History of Oswego, New York, USA

Osweoo, a city, port of entry, and semi- capital of Oswego county, New York, is situated on the S. E. shore of Lake Ontario, and on both sides of Oswego river, 35 miles N. N. W. from Syracuse, and 183 miles W. N. W. from Albany. Lat. 43° 28' N., Lon. 76° 85' W. It is the most populous and flourishing town (belonging to the United States) on Lake Ontario, and is very advantageously situated for trade. The harbor formed by the mouth of the river is one of the best on the lake, and has been improved by the United States Goverment, with a substantial pier about 1200 feet in length. It is defended by Fort Oswego, on the eastern bank of the river. The water within the pier is from 10 to 20 feet deep. The Oswego canal, and the Oswego and Syracuse railroad, of which this is the northern terminus, connect at Syracuse with the Erie canal and the Central railroad. A bridge about 700 feet long connects the opposite banks of the river. The city is handsomely built with streets about 100 feet wide, ...

OSWEGO, N. Y., January 16. - Benjamin Sawyer, one of the young men injured in the coasting accident Saturday evening, is dead and one or two others are liable to die. There were ten person on the bobs. The hill where the accident occurred is very steep and was one mass of ice, and the bobs were running at least seventy-fire miles an hour. Near the bottom of the hill they ran into a heavy load of timber, knocking it into a ditch. Every person on the bobs were rendered insensible from the force of the collision and some were horribly cut and mangled. Sawyer, who died, did not regain consciousness, both hips being broken and the bones driven into his abdomen. He was married on New Year's day. It required 100 stitches to sew up the cuts in John Mallot's abdomen and his arm was broken and his head cut. George Sawyer, brother of the dead man, has a fractured skull. Others are in bad shape. The City Council set aside the hill where the accident occurred for coasting. The farmer who owned the ...

The town of Oswego, situated in the northwest corner of the county and lying wholly within the old Military Tract, was erected from Hannibal the 20th of April, 1818. May 20, 1836, a trianglar tract bordering the river at Minetto was annexed from Granby. March 24, 1848, that part of Oswego city lying west of the river was taken from the town, thus leaving the town its present area of 20,536 acres. It is bounded on the east by Oswego city and Scriba, on the south by Granby and Hannibal, on the west by Sterling, Cayuga county and Lake Ontario, and on the north by the lake and Oswego city.

The surface is gently rolling and in some places quite broken, the whole having a northerly or northeasterly inclination. Abrupt bluffs border the lake and river and afford considerable picturesque scenery. The soil is a productive gravelly loam underlaid with a red sandstone of the Medina formation, which frequently appears in boulders and waterworm pebbles. The principal streams are Eight-Mile,...