HISTORY OF THE MOHAWK VALLEY

thelivyjr
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MOHAWK VALLEY

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History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1614-1925

Chapter 128: The Village of Ilion, continued ...

Birth of the Card Index

In 1876 Melvil Dewey, librarian of Columbia University of New York City, organized a company which originated the card index, card ledger, vertical filing system and many other important modern office devices.

This company, now known as the Library Bureau, removed to Ilion in 1901, and manufactures steel and wood office furniture and filing equipment.

World War (1914-1918) Arms Center

A vast quantity of rifles for the Allied armies was manufactured at the Remington works during the World war (1914-1918).

A thousand Lee-Enfield guns for the British armies were made here daily, and the same rifle was also manufactured for the U. S. Army during its years in the World war (1917-18).

In defense of its liberties, the United States of America would have been badly off had it not been for the genius and enterprise of Eliphalet Remington, whose influence on American and world history, through the Remington rifle, has been tremendous.

Ilion's Remington Rifle Centennial

In August, 1916, the people of Ilion held a three-day celebration of the centennial of the making of the first Remington rifle.

One of the central figures of this anniversary was Eliphalet Remington (3d), then ninety years old and the son of the Eliphalet Remington (2nd), who forged the first Remington rifle.

The celebration attracted thousands of visitors.

Among those present and speaking were Gen. Hugh A. Scott, chief of staff of the U. S. Army, U. S. Senator (later President) Warren G. Harding, and Governor Charles S. Whitman.

To commemorate the occasion, the village of Ilion gave bronze statue trophies, representing Remington at his forge, to the National and State Guard organizations of every state in the Union, to be competed for as perpetual prizes for proficiency in marksmanship.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
thelivyjr
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MOHAWK VALLEY

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History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1614-1925

Chapter 128: The Village of Ilion, concluded ...

In 1921 the manufacture of cash registers was begun at the Remington works.

Eliphalet Remington (3d) died in Herkimer in 1924, aged 98 years.

The inventions of the Remingtons and those of others perfected in the Remington works form a remarkable list.

These inventions and machines include the following: The first model of a Yale lock with a flat key, burglar proof bank vaults, the first match-making machine, gas engines, horsepower fire engines, surgical instruments, iron and steel bridges, sewing machines, agricultural machinery, early velocipedes, tandem velocipedes, bicycles, job printing presses, typesetting machines, deep well pumps, rock drills, radial forge hammers, cotton machine spindles, button-hole, cigar-making, tobacco bag making, leather sewing, broom-making, shoe-making, pill-making, button sewing and pleating machines.

The first steam street cars and the first steam canal boat engines and propulsion machinery were products of the Remington mechanical "laboratories".

Here was made the model of a mercury scale which could register an ounce or weigh a ton.

The Naylor battery magazine gun of a rapid-fire type was here perfected as well as many other gun inventions.

Rifle cartridge and cartridge making machinery were here perfected.

The first test of high power firearms ammunition was made at Ilion by an inventor named Merriam in 1880.

Many agricultural implements in general use were here devised.

Hoes, rakes and forks were here first made by the rolling system, now in general use.

The Remingtons were among the first experimenters in electric lighting and power.

Dynamos, arc and incandescent lamps were here made and installed, on the Parker system, in five Mohawk Valley towns (Rome, Utica, Dolgeville, Schenectady, Cohoes) and other places.

Thus Schenectady, the present center of the world's electrical industry, was first lighted by Remington apparatus.

Experiments were here made for braking trains by electricity.

The first transmission of electricity for power in printing and perhaps in any line, was accomplished when a dynamo in the Remington plant was connected with another dynamo in the office of the "Ilion Citizen", following an accident that deprived that paper of power, and the first newspaper was there and then printed by electrical power.

Probably no other plant in America, and perhaps in the world, has produced such a varied line of perfected and useful machines and devices as the Remington Ilion works, and Ilion will doubtless make other important contributions to the industrial life of mankind in the years to come.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MOHAWK VALLEY

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History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1614-1925

Chapter 129: Frankfort.

Barge Canal land cut — Historical, 1723-1925 — Frankfort match industry — Frankfort's industries and industrial opportunities — Frankfort Gulph — Dutch Hill, 680 feet above the Mohawk.

Frankfort was incorporated as a village in 1863.

Frankfort is situated nine and one-half miles east of Utica, on the Mohawk River, the Barge Canal and the West Shore and the New York Central Railroads.

Interurban trolleys connect with Ilion, Little Falls and Utica.

The principal industries are the manufacture of hoes and forks, chucks, castings and road building machinery.

A considerable number of local workmen are employed in the factories of Ilion.

The village is a shipping point for hay, straw and dairy products.

Frankfort has a sewer system, electric lighting service and municipal water works.

In 1912 Frankfort had eight factories, with 473 operatives.

The New York Central station here is North Frankfort and is connected with Frankfort by bridge.

Barge Canal Land Cut

There is a Barge Canal retaining dam at Frankfort, to the west of which the canal generally follows a land line westward to Rome, twenty-five miles.

A Barge Canal terminal dock is at Frankfort.

The Mohawk River, west of Frankfort follows its original serpentine course through the Upper Mohawk Valley flats.

The land cut pursues a straight course on the northern side of the river.

Frankfort lies on the broad river flats, here over a mile wide, which penetrate the lower valley of Moyer Creek, which enters the Mohawk River on the west side of the town.

Frankfort is the western village of the four-town community of Herkimer-Mohawk-Ilion-Frankfort (1920 population, 27,739), and of the south side tri-village community of Mohawk-Ilion-Frankfort (1920 population, 17,286).

Frankfort's situation gives it unusual availability as a site for manufacturing, on account of the large amount of open flatland here close to the Valley main transportation routes.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MOHAWK VALLEY

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History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1614-1925

Chapter 129: Frankfort, continued ...

Moyer Creek and Frankfort Gulph

Moyer Creek here enters the river.

It rises seven miles airline distance west from its outlet, at the foot of Frankfort Hill (1,379 feet).

Three miles southwest, the Gulph Hill rises to 1,500 feet.

Two miles east Dutch Hill rises to 1,060 feet elevation.

Moyer Creek follows a deep ravine, south of Frankfort, known as the Gulph.

The Gulph begins about two miles southwest of Frankfort and extends three miles to Gulph.

It is a picturesque ravine similar to Ilion Gulph, only not so deep, and a road follows the creek through its entire distance.

At their highest point, its bordering cliffs rise to a height of 400 feet above the creek.

Moyer Creek's headwaters rise within a half mile of the source of the Unadilla (Cedar Lake Creek) at Dayville, seven miles airline distance southwest of Frankfort.

This is the most northerly headwater source of the Susquehanna and the closest to the Mohawk.

Frankfort shale and sandstone are here exposed in Frankfort Gulph.

On the north river shore Oak Hill rises above North Frankfort to a sea elevation of 963 feet, and 580 feet above the Mohawk.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MOHAWK VALLEY

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History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1614-1925

Chapter 129: Frankfort, continued ...

Frankfort, Historical, 1723-1922

Frankfort Township contains a considerable portion of Cosby's Manor patent, 1 1/4 of a tier of great lots in Bayard's patent, 1 1/2 lots in Frank's patent, 4 1/2 lots in Staley's patent, part of Colden's patent and four lots (covering part of Frankfort Village) in the Burnetsfield patent of 1725.

The Folts homestead, at East Frankfort, was built by Major Warner Folts in 1796 on Lot No. 3 of the Burnetsfield patent, which was granted in 1723 to Melchor Folts, the founder of the Folts family in America.

He came to this state in 1710 and was the first to settle in the town of Frankfort.

Melchor Folts was one of the volunteers in the Montreal expedition (1711) and the names of his two sons are inscribed on the monument at Oriskany and the family has been fully identified with every struggle for liberty and independence.

The house has suffered some changes, although the hand-hewn beams still support its floors and the large corner posts are exposed to view in every room.

The original corner cupboard is in the parlor and the quaint fan-light over the door is firmly held by the old hand-made casing.

The house has been continuously occupied by the family.

Two generations have celebrated their golden wedding neath its roof and, at present, three generations are occupying it.

The town had a number of German settlers prior to the Revolution.

In the early pioneer days mills were built on small creeks on Frankfort's eastern limits, which were burned by the savage French-Indian raiders of 1757 in the great French war (see Herkimer).

One of the early settlers was Laurence Frank, from whose fortified house, "Frank's Fort", the village and township take their names.

In 1764 a settlement of Germans was started by Peter Hasenclever (at present East Schuyler), a mile west of the North Frankfort Central station.

About thirty log houses and a blockhouse were here erected and the place called New Peterboro.

It was the most western hamlet on the Mohawk at the beginning of the Revolution, during the early years of which it was abandoned until its close.

The township opposite Frankfort is called Schuyler, in honor of the Revolutionary American Major-General Schuyler, who held large properties in it.

The hamlet of Schuyler lies about a mile west of East Schuyler.

The Frankfort section, like all the German Flats settlements, was ravaged and utterly destroyed during the Revolution, following which there was a considerable influx of New England settlers here as throughout all of Herkimer County and the Upper Mohawk Valley.

The village developed along the old military road to Old Fort Schuyler and Fort Stanwix, now the (south shore) Mohawk turnpike, which forms the main street of Frankfort as it does of the entire Frankfort-Ilion-Mohawk village (1925) community.

Along this south shore turnpike it is (1925) but six and one-half miles from the western limits of the village of Frankfort to the eastern boundaries of the city of Utica.

In 1794 John Hollister built a sawmill on Moyer Creek.

John Myers opened a tavern 1 1/2 miles west) in 1795.

Frankfort Township of Herkimer County was created in 1796.

In 1807 Joseph Ingham of Schuyler and Joseph Collins here started the woolen mill, which used its original primitive machinery until 1865.

In 1807 there were seven houses in present Frankfort.

In 1809 a grist mill was built.

In 1810 Jacob Wever here opened a tavern, and in 1811 a tannery was built.

In 1814 Matthew and Michael Myers opened the first store.

Shortly thereafter an ashery, a furnace and a cowbell factory began operations here.

The building of the Erie Canal (1817-1825) and the construction of the Utica & Schenectady Railroad (now the New York Central) in 1836 boomed the little village.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
thelivyjr
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MOHAWK VALLEY

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History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1614-1925

Chapter 129: Frankfort, concluded ...

Frankfort Match Industry, 1844

The modern American match is said to have been developed at Frankfort.

In 1844 William A. Gates here built a twelve-foot square frame factory in which he began the manufacture of matches (the first practical match having been made in England in 1827).

Mr. Gates made his first matches by cutting, by hand with a plane, a strip of wood about three feet long.

These strips were then cut in pieces twice the length of the matches to be made and dipped both ends into melted sulphur.

After drying in frames they were cut in the middle, put into hand-made boxes and were peddled about the country, at a price ten times as high as at present.

The Gates factory also made the block matches which were split in blocks but not wholly separated and were sulphur dipped, a block at a time.

Mr. Gates was a pioneer in the invention and construction of modern match making machinery.

His invention of a match and matchbox making machine was perfected and constructed at the Remington Ilion works, and is said to have been the first of its kind.

The industry was later absorbed by consolidation and the factory here was discontinued.

In 1854 a canal dry dock was built at McGowansville or East Frankfort, midway between Frankfort and Ilion.

In 1855 the village had a population of 1,150, when Ilion had 812, and the Herkimer-Mohawk-Ilion-Frankfort village community a population of 4,688.

May 4, 1863, Frankfort was incorporated as a village.

In 1872 the south side street railroad was completed from Herkimer to Frankfort.

The building of the West Shore Railroad boomed the town, during its construction period from 1879 to 1883.

The road here located its railroad shops and foundry in 1883, following the presentation of land by Frankfort citizens, to the value of $75,000.

This industry was later (about 1895) removed to Depew.

The electric road from Utica to Little Falls was completed in 1902.

Frankfort has (1924) a considerable Italian colony.

The ten-mile run over the turnpike westward from Frankfort to Utica is through an attractive farming and dairying country.

Dutch Hill, 680 Feet Above Mohawk

Rising from the western limits of Frankfort is Dutch Hill, a small true mountain, rising steeply from the turnpike to a sea level elevation of 1,060 feet, 680 feet above the Mohawk.

This is the most westerly of the high hills close to the river on the south shore.

Frankfort Hill lies directly south of it.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MOHAWK VALLEY

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History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1614-1925

Chapter 130: The City of Utica.

"Crossroads of New York" — Historical, political, industrial, commercial, educational, military and sociological study of Utica, from 1758 to 1925 — The city of parks and trees — A strategic commercial and transportation center, with varied industries — Textile center of America — A Mohawk Valley metropolis and one of America's great eastern cities, steadily increasing in population and importance.

Utica is near the geographical center of the state, the actual point being about twenty miles west, at Eaton Hill, 1,340 feet sea elevation.

New York State's land boundary limits have a peculiar conformation, roughly resembling a three-pointed star.

Utica occupies a place very centrally located from all these three points, the northern (178 miles to the Canadian border and 233 to Montreal from Utica), the southeastern with New York City (237 miles from Utica) at its limit, and the western with Buffalo (202 miles from Utica) at its western end.

The foregoing are railroad mileage figures over the New York Central Lines.

Utica virtually lies at the western limits of the highlands of the Mohawk, which gradually recede from the narrow river flats, west of Dutch Hill (1,060 feet sea elevation, three miles east of Utica), on the southern shore, and Staring Creek, opposite this small mountain, on the northern shore.

The city lies in this westerly widening basin of river flatlands, which are here three miles in width, from the base of the Adirondack foothills known as Deerfield Hills on the north, to the foot of Forest Hill (832 feet sea elevation and 428 feet above the Mohawk) on the southern city limits.

The city site is practically level, the rise from the Mohawk to the base of Forest Hill being only eighty feet in the three miles, northeast to southwest, in which lie the Utica municipal limits.

From the Genesee Street railroad bridge to the Mohawk turnpike (north shore) at Deerfield Corners, lies a practically level flat a mile in width.

Deerfield Township of Oneida County lies opposite Utica, on the north bank of the Mohawk.

To the west is the Oneida County Township of Whitestown, south, that of New Hartford, and to the east the townships of Frankfort and Schuyler, Herkimer County.

Roscoe Conkling Park and beautiful Forest Hill Cemetery are located on a sightly spur of Frankfort Hill, a small mountain, 1,420 feet sea elevation and a height above the Mohawk of 1,016 feet.

Its summit lies two miles southeast of the city limits.

Several city water reservoirs lie on the slopes of this hill.

Forest Hill has a sea elevation of 832 feet and rises 428 feet above the Mohawk River, the highest point being on its summit near the flagstaff in Roscoe Conkling Park.

West of Utica the Mohawk south shore heights rapidly recede from the river, the edge of these Appalachian highlands running almost due west from Forest Hill.

Westward from Utica the main summits of these foothills are Crow Hill (1,303 feet, five miles southwest), College Hill (1,080 feet at Clinton, ten miles west), Prospect Hill (1,380 feet, twelve miles west), Eaton Hill (1,340 feet, eighteen miles west and five miles southeast of Oneida Castle, twenty-four miles west), which is the geographical center of New York State.

These highlands are the most northerly of the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in New York State.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
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History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1614-1925

Chapter 130: The City of Utica, continued ...

Seneca Road

The old Seneca road section of the New York-Buffalo automobile highway skirts the northern base of these foothills from Utica to Syracuse, fifty miles west.

This is the present (1924) main route of this great highway between these two cities.

In 1921 a movement was inaugurated to make the New York-Buffalo highway a "Road of Memory", with hundreds of thousands of native trees planted along its 450-mile length to commemorate the brave sons of New York State who fell in the World war.

The initial planting of these memorial trees was scheduled for 1921, when 20,000 elms were to be set out on the Utica-Syracuse section.

Utica's Parks

Utica is surrounded to the southward by a series of beautiful parks, the gift to the city of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas R. Proctor.

On the west side are Addison C. Miller and Horatio Seymour (14 1/2 acres) parks.

On the south side is Roscoe Conkling Park (385 acres), the largest in the city.

This lies on the northern front of Forest Hill.

It has tennis courts, a baseball diamond and a menagerie and deer park.

Forest Hill is a western spur of Frankfort Hill and rises 428 feet above the Mohawk, thus commanding an extensive view of the city and the Upper Mohawk Valley.

A statue of Mr. Proctor stands on the central slope of this park.

Thomas R. Proctor and Frederick T. Proctor parks (together comprising more than 200 acres) lie on the east side of the city adjacent to the Masonic Home grounds.

Starch Factory Creek is a picturesque feature of these parks.

All these parks are connected by a parkway, in which stand statues of Vice President Sherman, General Steuben and the picturesque Hiker statue, a figure of a Spanish war soldier commemorating Utica's part in that conflict.

A monument to Utica's soldiers and sailors of the Civil war stands on Genesee Street, in Oneida Square.

The total area of Utica's parks is 700 acres.

Chancellor Square (3 1/2 acres) became a public park in the days when Utica was a village.

Steuben Park consisted of one acre when it was set apart from the John Post purchase over a century prior to this writing (1925).

It has since been considerably cut down by street building.

Truman K. Butler and J. Thomas Spriggs parks have each less than one acre.

Watson Williams Park has about four or five acres.

The Masonic Home, with 300 acres of park and farm land, combined with the Proctor parks, give a large area of beautiful open land to the eastern part of Utica.

There are several attractive park sites in the northern section of Utica, on the north side of the Mohawk River.

A tall monument on the summit of New Forest Hills Cemetery, adjoining Forest Hill Cemetery, marks the grave of Justus H. Rathbone (1839-1899), founder in 1864 of the Order of Knights of Pythias.

Many famous Uticans are buried on this sightly hill and here is one of the noted "Oneida stones," which came from Oneida Castle in 1849, these stones being connected with the rites and ceremonials of the Oneida Indians.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
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History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1614-1925

Chapter 130: The City of Utica, continued ...

The Deerfield Hills, north of Utica, are southern foothills of the Adirondacks.

They are the western heights of the Hasenclever group of hills which form the western watershed of the West Canada Creek.

The main Deerfield hill summits, from east to west, are Bell Hill, 1,178 feet above the Mohawk and 1,582 above the sea; Smith Hill, 803 feet above river, 1,207 feet above sea; Marcy Hill, 1,260 feet above sea, 856 feet above Mohawk.

Bell Hill is the highest summit rising directly from the Mohawk River flats.

Its gentle slope is deceptive as to its height.

Smith Hill is the northern height, seen framed by the buildings of lower Genesee Street.

The best Utica view of the Deerfield Hills is from Forest Hill (832 feet sea elevation, 428 feet above the Mohawk), in Roscoe Conkling Park.

Fine views of Utica are obtained from the Black River Road over the Deerfield Hills.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
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History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1614-1925

Chapter 130: The City of Utica, continued ...

Genesee Street

Genesee Street, one of America's most beautiful avenues, is the backbone of Utica and its most characteristic feature.

One cannot think of Utica without visualizing Genesee Street.

It runs from old Deerfield Corners, on the Mohawk Turnpike in present Utica, west to beyond New Hartford, in which six miles it is built up the entire distance.

Actually the same street is building northward, on the Black River Road, so that Genesee Street before many years, will extend as a built up tree-lined street from Deerfield Hills to Clinton and Hamilton College, a distance of twelve miles.

From Baggs Square to beyond Hopper Street, Genesee Street is a business street, traversing the heart of the business section, which is rapidly encroaching on the Genesee Street residential section, southwest.

Many of Utica's finest business buildings and residences lie on Genesee Street.

Genesee Street was originally the Indian trail to the Seneca country, later known as the Genesee Road and improved as the Seneca Road in 1800, by which name this beginning of the road to Buffalo is known today.

The trail from Old Fort Schuyler and the old Mohawk River ford passed over present Park Avenue and met the Genesee trail at present Oneida Square.

Genesee Street is the Mohawk River crossroads of a trail which runs from the St. Lawrence River to Utica and thence by forks south to Chesapeake Bay and west to Buffalo.

At Utica the New York-Buffalo highway has a sea level elevation of about 440 feet, the same as that of the divide at Karner's, between Albany and Schenectady.

The Utica-Syracuse highway reaches its highest point at Lairdsville, ten miles west of Utica and three miles west of Kirkland, at a sea elevation of 720 feet.

Three small streams pass through the city and enter the Mohawk, the most westerly having had its bed utilized by the Chenango Canal, now (1924) abandoned.

The other creeks are Ballou and Starch Factory creeks.

The Sauquoit enters the Mohawk between the western city suburban villages of Yorkville and Whitesboro.

Several suburban industrial places are located on the Sauquoit south of Utica.

In the construction of the Barge Canal (1905-1918) a movable dam and a terminal lock were located at Utica terminal harbor.

West of Utica to Rome and eastward to Frankfort, the Barge Canal follows a land-line cut on the north side of the Mohawk River.

The New York State Hospital for the Insane is located near the western limits of Utica.

The Marcy division of the Utica State Hospital is located on the Utica-Rome highway, about five miles west of Utica.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
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