New York - Otsego County

Books on County Genealogy and History

Civilian Conservation Corps Museum

Cooperstown Overview (county seat)

Map of Otsego Co. (1895)

National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown

National Soccer Hall of Fame, Oneonta

NY State Historical Association

Official NY State Website

Official Otsego Co. Website

Otsego Co. GenWeb Project

Three years after Henry Hudson came to Albany, eight years before the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth, two Dutch explorers came up the Mohawk from Albany, crossed the hills to Lake Otsego, and went down the valley of the Susquehanna. They were the first white men to visit this region. They filed a map of their travels at Amsterdam, Hoiland, where it was found only a few years ago. There may have been, must have been, travelers and traders who came into this country in the years before any attempt was made at settlement. But it was not until 1769 that surveyors came to establish lines of the grants made by the State to individuals. In 1768 such a grant had been made by George Clark, Lieutenant-Governor of the State, to John Lindsay, Jacob Roseboom, Lenelet Gansevoort, and Sybrant VanSchaick. This was at Cherry Valley, where the first of the pioneers of the county had located in 1739. As late as 1762 there were only 12 families in this settlement, but at the beginning of the Revolution, the number of settlers had risen to 300. In November, 1776, this Cherry Valley settlement was attacked by the Indians, causing the death of 48, and in 1780 a second massacre made the few remaining inhabitants flee, leaving the place deserted until after the end of the war.

These and other Indian attacks led to a punitive expedition by Sullivan in 1779. General Clinton, with 1,800 men, was to join him with the troops he had brought to Otsego Lake. Desiring to descend the Susquehanna in boats, and finding the river too low to be navigated, he dammed the lake, arranging his boats along the shores. When the lake had risen three feet, he tore out the dam and, on the escaping flood, sailed directly into the Indian country. The Indians, astonished at the sudden lowering of the river, and even more amazed by its sudden rise, upon whose crest came the white man's fleet, regarded it as a sign that the Great Spirit had gone to the aid of the enemy, and fled precipitately before the forces of the invader. The county, with its dozen remaining families in 1776, was a deserted wilderness within the next year or two.

The disasters, and the coming of the soldiery to avenge the disasters, proved to be a blessing in the end, for by these events was the country brought to the attention of hundreds to whom it was a terra incognita. Not only did the pioneers of the area return to their former homes, but they were joined by some of the thousands of the New Englanders and others who joined the great hegira that started shortly after the close of the Revolution.

By 1791 the region felt that it should have a separate government from Montgomery County and a more convenient place to which it might go on the county's business. In 1791 the county of Otsego was set up and Cooperstown, on Lake Otsego, was named as the shire village. Only two towns were organized at that time; Otsego, Iying to the west of the lake and the Susquehanna, and Cherry Valley as the remaining section. Before the end of the century eleven more civil divisions had been made, and during the next 54 years the number was brought up to 24.

Source: James Sullivan. History of New York State 1523-1927. 1927