[114] A son of Roswell Wright, the early merchant of Main and Mill Streets, Unadilla.
[115] Cruces is one of the oldest settlements on the American continent. In the days of Spanish rule large quantities of silver in ingots were often stored there. The place was captured by Admiral Drake in the fifteenth century. Morgan, the buccaneer, captured it in the seventeenth.
[116] One of the bags in which he brought home his gold is still preserved at his home in Unadilla. From some of the gold he had two finger rings made. Both are now in Unadilla and one of them since 1850 has been worn by his wife.
[117] Great discontent had long prevailed there and the place was still in a disturbed condition. The liberated slaves between 1833 and 1841, then in a state bordering on revolt, had caused the suspension of cultivation on no fewer than 653 sugar plantations, besides 456 others where coffee was grown. The owners of these plantations had abandoned them. A more or less unsettled condition continued to prevail until 1865, when the natives rose in rebellion and shocking atrocities occurred. The famous Governor Eyre finally suppressed the uprising, but through measures so vigorous and severe that he was recalled to England. Jamaica is almost entirely peopled by blacks. They comprise about 87 per cent of the whole.
[118] One of the meanings assigned to Unadilla by local tradition is “Pleasant Valley.” It has also been said to stand for some kind of a river. The meaning given by Morgan, our best authority, is “Place of Meeting”, which refers to the junction of the two streams. The word has been spelled in many ways. As in the Fort Stanwix deed we find Tianaderha, so Gideon Hawley in 1753 wrote Teyonadelhough. Richard Smith cites the form Tunaderrah. Other forms are Cheonadilha and Deunadilla, while Unendilla and Unideally are common. Joseph Brant in a letter to Persefer Carr wrote Tunadilla.
“All these forms resulted from the white man’s efforts to put into writing the word as he heard it pronounced by various Indian tribes. The form Unadilla comes nearest to the Oneida dialect, which has the charm of greater softness than the others. Stone is at a loss to understand why the pioneers were not content to accept as final the spelling adopted by an educated Indian like Brant. The present spelling was adopted however when the town was formed. In the Poor Master’s book of 1793 the word is written as we write it now.
“How long the name had been in use before Hawley used it, is of course, matter of conjecture, but it was the name of a place before it ever was applied to a stream. In 1683 the Indians called the river ‘The Kill which falls into the Susquehanna.’ The stream had obviously at that time received no name. Originally the name was applied not only as now to the Unadilla side of the two rivers, but to lands across them included in the towns of Sidney and Bainbridge. It was a term for all the territory adjacent to the confluence and now intersected by the boundaries of three counties.
“The Unadilla river and part of the present town of Unadilla with perhaps all of it, were Oneida territory. Further east were Mohawk lands The Oneidas are know to have sold lands as far east as Herkimer and Delhi. Evidence, however, which Morgan regards as safe, begins the line of division at a point five miles east of Utica and extends it directly south to Pennsylvania making Unadilla border lands between the two nations. Lands in several parts of Otsego country were sold by the Mohawks but none lay as far west as Unadilla.”—From “The Old New York Frontier”; pages 26 and 27.
[119] He also formed a partnership with Dr. Joseph Sweet and made arrangements to erect for use as their office the building that for about twenty-five years was occupied as the post office. Postmasters who served out full terms in this building are: Mr. Packard, Henry Van Dusen, Frank G. Bolles, Alanson H. Meeker and Milo B. Gregory.
[120] The battle of Antietam was fought on September 16 and 17th, 1862, by the Union army under McClellan and the Confederates under Lee. More than 100,000 men were engaged. As a result of the battle Lee withdrew from Maryland soil to Virginia and Lincoln, in accordance with his promise in the event of such a result, five days later issued the proclamation abolishing slavery. A short distance from the scene of the battle lies the city of Frederick, to which many of McClellan’s 9,416 wounded men were conveyed.