from A Gazetteer of the State of New York, 1824
A Gazetteer of the State of New-York, by Horatio Gates Spafford, LL.D., 1824, pp. 389-390
OTISCO, a Post-Township of Onondaga County, 8 miles SSW of Onondaga, [that is, the court house,] 50 from Utica, and 120 from Albany, bounded N. by Onondaga and Marcellus, E. by Pomopey, S. by Tully, W. by Spafford and Marcellus. It was erected in 1806, from parts of Tully, Pompey, and marcellus Military Townships, and is 5 1/2 miles N. and S., and averages the same E. and W., having an area of 30 square miles. -
The inhabitants are principally Yankes; a Correspondent says two thirds. The land is elevated, and the streams are small, but they afford a pretty good supply of mill power. The Hamilton and Skaneateles turnpike extends NW. and SE., but the other roads, principally, run N. and S., crossed by others at right angles. The surace is uneven, but well watered by springs and brooks, and perfectly healthy. I have thought that the blood moves briskly, in the veins of those who inhabit such a country, with which compare some remarks on Monroe County, and the Genesee country in general. Nature has no where been so partial, in the distribution of her favors, as superficial observers are apt to imagine; and though a common-place remark, it may be often applied with good effect. THe soil is warm, but rather moist, resting ona substratum of clay slate: principal timber, maple, beech, elm, basswood and hemlock, with large tracts of oak, chestnut, walnut, tuliip, or white wood, and some fine groves of white pine. There are some few ledges of limesteon, in the NE. part, and detached masses of hard black variety, not in situ, (as the phrase is,) but who can tell where they came from, or how they came here? There is grain, and grass land, but as the general character indicates dairy and stock farming, I would repeat remarks already often repeated, and say, as to the Henrietta farmers, and many others, that the people of this State have a strange and blind attachment to grain farming, and to such an extent, that it operates very much to the detriment of the general interests of the community. The Inlet of the Otisco pond, or lake, as every body there calls it, rises in Preble, Cortlandt Co., near the head of the Tioughnioga, and my Correspondents say that the valley, through which it flows, presents fewer obstacles for roads, connecting the Lakes with the navigable waters of the Susquehanna, than any other section of the country W. of Utica. There are 2 Post-Offices, Otisco, as is indicated above by calling it a Post-Town, and Amber P.O. The first is kept 1 mile S. of the central Village, and the other in Amber Village, a pleasant thriving hamlet of 25 to 30 houses, situated on the turnpike, near the Otisco lake. Otisco Village, in the centre of the town, has 18 or 20 houses, (another hamlet, as I should call it,) a Presbyterian Church and a school house. There are 10 school houses and districts, in which schools are kept 8 months in 12; No. of children, 388; No. taught in 1821, 456; public monies received that year, $371.14; population, 1726; taxable property, $93630; electors, 363; acres of improved land, 7803; 1609 cattle, 284 horses, 4497 sheep; 14659 yards of cloth made in families in 1821; 3 grist mills, 4 saw mills, 3 fulling mills, 1 carding machine, 4 distilleries, ('at least 3 too many,') two stores of goods, and a competent number of common mechanics.
W.G., J.M.A.
Return
to the Otisco page.
Return
to Onondaga County Gen-Web page.
15
June 1997
-[an error occurred while processing this directive]- person to view the Onondaga page since June 15, 1997