Tompkins County History
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Shaped by its geography, climate and people
Tompkins County has been shaped by its land and the people who came here to live on it. It is an area of great natural beauty with Cayuga Lake at its center and gorges, creeks and hills all around. Its geography and climate have challenged those who lived and worked here, but they have also presented opportunities and spurred creative solutions.
The first inhabitants were hunters who came here following the game some 13,000 years ago. These Paleo-Indians hunted, fished and gathered nuts and berries to supplement their diet when food was scarce. They left few traces on the land— no villages or fortifications, only tools and bones and grave goods. They were followed by other peoples who cultivated the earth and built villages near their fields, among them the Iroquois, the people of the longhouse. The Five Nations—Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk—joined together in 1450 A. D. in a peaceful confederacy that grew, survived and still endures.
Early European explorers wrote about the wonders of this place and the peoples who lived here; Jesuit missionaries came to convert the natives. But little changed until the American Revolution when George Washington sent an army under Generals Sullivan and Clinton to drive the hostile Indians from their lands, to burn their villages and crops, to destroy their orchards and leave them facing the oncoming winter with nothing to sustain them except the mercies of their British allies.
After the war ended, some of the soldiers returned to take up the land they earned for their military service. The lot numbers of the Military Tract still identify parcel of land in the northern half of the county and many of the roads still follow the lines of division. In the late 1780s until the end of the century, small groups of settlers straggled in from Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the Hudson Valley in New York. They traveled by water whenever possible or cut roads from Indian trails. They cleared forests, built cabins, and planted crops. Streams and waterfalls were harnessed to turn gristmills and sawmills, to power factories and distilleries. Settlements became villages and were named for their settlers at first, later assuming more classical trappings. One of these was Ithaca, named by Simeon DeWitt, the Surveyor General of New York, who mapped the area, laid out the downtown streets, and owned most of the land on which the village grew.
And grow it did, from a handful of cabins near Cascadilla Falls to a thriving settlement. In 1817 Ithaca built a courthouse and so became the seat of the newly organized Tompkins County. By the 1830s it boasted stagecoach service, turnpikes, steamboats, a railroad, and a grand hotel—the Clinton House. It seemed that it would become a great inland city, connected by rail, by roads, and by canals to the markets of the east. The panic of 1837 put an end to those dreams and recovery was slow throughout the 1840s.
After the Civil War, inventors built shops and factories, industrializing the county. Cornell University was chartered in 1868 as a curious blend of land grant and private colleges. When it opened high atop East Hill it forever changed the nature of Tompkins County, bringing the world to this community, improving the farming practices, enhancing the economy and enriching the educational opportunities of all the people. Ithaca College opened downtown in 1892 as a conservatory of music, continuing a long-standing tradition of music in the community.
With a major university and two colleges, the permanent and transient population is infused with international flavor. Artists, musicians, writers, artisans, and performers enrich our communities. Diverse opinions and perspectives combine with innovative solutions to make this an interesting place to live. When older industries closed or downsized in the 1980s, new high tech companies arose in their stead. And the beauty of the land and the waters endures, refreshing the souls of local residents and attracting visitors from all over.