(In other words, the wrist-bands were put up as security for the debt.)
Six miles north of Fonda is Johnstown (Pop. 10,908) where Sir William
Johnson built his second residence (1762) now in the custody of the
Johnstown Historical Society. It is a fine old baronial mansion.
Sir William called this residence Johnson Hall and lived here
with all the state of an English country gentleman. He devoted
himself to colonizing his extensive lands and is said to have
been the first to introduce sheep and pedigreed horses into the
province.
Sir William also built the Fulton County Court House with its jail
(1772), used during the Revolutionary War as a civil and military
prison. A free school, probably the first in N.Y. State, was established
at Johnstown by Sir William Johnson in 1764 in his residence. In 1766 he
organized a Masonic Lodge, one of the oldest in the U.S. In 1781, during
the War of Independence, Col. Marinus Willett defeated here a force of
British and Indians. The city is one of the principal glove making
centers in the U.S. The total products are valued at about $3,000,000
annually. The manufacture of gloves in commercial quantities was
introduced into the U.S. at Johnstown in 1809 by Talmadge Edwards, who
was buried here in the Colonial Cemetery.
[Illustration: Old Ft. Van Rensselaer at Canajoharie (Built 1749)
This building had originally been the home of Martin Janse Van
Alstyn, and was so well built that it had withstood the attacks of
the Indians under Brant in 1780. It was therefore appropriated in
1781 by the American government, adopted as a fort, and placed under
the control of Col. Marinus Willet, a competent officer chosen by
Washington to handle the district in which Ft. Van Rensselaer and
Ft. Plain were the military headquarters. (Still standing.)]
197 M. CANAJOHARIE (Palatine Bridge), Pop. 2,415. (Train 51 passes
12:40p; No. 3, 1:39p; No. 41, 5:55p; No. 25, 7:43p; No. 19, 10:20p.
Eastbound: No. 6 passes 4:42a; No. 26, 5:45a; No. 16, 10:44a; No. 22
12:36p.)
Passing the villages of Yosts and Sprakers we arrive in the town of
Canajoharie, which in early days was the site of the upper Mohawk
castle.
The upper Mohawk castle, sometimes called Ft. Canajoharie, was
described by an early writer as consisting of "a square of 4
bastions of upright pickets joined with lintels 15 ft. high and
about 1 ft. square, with port-holes, and a stage all around to
fire from. The fort was 100 paces on each side, had small cannon
in its bastions, and houses to serve as a store and barracks.
Five or 6 families of Mohawks reside outside the pickets. From
Ft. Canajoharie to Ft. Hunter (the lower Mohawk castle) is about
twelve league, with a good carriage road along the bank of the
river."
In 1749 a fortified dwelling was built here known as Ft. Rensselaer,
which was utilized as a place of defence during the Revolutionary War.
Canajoharie was the home of the famous Indian leader, Joseph Brant.
On the left, a little beyond Palatine Bridge, can be seen the red brick
Herkimer mansion, near which a monument has been erected to Nicholas
Herkimer, who died in 1777 from wounds received at Oriskany. We pass the
village of Ft. Plain, St. Johnsville and East Creek.
216 M. LITTLE FALLS, Pop. 13,029. (Train 51 passes 12:58p; No. 6, 1:59p;
No. 41, 6:17p; No. 25, 7:14p; No. 19, 10:39p. Eastbound: No. 6 passes
4:22a; No. 26, 4:55a; No. 16, 10:22a; No. 22, 12:16p.)
Our route here lies through a ravine cut by the Mohawk River through a
spur of the Adirondack Mts. The town is picturesquely situated on the
sides of the gorge overlooking the rapids and falls. The Mohawk here
descends 45 ft. in 1/2 M.
In the gorge, there are crystalline rocks which are of interest as
belonging to the Laurentian formation, the oldest rock formation on the
face of the globe.
According to geological classification, these rocks belong to the
Archaean system. They represent formations of the very earliest
period of the earth's history--probably before there was any
animal or vegetable life whatsoever. The Archaean rocks have
sometimes been spoken of as the original crust of the earth, but
this is disputed by many geologists.
Little Falls dates from about 1750. In 1782 there was an influx of
German settlers into the village, and almost immediately thereafter the
town was destroyed by Indians and "Tories.". It was resettled in 1790.
Two and a half miles east of the town was the boyhood home of Gen.
Nicholas Herkimer.
Gen. Herkimer (1728-1777) was the son of John Jost Herkimer (d.
1775), one of the original group of German settlers in this
section of the Mohawk Valley. Gen. Herkimer was colonel of the
Tyrone County Militia in 1775, and was made brigadier general of
the state militia in 1776. He was mortally wounded at the battle
of Oriskany.
It is planned to establish an Historical Museum at the old Herkimer
homestead. Near the city is the grave of Gen. Herkimer, to whom a
monument was erected in 1896.
The water power derived from the falls has stimulated manufacturing in
the city; its output includes cotton yarns, hosiery, knit goods,
leather, etc., valued at $15,000,000 annually. The city is one of the
largest cheese markets in the U.S.
[Illustration: Fort Plain (1777)
(_From an old print in the N.Y. Public Library_)
This was built in place of another unsatisfactory fort by the
American government early in the Revolution, and was designed by
an experienced French engineer. "As a piece of architecture, it
was well wrought and neatly finished and surpassed all the forts
in that region."]
223 M. HERKIMER, Pop. 10,453. (Train 51 passes 1:07p; No. 3, 2:06p; No.
41, 6:25p; No. 25, 7:22p; No. 19, 10:47p. Eastbound: No. 6 passes 4:15a;
No. 26, 4:49a; No. 16, 10:12a; No. 22, 12:08p.)
Herkimer was settled about 1725 by Palatine Germans, who bought from the
Mohawk Indians a large tract of land, including the present site of the
village. They established several settlements which became known
collectively as "German Flats."
These settlers came from the Palatinate, a province of the
kingdom of Bavaria, lying west of the Rhine. The district had
been torn by a succession of wars, culminating in the carnage
wrought by the French in 1707. In the following year, more than
13,000 Palatines emigrated to America, settling first on the
Livingston Manor, and later along the Mohawk and elsewhere.
In 1756 a stone house (built in 1740 by John Jost Herkimer), a stone
church, and other buildings, standing within what is now Herkimer
Village, were enclosed in a stockade by Sir William Johnson. This post,
at first known as Ft. Kouari (the Indian name), was subsequently called
Ft. Herkimer. Another fort (Ft. Dayton) was built within the limits of
the present village in 1776 by Col. Elias Dayton (1737-1807), who later
became a brigadier-general and served in Congress in 1787-1788. During
the French and Indian War the settlement was attacked (Nov. 12, 1757)
and practically destroyed, many of the settlers being killed or taken
prisoners; and it was again attacked on April 30, 1758. In the War of
Independence, Gen. Herkimer assembled here the force which on Aug. 6th,
1777, was ambushed near Oriskany on its march from Ft. Dayton to the
relief of Ft. Schuyler. The settlement was again attacked by Indians and
"Tories" in Sept. 1778, and still again in June, 1782. The township of
Herkimer was organized in 1788, and in 1807 the village was
incorporated. Herkimer is situated in a rich dairying region and has
manufactures with an output of $4,000,000 annually.
225 M. ILION, Pop. 10,169. (Train 51 passes 1:10p; No. 3, 2:10p; No. 41,
6:29p; No. 25, 7:25p; No. 19, 10:51p. Eastbound: No. 6 passes 4:12a; No.
26, 4:46a; No. 16, 10:07a; No. 22, 12:05p.)
This village, the main part of which is situated on the south bank of
the Mohawk, owed its origin to a settlement made here in 1725 by
Palatine Germans, but the village as such really dates from the
completion of the Erie Canal in 1825. In 1828 Eliphalet Remington
(1793-1861) established here a small factory for the manufacture of
rifles. He invented, and with the assistance of his sons, Philo, Samuel
and Eliphalet, improved the famous Remington rifle.
In 1856 the company added to its business the manufacture of farming
tools, in 1870 of sewing machines and in 1874 of typewriters. The
last-named industry was sold to another company in 1886, and soon
afterwards, on the failure of the original Remington company, the fire
arms factory was bought by a N.Y.C. firm, though the Remington name was
retained. The spot where Eliphalet had his primitive forge on the Ilion
gorge road, just south of the town, is marked by a tablet placed there
by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The principal manufactures
today are typewriters, fire-arms, cartridges, and filing cabinets and
office furniture. The annual output is valued at about $10,000,000.
237 M. UTICA, Pop. 94,156. (Train 51 passes 1:22p; No. 3, 2:31p; No.
41, 6:42p; No. 25, 7:41p; No. 19, 11:08p. Eastbound: No. 6 passes 3:57a;
No. 26, 4:31a; No. 16, 9:53; No. 22, 11:50a.)
[Illustration: Washington and Genesee Streets, Utica, in 1835
Washington Street, with the Presbyterian Church, is seen on the
left; the bridge across the Erie Canal is seen on the right, down
Genesee Street, and at its extremity the depot of the Utica and
Schenectady (now the New York Central) Railroad then recently
built.]
The territory on which Utica is built was originally part of the 22,000
acre tract granted in 1734 by George II. to William Cosby (1695-1736),
colonial governor of New York in 1732-36, and his associates. It was
then known as Cosby's Manor.
Sir William Cosby served originally as colonel in the British
army, then, after being governor of Minorca and later of the
Leeward Islands, he was sent to New York. Before leaving England,
he obtained a good deal of money for colonizing expenses, and his
refusal to share this with Van Dam, his predecessor and
colleague, gave rise to a law suit between the two which came to
nothing but was the cause of much bitterness between Cosby and
his friends on the one hand, and Van Dam and the people's party
on the other. His administration was turbulent and unpopular. The
grant made to Cosby was one of a number of colonizing ventures
made by the British government during this period.
During the Seven Years' War a palisaded fort was erected on the south
bank of the Mohawk at the ford where Utica later sprang up. It was named
Ft. Schuyler in honor of Col. Peter Schuyler, an uncle of Gen. Philip
Schuyler of the Continental Army.
This should not be confused with the fort of the same name at
Rome which was built later. In order to distinguish the two, the
fort at Utica is often referred to as Old Ft. Schuyler.
The main trail of the Iroquois which became later the most used route to
the western country, crossed the Mohawk here and continued to Ft.
Stanwix, now Rome. A branch trail turned slightly to the southwest, then
more directly west to Oneida Castle. Cosby's Manor was sold at a
sheriff's sale for arrears of rent in 1792 and was bid in by Gen. Philip
Schuyler, Gen. John Bradstreet, John Morin Scott and others for L1387
(about 15 cents an acre). The first bridge across the Mohawk at Utica
was built in 1792. Soon after the close of the War of Independence, a
large number of new settlers arrived, most of them Germans from the
lower Mohawk Valley. About 1788 there was an influx of New Englanders,
among whom was Peter Smith (1768-1837), later a partner of John Jacob
Astor, and father of Gerrit Smith, a political and religious radical,
who was born here in 1797.
After graduating from Hamilton College in 1818, Gerrit Smith
(1797-1874) assumed the management of the vast estate of his
father, and greatly increased the family fortune, but he soon
turned his attention to reform and philanthropy. He first became
an active temperance worker, and then, after seeing an
anti-slavery meeting at Utica broken up by a mob, took up the
cause of abolition. He was one of the leading organizers of the
Liberty party (1840), and later was nominated for president by
various reform parties, notably the Free Soil Party (1848 &
1852). He was likewise the candidate of the anti-slavery party
for governor of New York in 1840 and 1858. In 1853 he was elected
to Congress as an independent, whereupon he issued an address
declaring that all men have an equal right to the soil; that wars
are brutal and unnecessary; that slavery could not be sanctioned
by any constitution, state or federal; that free trade is
essential to human brotherhood; that women should have full
political rights, and that alcoholic liquors should be prohibited
by state and federal enactments. He resigned at the end of his
first session and gave away numerous farms of 50 acres each to
indigent families; attempted to colonize tracts in Northern N.Y.
with free negroes; assisted fugitive slaves to escape--Peterboro,
his home village, 22 miles southwest of Utica, became a station
on the "Underground railroad"--and established a nonsectarian
church, open to all Christians of whatever shade of belief, in
Peterboro. He was an intimate friend of John Brown of Osawatomie,
to whom he gave a farm in Essex County. His total benefactions
probably exceeded $8,000,000.
Utica is situated on ground rising gradually from the river. There are
many fine business and public buildings, especially on Genesee St., the
principal thoroughfare, and the city is known for the number of its
institutions, public and private. It has some fine parks. In the Forest
Hill Cemetery are the graves of Horatio Seymour and Roscoe Conkling.
Horatio Seymour (1810-1886) was a member of the N.Y. Assembly
(1842-1845), Mayor of Utica (1843) and Governor of the State
(1854-1855). In 1854 he vetoed a bill prohibiting intoxicating
liquors in the state. In 1863-1865 he was again governor and
opposed Lincoln's policy in respect to emancipation, military
arrests and conscription. He was nominated as the Democratic
presidential candidate against Grant in 1868, but carried only
eight states. He died at Utica at the home of his sister, who was
the wife of Roscoe Conkling.
Roscoe Conkling (1829-1888) was a lawyer and political leader
who attracted attention in public life because of his keenness
and eloquence in debate, his aggressive leadership, and his
striking personality. He was born in Albany and was admitted to
the bar at Utica in 1850. Having joined the Republican party at
the time of its formation, he served for several years as
representative in Congress, and in 1867 was elected senator from
N.Y. He labored for the impeachment of President Johnson and was
one of the senatorial coterie that influenced Grant. He was
disappointed in his ambition to be nominated for president in
1876, and in 1880 he was one of the leaders of the unsuccessful
movement to nominate Grant for a third presidential term.
Here also is the famous Oneida stone of the Oneida Indians on which the
warriors used to have their ears slit to prepare them for battle, and on
which, too, they used to place the scalps of their enemies. The stone
was brought here from Oneida Castle.
Utica has varied and extensive manufactures (17,000 employees), with a
total annual output of about $60,000,000. Among its products are hosiery
and knit goods, cotton goods, men's clothing, foundry products, plumbing
and heating apparatus lumber products, food preparation, boots and
shoes, and brick, tile and pottery, as well as a number of others. Utica
is the shipping point for a rich agricultural region, from which are
shipped dairy products (especially cheese), nursery products, flowers
(especially roses), small fruits and vegetables, honey and hops.
We pass on the right, a short distance north of the river, the
picturesque Deerfield Hills, a beginning of the scenic highlands which
stretch away towards the Adirondack Mts. Fifteen miles north of Utica on
West Canada Creek, are Trenton Falls,* which descend 312 feet in two
miles through a sandstone chasm, in a series of cataracts, some of them
having an 80-foot fall. The falls are reached on the branch line of the
New York Central leading from Utica to the Adirondacks.
[Illustration: North America as It Was Known in 1768
This map was first printed in the First Edition of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1768. Note that all of Canada west of
Hudson's Bay (including Alaska) and a section of the United
States west of Lake Superior and as far south as the present
states of South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon were then
"Parts Undiscovered." The central part of the continent was New
France, and the extreme southwest was New Spain. Considering the
meagre geographical knowledge of the day, the map was remarkably
accurate.]
244 M. ORISKANY, Pop. 1,101. (Train 51 passes 1:30p; No. 3, 2:39p; No.
41, 6:56p; No. 25, 7:49p; No. 25, 11:17p. Eastbound No. 6 passes 3:36a;
No. 26, 4:21a; No. 16, 9:36a; No. 22, 11:32a.)
The battle of Oriskany, an important minor engagement of the
Revolutionary War, was fought in a little ravine about 2 M. west of
Oriskany, Aug. 6, 1777. Two days before, Gen. Nicholas Herkimer had
gathered about 800 militiamen at Ft. Dayton (on the site of the present
city of Herkimer) for the relief of Ft. Schuyler which was being
besieged by British and Indians under Col. Barry St. Leger and Joseph
Brant. On the 6th, Herkimer's force, on its march to Ft. Schuyler, was
ambushed by a force of 650 British under Sir John Johnson and 800
Indians under Joseph Brant, in the ravine west of the village. The rear
portion of Herkimer's troops escaped from the trap, but were pursued by
the Indians, and many of them were overtaken and killed. Between the
remainder and the British and Indians there was a desperate hand-to-hand
conflict, interrupted by a violent thunderstorm, with no quarter shown
by either side. About this time a sortie was made from Ft. Schuyler and
the British withdrew, after about 200 Americans had been killed and as
many taken prisoner. The loss of the British was about the same. Gen.
Herkimer, though his leg had been broken by a shot at the beginning of
the action, continued to direct the fighting on the American side, but
died on Aug. 16 as a result of the clumsy amputation of his leg.
Before the engagement, Gen. Herkimer, realizing that the British
had a superior force, pleaded for delay, hoping for a signal that
the American forces at Ft. Schuyler were ready to co-operate in
the battle. His subordinate officers, however, retorted that they
"came to fight, not to see others fight" and finally accused
Herkimer of being a "Tory and a coward." Gen. Herkimer,
thoroughly enraged, gave the order to march.
The battle, though indecisive, had an important influence in preventing
St. Leger from effecting a junction with Gen. Burgoyne, which would have
materially assisted the latter's intention to cut off New England from
the rest of the colonies. An obelisk on the hill to the left marks the
spot where the battle took place.
251 M. ROME. Pop. 26,341. (Train 51 passes 1:37p; No. 3, 2:47p; No. 41,
7:07p; No. 25, 7:57p; No. 19, 11:23p. Eastbound: No. 6 passes 3:28a; No.
26, 4:15a; No. 16, 9:28a; No. 22, 11:24a.)
The portage at this place, between the Mohawk River and Wood Creek (to
the northwest), which are about a mile apart, gave the site its Indian
name, De-i-wain-sta, "place where canoes are carried from one stream to
another," and its earliest English name, "The Great (or Oneida) Carrying
Place." Its location made it of strategic value as a key between the
Mohawk Valley and Lake Ontario. Wood Creek flows into Oneida Lake, and
thus formed part of a nearly continuous waterway from the Hudson to the
Great Lakes. Two primitive forts were built in 1725 to protect the
carrying place, but these were superseded by Ft. Stanwix, erected about
1760 by Gen. John Stanwix, at an expense of L60,000. The first permanent
settlement dates from this time. In Oct. and Nov. of 1768, Sir William
Johnson and representatives of Virginia and Pennsylvania met 3,200
Indians of the Six Nations here and made a treaty with them, under
which, for L10,460 in money and provisions, they surrendered to the
crown their claims to what is now Kentucky, West Virginia and the
western part of Pennsylvania.
This treaty, the last great act of Sir William Johnson, probably
averted another Indian war. Great preparations were made for
feasting the Indians who attended the council. It is said that 60
barrels of flour, 50 barrels of port, 6 barrels of rice and 70
barrels of other provisions were sent to the meeting place. There
was a prolonged period of speech making, but the treaty was
finally signed on Nov. 5, 1768. One of the features of this
treaty was the sale to Thomas Penn (1702-1775) and Richard Penn
(1706-1771), second and third sons of William Penn (founder of
Pa.), of the remaining land in the province of Pa., to which they
claimed title. This transaction involved L2,000 of the total
payment made to the Indians.
The fort was immediately dismantled, but was repaired by the
Continentals after 1776 and renamed Ft. Schuyler, in honor of Gen.
Philip Schuyler and so is sometimes confused with Old Ft. Schuyler at
Utica. The 3rd Regiment of New York line troops under Col. Peter
Gansevoort, occupied the fort in 1777. The first U.S. flag made
according to the law of June 14, 1777, was raised over Ft. Schuyler on
Aug. 3rd of that same year, one month before the official announcement
by Congress of the design of the flag, and was almost immediately used
in action. The first fight under the colors was the battle of Oriskany
in which the soldiers of the fort became involved.
The basic idea of the present flag was evolved by a committee
composed of George Washington, Robert Morris, and Col. George
Ross with the assistance of Betsy Ross. The flag made by Mrs.
Ross, though it is sometimes referred to as the first U.S. flag,
was actually prepared as a tentative design or pattern for
submission to Congress. On the 14th of June, 1777, Congress
resolved "that the flag of the U.S. be thirteen stripes,
alternates red and white, that the Union be thirteen stars, white
in a blue field, representing a new constellation." This was the
original of the national flag. The flag at Ft. Stanwix was a
hasty makeshift put together under direction of Col. Marinus
Willet, who found it difficult to obtain materials because the
fort was hemmed in by the British. In his diary Col. Willet
relates that "white stripes were cut out of an ammunition shirt;
the blue out of a camlet cloak taken from the enemy at Peekskill,
while the red stripes were made of different pieces of stuff
procured from one and another of the garrison."
After the War of Independence, three commissioners for the U.S. made a
new treaty with the chiefs of the Six Nations at Ft. Schuyler (1784). In
1796 a canal was built across the old portage between Wood Creek and the
Mohawk. In the same year the township of Rome was formed, receiving its
name, says Schoolcraft, "from the heroic defence of the republic made
here." The country surrounding Rome is devoted largely to farming,
especially vegetables, gardening and to dairying. Among the manufactures
are brass and copper products, wire for electrical uses, foundry and
machine-shop products, locomotives, knit goods, tin cans and canned
goods (especially vegetables).
264 M. ONEIDA, Pop. 10,541. (Train 51 passes 1:53p; No. 3, 3:05p; No.
41, 7:25p; No. 25, 8:12p; No. 19, 11:42p. Eastbound: No. 6 passes 3:15a;
No. 26, 4:02a; No. 16, 9:11a; No. 22, 11:10a.)
The city of Oneida is comparatively modern, but the village of Oneida
Castle across the river to the south dates back to the time when this
was the chief settlement of the Oneida Indians, who moved here about
1600 from the site of what is now Stockbridge in the same county.
The name Oneida is a corruption of the name Oneyotka-ono or
"people of Stone," in allusion to the Oneida stone, a granite
boulder near Oneida Castle which was held sacred by this tribe of
the Iroquois. An early traveler who visited the castle in 1677
wrote that the "Onyades have but one town, doubly stockaded, of
about one hundred houses." The rest of the tribe lived around
Oneida Lake, in the region southward to the Susquehanna. They
were not loyal to the Iroquois League's policy of friendliness to
the English, but inclined towards the French, and were
practically the only Iroquois who fought for the Americans in the
War of Independence. As a consequence they were attacked by
others of the Iroquois under Joseph Brant and took refuge within
the American settlements till the war ended, when the majority
returned to their former home, while some migrated to the Thames
River district, Ontario. Early in the 19th century they sold
their lands, and most of them settled on a reservation at Green
Bay, Wis., some few remaining in N.Y. State. The tribe now
numbers more than 3,000, of whom about two-thirds are in
Wisconsin, a few hundred in N.Y. State and about 800 in Ontario.
They are civilized and prosperous.
[Illustration: Samuel de Champlain
Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635), born at the little port Brouage
in the Bay of Biscay, made his first trip to Canada in 1603, and
five years later established the first white settlement at Quebec.
In the spring he joined a war party of Algonquins and Hurons,
discovered the great lake that bears his name, and with his
arquebus took an important part in the victory which his savage
friends obtained over the Iroquois. In 1615, with another
expedition of Indians, he crossed the eastern ends of Lakes Huron
and Ontario and made a fierce but unsuccessful attack on an
Onondaga town near Lake Oneida. Parkman says: "In Champlain alone
was the life of New France. By instinct and temperament he was
more impelled to the adventurous toils of exploration than to the
duller task of building colonies. The profits of trade had value
in his eyes only as a means to these ends, and settlements were
important chiefly as a base of discovery. Two great objects
eclipsed all others--to find a route to the Indies and to bring
the heathen tribes into the embrace of the Church, since, while he
cared little for their bodies, his solicitude for their souls knew
no bounds."]
The history of the modern city of Oneida goes back to 1829, when the
present site was purchased by Sands Higinbotham, who is regarded as the
founder of the town and in honor of whom one of the municipal parks is
named. In the southeastern part of the city is the headquarters of the
Oneida Community, originally a communistic society but now a business
corporation, which controls important industries here, at Niagara Falls
and elsewhere.
The Oneida Community was founded in 1847 by John Humphrey Noyes
(1811-1866), and attracted wide interest because of its pecuniary
success and its peculiar religious and social principles. Noyes
was originally a clergyman, but broke away from orthodox religion
to found a sect of his own in Putney, Vt., where he lived. This
sect was known as the "Association of Perfectionists" and formed
the nucleus of the community which Noyes later established at
Oneida. The principles of the new community were based on the
idea that true Christianity was incompatible with individual
property, either in things or in persons. Consequently the new
community held all its property in common. Marriage in the
conventional sense of the word was abolished. The community was
much interested in the question of race improvement by scientific
means, and maintained that at least as much scientific attention
should be given to the physical improvement of human beings as is
given to the improvement of domestic animals. The members claimed
to have solved among themselves the labor question by regarding
all kinds of service as equally honorable, and respecting every
person in accordance with the development of his character.
The members had some peculiarities of dress, mostly confined,
however, to the women, whose costumes included a short dress and
pantalets, which were appreciated for their convenience if not
for their beauty. The women also adopted the practice of wearing
short hair, which it was claimed saved time and vanity. Tobacco,
intoxicants, profanity, obscenity, found no place in the
community. The diet consisted largely of vegetables and fruits,
while meat, tea and coffee were served only occasionally.
For good order and the improvement of the members, the community
placed much reliance upon a very peculiar system of plain
speaking they termed mutual criticism. Under Mr. Noyes'
supervision it became in the Oneida Community a principal means
of discipline and government.
The community had its first financial success when it undertook
the manufacture of a steel trap invented by one of its members.
Later the community engaged in a number of other enterprises,
both agricultural and manufacturing. In the meantime they were
subjected to bitter attacks on account of the radical beliefs of
its members, especially regarding marriage. Noyes, the founder,
recognized that in deference to public opinion it would be
necessary to recede from their social principles, and accordingly
the community was transformed into a commercial corporation in
1881.
Among the manufactures of Oneida are furniture, silver-plated ware,
engines and machinery, pulley, steel vaults and hosiery. About 6 M. to
the northwest is Oneida Lake, a small lake of considerable beauty, 18 M.
long and 5 M. wide.