UTICA, an inland town of the state of New York, in the county of Oneida, and nearly the geographical centre of the state. It is situated on an acclivity, gently rising from the south side of the Mohawk river, which has its sources in the northern part of Oneida, and the southern part of Lewis county. Its latitude is 43' 6' north, and its longitude 1° 41' east from the meridian of 'Wash ington. It was formerly called Old Port Schuyler, from a military post of that name established here to complete the chain of communication between Fort Stanwix, from which it was distant about six teen miles south east, and Schenectady. Fort Stanwix is particularly memorable on account of a siege it sustained during the revolutionary war, against General St. Leger with a combined force of British and Indians. It was in marching to the relief of this post that General Herkimer was drawn into an ambush in a ravine near Oriskany,t and defeated by Sir John Johnson with a party of Indians, Herkimer himself being amongst the slain. Fort Stanwix was a very important position, as it was at the head of the navigable waters of the Mohawk, and, by means of a portage of a mile to Wood Creek, afforded a ready communication, by Oneida Lake and the Oneida and Oswego rivers, with Fort Oswego; and by the Seneca River with the Cayuga and Seneca Lakes. Old Fort Schuyler was also the scene of several skirmishes between the Indians and the whites; the flats of the Mohawk, and the country adjoining, being the possession of the Mohawk tribe, who were acknowledged by the other tribes of the Maquas or Iroquois, to be the " true old heads of the confederacy." This tribe having remained faithful to the British throughout the revolution, finally forsook their town at Fort Hunter and removed to the province of Upper Canada, in 1730, under the auspices of Sir John Johnson.
That part of the valley of the Mohawk which lies within the present limits of Oneida county, is from one to five miles wide, the land being mostly a perfect level. It does not appear to have held out the usual temptations of such a country to the early Dutch settlers; for the first settlement west of Herkimer was made in the year 1784, by Hugh White, an emigrant from Middletown, in Con necticut. He erected a log habitation at the pre
sent village of Whitesborough, about four miles westward from Old Fort Schuyler, and in what was then known as the county of Montgomery, embracing the whole region west of the county of Albany. In two or three years after, the towns of Clinton and New Hartford were begun to be settled by emigrants from the eastern states; and, in the year 1789, John Post, Uriah Alverson, Stephen Potter, and others, formed a settlement at Old Fort Schuyler, the prosperity of which was soon determined by the laying out of a road through the extensive wilderness, from Canandaigua, " the Chosen Place," (now Canandaigua,) to the Mohawk. This road was opened in 1796, and intersected the river near Old Fort Schuyler. The settlement now increased rapidly, and two years afterwards it was incorporated as a village with its present name, Utica.
In 1798 the county of Oneida was set off, by the legislature of the state, from the extensive county of Herkimer, which, in earlier times, had been set off from the county of Montgomery; and it may be useful, before we proceed with the immediate sub ject of these remarks, to take a very brief general view of the statistics of Oneida, inasmuch as the importance of the town of Utica mainly depends upon the character and advantages of the country by which it is immediately surrounded.
The county of Oneida is bounded by the counties of Lewis,Herkimer, Otsego, Madison, and Oswego. It was early parcelled out to different proprietors, either by patents from the crown of England, or from the state of New York. A large tract was reserved for the residence of the Oneida tribe of Indians; and a portion on the Oneida creek was by them allotted to the Stockbridge and Brotherton tribes, who emigrated from Massachusetts for the purpose of being near a race of kindred habits and disposition. Most of these Indians have removed to the territory about Lake Michigan, and their lands have fallen either into the possession of the state, or of the holders of the right of preemption. The few that remain cultivate the land, and live like the lower classes of agriculturists in their neighbourhood.