Clinton

Variant name of place

Clenton

Geographic position

43.0489° N, 75.3803° W

Sources

Collmer, Janet. ”A Brief History of Clinton.” Clinton, NY Chamber of Commerce. Web. http://www.clintonnychamber.org/history.cfm; ”History.” Clinton Historical Society, 2015. Web. http://clintonhistory.org/about/history/; ”History of the College. Hamilton College, 2015. Web. http://www.hamilton.edu/history/full; Geo coordinates at https://www.google.com/#q=geographic+coordinates+of+clinton+ny

General note

Clinton is a small village about 10 miles south of the Mohawk River in Oneida County at the center of New York state. It is named for George Clinton, the first governor of the state. Originally, the area was Oneida land, but in 1787, the State of New York issued what the records call "Coxe’s Patent," granting land in what would become Clinton to veterans of the Revolutionary War and their families. These veterans, led by Captain Moses Foote, came from Plymouth, CT to establish the village, which was first a part of Whitestown, then the town of Paris, and finally, in 1827, the town of Kirkland. Occom, who lived in nearby Brothertown when Clinton was founded, visited the village in its early years to preach to Indians and new settlers. In 1793, Samuel Kirkland, Wheelock’s most famous Anglo-American student and missionary, founded Hamilton-Oneida Academy on what is now Clinton’s College Hill. His aim was to educate both white settlers and Oneidas, with whom he had worked as a missionary for many years. While Kirkland hoped the school would promote harmony between Clinton’s original and new settlers, very few Oneidas attended the school, and in 1812, it dropped the "Oneida" from its name and became Hamilton College. Many Oneidas relocated from Clinton to Wisconsin in the 1820s because of pressure to give up more land than they had already given. Clinton became an incorporated village in 1843 and remains mostly agrarian.