Wyoming County History
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Lies within the “Grand Canyon of the East”
Wyoming County was created from Genesee in 1841, with the addition of three townships from Allegany County in 1846. It lies within the foothills of the Allegany Plateau of western New York, a source of several streams that have carved out ancient valleys since the last glacial age. Along a portion of its eastern boundary flows the Genesee River during its northward passage through the rock cliffs near Portageville. This historic and scenic region, once the homeland of the Senecas, now lies within Letchworth Park, known as the “Grand Canyon of the East”. Mary Jemison, famed White Woman of the Genesee, lived in Castile.
The name Wyoming is derived from a Delaware word M’chevewormink, meaning “extensive flats”. It was just used as a place name for the flats of the Susquehanna near Wilkes-Barre. While it does not apply too well to the terrain of Wyoming County, it had a pleasant sound to the ear of John B. Skinner, an early lawyer in the village of Wyoming. He persuaded the citizens of that community to adopt it as the name of their community and when the county was set off from Genesee, he again persuaded the new county to also use it.
It is a land of rolling hills, for the most part adapted for agriculture, especially dairying. The county is drained by several creeks flowing to the north and west and by the Genesee River on the south-eastern boundary. It has two, Silver Lake and Java Lake that afford recreational facilities.
Historically, Wyoming County was a part of the Holland Land Purchase, with the exception of its eastern tier of towns. The eastern transit line of the purchase separated these towns from the rest of the county. When the Holland Land Company acquired the land from Robert Morris, they undertook one of the most outstanding land surveys of their times under the direction of Joseph Ellicott. The entire area west of the east transit line was surveyed and divided into sections and lots. By 1802, the first settlers began to arrive. They found an unbroken forest to be cleared. These men and women of for the most part from New England, motivated by the lure of a more bountiful land. They cleared the forest, built mills and homes and established communities in what was once the Indian hunting ground. This was a frontier during the War of 1812, and suffered the privations that came with the remoteness from markets, the “Genesee Fever”, and the “Year Without a Summer” in 1816.
By the 1830’s and continuing on into the 20th Century people from Ireland, England, Belgium, Germany, Poland and Italy to Wyoming County, they found in the rich sod, friendly people and government, a home and a place in which to make a new start.
Forest products, such as lumber, ashes and maple sugar, and agriculture were the first sources of income. Grist, flour, saw, and cloth making mills, tanneries, distilleries, and wood-working industries drew power from the streams. Beginning about 1860, the region became a leading cheese center, and was once a major producer of fruit, wheat, and wool. Diversified farming with dairying predominant, continues. The Erie and Genesee Valley canals first carried surpluses to market; railroads began to develop in the 1840’s. During the last decades of the 19th Century a salt industry made the Oatka Valley a center of production; only at Silver Springs does the industry continue. Textile manufacturing, now gone, was of major importance. Today villages sustain a wide diversity of industries, many requiring highly skilled workers.
Wyoming County was one of the early centers of the abolitionist movement, and a route for the “Underground”. Temperance was vigorously supported. For the education of its children a traditional support was found. Middlebury Academy, Wyoming opened in 1819 and was a pioneer in higher education in the area.
The county has been identified with the lives of President Chester A. Arthur and Mrs. Grover Cleveland, and was the birthplace of David Starr Jordon, first president of Stanford; Cecel Burleigh, composer; Edward Austin Sheldon, noted educator; Joseph Ward, pioneer educator and statesman of South Dakota; prominent legislators, scientists, jurists, governors of western states and others.