From ROMAN CITIZEN newspaper, Rome, Oneida County, New York, Wednesday, December 11, 1850

                                                                           WHITESTOWN
 
                                  Its Early Settlement -- Soil -- Inhabitants and Manufactories

What man left here that has lived his three score years, and was born in New England and spent his boyhood there, but what remembers of hearing much that was wonderful of the then Whitestown country.  Sixty-four years have elapsed only from its being a wilderness and commencing its early settlement about that time.  This town being to his view all that was this side of the great Western Lakes, what fearful tales of the Indian Tribes the then owners and occupants of the soil.  What a change has a little over half a century made!  Cities, Villages, Towns, and Counties, Canals, Railroads, Manufactories and a farming country not excelled on this Western Continent and undoubtedly more inhabitants than the Red Men ever had on its surface.  In 1784, or about that time Judge White commenced his clearing and built his log house near where the gamble-roof house now stands, a few rods east of the Court House and the Messrs. Smith, Maynard, Leffingwell, Whetmore, Doolittle, Youngs, Tucker, Furguson, Gould, Sill, Berry, Tracy and others, soon after moved into the town and commenced its early settlement.

The soil being of the richest kind it had a rapid growth and very soon became a place of importance as the country about it began also to fill up with inhabitants and town after town was taken from it until it was reduced to its present limits, 5 miles by 10.  It was early made the half-shire of Oneida County, and at that time was a village of as much business as Utica or any place in the county; the village of Whitesboro is pleasantly located south of the Mohawk River, the Erie Canal, and Great Western Railroad pass through it.  There are in the village three Churches, one Bank, a Court House and Jail, a large Institution for Academical purposes, (under the supervision of the Free-Will Baptist) an Academy besides and Schools of a high order.  The village contains a number of Merchants and Mechanics and some beautiful dwellings.  But few villages can boast of having within its limits men of greater eminence and more exalted virtue than Whitestown.

To the oldest inhabitants of the county of Oneida, there are reminiscences of years gone by, that makes them look upon the place and visit it with pleasure.

Utica is but four miles east, and other villages near at hand, curtail its merchantile business to some extent; but, for a residence, few places can vie with it, for beauty of location.

Oriskany Village has a large woolen manufactory one of the oldest in the county and owned by Hon. S. N. Dexter & Son, sending off yearly a large amount of the best Broadcloths the Co. affords.  The Old Oneida Cotton Factory 1/2 mile east of Whitesboro on the Sauquoit Creek famed for the best of sheetings.  Half a mile above, is York Mills one of the largest Factories in the State, turning off every year an immense amount of the best Prints, Shirtings and Sheetings. --York Mill makes of itself a large beautiful village three miles south-west of Utica.  There is a larger capital invested in the establishment than in any other factory west of Albany, and some have rendered their goods more acceptable in market than the Mssrs. Wolcott & Sons have theirs.

Walesville is in the south part of the town and has a small Woolen Factory, Paper Mills, and an Iron Foundary.

The town contains, according to the late census, 6820 inhabitants.