.)  In the 1780s, settlers also were attracted to the ford and began to build homes, stores, inns and taverns there. The settlement grew into a village and, in 1832, into the city of Utica.

Fort Stanwix

The other site important to the Oneidas was “The Great Carry” …a mile-long stretch of land between the Mohawk River and Wood Creek where one could travel west from river to creek to Oneida Lake and, via the Oneida and Oswego rivers, to Lake Ontario and the other Great Lakes. In effect, the carrying spot allowed one to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes via the Mohawk and Hudson rivers.

The British also recognized the “carry” as a strategic piece of land. At the beginning of the French and Indian War, they built Fort Williams nearby and later Forts Bull, Craven, Newport, Wood Creek, Rickey and the much larger Fort Stanwix. By the 1780s, the site was attracting settlers like Dominick Lynch. Eventually, the settlements there would evolve into the city of Rome.

Many transportation routes in Oneida County today date back to pre-colonial days. Indian trails evolved into thoroughfares like the Genesee Road, Seneca Turnpike, Route 20, Route 5 and the Thruway. The flat, east-west, water level routes between Utica and Rome attracted builders of not only roads, but also railroads and canals. Even today, the Amtrak tracks, the Thruway and the Erie Canal run side by side.  And it was Oneida County’s ideal location that convinced builders of the first Erie Canal in 1817 that they should build the middle section first, the section between Utica and Rome. The soft earth and flat terrain promised no major problems in construction and quick progress, thus quieting the foes of the canal.

Erie Canal 1880

The strategic location of the new Oneida County also led to its first manufacturing industries ... flour, saw and gristmills operated by water power generated by the region’s dozens of rushing streams.  Early settlers like the Whites, Sangers, Foots and Deans built their mills along creeks like Oriskany and Sauquoit. They were followed by pioneers like John and Ann Bloomfield of Annsville, Christian Reall of Deerfield, Gerritt Boon of Trenton, Ebenezer Harger of Ava, James Farwell of Bridgewater, John Bellinger of Utica, Jesse Curtiss of Camden and Barnabas Mitchell of Remsen.

In the early 1800s, that same water power helped to create a textile industry... Oneida County’s next major manufacturing industry.  Enterprising young people like Seth Capron and Benjamin Walcott established the first cotton and woolen mills in the state in Whitestown and soon were employing hundreds of people.  In the 1840s, local mills began to lose business to mills in New England, that had discarded water power and were operating with more efficient steam power. Once again, Oneida County’s ideal location came to the textile industry’s rescue.

Camden Knitting Company

The state decided to build a canal to link Pennsylvania and the Binghamton area with the Erie Canal via the Chenango Valley. The Erie passed through the center of Oneida County, so it was decided that the new Chenango Canal would join the Erie at Utica. It was completed in 1836, just in time to carry coal from fields in Pennsylvania to Oneida County ... coal needed to produce steam for modern textile mills. The county remained a giant in the textile industry until the 1950s, employing tens of thousands of men and women through the years and attracting thousands more from other regions ... and countries, too.

Many other industries in the county’s 200-year history owed their success to the county’s location. Among them was the manufacture of iron made possible by the discovery of iron ore in the early 1800s in places like Clinton, Kirkland and Clayville. Soon, hundreds were working in industries related to the discovery: the mining of the ore, the operation of blast furnaces that were fired up to make iron and the large number of blacksmiths needed to hammer the iron into articles like horseshoes, knives, forks, spoons, hinges and nails.

Hop Pickers in Bridgewater

The availability of water in the region continued to play an important role in Oneida County’s industrial history as late as the 1950s during the “loom-to-boom” era. Most of the county’s textile mills relocated in the South and were being replaced by companies like Chicago Pneumatic, General Electric, Continental Can, Univac and Bendix. Leaders of these and other companies all agreed that one of the main reasons they had selected Oneida County as their new home was its abundant water supply.

From the very beginning, agriculture was a major industry in Oneida County and, once again, the county’s location played a vital role.  The region was blessed with fertile soil along rivers and streams so that, first, the Native Americans, and later the first permanent settlers could plant their corn, wheat, oats, squash and barley. The ideal climate contributed to successful crops year after year. Late in the 19th century, it supported dozens of dairy farms, sheep-raising operations and crops like hops, beans and peas.

The county’s location helped farmers in another way, too. They were closer to New York City markets than were farmers in the Midwest, and that gave Oneida County farmers a big advantage when shipping milk and perishable crops in the days before refrigeration. Agriculture continues today to be an important industry in Oneida County and a major contributor to its economy.