AVA

                                 Its Timber, Soil, Inhabitants and Products, with future Prospects.

The town of Ava was, but a few years since, set off from the Western part of Boonville.  It lies twelve miles North of Rome; is five miles North and South, and about ten East and West.  The Plank Road or great Northern Route to Turin, Martinsburg, Lowville, Copenhagen, Watertown, and Kingston, in Upper Canada, pass through the center of the town.  Five miles North of our village you rise the Nisbet Hill, by an easy grade, and pass the west branch of the Mohawk River at Lawrences' Mills, and as you pass Hoyt's Corners you are on the height of land and the center of the town.  There are here located a Store, good Tavern and Post Office, and it is the abode of several Mechanics.

The land from the center of the town each way is as level as could be wished, and well watered by different  streams that enter the Mohawk on the East and Fish Creek on the West, making good mill seats for cutting up the heavy timber for market.  The timber consists principally of beech, curled maple, hemlock and spruce, of large and beautiful growth, showing that the soil is of the richest mould, and when cleared and brought under cultivation, produces the very best of grass and coarse grains, making fine Dairy Farms from which many of the inhabitants are becoming wealthy.

There has been a few settlers in the town for forty five or fifty years, but most of the inhabitants are of recent date.  There are from 1,200 to 1,400, and many of them are of Swiss origin --a more honest and hardy set of men are rarely to be found.

The Messrs. Wood, Capron, Harger, Westmore, Allen, Adams, and very many others, have large dairies, and their farms will compare well with many that have been years longer under improvement.  As a dairy town it will soon be equal to Steuben; its land is less broken and more easily tilled; its products of lumber, butter and cheese, are to be seen almost every day in the year in our streets.  As Ava increases in population and in improvement, it will be one of the very many towns north of Rome whose business will center here.

There are enough of the New England descendents to give a right direction to its Education and Religious character, to make society moral and intelligent.  The New England fortifications for the defense of Liberty are found at almost every four corners of the town, showing that Parents care for the best interests of their children, and bestow upon them what is better than wealth --a good Education.

There are many anecdotes to be heard of the new settlers of these north towns of our county --the privations and hardships they endured on first entering the unbroken forests, away from settlements --no Mills, no Schools, no Meeting Houses, such as their Fathers worshiped in --away from kindred and friends --alone in their log huts.  One told me whose head was frosted by seventy winters, he had to go in the middle of winter to Judge Sawyer's, in New Hartford, 35 miles, and buy a bushel of corn, get it ground and carry it on his back, with snow shoes on, --as there was no road to their new dwellings, but by marked trees --in order to keep his family with bread.

A few of these aged pioneers yet live to see their descendents enjoy the comforts and luxuries of life, and they are fast rising into importance as one of the towns of Oneida county; not to be called a "bush pasture," but a town of intelligence and wealth, sending yearly its rich products of the dairy to our Eastern Markets.

Well may the Romans look forward with pride to the time when the north part of this county will be the richest Agricultural section of our State.  Our beautiful village will no longer be tauntingly called the "citified village," but take its deserved place as the central spot of the Empire State.
                                                                                                                                        M.