Most of us don’t pay much attention to it. Unless its waters are running unusually high or drought conditions have slowed it to nearly a standstill, the Oswego River has become a backdrop of life in our city. But one day, if you’re walking the bridges or sitting on a bench in Veteran’s Park, take a moment to consider this: There never would have been a city of Fulton without our river.
I was recently made aware of this fact from reading the book, Fulton, NY (A Narrative History), by June R. Holden. Holden’s book explains how our city came to be, taking readers all the way back to a time when the river first brought Native Americans to our area.
“Waterways were the roads the early inhabitants used to travel through the vast forest that covered the site of our future city,” Holden wrote. “Oswego River, one of the few rivers in the world that flows northwards, was an important highway. It began at a place called Three Rivers where the Seneca and Oneida Rivers met and flowed into the Oswego River…dropping more than 113 feet and emptying into Lake Ontario.”
Holden explained that while the drop was moderate south of this area, it became more dramatic as it flowed passed the future Fulton. Here, the river “shot over a ledge, dropping as a vertical white wall of water ten feet in height.” Native Americans named the area “Kaskunsaka,” which means “Many Falls Following.” Years later, white men named it Oswego Falls. Holden knew both were apt names since “the foaming, violent river [had a] a current of 20 miles an hour.”
Those churning waters made it impossible for all but the most daring boaters to maneuver. Rather than risk their life, travelers were forced to stop before the first rapids, carry their canoes on land a distance down the river and then continue their journey.
The visitors who stopped in this area were often hungry and they found plenty of food in their surroundings. Holden listed some: “Nuts on the ground, berries from the bushes, wild parsnips, pond lily roots, bark and sap from the maple trees…[Boaters] gathered eggs from the wild birds’ nests and hunted deer and bear for meat and skins.”
News of our plentiful resources was shared from traveler to traveler, who soon created footpaths that bordered our river. From the cleared area of those primitive streets, visitors began to see the falls as a fine location to establish a community, especially when they realized you could earn a living on the river.
Swimming alongside boats was an abundance of fish, including salmon and eel. Holden described a “weir,” which was used to catch eel: “It was a box, open at the top, with a bottom made of slats spaced to allow water flow. Men stood ready to capture eels as they swam downstream and into the boxes. It could earn a profit of $15 a barrel.”
That lucrative business took a hard blow when dams were built to control the river’s fury. This “put a crimp in the fishing industry,” Holden explained, “as salmon no longer conveniently congregated at the base of the falls.” But despite the loss of profitable fishing, dams strengthened the appeal of this area. Holden wrote of a Daniel Masters, who arrived here in 1793. “He and his sons built a large cabin at the upper landing and provided accommodations for travelers.” I guess that makes Masters the first owner of a Fulton bed & breakfast.
Masters found ways to live off the river beyond lodging. He established a second business by helping people navigate the dams. Holden described how Daniel and his sons “made a rough road out of the Indian trail, down what is now First Street, and used a team of oxen to drag boats and freight to and from the upper and lower landings (head and foot of the rapids) for a distance of about a mile.”
Masters was quite an entrepreneur, also becoming one of the first in our area to recognize the river’s potential for millwork. Along with a Mr. Goodell, he opened a sawmill in 1800, using the river rapids to power machinery. As swiftly as laborers could cut lumber, new residents were building homes. Other mills followed suit by turning out nutritious grains, reams of paper and cloth of every color, all made possible by our rapid river.
The area we know as Fulton might have remained a humble stop on the Oswego River if the Erie Canal hadn’t been built. The Canal had been proposed as a manmade waterway system in the late 1700s, but it wasn’t until 1808 that the major project began. Not wanting to be left out of this advancement in the shipping industry, those along the Oswego River lobbied New York state and succeeded in getting $160,000 to widen and deepen our river in order for it to become a branch of the canal.
Though the canal meant an end to the portage industry, it was a plus for cargo-carrying boats. And for those looking for a good job. There was a call for lock tenders and those skilled in boat repairs. Boatyards were built, as were the ships that would dock in them.
As bigger vessels navigated the Oswego River, people gossiped about the possibility that the newly invented steamboat would soon visit our area. We were still two towns in the 1800s, one on either side of the river, and it was suggested that one should be named after the steamboat’s inventor, Robert Fulton. In 1902, when the two towns became one proud city, residents voted to name it Fulton. May we always remember that we call this place home because of the river that flows through us.
An 1880s sketch of the Oswego River moving through the two towns that would one day become our city of Fulton.