Included here is a series of excerpts from the included websites. The purpose of these excerpts is to give you a general overview of historical Utica. Click on the links to see the full texts. Remember to think critically when utilizing websites as research resources.
From The Oneida County History Center:
“The City of Utica began with the original settlement of Old Fort Schuyler, a military fort designed to guard the fording place of the Mohawk River during the French and Indian War. The name Utica was selected from thirteen sheets of paper in a random drawing. It had been submitted by Erastus Clark. The village was incorporated on April 3, 1798. The act to incorporate the city of Utica was passed by the Legislature on February 13,1832.”
From The Utica Riot at 1835 Convention
“The years 1833 to 1860 were characterized by a great debate throughout the country on the question of the abolition of slavery. While slavery had been abolished in New York State by 1827, slave owners in other states where slavery was an established institution could recover runaway slaves who escaped to free states. Since a slave was considered an item of property instead of a human being, the owner could present proof of ownership to a local magistrate, who was required to issue an order for the slave’s arrest and return to the owner.
Certain citizens of Oneida County, and particularly Utica, played significant roles in promoting the immediate abolition of slavery as an institution throughout the country. The American Colonization Society was organized for the purpose of purchasing the freedom of the slaves and returning them to Africa. The Rev. Beriah Green (1795-1874), the head of the Oneida Institute of Whitesboro, was an outspoken foe of slavery on moral grounds and was opposed to the colonization idea as the alternative to abolition.”
From The Utica Anti Slavery Meeting Site
“On October 21, 1835, a statewide meeting was held in Utica for the purpose of reconstituting a previously dormant New York State antislavery society. At this time antislavery and abolitionism were radical and widely unpopular stances, even in the north. Community resistance had prevented the meeting from being held in a public building, so the site was shifted to the Second Presbyterian Church on the southwest corner of Bleecker (then Bleeker) and Charlotte Streets.”
“The October 21 meeting began at 10:00 a.m., with an attendance estimated at from six hundred to one thousand persons from across New York State. The meeting had not progressed far in its agenda when a crowd of some three hundred locals gathered outside, shouting invective and threatening to storm the church. Just when a riot seemed inevitable, Smith urged that the meeting reconvene in his home town of Peterboro, twenty-seven miles southwest of Utica, where the delegates’ safety could be guaranteed. Some three to six hundred delegates made their way to Peterboro, where on October 22, the first meeting of the New York Anti-Slavery Society was completed.”