Terre Hill, Woodard, New York State Surrounding History & Exploration Patrick R. F. Blakley October, 2020 PatrickRFBlakley.com/TerreHill Terre Hill: Woodard, NY; Surrounding History and Exploration 2 Terre Hill, Woodard, New York State: Surrounding History & Exploration Written by Patrick R. F. Blakley Published by Lulu Press Inc. Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. First Printing October 2020 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Copyright © 2020 by Patrick R. F. Blakley All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted books in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA has been applied for. ISBN 978-1-716-47506-1 Terre Hill: Woodard, NY; Surrounding History and Exploration 3 Terre Hill: Woodard, NY; Surrounding History and Exploration 4 Terre Hill: Woodard, NY; Surrounding History and Exploration 5 This paper and family research is dedicated to Lena Presently the youngest Blakley in the family. Terre Hill: Woodard, NY; Surrounding History and Exploration 6 Terre Hill: Woodard, NY; Surrounding History and Exploration 7 Contents Abstract pg. 4 World War I pg. 33 ​ ​ Terre Hill Landscape pg. 5 Hancock International Airport pg. 34 ​ ​ First Haudenosaunee Settlers pg. 7 Niagara Mohawk & National Grid pg. 35 ​ ​ Beaver Wars pg. 9 The Great Depression pg. 36 ​ ​ Simon Le Moyne pg. 9 Terre Hill Survey Markers pg. 36 ​ ​ French & Indian Wars pg. 10 Three Rivers WMA pg. 37 ​ ​ American Revolutionary War pg. 11 World War II pg. 37 ​ ​ Central New York Military Tract pg. 12 Onondaga Lake pg. 39 ​ ​ First White Settlers pg. 13 Thomas E. Dewey Thruway pg. 40 ​ ​ War of 1812 pg. 16 Moyers Corners Fire Department pg. 42 ​ ​ Erie Canal pg. 17 Korean War pg. 42 ​ ​ New York State Fair pg. 18 Vietnam War pg. 43 ​ ​ Woodard Hamlet pg. 18 Liverpool / CNS School Districts pg. 44 ​ ​ The Weller Family pg. 20 Housing Developments pg. 46 ​ ​ School Number Six at Terre Hill pg. 23 Hamlin Marsh WMA pg. 46 ​ ​ Underground Railroad pg. 24 Terre Hill Cell Tower pg. 47 ​ ​ Civil War pg. 26 September 11, 2001 pg. 48 ​ ​ OCWA at Terre Hill pg. 27 Onondaga Lake Cleanup pg. 48 ​ ​ Syracuse Northern Railroad pg. 29 Covid-19 Pandemic pg. 49 ​ ​ Oak Orchard Reefs pg. 31 Three Rivers Point Project pg. 50 ​ ​ Spanish-American War pg. 32 Today Around Terre Hill pg. 51 ​ ​ Terre Hill: Woodard, NY; Surrounding History and Exploration 8 Terre Hill: Woodard, NY; Surrounding History and Exploration 9 Abstract The region of Terre Hill at Woodard, NY in the town of Clay is not a well known place, even for locals, despite the high populace and traffic through the area. After living here for ten years and discovering little snippets of history I thought it was time to truly research the area to understand exactly where I live and how it came to be exactly what it is today. For the purposes of this paper the surrounding area referred to as Terre Hill will extend to Pompton Knolls, Dominion Park, Wildcreek, Clearview Heights, Bear Villa, Clairmont, and Four Seasons. The historic side of the paper will pull info from the entire town of Clay, and even Onondaga County, in order to make connections, but the purpose of this research is to learn more specifics about a focused area toward the south of Clay called Terre Hill. Terre Hill: Woodard, NY; Surrounding History and Exploration 10 Terre Hill: Woodard, NY; Surrounding History and Exploration 11 Terre Hill, Woodard, New York State Terre Hill’s landscape as we see it today was shaped long before the land was settled by any humans, indiginous or not. Terre Hill is part of the Allegheny Plateau, or more specifically it is part of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau.1 The entire Allegheny Plateau comprises 1,679 named mountains which includes Terre Hill at the north edge. The plateau is divided into glaciated and unglaciated (roughly north and south) and stretches across five states in the northeast of the country.2 The northern part of this section, which comprises parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and nearly 100% of New York, is less extreme with elevation change than the unglaciated section in the southern parts south of New York State.3 The Allegheny Plateau is a physiographic region that’s divided into the Allegheny Mountain section, Appalachian Plateaus province, and Appalachian Highlands division.4 These titles are simply a way to dissect landforms of the globe the same way that towns, cities, and countries do with populaces. The glaciated portion is so 1 Richmond, G.M. and D.S. Fullerton, 1986, Summation of Quaternary glaciations in the United States of America, Quaternary Science Reviews. vol. 5, pp. 183-196. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 "Physiographic divisions of the conterminous U. S." U.S. Geological Survey. Archived from the original on 5 December 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-06. Terre Hill: Woodard, NY; Surrounding History and Exploration 12 called because it was covered by ice in the last glacial period beginning about 110,000 years ago and ending about 15,000 years ago in what was called the Wisconsin glaciation which stretched across North America.5 Prior to glaciation in the area much of Central New York was covered in seawater in what is referred to as the Appalachian Basin during the Furongian, the final part of the Cambian period, which spanned from 497 to 485 million years ago. During this time jellyfish, brachiopods, trilobites, and clams would be found to inhabit the entire underwater area.6 419.2 million years ago the area entered the Devonian period. Evidence of organisms from the previous Cambrian period continued to thrive with the addition of corals, eurypterids, hydras, snails, sponges as well as fish such as chimaeroids, crossopterygians, and lungfishes.7 Evidence from the next Mesozoic period as well as the Cenozoic period is mostly missing from this area. Prehistoric fossils are rich around these parts and some aquatic species of fossils are relatively easy to find in certain sites around greater Syracuse, mostly from the Devonian period.8 A more recent history begins well after the last ice age where CO2 melted, or retreated, the glaciers about 15,000 to 12,000 years before 5 J. Severinghaus; E. Brook (1999). "Abrupt Climate Change at the End of the Last Glacial Period Inferred from Trapped Air in Polar Ice". Science. 286 (5441): 930–4. 6 Murray, Marian (1974). Hunting for Fossils: A Guide to Finding and Collecting Fossils in All 50 States. Collier Books. p. 211. 7 Murray, Marian (1974). Hunting for Fossils: A Guide to Finding and Collecting Fossils in All 50 States. Collier Books. p. 211-212. 8 Kramer, Lindsay. Fossil digs in Upstate New York: 5 good places to search. 21 Mar. 2019, www.newyorkupstate.com/attractions/2015/09/fossil_digs_in_upstate_new_york_5_places_to_look.html Terre Hill: Woodard, NY; Surrounding History and Exploration 13 present (“BP”), this is also more commonly referred to as deglaciation. As early as 12,000BP, and much more extensive between 9,500 to 5,500BP we see evidence of Paleoindian hunter gatherers that were nomadic and did not settle for long in specific areas, usually following the animal migrations through each season.9 It wasn’t until the Transitional Period around 3,500BP where evidence of more plant based agriculture is present. During this time evidence of fish nets with sinkers is available as well.10 Proof of Haudenosaunee settlers in the Terre Hill area is estimated to be dated from about 1,200CE based on artifacts found buried in the ground near the Three Rivers Point area.11 Three Rivers Point is about six miles northwest of Terre Hill and is the most historically significant place in Clay, New York (not to be confused with the Algonquin area of Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada, which wasn’t so named until 159912). Another interesting place nearby was Caughdenoy where the natives set eel traps in the Oneida River; “Caughdenoy” means ‘where the eel is lying down.’13 Three Rivers Point first served as a meeting ground as well as a seasonal fishing area for the native Iroquois. The Algonquin People to the north referred to them as “Iriakhoiw”, which in their Ojibwe language means “real adders” and refers 9 William A. Ritchie, The Archaeology of New York State (Harrison, NY: Harbor Hill Books, 1980) 10 Ritchie, 159. 11 Three Rivers Point Brownfield Opportunity Area. April 2015, pp. 11. https://docs.dos.ny.gov/opd/boa/ClayThreeRiversPointBOA.pdf 12 Report Concerning the Archives of Canada for the year 1905. Vol I. of III., p. li. 13 Irene Meyers, Where the Eel is Lying Down, Caughdenoy, New York (Northland Printing, 1992) Terre Hill: Woodard, NY; Surrounding History and Exploration 14 to several types of snakes.14 The first written version of the name “Irocois” was found in 1603 by Samuel de Champlain while traveling to Tadoussac.15 The most well-established origin story for the name Iroquois was written by Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, a jesuit priest who, in 1744, wrote: “The name Iroquois is purely French, and is formed from the Iroquoian-language term ‘hiro’ or ‘hero’, which means I have said - with which these Indians close all their addresses, as the Latins did of old with their dixi - and of Koué, which is a cry sometimes of sadness, when it is prolonged, and sometimes of joy, when it is pronounced shorter.”16 The Iroquois People within this region called themselves Haudenosaunee, which means “people of the longhouse” attributed to the long shelters that they constructed with many families living inside.