History of Ithaca

The inhabitants of the Ithaca area at the time of European expansion were the Sapony and Tutelo Indians, dependent tribes of the Cayuga Indians who formed part of the Iroquois confederation. These tribes had been allowed to settle on Cayuga-controlled hunting lands at the south end of Cayuga Lake as well as in Pony (originally Sapony) Hollow of Newfield, New York, after being forced from North Carolina by European expansion.

They were driven from the area by the Sullivan Expedition which destroyed the Tutelo village of Coregonal, located near the junction of state routes 13 and 13A just south of the Ithaca city limits. Indian presence in the current City of Ithaca was limited to a temporary hunting camp at the base of Cascadilla Gorge.

The destruction of Iroquois confederation power opened the region to settlement by people of European origin, a process which began in 1789. In 1790, an official program began for distributing land in the area as a reward for service to the American soldiers of the Revolutionary War; most local land titles trace back to the Revolutionary war grants. Lots were drawn in 1791; informal settlement had already started.

As part of this process, the Central New York Military Tract, which included northern Tompkins County, was surveyed by Simeon DeWitt. His clerk Robert Harpur apparently had a fondness for ancient Greek and Roman history as well as English authors and philosophers (as evidenced by the nearby townships of Dryden and Locke). The Commissioners of Lands of NY State (chairman Gov. George Clinton) followed Harpur’s recommendations at a meeting in 1790. The Military Tract township in which proto-Ithaca was located he named Ulysses, the Latin form of the Greek Odysseus from Homer’s Odyssey. A few years later DeWitt moved to Ithaca and named it for the Greek island home of Ulysses (still the surrounding township at the time — nowadays Ulysses is just a town in Tompkins County). Contrary to popular myth, DeWitt did not name many of the classical references found in upstate NY such as Syracuse and Troy; these were from the general classical fervor of the times. Perhaps because of the name, The Odyssey is routinely taught to elementary school students in the Ithaca area.

In the 1820s and 1830, Ithacans held high hopes of becoming a major city when the primitive Ithaca and Owego Railway was completed in 1832 to connect the Erie Canal navigation with the Susquehanna River to the south. These hopes survived the depression of 1837 when the railroad was re-organized as the Cayuga and Susquehanna and re-engineered with switchbacks in the late 1840’s; much of this route is now used by the South Hill Recreation Way.

However, easier routes soon became available, such as the Syracuse, Binghamton and New York (1854). In the decade following the Civil War railroads were built from Ithaca to all surrounding points (Geneva, Cayuga, Cortland, Elmira, Athens PA) mainly with financing from Ezra Cornell; however the geography of the city has always prevented it from lying on a major transportation artery. When the Lehigh Valley Railroad built its main line from Pennsylvania to Buffalo in 1890 it bypassed Ithaca (running via eastern Schuyler County on easier grades), as the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad had done in the 1850’s. Ithaca became a city in 1888 and remained a small manufacturing and retail center until the recent education boom.

Ithaca was nationally known for the Ithaca Gun Company, makers of highly-valued shotguns, and Ithaca Calendar Clocks. The largest industry was the Morse Chain company, still active in Lansing as BorgWarner Morse. In the post-war decades National Cash Register and the Langmuir research labs of General Electric were also major employers.

Cornell University was founded by Ezra Cornell in 1865. It was coeducational from its inception, which was extremely unusual at the time. Ezra Cornell also established a public library for the city. Ithaca College was founded as the Ithaca Conservatory of Music in 1892.

During the early 20th century, Ithaca was an important center in the silent film industry. The most common type of film produced was the cliffhanger serial, and the films often featured the local natural scenery. Many of these films were the work of Leopold Wharton and his brother Theodore Wharton in their studio on the site of what is now Stewart Park. Eventually the film industry centralized in Hollywood, which offered the possibility of year-round filming, and film production in Ithaca effectively ceased. Few of the silent films made in Ithaca are preserved today.