Here are some thoughts on the naming of the many Upstate towns - TopicsExpress



          

Here are some thoughts on the naming of the many Upstate towns with Classic Greek /Roman names. The person most attributed with initiating the Greek naming trend was Robert Harpur born January 25, 1731 Ballybay, County Monaghan, Ireland - 1825. He was an American teacher, politician, pioneer, and landowner who settled in the Binghamton, New York area. He came to the colonies in 1761 via Scotland. He was a teacher of mathematics at Columbia University (known then as Kings College). One of his prized pupil was Alexander Hamilton while he studied there in 1774. Harpur served in various capacities in the New York government during the American Revolution. He was a member of the New York State Assembly from 1777 to 1784. He was Deputy Secretary of State under John Morin Scott and Lewis Allaire Scott from 1778 to 1795. In the spring of 1795 Robert Harpur with his 2nd wife Myra and family moved west along the Susquehanna River settling near Belden Brook on his Warren Patent which is near present day Harpursville, NY. While Harpur worked as a Clerk in the office of the New York State Surveyor General, he has been credited with assigning the numerous classical names to locations in the Central New York Military Tract, now in Cayuga County, Cortland County, Onondaga County, and Seneca County. In some cases, it is not entirely clear to which classical person, the name was referring. The Surveyor General Simeon DeWitt has also been incorrectly credited with the assignment of these classical names. He contributed but was not the creative spark - Harpur was the primary person to start the naming convention using Classical names for upstate NY Town names. This list is not 100% -Athens, Attica, Babylon, Bethlehem, Brutus, Cairo, Caledonia, Canaan, Carthage, Cicero, Cincinnatus, Corfu, Corinth, Delhi, Eden, Elma, Fabius, Fredonia, Goshen, Greece, Hector, Hemlock, Homer, Ilion, Ithaca, Jericho, Jordan, Latham, Livonia, Lysander, Macedon, Malta, Manlius, Marathon, Marcellus, Minerva, Mount Sinai, New Lebanon, Olean, Ovid, Palmyra, Phoenicia, Phoenix, Rome, Romulus, Sardinia, Savona, Scio, Scipio Center, Sodus, Syracuse, Troy, Utica, Vestal From Wikipedia.....
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 03:35:09 +0000

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