The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Utica (New York)

UTICA, a city and one of the county seats of Oneida co., New York, on the S. bank of the Mohawk river, at the junction of the Erie and Chenango canals, 83 m. (direct) W. N. W. of Albany and 45 m. E. of Syracuse; pop. in 1850, 17,565; in 1860, 22,529; in 1870, 28,804, of whom 9,849 were foreigners; in 1875, 32,070. The city is regularly laid out, and rises gradually from the river to the height of 150 ft. at the head of Genesee street, which has the principal shops and many elegant residences. The city hall on this street, erected about 1852, is of Milwaukee brick, and contains besides the city offices a court room for the United States courts, which hold a term here annually, and a commodious public hall. The city is lighted with gas, and is well supplied with water. It is at the intersection of the New York Central, the Utica and Black River, the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western, and the New York and Oswego Midland railroads. Its trade in cheese is extensive. The manufactures amount to about $8,000,000 annually, embracing engines and boilers, machinery, iron and brass castings, pig iron, carriages, furniture, ale, organs, stone ware, fire brick, carpets, oil cloth, millstones, boots and shoes, cement, gloves, knit goods, lime, lasts, stained glass, agricultural implements, pumps, saws, rope, spring beds, silver ware, steam gauges, varnish, and japan. There are four national banks, with an aggregate capital of $1,500,000, a state bank, two private banks, and a savings institution. Utica is divided into ten wards, and is governed by a mayor and a board of aldermen of two members from each ward. It is the seat of one of the state lunatic asylums, which occupies a farm of 130 acres, with buildings that cost upward of $500,000. The other charitable institutions include the Faxton hospital, home for the homeless, industrial home for women, house of the Good Shepherd, St. John's orphan asylum, St. Elizabeth's hospital and home, St. Luke's home and hospital, St. Vincent's orphan asylum, St. Vincent protectorate, Utica dispensary, and Utica orphan asylum. The city has 17 public schools, including the free academy, with an average daily attendance of about 3,000 pupils, and 12 or 15 private schools and academies. The city library contains 6,055 volumes. Two daily, one tri-weekly (German), and five weekly (one Welsh) newspapers, and a quarterly (“American Journal of Insanity”) and three monthly periodicals are published. There are 34 churches, viz.: 4 Baptist, 5 Episcopal, 1 Evangelical Association, 2 Evangelical Lutheran, 1 German Moravian, 1 Jewish, 6 Methodist, 5 Presbyterian, 1 Reformed, 5 Roman Catholic, 1 Universalist, 1 Welsh Calvinistic Methodist, and 1 Welsh Congregational.—The site of the city was included in the colonial grant styled Cosby's manor, made in 1734; but there was no settlement till after the revolution. Fort Schuyler was erected between the present Main and Mohawk streets, below Second street, in 1758, and a blockhouse was built before the close of the revolutionary war near the site of the present railroad depot. Till 1798 the village was called Old Fort Schuyler. In 1813 it had 1,700 inhabitants, and it grew very slowly till after the completion of the Erie canal. It received a city charter in 1832.