top of page
Villages and Hamlets

The region encompassed by New Hartford has undergone many changes since the town's founding in 1788.  Many of the early settlers hailed from Connecticut.  The unincorporated hamlets and population centers that make up the township co-exist with vast swaths of farmland that have been farmed successfully for centuries.  Then,  as now,  agriculture is a major contributor to the area's mixed economy.

New Hartford

Select a Photo to Enlarge

Jedediah Sanger is the “Father of New Hartford.”  Bankrupted from a fire on his New Hampshire farm, Sanger purchased 1,000 acres of land from White on either side of Sauquoit Creek in March 1788.  This land, part of the Coxe Patent, came to be known as New Hartford.

​

Sanger heavily invested in the area erecting a saw mill and a grist mill by the beginning of the 1790s.   He also partnered with Charles McLean, Samuel Wells and Elijah Risley to establish the first newspaper east of Albany in 1793, and he became engaged in the manufacture of cotton in the first decade of the 1800s.  Sanger eventually sold his land on the east side of the Sauquoit Creek to Joseph Higbee for a tidy profit.  Higbee became the second person to settle in New Hartford.

Chadwicks/Willowvale

Chadwicks/Willowvale is a village of about 1,600 inhabitants, located on the Sauquoit Creek in the Town of New Hartford.  In 1813 John Chadwick, Abner Brownell and Ira Todd came to Chadwicks and founded the Eagle Cotton Factory and the Willowvale Bleachery. These two companies built homes for their employees, near their place of work, many of which remain in existence today.

 

Eventually a number of small businesses were established to serve the needs of the residents. This community became self-sustaining with a drug store, grocery store, post office, bakery, dairy store as well doctors, dentists, and other businesses.

Select a Photo to Enlarge

Washington Mills

Select a Photo to Enlarge

The hamlet of Washington Mills stretches along Route 8 and Oneida Street from Utica's city limits to the railroad track crossing going south—a distance of about 3 miles.

 

The center of this hamlet is at Oneida Street and Kellogg Road/Chapman Road.  Connecticut native Solomon Kellogg settled in this part of New Hartford in the late 1700s and built a woolen mill along the Sauquoit Creek, which was later to become Stewart’s Woolen Mill. 

 

Farms developed in this area due to good soil and water runoff into the creek.  The Sauquoit Creek supplied all the power needed for the mills.

bottom of page