Captain Isaac Lindsay first settled there in 1791, and was soon followed by his three brothers, James, William and Elijah, who located on lot 80, having purchased the land for twenty-five cents per acre. The next year William Lindsey found on Lot 90 the first plaster bed known in the United States. Gradually the fame of this spread, and in 1808 a company was formed with two hundred and fifty shareholders. Judge Forman was president and Josiah Buck manager. In 1810 a hundred tons were sold and plaster mills were soon operated in other places. Calcareous tufa was also burned from lime. Transparent selenite is one form of the plaster here.
Isaac Lindsay built the first frame house in 1795. He opened the first tavern in 1793. In 1798 James Geddes moved from the salt works to Fairmount, where his son George Geddes, also lived. Both were eminent men. The Munros came later, David Munro settling on Lot 80 in 1808. He was postmaster of Camillus from 1811 to 1824, being succeeded by James R. Lawrence, afterward a leading lawyer. His daughter used to tell how the village goat entered the church one summer morning, and mounted the pulpit stairs while the parson was preaching on the sheep and goats Whether he had outside guidance did not appear.
The "First Presbyterian Congregational Society of the town of Camillus" was organized September 17, 1802, but passed away. The First Congregational Society succeeded December 21, 1809, but built no church. Meetings were held in the schoolhouse and in an old distillery. The Second (afterward the First) Presbyterian Church of Camillus, was organized in a tavern--as often happened--August 11, 1817, with fifty-two members. A frame church was built in 1822, followed by one of brick in 1868, smaller than the first, but costing eight thousand dollars. The first pastor was Rev. Jabez Spicer, in 1817-19.
The First Methodist Society was organized February 14, 1811, and reorganized in 1827. In 1830 it built a church which still remains, though remodeled. At that time the circuit preachers were Revs. Isaac Peiffer and G. W. Dinsmore. In 1836 it became a station, served by Rev. Ross Clark.
The "First Baptist Church of Onondaga" was formed at Hawlett Hill* in January, 1804, with six male and seven female members. A church was built and dedicated in 1821, but in 1844 the society removed to Camillus village, erecting a church there in 1849, which was dedicated June 8, 1851, and replaced by one of brick in 1878. The name was changed, and the first pastor was Rev. Henry Brown.
In 1845 a Presbyterian society was formed at Amboy, which dedicated a new church December 23 of that year. It began with forty-nine members from a congregational church at Van Buren and the Presbyterian church at Camillus. The first pastor was Rev. Alfred C. Lathrop.
An M. E. church was built at Belle Isle in 1851. First pastor Rev. Mr. Coop.
In 1852 the first Roman Catholic priest made his residence in Camillus. This was Rev. William McCallion. This parish and one at Jordan were organized by Father Haias of Salina, the first services being held in a barn, and afterward in the brick parsonage. A brick church was built about 1870, Father Carroll being then in charge.
There have been occasional services of the Protestant Episcopal church.
The first surplus grain was taken to Albany on sleighs in 1805, and great quantities were afterward sent in the same way till the canal was made. Settlers came slowly, the higher lands being at first preferred. The construction of the north branch of the Seneca turnpike in 1807-08 helped matters. Joseph White came to Amboy in 1804 as the first settler there, and soon built a sawmill and fulling works. He was a surveyor. Others of his family came later. Samuel Hopkins came in 1807.
In 1808 the village of Camillus had but two frame dwellings. In that year John Tomlinson opened the first store, and a log schoolhouse was built on the present school lot, succeeded by a frame building in 1813. Dr. Isaac Magoon was a physician there in 1808. In 1810 Memeo & Benedict opened a second store, and Captain Kimberly built the first tavern in Amboy.
David Bennett came in 1813, and the Bennetts were representative farmers for a long time. Enos Peck came in 1815, his family living in Pompey twenty years earlier. John Tomlinson taught the first school in 1808. In 1812 there were seventeen school districts; thirty-four in 1823, and in the present limits sixteen in 1836. A brick schoolhouse was built in Camillus village in 1833, replaced by a fine structure in 1869. There are now but ten districts in the town.
The Erie canal helped Camillus. In 1820, before division, the whole town contained six grain mills, seventeen sawmills, four fulling mills, five carding machines, a trip hammer, two asheries, and six distilleries. Most of these have disappeared. In 1835 the present town had four grist mills, ten sawmills, two fulling mills, two carding machines, a woolen factory, two distilleries, four asheries, and three tanneries. Ten years later these figures were reduced Sawmills, tanneries, distilleries and asheries are things of the past. The western part of the town had places known as Oswego Bitter and Wellington; the latter having a postoffice, store, two taverns and a conspicuous place on the map at an early day.
The first existing town records begin March 26, 1829, after Elbridge and Van Buren were set off; but there are road records back to 1813, and school records to 1812. In the old town the first town meeting was held at the house of Medad Curtis in 1799, who was elected supervisor, Daniel Vail being town clerk. In the latter town the first town meeting occurred April 28, 1829. Miles W. Bennett becoming supervisor and Chauncey White town clerk. Grove Lawrence, Ethan Campbell and Alfred Stephens were justices of the peace in 1830, and George Geddes was elected in 1835. Sidney H. Cook, Sr., held this office for thirty-five years. Many early town meetings were held in Samuel B. Rowe's tavern, who kept this house till 1858. The records often call Camillus village Nine Mile Creek, an early name also for Marcellus.
George Kimberly was appointed to the new postoffice at Belle Isle in 1830. Soon after there were over a dozen dwellings there, and a store and tavern. Yet later and before 1870 many canal boats were built there and much repairing was done.
When the Syracuse and Auburn railroad was built changes soon came. Amboy and Wellington lost importance, the nuclei of new hamlets appeared at Fairmount and Marcellus station, and Camillus received a temporary impetus. The latter had canal facilities as well, as was then the leading town here as a grain market. In 1860 James M. Munro alone bought and shipped to Albany two hundred and forty-eight thousand bushels of barley in sixty days. Grain growing, however, has yielded to mixed farming.
In 1852 Camillus village was incorporated, with Gaylord N. Sherwood as president, Crayton B. Wheeler Clerk, and Samuel B. Rowe, Ira Safford, David A. Munro and Charles Land trustees. Its prosperity has been diminished by the great advantages possessed in transportation by Syracuse, so near at hand, but it may regain much of this at no distant day.
Sapphire Lodge, No. 768, F. A. M., was instituted December 31, 1875. An ode is preserved sung at a banquet of Selected Friends' Lodge in Camillus in 1811. George J. Gardner had the records of this lodge, and said: "This was one of the 'goodey-goodey' lodges of that period, excelling in moral virtues all others in its immediate locality."
Austin Hollow, near the south line of Camillus, does not appear on maps, but was once a stirring hamlet, with a grist and saw mill, distillery, wagon shop and school house. It is said to have been called "Bill Town," perhaps because Dr. Bildad Beach and William Chatfield built the saw and grist mill before 1820. These were bought by Perigo Austin in 1826, and the place had a new name. The grist mill became a plaster mill and in the freshet of 1865 was destroyed and not rebuilt.
The first grist mill was built in 1806, a little south of the main bridge in Camillus village, by Squire Munro, William Wheeler and Samuel Powers, and a saw mill at the same time. The present mill race or feeder was made about 1832 by the Nine Mile Creek Association. It was two and a half miles long and furnished fine water power. Since 1835 it has been a feeder for the canal, but useful in other ways. A roller mill, built in 1888, has a daily capacity of two hundred barrels of flour. Knitting and woolen mills have been successfully operated.
Newport is a canal hamlet, a little south of Warner and practically a part of it. The bed of the old canal may be seen there.
There is a grist mill at Oswego Bitter, and there was once a saw mill. Fine petrifications of recent leaves are found near there, as well as plaster coated with sulphur.
Amboy is a railroad station and was once a busy place. It "is one of the most picturesque spots in the town. Its reed-grown mill pond, the deep, winding valley of the creek, the ruins of old-time mills and the many pretty landscapes have frequently been subjects for the artist's pencil. On the west bank of the creek, south of the road, numerous arrowheads and other Indian relics have been found."
A call for a Free Soil meeting in Camillus village, January 17, 1852, had three hundred and thirty-six signers, and the meeting has been claimed as the first in the United States distinctly on the lines of the later Republican party. It opposed the Fugitive Slave law and the admission of slave states.
Mr. Geddes said: "Observations of the temperature have been taken at Fairmount, at a point 520 feet above the sea, for more than sixty years; and during that time a standard instrument in the shade, protected from all reflection, has been observed to mark more than 94 degrees in the hottest weather, and this but once in many years; and there have been but few days in the coldest weather than the mercury was not, at some time in the day, above zero. February 5th and 6th, 1855, were the coldest days ever know here, and deserve a permanent record. The severe cold commenced
On the 4th, at 10 o'clock P. M., 10 degrees below zero.
On the 5th, at 2 o'clock A. M., 19 degrees below zero
On the 5th, at 6 o'clock A. M., 28 degrees below zero.
On the 5th, at 9 o'clock, A. M., 22 degrees below zero.
On the 5th, at 11 o'clock, A. M., 20 degrees below zero.
On the 5th, at 1 o'clock P. M., 17 degrees below zero.
On the 5th, at 2 o'clock, P. M., 16 degrees below zero.
On the 5th, at 3 o'clock, P. M., 16 degrees below zero.
On the 5th, at 5 o'clock, P. M., 18 degrees below zero.
On the 5th, at 9 o'clock, P. M., 26 degrees below zero.
On the 6th, at 6 o'clock, A. M., 30 degrees below zero.
On the 6th, at 8 o'clock, A. M., 26 degrees below zero.
On the 6th, at 10 o'clock, A. M., 7 degrees below zero.
On the 6th, at 11 o'clock, A. M., 0.
On the 6th, at 12 o'clock, M., 2 degrees above zero.
"During this unprecedented weather the sky was nearly cloudless, and as there was no wind the severity of the weather was not so apparent; but the 5th of February, 1855, will probably stand on the records of observers as the coldest day of the century. The average annual range of the thermometer at Onondaga is 96 degrees, while for the State generally it is 104 degrees."
In a statistical way Camillus village had a Presbyterian and a Methodist church in 1836, a grist and saw mill, carding and cloth dressing mill, three taverns, four stores, and about fifty dwellings. In 1886, beside the mills, it had two general stores, meat market, hotel, chair factory, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, cooper shop, tin shop, two harness shops, one cabinet maker and undertaker, one physician, one lawyer, one insurance agent, three clergymen (Baptist, Methodist and Roman Catholic).
Amboy in 1836 had a saw mill, tavern, store and fifteen to twenty dwellings. In 1886 it had added a grist mill, grocery, wagon shop, two blacksmith shops, and had a physician.
Belle Isle in 1836 had a tavern, post office, store and about a dozen dwellings. In 1886 it had added a blacksmith shop, two wagon shops, a shoe shop, and saw and cider mill.
In 1836 Wellington, eleven miles west of Syracuse, had a tavern and several dwellings.
Fairmount is little more than a railroad station, but well situated for suburban homes. A little south is the fine old Geddes place, where two of the most notable men in the county lived and died.