Some twenty-five years after Otsego County was formed a project was started for setting off a new county comprising parts of Otsego, Chenango and Delaware, and to be called the County of Unadilla, with the village of Unadilla as the county seat. In 1818, the sum of $250 was voted to defray the expenses of a committee while attending the Legislature “for the purpose of obtaining a new county.” Other papers on this subject may be found in the State archives down to a period so late as 1856.
In 1802 it was resolved that the town should have two pounds. One was to stand “not to exceed half a mile from Hubbell’s Mills, so-called, and the other within half a mile of Yates’s Ferry, so-called.” The two were to be built of “logs rolled up in form or manner of a house.” William Potter was Poor Master in 1793, and in October he charged the town with “a winding sheet for F—— twelve shillings”, and “for F——’s attendance and doctrine £3, 12s. 3d.” In March 1794, he received as license money $10 each from Isaac Gates, Nathan Hill and Barrett Overheyser, and in 1795 the same from nine other persons.
First among enterprises having in view the general good came roads which at the start were mere clearings through the forests. Above all things the scattered settlements in the upper valley needed communication with each other. The road by which they reached the outer world ran from Wattles’s Ferry to Catskill,—a road much older in its first state than the turnpike and one which the turnpike finally supplanted. The original road had been opened about fifteen years before the turnpike was established. A wheeled vehicle as early as 1787 is known to have made a journey over its entire length.
By the summer of 1788 this first road was in passable condition. The State now took its improvement in charge. G. Gelston made a survey of it in August 1790, and during the next year Sluman Wattles did some work on it, his cousin, Nathaniel, having a contract with the State for the work. In 1792, Solomon Martin drove a yoke of oxen over it to Catskill and back, taking fifteen days, which meant an average of six miles a day. The road was only twenty-five feet wide. In the same year a regular weekly mail route was established over it from the Hudson to the Susquehanna.
A State road that dates from 1790, led from Unadilla by the Susquehanna and Charlotte to Schoharie Flats. In that year Sluman Wattles reported to State officials that it was worth £12 per mile “to clear out and make this road.” It became an important highway to the settlers.
To about the same period belongs the building of Main Street in Unadilla village, which was extended westward to the Unadilla River. The survey was made by Nathaniel Lock of Westchester County. The original map made by him may still be seen in Albany. In December 1791, a certificate, signed by Solomon Martin, David Baits, Israel Smith, Elijah Heyden, Nathaniel Lock and other “inhabitants of the Ouleout and Unadilla”, declared that this road had been completed agreeable to Lock’s map by Benjamin Hovey[9] and John Massereau. The signers added that “said road had been amended so that loaded ox teams or carts can pass and repass the whole distance with ease.” Originally the road in Unadilla village ran closer to the river. It was several times altered and once at the instance of Solomon Martin, to whom credit is given for the obtuse angle formed near the Post Office.
Solomon Martin and others certified in 1791 that they had completed a road from the Unadilla to the Chenango River. A road also had been opened down the Susquehanna, where were many settlements, and at Windsor in 1791 one had been started across the hills to Cookoze (Deposit) on the Delaware “to serve”, says Lincklaen, “to transport commodities to the Philadelphia market.” By 1794, a road ran all the way over to Carr’s Creek from the Ouleout, beginning at a point near the stone house on the W. J. Hughston farm. It had been begun somewhat earlier. In that year a bridge was constructed across Carr’s Creek, Sluman Wattles charging 8 shillings for one day’s work on it.
For the records of later road building we must turn to the town archives instead of the State. In 1796, there was made “a return of a highway, laid out through the town of Unadilla, beginning at Abner Griffith’s on the river and running north to the Sand Hill Creek where the patent line crosses; then crossing the creek; thence northerly through lot number 119 until it runs twenty-five rods on the lot of Elisha Lathrop”, from whence it proceeded to the north line of the town. These records show how early the Sand Hill and Hampshire Hollow parts of the town were settled.
The northern central parts of the town were at first approached from the Unadilla River and the Butternut Creek. Earliest among records concerning a road running directly north from the village is “a return for an alteration of a road beginning near Captain Solomon Martin’s on the line between him and Daniel Bissell and running on said line northerly as far as the land will permit.” This return is dated May 10th, 1796; but there is nothing to show anything further in connection with such a road. The present Martin Brook road through to the north part of the town from Martin’s saw mill, was not opened until nearly fifty years after the date of this paper.