1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Canton (New York)

CANTON, a village and the county-seat of St Lawrence county, New York, U.S.A., 17 m. S.E. of Ogdensburg, on the Grasse river. Pop. (1890) 2580; (1900) 2757; (1905) 3083; (1910) 2701. The village is served by the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg division of the New York Central & Hudson River railway. Canton is the seat of St Lawrence University (co-educational; chartered in 1856; at first Universalist, afterwards unsectarian), having a college of letters and science, which developed from an academy, opened in 1859; a theological school (Universalist), opened in 1858; a law school, established in 1869, discontinued in 1872 and re-established in Brooklyn, New York, in 1903 as the Brooklyn Law School of St Lawrence University; and a state school of agriculture, established in 1906 by the state legislature and opened in 1907. In 1907–1908 the university had 52 instructors, 168 students in the college of letters and science, 14 students in the theological school, 287 in the law school and 13 in the agricultural school. The Clinton Liberal Institute (Universalist, 1832), which was removed in 1879 from Clinton to Fort Plain, New York, was established in Canton in 1901. The Grasse river furnishes water-power, and the village has saw-, planing- and flour-mills, and plant for the building of small boats and launches. The village corporation owns a fine water-supply system. Canton was first settled in 1800 by Daniel Harrington of Connecticut and was incorporated in 1845. It was for many years the home of Silas Wright, who was buried here.