Place Names of Tompkins County

Place Names of Tompkins County Place Names of Tompkins County edited by Carol Kammen Office of the Tompkins County Historian Ithaca, New York 2004 Copyright © 2004 by the Office of the Tompkins County Historian All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America Contents Maps vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 The Many Names of Tompkins County 5 Carol Kammen A Genealogy of New York County Names 13 Carol Kammen Town of Caroline 15 Barbara Kone Town of Danby 27 Joan Grant Town of Dryden 31 Elsie Gutchess Village of Dryden 42 Laurence Beach Village of Freeville 44 Joan Manning Town of Enfield 47 Susan Thompson Town of Groton 51 Rosemarie Tucker v vi Contents City of Ithaca 61 Jane Marsh Dieckmann Town of Ithaca 83 Phyllis McNeill with Henry Cowan Town of Lansing 91 Louise Bement Town of Newfield 101 Alan Chaffee and Robin Andersen Town of Ulysses 105 Esther Northrup and Nancy Dean Sources 117 Index 121 Maps Tompkins County 12 Town of Caroline 16 Town of Danby 28 Town of Dryden 32 Town of Enfield 46 Town of Groton 52 City of Ithaca 60 Town of Ithaca 82 Town of Lansing 90 Town of Newfield 100 Town of Ulysses 106 vii Acknowledgments This book is the result of the happy collaboration of the appointed historians of Tompkins County, their deputies, friends, and relations, and others who have given information or pointed us in the right di- rection. In June 2000 the various appointed historians of the county began holding regular meetings. In July the group decided to update and expand W. Glenn Norris’s book, The Origin of Place Names in Tompkins County. This was done, not as a criticism of Norris, who was the county’s first official historian, but in recognition that when he published his book in 1951 he did not have all the documents available to him that we have today, and in the 50 years from then until now, many new names have been planted on the land, and some old ones have faded from view. Beginning with The Origin of Place Names, the town, village, and city historians went to work. We updated old definitions, corrected errors, and expanded the names entered to include those of interesting or his- torically important streets and roads, developments, and other names by which we know this land. We will be happy to receive corrections and additions to this book, especially as new names appear within the county. We have many people to thank. We are grateful to the historians who preceded us and to county residents today who offered information and encouragement. ix x Acknowledgments We have been helped by many people and are happy to acknowledge our appreciation and debt. Our thanks to Betty Sadd Anderson, Bill Berich, Frances Brown, Mr. & Mrs. Roger Buel, Alex Cima, Joyce Cima, Gertrude Conant, Judy Budzinski Cone, Henry Cowan, Harris Dates, Jane Dickinson, Joseph Giordano, Bradley Griffin, Bernice Munch Hall, Thomas Hoard, Margaret Hobbie, Laura Holmberg, Eugene H. Hotaling, Gordon Huckle, Joan Kelly Kobassa, Michael Lane, Nancy Leeming, Virginia Luce, John Marcham, Lucille McGill, William M. Mix, Ed Moran, Janet M. Nash, Nancy Ostman, George Totman, Robert Watros, F. Robert Wesley, Richard Whittaker, Katherine Woods, and many others. Julie Conley Holcomb, Ithaca City Clerk, and her staff were very helpful. As were LaVena Court of Marathon; April Scheffler, Town Clerk for the Town of Groton; the Groton Public Library, the Groton Historical Association, and the Groton Town Board; Marcia Georgia, Ulysses Town Clerk; and Edith Parker. Greg Potter and Steven Horn were most generous and helpful. Most of us have used and appreciated the archives at the DeWitt Historical Society of Tompkins County. The following people granted interviews: Hilda Amberge, Carlos Bell, Gertrude Conant, Carl English, Bernice Munch Hall, Eugene H. Hotaling, Anna VanGlone Liddington, Ida Shaw Mix, William M. Mix, William Osburn, Richard Snow, and Richard Whittaker. The Lansing Historical Association and the Enfield Historical So- ciety both offered grants to have the manuscript copy edited and put into final form. Wendy Skinner gracefully and gently went over the manuscript to make it consistent, not an easy task with so many writ- ers involved, and Richard Rosenbaum generously provided the design of this book. Support for printing this book came from The Community Foun- dation of Tompkins County and from the Tompkins County Founda- tion. We gratefully acknowledge our debt and appreciation to each foundation. Place Names of Tompkins County Introduction Carol Kammen Tompkins County Historian The Town of Lansing historian received a call one day from an eager reporter. In her town, he noted, there were both Collins and Arm- strong roads. Were they named, he asked, to commemorate the United States space team that put a man on the moon? Well, no. Though those roads do commemorate people by the name of Collins and Armstrong, they were not astronauts, but families who had early on settled in the town and whose names were later added to the roads. Names are inherently fascinating. We all spend a good deal of time naming our children and we have given the same attention to places where we live. Some people name their houses. Most of us come to areas that are already named, or so we think, yet naming goes on, even today. The stories of the place names in Tompkins County are interesting for several reasons. They tell us something about the times when they were named. They link us to another era and help us understand something about the way the area developed. We can discern a general phasing of naming, yet not every name will fit this pattern. The earliest distinction seems to be between places that were mapped with streets and those that were not. In 1807 Simeon DeWitt created the earliest map of what became Ithaca showing a crosshatch of streets. He was involved, about the same time, with map- ping the area beyond Wall Street in the upper reaches of Manhattan. 1 2 Introduction On that map he and the other commissioners did the same thing. They made a design of regular streets meeting at right angles. DeWitt put names on those streets so that as the lots were advertised for sale, they would be more easily identified and perhaps even more pleasing to buyers. He started with the names of places to which particular streets would have run had continuous roads been built, such as Owego Street, Aurora Street. Where there was no concentration of streets, as in the farming areas of the county, the roads were called by landmarks, by the names of the farm families who lived along them, or by their destination. Many of these names were not made official and did not appear on our maps until many years later. Road names helped people get about, for the most part. Now and again we historians are asked, who was Tompkins? Or, was Trumansburg named for Harry? Or, do the roads in the Town of Dry- den really commemorate the originators of the Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights Convention in 1848? Well, there is Cady Street, and there is Mott Street, and, even McClintock Road. Ah, no. As much as we might today want to lay claim to honoring Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucre- tia Mott, and Mary Ann McClintock, who charted such a radical and important course in 1848, we cannot. Nor, most likely, would people in the past have wanted it thought that they supported that convention and the reforms it launched, for that meeting in 1848 in Seneca Falls was controversial. Not everyone approved of the ideas so passionately urged in the Declaration of Sentiments. Those roads in the Town of Dryden carry the names of early families who lived along them. At the end of the nineteenth century, Cornell University began its expansion across the gorge to the north, and the area called Cornell Heights took its character. Its streets were mostly short but the earlier grid pattern was not maintained, and the names on the streets reflected some of the eminent people who had been, or who were at the time, associated with the university, such as Roberts and Thurston. Bryant Park to the east of the university also grew up, its names var- Introduction 3 ious, but Oxford links it to the academic world, Irving to the literary. Other names, such as Cornell Street, lead in to the university. The development of the Village of Cayuga Heights in the second quarter of the twentieth century represents a shift from these more utilitarian names of location. The word “heights” itself implies views— it was a place to view from. Those roads were not straight with regular turnings, either, but undulated across the land to create an aspect of ease. The names given also reflect this: Sunset Park, Highland Road, White Park Road, and The Parkway. There is Iroquois Road too, recalling the earliest residents in this area, removed so long ago it could appear on a roadway without irony or guilt. These are names to attract the affluent, and the large lots and landscape reflect a comfort- able suburban environment. Greater concentrations of streets and roads appeared in the later half of the twentieth century as the population increased, as people were able to live farther away from their place of work, and as houses were created in what we call developments. In many cases, these names of the 1960s and 1970s are different from those of earlier days.

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