[205] Verona's first settlement was made in 1797 by Captain Ichabod Hand, who kept a tavern on the road from Rome to Oneida Castle.
New London is a small hamlet in Oneida County, erected during the progress of the canal. Its first settler came in 1824, and the following year a post-office was erected.--ED.
[206] The site of Rome was on the Oneida portage between the Mohawk Valley and waters flowing into Lake Ontario. As early as 1756 the English had erected Fort Bull at the western extremity of the portage, but this was promptly captured and destroyed by French troops. Two years later, Fort Stanwix was erected by the British general of that name; the cost was $60,000, and the fort was heavily garrisoned until the close of the French and Indian War. In 1768 the famous treaty with the Iroquois, making a great land cession to the English colonies took place at this outpost. At the outbreak of the Revolution the name of the fort was changed to Schuyler, and the next year (1777) it was besieged by Major Barry St. Leger with a force of Indian allies; the post was finally relieved by General Benedict Arnold. The first settler near the fort was a German, Johann Reuff (or Roof). He fled at the time of the siege, and the place was without inhabitants until 1785-87, when New England colonists began to arrive. The site of Rome was purchased by a New York merchant named Lynch who laid out a town (1796) and called it Lynchburg; this was later changed for the classic cognomen, and the village of Rome incorporated in 1819.--ED.
[207] Oriskany (Indian dialect, signifying "nettles") was the site of the battle of August 6, 1777, when General Nicholas Herkimer, of the American army, repulsed the invading British forces under Major St. Leger. The village was settled in 1802 by Colonel Garrett Lansing, a Revolutionary soldier, and a post-office opened about 1821.--ED.
[208] Hugh White of Middletown, Connecticut, was one of the four purchasers of a confiscated Tory patent known as Sadequahada, he being the first settler west of German Flats, on the Mohawk. Coming out to his purchase in 1784, with his entire family of sons and sons-in-law, he settled what was for a time known as Whitestown, whither a number of Connecticut relatives and friends followed in succeeding years. Judge White was a man of ability and much physical strength. He attained considerable influence with the Oneida, who adopted him into their tribe. Dying in 1812, he left many descendants. Originally known as Whitestown, the village surrendered that title to the township, and was incorporated (1811) as Whitehall Landing, a name changed two years later to Whitesborough. The Oneida Historical Society in 1884 celebrated the centennial of the founding of this place by erecting a granite shaft upon the village green. Whitesborough at one time bid fair to rival Rome and Utica, but has now a population of only two thousand.--ED.