The History of Cayuga County 1789-1879 page 420
Town of Scipio/Early Settlements

in Scipio as pastor from 1794 to 1800, having received a call from the first Church in Aurelius, now Fleming, removed to Fleming and continued his pastorate of that Church till his death September 13th, 1815.

Olney moved on the farm vacated by Elder Irish, but removed west with his family a great many years ago. His children were Benjamin, Nathan, Hiram, Nathaniel and Elizabeth, afterwards wife of Eliakim Brown, none of whom are living. John O'Hara came from Saratoga county in 1794, and settled where his grandson, John, now lives.

Judge Seth Sherwood, from Vermont, settled about 1794 or '5, at the corners which perpetuate his name. He bought 200 acres and erected a log house. He soon after built a frame house, which stood on the site of S. W. Green's tailor shop, which was afterwards used as a tavern, and in the upper part of which, in 1804, the jail was established and the courts held one year.

Sherwood seems to have shared in common with other localities the ambition to be the County seat, and succeeded in its rival claims to the extent of being selected as such in 1804, by John Tillottson, Augustus Chidsey and John Grover, Jr., who were appointed commissioners to locate the County seat. But this distinction was of short duration. The other contestants could not accept this even as a compromise disposition of the matter; and Sherwood was shorn of its glory March 16th, 1805, when the law by which it was established was revoked, and Hon. Edward Savage of Washington county, Hon. James Burt of Orange county, both then State Senators, and Hon James Hildreth of Montgomery county, were appointed to select a new location. The jail was established in the east room; and the bars placed across its two windows, which faced the east, remained there till 1845, when the building was torn down. The bars were subsequently worked up into horseshoes.

Judge Sherwood's family consisted of his wife, (second, who was a sister of Dr. Bennett at the Half Acre,) and three children, Samuel, Seth and Mary, afterwards wife of Dr. Perley Kinney, who came in from Connecticut as early as 1797, and settled near Sherwood. His children by his second wife were, Belvia, afterwards wife of John Wood, Julia, afterwards wife of ---- Allen, William, Walter and Ira. The Judge died here in 1821, and his children moved west. John G. Allen, one of the victorious Cornell crew, in the contest with the Harvard crew on Owasco Lake, in June, 1878, is a grandson of Belvia's. Judge Sherwood was preceded in his settlement at that place, but a short time however, by a family named White, who located about a half a mile south-east of the Corners, and were the first settlers in that locality. White cleared about four acres, which remained surrounded by woods till within two years, and uncultivated from his death, a year or two after, till the spring of 1878, when Giles Slocum, who owned the contiguous lands, which he has been gradually denuding of their timber, having made an opening from the north, subjected it to the plow.

Noble Fuller and one or two brothers came in the spring of 1795 and settled at Gallups Corners, one and one-fourth miles south of Scipio Center. Further settlements were made in 1795 by Joel Coe, Benjamin Fordyce, Robert McCullum and Elisha Horton, the latter of whose sisters the former three married. They came from Chester, Morris county, N. J., by the usual water route, and arrived at Aurora the last of October or first of November. From Aurora they came by way of marked trees, the road having been surveyed, but not opened. Coe settled three-fourths of a mile north of Scipio Center, where Wm. Akin now lives. He took up a whole lot. He removed to Springport about 1820, and died there. Some of his grandchildren are living there. Coe's children were Joseph, Nathaniel, Mary, afterwards wife of David Bennett, Rachel, afterwards wife of Benj. Olney, and Huldah, widow of Walter Bennett, of Portage. The latter is the only one living.

Fordyce bought fifty acres of Elder Irish, his farm joining that of Coe's on the south. He immediately made a clearing, and erected a log house a little north of the residence of his son, Nathaniel H. Fordyce, his family remaining in the meantime with that of Noble Fuller. He died there March 1st, 1819. His family, when he came in, consisted of his wife Rebecca, and two children, John and Eunice, afterwards wife of Nathaniel Olney, Jr. Three children were born to them after coming here, viz: Benjamin, Nathaniel H. and Rebecca. Nathaniel H.,

The information on this page was transcribed to a digital format by Roger A. Post

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