The History of Cayuga County 1789-1879 page 390
OWASCO VILLAGE--CHURCHES/ TOWN OF LEDYARD

ilton Perkins in the spring of 1875, and employs two persons.

Owasco was the home of the late Enos T. Throop, who spent the latter years of his life in his beautiful retreat on Willow Brook at the foot of the Owasco, and busied himself in agricultural and hoticultural pursuits and in entertaining with his accustomed hospitality the numerous friends, who delighted to honor him for his personal worth and past public services.

CHAPTER XLV.
TOWN OF LEDYARD.

LEDYARD was formed from Scipio January 30th, 1823, and derives its name from Gen. Benjamin Ledyard, an early settler in the town, and agent and clerk for the apportionment of lands in the Military Tract. It lies upon the east shore of Cayuga Lake, which forms its western boundary, south of the center of the County. Its length from north to south is ten miles, and its mean width, about five miles. It is bounded on the north by Springport, from which it is separated about five-sixths of the distance by Great Gully Brook, on the east by Scipio and Venice, and on the south by Genoa.

The surface is beautifully diversified, its landscapes, however, presenting less of the grand and sublime in nature than of its quiet beauty. It inclines towards the lake, from which it slopes upward, generally by gentle, but occasionally by steep graduations, until it attains an elevation a little east of the east border of 500 to 600 feet above its level. It is difficult to conceive of more charming prospects than are disclosed by the successive approaches to this summit ridge. The streams are small and rapid, the principal ones being Great Gully, on the north border, and Paines Creek in the south, flowing through a deep, narrow ravine worn in the shale rock.

It has a limestone soil of excellent quality. Limestone exists in boulders upon, and in a fine layer near the surface, but is nowhere quarried in the town. Clay predominates along the lake, extending back from it about a hundred rods, and over-lying a slate ledge, which terminates with more or less abruptness upon the shore. At the railroad cutting a little south of Levanna, is a bold slate bluff, about fifty feet at its highest elevation above the lake. In the interior the soil is an exceedingly fertile sandy loam, with considerable alluvion along the streams.

The Cayuga Lake shore R. R. extends through the west border in close proximity to the lake.

The population of this town in 1875 was 2,253; of whom 1.857 were native, 396 foreign, 2,165 white, and 88 colored. Its area was 20,889 acres; of which 18,342 were improved, 2,544 woodland, and only 3 otherwise unimproved.

Much interest naturally centers in this town from the fact that within its borders the first settlements in the County were made. The events immediately preceding and in some measure preparing the way for the settlement of this country are matters of historical record, but their intimate connection with the subject in hand seems to warrant a brief review of them.

Until 1789, this broad domain which now gives so many evidences of a highly cultured and refined civilization was the favorite hunting and fishing ground of the Cayugas, who were a nation proverbially noted for their fondness for and proficiency in the chase and aquatic sports; for although, according to common usage, they, as conquered allies of the British forces during the Revolution, had forfeited their territorial rights, they still pressed claims which both the State and Federal government generously recognized and respected by subsequent treaties. By a treaty held at Fort Stanwix (Rome,) October 22d, 1784, the Iroquois ceded to the Federal Government a large portion of the land in Western New York; and by a treaty concluded February 23d, 1789 at Isaac Denniston's tavern, Albany, which was known in Colonial days as the King's Arms, and stood on the north-west corner of Green and Norton streets, the Cayugas ceded to the State of New York all their lands, except 100 square miles, lying on both sides of Cayuga Lake, and extending from Aurora to Montezuma. They also reserved the right to hunt and fish in any part of the ceded territory. They also secured special grants to three persons, two white men and one Indian, one of 15,680 acres to Peter Ryckman, an Albany Dutchman, who had won their affection, and for whom they expressed their regard in the following quaint and simple language:

Return to the Index of The History of Cayuga County 1789-1879 by Elliott Storke
Return to the Cayuga County NYGenWeb Project Home Page