Stone Church

A great number of the early settlers, many of them Revolutionary War veterans, came from Litchfield County, Connecticut, and Berkshire County, Massachusetts. They found land that was excellent for farming and the Oriskany Creek that was a source of power for gristmills and sawmills. The abundant supply of limestone was utilized for many buildings and later, in crushed form, for roads.

The first schoolhouse is said to have been a log structure built near Newell's Corners about 1797. In 1834 the Augusta Academy was established in a unique semicircular building erected at Augusta Center across from the present Presbyterian Church. It existed as a college preparatory school, particularly for Hamilton College, until 1878.

In 1833 a Congregational group in Oriskany Falls started to build, with limestone from the Putnam quarry, what is still called the Stone Church.

The principal early road ran from Clinton along the Skyline Ridge to Augusta Center then southward to Madison. Many early farmers located along Washington Street, so-called from their former home town in Connecticut. Later, plank roads were built from Vernon Center to Madison via Augusta Center and from Utica to Hamilton through Oriskany Falls. Over these roads the mail was brought to the post offices opened in Augusta Center in 1813 and in Oriskany Falls in 1829.

The building of the Chenango Canal in the 1830s took away much of the traffic on these roadways. However, in 1868 Oriskany Falls became the southern terminus of the Utica, Clinton and Binghamton Railroad. Three years later the entire length of the road was opened; canal use declined and the Chenango was abandoned in 1876.

A printing business was started in Oriskany Falls in 1869 by F. G. Willard. Three years later he started to publish the first area newspaper, the Monthly Advertiser, This later became the Weekly News and then the Oriskany Falls News, under which name it existed until the early 1930s.

In the late 1800s at Oriskany Falls there were nine stores of various kinds: three shoe shops, two blacksmith shops, three saloons, two livery stables, a barber shop, a cooperage, an undertaking establishment, a cabinet shop, two meat markets and one coal business.

By the turn of the century Oriskany Falls was considered by the Utica Saturday Globe "a prosperous modern town, with busy mills and sufficient industries to keep its inhabitants profitably employed." There was a brewery that at its peak was producing annually up to 7,000 barrels of ale and lager using local grains and hops. Two Scotch cap factories were rated among the biggest in America. The stone quarry had become one of the largest in the state. A fire company was organized and in 1895 a resident recorded in his diary that the new street lights were turned on for the time.

In 1892 the Union Free School in Oriskany Falls was organized and housed in a newly erected building which burned shortly afterward. It was quickly rebuilt and the first class was graduated in 1894, although it was not until 1913 that it attained the rank of high school with its first four-year program.

Two major disasters changed the face of Oriskany Falls in the early 1900s. In March 1909, fire destroyed the well-known Sargent House, Cross Opera House, two hardware stores, a barber shop, an undertaking business and a clothing shop. These businesses were replaced by O'Neil's Hotel, a grocery store and an undertaking and furniture business which evolved into the village hall.

In June 1917, after several days of prolonged heavy rain, the dams south of Oriskany Falls suddenly burst. Water from other dams farther south came roaring into the village, destroying buildings and bridges, and causing the death of two people.

The population of the township has at times climbed above 2,300. Employment dropped with the closing of the Utica Knitting Company mill about 1950. This was bought by the Cascade Finishing Corporation, which in 1966 sold the property to Cheesebrough Ponds. Farmers turned mainly to dairying after the era of growing peas and beans as cash crops in the 30s. The harvesting of these crops was done by southern migrant workers, with many attendant problems.

Disastrous fires have been frequent in Oriskany Falls. In 1952 the south side of the main business block was destroyed and rebuilt, to be consumed again by two fires in 1969. Lost by changes in times and by fires were the village shoe stores, the bakery, the theater, all barber shops but one and all grocery and meat markets except two.

The late summer of 1975 was marked by an unexpected project by the Village of Oriskany Falls, which had become owner of the Stone Church. The steeple of this building, twice struck by lightning during one storm, was restored with the century old weathervane renewed and replaced. Again it proudly points skyward, a reminder of the past and a hope for the future.