The Greatest Highway in the World / Historical, Industrial and Descriptive Information of the Towns, Cities and Country Passed Through Between New York and Chicago Via the New York Central Lines. Based on the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

by New York Central Railroad Company

237 M. UTICA, Pop. 94,156.

(Train 51 passes 1:22; No. 3, 2:31; No. 41, 6:42; No. 25, 7:41; No. 19, 11:08. Eastbound: No. 6 passes 3:57; No. 26, 4:31; No. 16, 9:53; No. 22, 11:50.)

The territory on which Utica is built was originally part of the 22,000 acre tract granted in 1734 by George II. to William Cosby (1695-1736), colonial governor of New York in 1732-36, and his associates. It was then known as Cosby's Manor.

Washington and Genesee Streets, Utica, in 1835

Washington Street, with the Presbyterian Church, is seen on the left; the bridge across the Erie Canal is seen on the right, down Genesee Street, and at its extremity the depot of the Utica and Schenectady (now the New York Central) Railroad then recently built.

Sir William Cosby served originally as colonel in the British army, then, after being governor of Minorca and later of the Leeward Islands, he was sent to New York. Before leaving England, he obtained a good deal of money for colonizing expenses, and his refusal to share this with Van Dam, his predecessor and colleague, gave rise to a law suit between the two which came to nothing but was the cause of much bitterness between Cosby and his friends on the one hand, and Van Dam and the people's party on the other. His administration was turbulent and unpopular. The grant made to Cosby was one of a number of colonizing ventures made by the British government during this period.

During the Seven Years' War a palisaded fort was erected on the south bank of the Mohawk at the ford where Utica later sprang up. It was named Ft. Schuyler in honor of Col. Peter Schuyler, an uncle of Gen. Philip Schuyler of the Continental Army.

This should not be confused with the fort of the same name at Rome which was built later. In order to distinguish the two, the fort at Utica is often referred to as Old Ft. Schuyler.

The main trail of the Iroquois which became later the most used route to the western country, crossed the Mohawk here and continued to Ft. Stanwix, now Rome. A branch trail turned slightly to the southwest, then more directly west to Oneida Castle. Cosby's Manor was sold at a sheriff's sale for arrears of rent in 1792 and was bid in by Gen. Philip Schuyler, Gen. John Bradstreet, John Morin Scott and others for £1387 (about 15 cents an acre). The first bridge across the Mohawk at Utica was built in 1792. Soon after the close of the War of Independence, a large number of new settlers arrived, most of them Germans from the lower Mohawk Valley. About 1788 there was an influx of New Englanders, among whom was Peter Smith (1768-1837), later a partner of John Jacob Astor, and father of Gerrit Smith, a political and religious radical, who was born here in 1797.

After graduating from Hamilton College in 1818, Gerrit Smith (1797-1874) assumed the management of the vast estate of his father, and greatly increased the family fortune, but he soon turned his attention to reform and philanthropy. He first became an active temperance worker, and then, after seeing an anti-slavery meeting at Utica broken up by a mob, took up the cause of abolition. He was one of the leading organizers of the Liberty party (1840), and later was nominated for president by various reform parties, notably the Free Soil Party (1848 & 1852). He was likewise the candidate of the anti-slavery party for governor of New York in 1840 and 1858. In 1853 he was elected to Congress as an independent, whereupon he issued an address declaring that all men have an equal right to the soil; that wars are brutal and unnecessary; that slavery could not be sanctioned by any constitution, state or federal; that free trade is essential to human brotherhood; that women should have full political rights, and that alcoholic liquors should be prohibited by state and federal enactments. He resigned at the end of his first session and gave away numerous farms of 50 acres each to indigent families; attempted to colonize tracts in Northern N.Y. with free negroes; assisted fugitive slaves to escape—Peterboro, his home village, 22 miles southwest of Utica, became a station on the "Underground railroad"—and established a nonsectarian church, open to all Christians of whatever shade of belief, in Peterboro. He was an intimate friend of John Brown of Osawatomie, to whom he gave a farm in Essex County. His total benefactions probably exceeded $8,000,000.

Utica is situated on ground rising gradually from the river. There are many fine business and public buildings, especially on Genesee St., the principal thoroughfare, and the city is known for the number of its institutions, public and private. It has some fine parks. In the Forest Hill Cemetery are the graves of Horatio Seymour and Roscoe Conkling.

Horatio Seymour (1810-1886) was a member of the N.Y. Assembly (1842-1845), Mayor of Utica (1843) and Governor of the State (1854-1855). In 1854 he vetoed a bill prohibiting intoxicating liquors in the state. In 1863-1865 he was again governor and opposed Lincoln's policy in respect to emancipation, military arrests and conscription. He was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate against Grant in 1868, but carried only eight states. He died at Utica at the home of his sister, who was the wife of Roscoe Conkling.

Roscoe Conkling (1829-1888) was a lawyer and political leader who attracted attention in public life because of his keenness and eloquence in debate, his aggressive leadership, and his striking personality. He was born in Albany and was admitted to the bar at Utica in 1850. Having joined the Republican party at the time of its formation, he served for several years as representative in Congress, and in 1867 was elected senator from N.Y. He labored for the impeachment of President Johnson and was one of the senatorial coterie that influenced Grant. He was disappointed in his ambition to be nominated for president in 1876, and in 1880 he was one of the leaders of the unsuccessful movement to nominate Grant for a third presidential term.

Here also is the famous Oneida stone of the Oneida Indians on which the warriors used to have their ears slit to prepare them for battle, and on which, too, they used to place the scalps of their enemies. The stone was brought here from Oneida Castle.

Utica has varied and extensive manufactures (17,000 employees), with a total annual output of about $60,000,000. Among its products are hosiery and knit goods, cotton goods, men's clothing, foundry products, plumbing and heating apparatus lumber products, food preparation, boots and shoes, and brick, tile and pottery, as well as a number of others. Utica is the shipping point for a rich agricultural region, from which are shipped dairy products (especially cheese), nursery products, flowers (especially roses), small fruits and vegetables, honey and hops.

We pass on the right, a short distance north of the river, the picturesque Deerfield Hills, a beginning of the scenic highlands which stretch away towards the Adirondack Mts. Fifteen miles north of Utica on West Canada Creek, are Trenton Falls,* which descend 312 feet in two miles through a sandstone chasm, in a series of cataracts, some of them having an 80-foot fall. The falls are reached on the branch line of the New York Central leading from Utica to the Adirondacks.

North America as It Was Known in 1768

This map was first printed in the First Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica in 1768. Note that all of Canada west of Hudson's Bay (including Alaska) and a section of the United States west of Lake Superior and as far south as the present states of South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon were then "Parts Undiscovered." The central part of the continent was New France, and the extreme southwest was New Spain. Considering the meagre geographical knowledge of the day, the map was remarkably accurate.