USA > New York > Oneida County > Our county and its people; a descriptive work on Oneida county, New York; > Part 15
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121 | Part 122 | Part 123 | Part 124 | Part 125 | Part 126 | Part 127 | Part 128 | Part 129 | Part 130 | Part 131 | Part 132 | Part 133 | Part 134 | Part 135 | Part 136 | Part 137 | Part 138 | Part 139 | Part 140 | Part 141 | Part 142 | Part 143 | Part 144 | Part 145 | Part 146
142
OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
Redfield and other parts of Oswego county and into what are now the counties of Jefferson and Lewis, and quite numerously into this county, so that the clamor for a new county was much greater than it had been seven years before, when Herkimer county was formed. On the 15th of March, 1798, a new county was formed from Herkimer, and at the suggestion of a resident of Whitesboro, it was named after that nation of the Iroquois Confederacy whose territory the new county was to occupy. By the act creating Oneida county, it was provided that there should be held in said county a Court of Common Please and General Sessions of the Peace, three times in each year, to commence and end as follows: The first term to begin the third Tuesday of May [then next] and may continue till the Saturday following inclusive. The second term to begin the first Tuesday in September, and may continue until the Saturday following inclusive; and the third term to begin the last Tuesday of December and end on the Saturday following inclusive. Nothing was contained in said act to prevent the judges and justices adjourning on any day previous to Saturday in any of said weeks, if the business of said courts permitted the same. It was further provided that said terms of the court should be held at the school house near Fort Stanwix in the town of Rome in said county. That school house was erected in 1795 and stood at the southwest corner of the West Park, across Park street from the present city hall building. It was made lawful to confine Oneida county prisoners in llerkimer county jail, until a jail in Oneida county was erected. The justices of the Supreme Court were not required to hold a Circuit Court in Oneida county in the year 1798, unless in their judgment they deemed it proper and necessary. Oneida, Herkimer, and Otsego counties were constituted a district for the prosecution of offenses, under the charge of the assistant attorney- general. It was provided that the court house and jail in and for Oneida county should be erected within one mile of Fort Stanwix, as the surpervisors of the several towns in the county should designate. Three members of assembly for the county were to be elected. The first meeting of the Board of Supervisors of the county was to be held at said school house on the last Tuesday of May, 1798. The following were the first county officers :
First judge, Jedediah Sanger, of New Hartford; side judges, Hugh White, of
1788 TO 1806-FORMATION OF THE COUNTY. 143
Whitesboro; David Ostrom, Utica, George Huntington, Rome, James Dean, of Westmoreland; sheriff, William Colbraith, Rome; county clerk, Jonas Platt, Whitesboro; surrogate, Arthur Breese, Whitesboro. The following were appointed assistant justices: Amos Wetmore, Needham Maynard, and Elizur Mosely, Whites- boro; Thomas Cassety, Augusta; Garret Boon, Boonville; Adrian Vanderkemp, Trenton; Peter Colt, Rome, and Henry Mc'Neil. For justices of the peace, James S. Kip, James Steele, Mathias Hurlbut, James Sheldon, Jared Chittenden, Joseph Jennings, Reuben Long, Ithamer Coe, Jesse Curtiss, Kirkland Griffin, William Blount. James Kinney, Ephraim Waldo, Thomas Converse, Joseph Jones, Daniel Chapman, Ebenezer Hawley, Abram Camp, Joshua Hathaway, Jesse Pierce, Mathew Brown, jr., Daniel W. Knight, Samuel Sizer, Ebenezer Weeks, William Olney, Henry Wager, John Hall, Isaac Alden, Joseph Strickland, Samuel Royce, John W. Bloomfield, Benjamin Wright, Luke Fisher, Jonathan Collins, John Storrs, D. C. I. De Angelis, Stephen Moulton, Abel French, Daniel J. Curtiss, Samuel Howe, Rozel Fellows, Rudolph Gillier, Medad Curtiss, John Townsend, Abial Linds- ley, G. Camp, Alexander Coventry, and John Bristol, (48).
The first Court of Oyer and Terminer for Oneida county was held on June 5, 1798, by James Kent, justice of the Supreme Court, at the aforesaid school house, assisted by George Huntington, side judge of the Common Pleas, and by Thomas Cassety and Elizur Moseley, assist- ant justices. The next Oyer and Terminer was held on the second Tuesday of September, 1798, at the school house. The first term of the Common Pleas was held at the said school house on the third Tues- day in May, 1 798, present Jedediah Sanger, first judge, and George Hunt - ington and David Ostrom, side judges. Thomas R. Gold, Joseph Kirkland, Arthur Breese, Joshua Hathaway, Erastus Clark, Joab Griswold, Nathan Williams, Francis A Bloodgood, Rufus Easton, Jonas Platt, and Medad Curtiss having been theretofore admitted as attorneys to the Herkimer Common Pleas, were at that term of the court admitted to the Oneida Common Pleas.
The first Circuit Court held in Oneida county was also at the same school house on the second Tuesday of September, 1798, by Hon. John Lansing, chief justice of the Supreme Court. Previous to May, 1802, the county courts were held at the Rome school house.
For over 200 years the office of justice of the peace has existed in New York. Before the Revolution justices were appointed by the colonial Governor and Council ; after the Revolution by the Council of Appointment. As many were appointed in each county (not by towns) as were deemed necessary "to keep the peace." In colonial times they
ʻ
144
OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
were called the " king's justices." Under the first Constitution of New York in 1777, justices held their office at pleasure of the appointing power, but the commissions must issue at least every three years. Jan- uary 30 1787, an act was passed providing "that every county in this State, good and lawful men of the best reputation and who were known to be no maintainers of evil or barrators, shall be assigned under the great seal, from time to time, justices to keep the peace in the same counties." By an act passed April 11, 1808, suitors (except in the case of sickness) were not allowed to have attorneys appear and advo- cate for them ; this act was repealed in 1810. In 1813 it was enacted that in every county in this State, " fit and discreet men should be ap- pointed to keep the peace." By the State Constitution of 1821, boards of supervisors and the Court of Common Pleas were authorized to act together and appoint justices of the peace, who were to hold office for four years, and to appoint as many in each town as should be provided by law. April 17, 1826, an act was passed submitting to the people an amendment to that Constitution, authorizing the electors of the sev- eral towns, at the annual election (not town meeting) to elect justices of the peace. That amendment was adopted. An act was passed May 4, 1829, authorizing justices to be elected at town meetings, four in each town.
On the organization of the county the same act creating Oneida county provided, that part of the town of Frankfort included within Oneida county was added to and made a part of the town of Whites- town ; and all that part of the town of Schuyler included in Oneida county was erected into the town of Deerfield ; and all that part of the town of Norway within Oneida county was erected into the town of Remsen, and the town of Augusta was erected from all that part of Whitestown bounded westerly and southerly by the county of- Che- nango, easterly by the Brothertown Reservation and Paris, and north- erly by the southernmost " Great Genesec Road"; and the remainder of Whitestown lying within the Oneida Reservation was annexed to Westmoreland.
By an act passed April 3, 1798. " Old Fort Schuyler " was incorpo- rated into the village of Utica. An act passed March 13, 1799, direct- ing the then clerk of Oneida county to deliver to the Herkimer county
145
1788 TO 1806-FORMATION OF THE COUNTY.
clerk all records, books, and papers appertaining to the clerk's office of the latter, excepting deed and mortgage books, and as to those they were to be retained by the Oneida county clerk and he to give a certi- fied copy of them to be recorded in Herkimer county, so far as they re- lated to Herkimer county lands. Those record books are yet in Oneida county clerk's office. A fire in 1804 in the Herkimer county clerk's office destroyed all the books, papers and records then in that county clerk's office.
By an act passed March 15, 1799, the town of Mexico was divided and the town of Camden was erected out of the portion taken off. Camden then contained .what are now the towns of Annsville, Camden, Vienna and Verona. In 1799 the third newspaper was started in Oneida county, at Rome, called the Columbian Patriotic Gazette. Its first issue was dated August 15, 1799, and Thomas Walker and Ebenezer Eaton were its proprietors. The Gazette in 1803 was removed to Utica.
On March 14, 1800, Redfield was erected into a town from Mexico. It will be remembered that when Oneida county was formed it included the present counties of Jefferson, Lewis, and St. Lawrence, and that part of Oswego county lying east of the Oswego River, and also Oneida Lake.
An act was passed April 7, 1800, authorizing the Board of Supervis- ors of Oneida county at their annual meeting in the next May, to raise $3,000 to build a jail in Oneida county, pursuant to a petition of the supervisors ; and the prisoners were to be removed to said jail when the sheriff of the county reported that it was finished. Nothing indi- cates where the jail was to be built nor who was to authorize its con- struction.
The law of 1798 organizing Oneida county provided for the erection of a court house and jail within one mile of the school house at Fort Stanwix, as the supervisors should designate ; and that county courts then named should be held at that school house; yet the act did not provide where the Circuit Courts of Oyer and Terminer should be held, nor where the county clerk's office should be located and its reports kept, nor where other county buildings should be located. At that time there were three persons residing in different localities within the county, men of influence, who had large landed interests to be bene-
19
146
OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
fited by the erection of the county buildings and the designation of the county seat, viz .: Dominick Lynch, of Rome, Jedediah Sanger, of New Hartford, and Hugh White, of Whitesboro. The first named was a resident of New York city, but he owned a large acreage of lands at the " Oneida Carrying Place "; Judge Sanger was a large land owner at New Hartford, and Judge White at Whitesboro. Judge Sanger had large political influence, but it is not recorded that he donated, or offered to donate, a site for any of the county buildings. Mr. Lynch' in 1796 mapped out for a village plot the territory then owned by him, which included what is now the business portion of Rome city, and he divided it into village or city lots, gave it the name of Lynchville, and engrafted upon his tenure system " durable leases " for a term of years (except in a few instances), instead of conveyances in fee. By a deed of convey- ance Mr. Lynch on the 21st of May, 1800, conveyed to the Board of Supervisors of Oneida county the East and West Parks and the sites now occupied by the court house and jail, for the use of these buildings, and also provided that all on the east side of James street should be laid out and appropriated for the purpose of building and erecting, and to the use of the court house and jail, and that all the part west of James street, for the purpose of building and erecting a church and school house thereon, which church and school house shall be established and built according to the direction of a majority of the freeholders of the town of Rome, for the benefit of all the inhabitants of said town. About the time that deed was given, individuals erected on the site now occu- pied by the jail a wooden structure for a jail one story high, made of hewn timber, flattened and dove-tailed together so that it was a firm and substantial structure for those times. The timber was blocks of wood one foot to eighteen inches in thickness and two and one-half feet long. That was before the site for a court house and jail was fixed, and it was doubtless erected in view of Mr. Lynch's deed and to influence the offi - cial location of those buildings.
In 1800 the second United States census was ordered to be taken. It was ordered to be commenced on the first Monday in August and to be completed within nine months thereafter. Indians not taxed were omitted from the lists. The enumeration was to be made as of the first
147
1788 TO 1806-FORMATION OF THE COUNTY.
Monday in August, 1800. That census shows the population in the respective towns then comprising Oneida county as follows :
TOWN.
FORMED IN
POPULATION.
Augusta,
1798
1,598
Bridgewater
1797,
1,061
Deerfield,
1798,
1,048
Floyd,
1796
767
Leyden,
1797.
622
Mexico
1796
246
Paris.
1792
4,721
Remsen
1798
224
Rome,
1796.
1,497
Steuben,
1792
552
Trenton,
1797.
624
Westmoreland,
1797,
1,493
Whitestown,
1788,
4,212
Total
18,665
1
5
1
1
I
1
1
1
An act was passed March 30, 1801, making it lawful for all officers of Oneida county to confine their prisoners in the jail in Herkimer county, until a jail is erected in Oncida county ; and that as soon as the sheriff of Oneida county shall deem the jail directed to be built in that county sufficiently finished for the safe keeping of prisoners, the same shall from thence be the jail of Oneida county, and the sheriff shall so remove his prisoners. At the December term of the Common Pleas of 1801, Sheriff Broadhead reported the jail at Whitesboro was completed, and that authorized prisoners to be removed there under the act before mentioned.
On the 3d of April, 1801, the State Legislature divided the State into counties, making the boundary of Oneida county more definite as follows :
All that part of the State bounded easterly by the county of Herkimer, northerly by the County of Clinton, and by the northern bounds of this State, from the most westerly corner of the County of Clinton to a place in Lake Ontario where the said northern bounds shall be intersected by the new pre-emption line aforesaid, con- tinued due north; westerly by the line last mentioned to the south bank of Lake Ontario; and southerly by the counties of Cayuga, Onondaga, and Chenango, and the southern bounds of the patent granted to William Bayard and others, called the " Freemasons' Patent."
Under an act passed April 7, 1801, describing the divisions of the
148
OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
various counties into towns, the following were named as the then ex- isting subdivisions of Oneida county :
Bridgewater, erected from Sangerfield March 24, 1797 (annexed to Oneida county April 4, 1804 )
Deerfield, erected from Schuyler (then Herkimer county) March 15, I798.
Trenton, erected from Schuyler (in Herkimer county) March 24, 1797.
Paris, erected from Whitestown, April 2, 1792.
Whitestown, erected March 7, 1788.
Remsen, erected from Norway (in Herkimer county) March 15, 1798.
Floyd, erected from Steuben March 4, 1796.
Steuben, erected from Whitestown April 10, 1792.
Western, erected from Steuben March 10, 1797.
Leyden, erected from Steuben March 10, 1797 (taken into Lewis county when it was erected, in 1805).
Rome, erected from Steuben March 4, 1796.
Camden, erected from Mexico (now Oswego county) March 15, 1799.
Redfield, erected from Mexico March 14, 1800 (taken into Oswego county when it was erected in 1816).
Watertown, erected from Mexico March 14, 1800 (taken into Jeffer- son county when it was erected in 1805).
Champion, erected from Mexico March 14, 1800 (taken into Jefferson county in 1805).
Lowville, erected from Mexico March 14, 1800 (taken into Lewis county in 1805).
Turin, erected from Mexico March 14, 1800 (taken into Lewis county into 1805).
Mexico, erected from Whitestown April 10, 1792, as part of Her- kimer county, and taken into Oswego county in 1816
Westmoreland, erected from Whitestown April 10, 1792.
Augusta, erected from Whitestown March 15, 1798.
Of this list of twenty towns seven are now in other counties, as noted. To the remaining thirteen have since been added thirteen others, be- sides the city of Utica, the erection of which was as follows :
149
1788 TO 1806-FORMATION OF THE COUNTY.
Annsville, formed from Lee, Florence, Camden and Vienna April 12, 1823.
Ava, formed from Boonville May 12, 1846.
Boonville, formed from Leyden (Lewis county) March 28, 1805.
Florence, formed from Camden February 16, 1805.
Kirkland, formed from Paris April 13, 1827.
Lee, formed from Western April 3, 1811.
Marcy, formed from Deerfield March 30, 1832.
Marshall, formed from Kirkland February 21, 1829.
New Hartford, from Whitestown April 12, 1827.
Sangerfield, formed from Paris March 5, 1795.
Utica, formed as a town from Whitestown April 7, 1817.
Vernon, formed from Westmoreland and Augusta February 17, 1802.
Verona, formed from Westmoreland February 17, 1802.
Vienna, formed from Camden April 3, 1807 (as Orange).
The first attempt to divide Oneida county after its erection was dis- cussed in the early years of the century and in 1804 assumed tangible form. Three delegates were chosen from each of the towns most inter- ested in the project and they met on the 20th of November, of the year named, at the house of Freedom Wright, in what is now the town of Denmark (Lewis county). The usual contention for the location of the county seat of the proposed new county ensued among the delegates and it was found impossible to come to an agreement. The problem was finally solved by a proposition to erect two new counties instead of one, and application was made to the Legislature to this effect. The result was the passage of the act of March 28, 1805, erecting Lewis and Jefferson counties. This left Oneida county with substantially its present territory and all of the present county of Oswego lying east of Oswego River, which was taken off on the Ist March, 1816.
On the 6th of April, 1801, the Legislature appointed Thomas Jenkins and Hezekiah L. Hosmer, of Saratoga, and Dirck Lane, of Rensselaer county, commissioners for designating the place for a court house and jail in Oneida county ; and said commissioners by said act, to repair to the county, as soon as may be after May Ist, and after exploring the county, to ascertain and designate a fit and proper place therein, for erecting said building, having respect or reference to a future division
150
OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
of the county ; and it was provided, that in the opinion of any two of said commissioners, the building erected for a jail in the town of Rome by individuals of the same county, shall be at a proper place and duly constructed for the purpose aforesaid, then in that case, the supervisors of said county were directed to audit the accounts of such individuals for erecting said jail and allow such just sum therefor as might with reasonable economy have been necessarily expended upon the same building, and thereupon draw an order or orders in favor of such indi- viduals upon the county treasurer of Oneida county for same; and it was further provided, that if said commissioners or any two of them shall agree and designate any other place than that at which the said building for a jail is so erected, as a fit and proper place for such court house and jail, and file a certificate with the county clerk, then and in that case it shall and may be lawful for the said supervisors, and they are required to appoint one or more commissioners to erect a jail for said county at the place designated, to be constructed upon such plan and in such manner as said supervisors shall prescribe. And the supervisors were required by said act to audit and pay the accounts of such commissioners in erecting said jail; provided, that in case the commissioners above named, or any three of them, shall not be able to agree upon a place for said court house and jail, it shall then be their duty to nominate an additional commissioner to associate with them in discharging said trust, and the determination of any three of them to be final. It was further provided by said act, that the building erected, or . to be erected, for said jail and so designated, shall be the jail of said county, and as soon as said building shall, in the opinion of the sheriff of Oneida county, be finished in such manner as to confine his prisoners, it was made lawful for such sheriff to remove his prisoners in his county to such jail. It was further provided, that in case the jail was not selected which the individuals had erected, then the supervisors were directed to audit and pay the accounts of said individuals for erecting said jail.
Mr. Hosmer, one of the commissioners named, was member of con- gress from Columbia county in 1797 98. Mr. Thompson was county judge of Saratoga county in 1791, member of congress in 1797-98, and
151
1788 TO 1806-FORMATION OF THE COUNTY.
a member of the State constitutional convention in 1801. Mr. Lane was a member of assembly from Rensselaer county in 1809.
Following dates in chronological order as far as practical and con- venient, it need be stated that on April 7, 1801, the counties of the State were subdivided into towns, and that the towns in Oneida county in that year were as follows : Augusta, Bridgewater, Camden, Champion, Deerfield, Floyd, Leyden, Lowville, Mexico, Paris, Redfield, Remsen, Rome, Steuben, Turin, Trenton, Watertown, Western, Westmoreland, and Whitestown (20).
Matters in reference to locating the court house and jail were ap- proaching a crisis and Hugh White bestirred himself. On the 20th of June, 1801, he conveyed to the Board of Supervisors of Oneida county one acre and fifty-three rods of land in Whitesboro, on the corner of the road leading to Utica and the one leading to Middle Settlement, for the sole and exclusive use of a court house and "gaol " (as that word was then spelled), for said county buildings to be erected thereon, and for no other use, cultivation or improvement whatever, except for a public parade or common forever ; subject to the express condition that the said supervisors shall erect and set up a good and sufficient fence around said grounds and keep the same in repair ; and in default, said grant to become void. Said deed was acknowledged before Arthur Breese, master in chancery, September 28, 1801, and recorded the same day. As before stated, Sheriff Broadhead reported to the court in De- cember, 1801, that the jail was completed sufficient for prisoners. It was constructed similar to, if not exactly like, the Rome jail; the cor -. ners fastened by pins (like the jail in Rome) The structure is now used as a residence ; the court house is now used as a town hall. When those buildings ceased to be used for the original purposes, the prop- erty reverted to the heirs of Hugh White, the grantor. In a chancery partition and sale of property, Hon. Philo White, a descendant of the donor, became the owner, and he in 1860 donated the old court house for a town hall to the village and town for public purposes; and he also donated or dedicated the public green in front for similar uses and purposes to the same municipal bodies.
An act was passed February 20, 1802, authorizing and directing the supervisors of Oneida county to levy $539 for the purpose of complet-
152
OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
ing the jail in said county. It is not said which jail, but the one at Whitesboro is presumably the one.
On March 3, 1802, the county of St. Lawrence was taken from Oneida county. On February 17, 1802, the towns of Verona and Vernon were formed of parts of the towns of Augusta and Westmore- land. On April I of the same year the towns of Leyden, Mexico and Watertown (then in Oneida county) were divided and the towns of Adams, Brownville, and Rutland, now in Jefferson county, were formed from their territory.
An act passed February 22, 1803, divided the towns of Champion, Lowville, Mexico, and Turin, and the new towns of Ellisburgh, Harris- burgh, and Martinsburgh were formed therefrom ; and by an act passed on the same day, all such parts of the Steuben Patent as were pre- viously included in the towns of Remsen and Trenton were annexed to the town of Steuben.
Prior to 1802 all the courts in Oneida county were held at the school house near Fort Stanwix ; in that year they were held at the school house near Hugh White's in Whitesboro. By an act passed April 6, 1803, the courts of Oyer and Terminer and the Circuit Courts in Oneida county were authorized to be held either in Rome or Whitesboro, at the discretion of the justices of the Supreme Court ; and the courts of General Sessions of the Peace and the Common Pleas in and for said county were required to be alternately held between Rome and Whites- town. And the same act provided, that the commissioners appointed by the supervisors of the county for building the jail in said county were directed to cause the doors of the jail lately built at Rome to be made complete, and the supervisors were directed to audit and pay the ac- counts. On February 26, 1803, an act was passed authorizing the su- pervisor of Oneida county to raise $500 for finishing and completing the jail at Whitestown.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.