The History of Cayuga County 1789-1879 page 35
First Settlements - General Topography

town of Ledyard, and the first general election in the town of Whitestown, was held at the Cayuga Ferry. If the voters residing as far east as Utica came to Cayuga to vote, traversing over eighty miles of forest roads, they paid a full equivalent for the right.

The first settlement* within the present limits of Cayuga County was made in 1789, and the subsequent influx of emigrants into the County was very rapid. In 1800, twelve years after the first settler had fixed his home here, Cayuga County had 15,097 inhabitants, the accessions thus averaging for eleven years, over 1,200 per year ; while Onondaga had then but 7,698.

The tendency of early emigration was, therefore, to the "lake region," the reputation of which for health and fertility, had been widely circulated by the officers and soldiers of Sullivan's army,** whose reports were confirmed by the subsequent surveyors and land seekers.

SITUATION. - Geographically this County lies about equi-distant from Albany on the east and Buffalo on the west. It is the easternmost of the lake counties, having Skaneateles Lake on its eastern boundary, Owasco Lake in the interior, and Cayuga Lake upon the west, with Lake Ontario on its northern boundary; the counties of Oswego, Onondaga and Cortland, bound it on the east, Tompkins on the south, and Seneca and Wayne on the west. It extends from north to south a distance of 55 miles, with an average breadth of about 14 miles, embracing an area of 760 square miles, exclusive of 160 square miles of the waters of Lake Ontario, or 486,400 acres.

GENERAL TOPOGRAPHY OF THE COUNTY.

The inclination and drainage of the County is in a general northerly direction ; the table lands near the center of the town of Scipio, being the source of the principal streams which flow southerly through the towns of Venice and Genoa; but, with this exception, and a part of Sempronius and Summer Hill, the waters of the county are discharged into Lake Ontario.

SURFACE.- The surface of the county is, generally, susceptible of easy cultivation, being either flat, or its ascents gradual. The hills that border the valleys of the Salmon creeks in the towns of Venice and Genoa, and those in Niles, Moravia, Locke, Summer Hill and Sempronius, form the principal exceptions, the comparative elevations of which will be given in the " topography of the towns."

LAKES.- Lake Ontario, lying on the extreme northern boundary of the County; is 130 miles long and 55 miles wide. It is 232 feet above tide-water, and its greatest depth is 600 feet. The only harbor on this lake in the county, is Little Sodus, elsewhere fully described.***

The surface of this lake, as also of our other great lakes, is subject to variations of level, that of Lake Ontario varying about four and three-fourths feet between the extremes, and the period of variation extends through several years, caused, it is believed, by long prevailing winds and unequal amounts of rain and evaporation. Sudden and unaccountable variations of several feet in the level of the surface of this lake, have, at different times occurred and given rise to much speculation as to the cause.

Cayuga Lake, on the south-western border of the County is 387 feet above tide, 40 miles long, and at and above Aurora, exceeds three miles in width. Owasco is 770 feet above tide, has an extreme width of one and one-fourth miles and a length of ten and three-fourths miles. This lake receives the drainage of the eastern parts of the towns of Fleming, Scipio, Venice and Genoa, the whole of the surface of Moravia and Locke, the north-western part of Summer Hill, nearly two-thirds of Sempronius, and fully three-fourths of the town of Niles, the entire surface drained into the lake, being over 100,000 acres.

Cross Lake, about five miles in length by one mile in breadth, is formed by the discharge of Seneca river into a shallow basin, out of which it flows, the lake receiving little other drainage. A large swamp borders this lake on the west, and another on the north.

Besides these larger lakes, there are Duck Lake and Mud Pond in the north-western part of Con-

*Roswell Franklin, from Wyoming, was the first settler, locating at Aurora, in 1789. He had been in the battle of Wyoming, in which his wife was killed and one of his children taken captive by the Indians. He is said to have been so much depressed by his misfortunes, as to lead him to self destruction.

**In the first address upon the subject of agriculture delivered in this County before an Agricultural Society, by Humphrey Howland, he stated that Sullivan's soldiers, in 1779, while destroying the immense mass of corn which they found growing and ripened, or ripening, in the Genesee Valley, were so impressed by the size and perfection of the ears, that they carried samples of them to their homes in their knapsacks, and thus widely advertised the fertility of the region.

*** See History of the town of Sterling.

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