Utica Area

Situated on the important Mohawk Valley route between the Hudson River and the Great Lakes, the Utica area has long been a travel crossroads where Indian trails converged and Fort Schuyler was built in 1758. The community that grew around the fort's ruins became the village of Utica in 1798. During the American Revolution, patriot militia under General Nicholas Herkimer at Oriskany on August 6, 1777, halted a British invasion and compelled the British to raise the siege of Fort Stanwix at Rome, though Tories and Indians raided Mohawk Valley communities until 1781. After peace, land speculators reopened the area to settlement. At Rome in 1817, Governor De Witt Clinton began construction of the Erie Canal, completed in 1825. The canal, its Chenango branch to Binghamton in 1836, and railroad service in 1837 increased Utica's importance as a transportation center, and the area prospered. Industrial production began early with textile mills along Sauquoit and Oriskany Creeks, Eliphalet Remington pioneered firearms manufacturing at Ilion, Rome became known for iron, copper, and brass works, and later makers of electrical and electronic equipment replaced textile factories while fertile farmlands continued to provide dairy products.

Westmoreland, New York · United States