Otsego County was formerly part of Montgomery. Montgomery had before been called Tryon County after the Colonial Governor, William Tryon. Governor Tryon became a Tory during the Revolution and hence the change in name. At the close of the war Montgomery embraced lands enough to have formed a small state—the lands that now comprise the counties of Montgomery, Otsego, Herkimer, Fulton, Hamilton, St. Lawrence, Lewis, Oswego, Jefferson and parts of Delaware, Oneida and Schoharie.
Otsego was formed from Montgomery in 1791, but the need for a division of the large territory comprising Montgomery had been felt soon after it was set off from Albany County in 1772 under the name of Tryon. The Legislative Council in 1775 set apart a certain tract called the Old England district, in which were included settlements on the Unadilla River and Butternut Creek: under this name the tract was known during the Revolution. After the war, it was reorganized under the same name with new officers and so continued until Otsego was set off in 1791 and then the name disappeared.
Otsego first comprised only two towns—the towns called Otsego and Cherry Valley, but in 1792 the town of Otsego was divided and the name Unadilla was given to its southern half. In that town of Unadilla were then embraced lands that have since been made to constitute seven Otsego County towns, and which by the census of 1890 had a population of 20,024, divided as follows: Butternuts, 2,723; Morris, 1,920; Milford, 2,051; Laurens, 1,659; Oneonta, 8,018; Otego, 1,840; Unadilla, 2,723; Oneonta Village,[8] being not only the largest community in Otsego County, but the largest between Albany and Binghamton. When Oneonta was first taken off from Unadilla, it was named Otego from the creek that still flows across its territory—the Wauteghe Creek of earlier times.
The division of the Unadilla territory began in 1796 when Butternuts (with lands afterwards taken from Butternuts and called Morris), Oneonta, (including lands that afterwards were taken from Oneonta to make Laurens), and Milford were erected as separate towns. The present Otego lands remained a part of Unadilla until 1822. This division found its justification in the growth of population which had been surprisingly large before the 18th century closed. As early as 1794, Otsego County was able to cast 1,487 votes for Member of Congress, which would mean a population of probably more than 10,000. The town of Otsego alone in 1795 had 2,160 male inhabitants above the age of sixteen. Six years later the entire county contained 21,343 souls. Spafford in 1813, which was before Otego was taken off, credited the town of Unadilla with a population of 1,426, and the taxable property was valued at $141,896. Unadilla had five distilleries and fourteen schoolhouses. The land was “held in fee.”
A study of the records of this town of Unadilla, as contained in a large pigskin-bound volume, now in the office of the Town Clerk, sheds interesting light on many aspects of frontier life. It contains the record of the town meeting held in 1796, which met in the house of Daniel Bissell, on the site of the present residence of Samuel D. Bacon, which for so many years was the home of Dr. Evander Odell. This meeting was presided over by Nathaniel Wattles of Wattles’s Ferry. David Baits was elected supervisor and Gurdon Huntington town clerk. It was voted that the next town meeting should also be held in Daniel Bissell’s house, but later meetings held their sessions “in the schoolhouse near Daniel Bissell’s.” In 1798 the house of Solomon Martin was used; in several other years the schoolhouse.
Suggestions were often made that meetings be held outside the village, because of the long distances which many persons had traveled for the earlier meetings. In 1817, and some other years, voters assembled at the house of Capt. Elisha S. Saunders, several miles up the river. Motions were afterwards made that meetings take place on the Unadilla river, in the paper mill country, and in Unadilla Centre, but these were lost.
At the meeting in 1797 it was voted that “the town will be at the expense of sending after Esquire Scramling, or some other magistrate, to qualify the town officers”, and in 1797 that “the town will allow the Town Clerk five dollars for his services for the last year.” The same sum was voted in 1803 to Solomon Martin and David Baits for “services done heretofore as supervisors of this town.” Lawful fences were declared to be those “four feet nine inches high”, with the “poles or rails not more than six inches asunder.” Earmarks were registered as follows: Abner Griffith, “slots in the right ear”; Daniel Bissell, “a square crop on ear, with a half penny on the under side of the left ear”; John Sisson, “a hole through the right ear and a half penny the underside of the left”; William Fitch, “a half penny under side each ear.”
It was voted that hogs “with yokes eight inches long above the neck and four inches below be allowed to run as free commoners”, and that “the town will give for each wolf killed within the limits thereof forty shillings.” Wolves seem to have been plentiful until a rather late period. Dr. Odell in 1872 said men were then living who could remember the site of the railroad station in the village as “a tangled thicket from which the cry of the panther and howl of the wolf were frequently heard.”
In 1796 the number of persons assessed in Unadilla was ninety-nine; the total real and personal property was set down at £2,275, and the tax at £52. A year later the persons assessed numbered 106; the property was $12,045 in value and the taxes were $370. In 1808 a memorandum declared the number of “Quakers returned in this town, 1, viz: Stephen Wilber, tax $4.”
Signs of the discontent, due to an inconveniently large town, which eventually led to taking off Huntsville (Otego) from Unadilla were seen very early. One was the holding of the town meeting at the house of Captain Saunders; another was a proposal in 1817 to divide Unadilla by adding to Chenango County “all that part lying in Upton’s Patent”, which was the valley of the Unadilla River, and coming east to the “west end of the village of Unadilla.” This proposal emanated from “the western portion of the town.” But the town meeting of 1817 resolved to “use all due diligence to prevent such division.” Nine-tenths of the people were declared to be opposed to it, its strongest advocates lying outside the town, and their motives being “to divide and distract the citizens of our territory.”