Clark makes David Owen the first settler, locating on the site of Tully village in 1795. F. H. Chase's list of revolutionary soldiers, places Michael Christian on lot 18 in 1792, and this seems probable, as he had drawn his lot before that time. From him, and not from the worthy people there, the valley had the name of Christian Hollow. Owen was followed at once by James Cravatte, Timothy Walker, William Trowbridge and Phineas Henderson. Christian had promised the latter one hundred acres of his claim if he would build a house and clear land. He came by way of the Tioughnioga river, walking thence with his wife and little daughter, early in 1796. He built a house, and in this Peter Henderson was born March 14, 1797, the first white child born in the town. The next year Mr. Henderson brought the first colony of bees known in the town, from New Jersey, though wild bees may have been near at hand.
Timothy Walker, in Tully village, built the first frame house in town, in 1797. Moses Nash, the first merchant, built the second. Eli Farr settled on the Tully flats in 1801, dying there in 1808. The oldest burial place is known by his name, but a son of Mr. Mattoson was the first to die, and was buried on Farr's land. Farr left ten children, and his widow had three more by her second husband. Before 1810 there came Jacob Johnson, Job L. Lewis, Nicholas Lewis, John Meeker, Milo Trowbridge, Amos Skeele and Peter Van Camp, mostly prominent men.
At Tully village Moses Nash opened the first store in 1803, succeeded by John Meeker in 1805. The latter had stores in many places. Nicholas Lewis opened a tavern in 1802, and was followed by Jacob Johnson in 1807. Miss Ruth Thorpe opened a school in Timothy Walker's barn in 1801, south of the present village, and in 1804 a log schoolhouse was erected in the village, each the first in its way in the town. A frame schoolhouse succeeded the one of logs in 1809, and when this was burned there came the "old red school-house." A better building followed in 1846-48.
The opening of the Hamilton and Skaneateles turnpike in 1806 stimulated business. Tully village grew, and Vesper and Tully Center had their beginnings. In 1810 Peter Van Camp built the first grist and sawmills in town, at Tully Center on Onondaga creek, a great blessing to those who had to traverse horrible roads in going long distances to mill. The writer passed through Tully flats April 22, 1831, when but a year old, and remembers nothing of it, but his father made this record: "Got to Tully to sleep about 9. We were 3 hours going the last 3 1-2 miles. Roads bad." Of course they were, in the days of mud and corduroy.
Nicholas Howell was the first postmaster in 1815. Mail came to Pompey Hill or Preble before that time. Timothy Walker built a grist mill at Tully village in 1818, on a stream tributary to one of the lakes. In 1874 it became a steam mill. There were three grist mills, five sawmills and two fulling mills in town in 1824, and one amusing comment of that year is that one going "from Tully to Hamilton, a distance of forty miles, could count twenty-six taverns, all doing a brisk business." The Tully and Syracuse Turnpike Company boomed the town for awhile. It was incorporated in 1827, and rechartered in 1831. The Chenango and Salina Turnpike Company had been chartered in 1807, and the Onondaga and Cortland Company in 1824, but really good roads had not yet come.
William Clark was the first postmaster in Vesper in 1827, and it was once a thriving place, with a store, tavern, etc., containing four grist mills, two carding machines, and a woolen mill in 1845. Its Vesper star has set, and little business remains.
A post office was established at Tully Valley, near the La Fayette line, in 1836, but that hamlet is now inactive. Its first postmaster was George Salisbury. The opening of the Syracuse & Binghamton railroad in 1854 was disastrous to the smaller places, but Tully village became a shipping point, and has now many summer residents, mostly from Syracuse. It is an important place for dairy products. It was incorporated in 1875, and John Outt was chosen first president January 26, 1876. William L. Earle has been its most stirring business man. A good deal of manufacturing is done here, and there are good hotels and boarding houses. The Tully Times was started December 29, 1881, by Raymond Wright, as an advertising sheet. It became a weekly paper, and then passed into the hands of Richard R. Davis, who made it a successful journal. Water works and electric lights came in 1896.
There are Indian stories connected with the Tully lakes, classed as Big or Tully, Green, Crooked, Jerry's and Mirror lakes, but the following may be taken with some grains of allowance, about "Big Lake, which was called by the Indians 'Sacred Waters' and held in great veneration by them. Tradition says that the Indians would never allow a fish to be taken from its crystal depths, nor a canoe to float upon its glassy surface, yet they considered an accidental drowning therein to be an especial desire of the Great Spirit." W. W. Newman tells nearly the same story of a prehistoric lake at South Onondaga.
Occasional camping parties led to the formation of the Tully Lake Park Association, incorporated May 7, 1888, M. J. French, of Syracuse, president. A tract of sixty-four acres was purchased, and a park was laid out. The first cottage was built in 1889, and over fifty later. Assembly Park was opened on the east shore in 1892, and annual sessions are held there of an educational nature.
The Solvay Process Company, in boring deep wells in 1888, struck a bed of rock salt in the Tully valley, about fifty feet thick. Then six hundred acres of land were purchased and many wells were sunk, the depth varying from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred feet. By flooding these wells a saturated solution of salt is obtained, and conveyed in a twelve inch main to Solvay, eighteen miles away. A pipe line company was formed to do this in 1889. The land is now used for supplying all kinds of produce to that village.
The First Baptist church of Tully was formed at Uriel Smith's, February 28, 1816, and a church was built in Tully Center, and dedicated February 11, 1825. In 1848 some members withdrew to form a society in Vesper, on which the church was removed to Tully village and rebuilt. The first pastor was Rev. Squire Abbott, in 1818. The society at Vesper was organized in December, 1848, and a church was dedicated January 18, 1849.
In 1820 the Methodists held meetings in Vesper, and their church was incorporated July 7, 1840, erecting a chapel the same year. Near Tully village a society was organized in 1828, under Rev. Mr. Sayers. He was followed by Rev. Mr. Puffer, known as "old chapter and verse," from his frequent quotations. The present society was formed from this in 1832, and built its first church in 1834, rebuilt in 1862, again in 1877, and again in 1894.
May 9, 1840, the Disciples of Christ formed a society at Hamilton A. Chase's house, a mile east of Tully village. Their church was built in the village in 1845, Rev. J. M. Bartlett being the first pastor.
Roman Catholic services had been occasionally held for nearly a score of years, when St. Leo's church was organized by Rev. Daniel Doody, July, 1891. The church was dedicated in Tully village, July 25, 1893. The Tully Union School was founded in 1893, Adelbert Butler, president, and placed under the Regents of the University in 1894.
While there were scalp bounties, bears, wolves and wild cats found a refuge here for many years. Early modes of conveyance were rude. Drays were made of crotches of trees with boards pinned across, on which ten bushels of wheat or corn were considered a large load. These went to mill twenty or thirty miles away, and were drawn by oxen. Mills nearer home were a boon indeed.
Some of the lakes are connected by winding streams through swampy lands, and it was usual to make one of the lakes in Preble the head of canoe navigation in colonial days. The lakes abound in fish, and their shores are rich in rare bog plants. The soil is generally good and well tilled.
A Young People's Christian Association was organized here in 1877, and the same year Morning Star Lodge of Good Templars was instituted. There are several well kept cemeteries, with graves of early date.
Clark said: "The Rev. Mr. Riddle, a Presbyterian missionary from New England, was the first clergyman who officiated in this town...He organized a Presbyterian society in 1804. It was organized anew under the Rev. Mr. Parsons. This society was kept up till about 1830, when it was discontinued, so that there is no society of that denomination in town." The first marriage was that of Timothy Walker and Esther Trowbridge.
Clark also mentions, about three miles west of Tully village, "an almost perpendicular fall, of about ninety feet, with only one break, which in high water presents a very beautiful and picturesque appearance." The town gives its name to the Tully limestone, in which so many beautiful waterfalls occur. They may be found in every ravine.
In 1836 Tully village had two churches, two taverns, three general stores and thirty dwellings. In 1886 there were three churches, four physicians, two sawmills, two hardware stores, two general stores, two groceries, two drug stores, newspaper, coal yard, hotel, billiard room, cabinet shop, wagon and blacksmith shops, meat market, cheese factory, milliners, etc.