Marked improvements are now to be observed in every direction.  With the multiplication of industries, and the introduction of new ones, calling for the outlay of more capital and the employment of more labor, the growth of the village, in population and wealth, bids fair to continue.  A comparison of figures is, at least, encouraging.  In 1860, Oneonta was a thriftless hamlet with only about six hundred inhabitants.  It is now a thriving village with a population of over four thousand.

CHAPTER IV.

Calvin Eaton, one of the first settlers about West Oneonta, settled on the farm now owned by Isaac Holmes.  He came from Wyoming, Pa., date uncertain.  He was a famous story-teller.  Many of his stories have been preserved by tradition, and are now told in the neighborhood with great zest.  His wife, familiarly known as Aunt Olive Eaton, died about 1844 or 1845, at a very advanced age, he having died many years before.  They brought up several of their nephews and nieces, having no children of their own, William Holmes, father of Isaac Holmes, being one of them.

Elder Emanuel Northrup, a Baptist minister, settled on the farm now owned by his grandson, Isaac Northrup, about 1794.  He came originally, it is believed, from Rhode Island.  He had lived in Connecticut, but came last from Stephentown, Rensselaer-co.  His son, Josiah Northrup, who was afterwards a justice of the peace for many years, having been elected at the first town meeting, a prominent man in town affairs and a leading member of the Baptist church, was, at the time of his father’s coming, about fourteen years of age; he died in 1844.

The farm now occupied by the Niles family was settled by Abner Mack, a Rhode Island man.  He sold a part of his possession, what is now the Niles farm, in 1797, to Nathaniel Niles; there were two of the name, father and son, the father being the purchaser.  He was at that time about seventy years of age; he brought with him some apple seeds, planted a nursery, raised trees, set out an orchard, and lived to drink cider made from the apples.  The orchard became quite famous in the neighborhood, and was known to all the boys for miles around; many of the trees are yet bearing.  Upon the death of the father, his son, Nathaniel Niles, who had occupied the farm with his father, became the owner, who lived upon the farm until his death in 1852, at eighty-seven years of age.

Franklin Strait, another of the early settlers, came from Rhode Island in 1797; he brought his family, and drove an ox-team.  He first settled on the farm now owned by Enos Thayer, where he lived until 1808, when he exchanged his farm with Asa Thayer, another of the early comers, for the property at West Oneonta where the hotel now stands.  He enlarged the house that then stood upon the ground, took out a license, and opened “Strait’s Tavern,” on the Oxford turnpike, one of the old landmarks for many years; he died in 1822.  Two of his sons, Rufus and Alvinza Strait, are now living.  Before this property had come into the possession of Thayer, it had been occupied by Daniel Lawrence, father of Lewis Lawrence, of Utica, and where Lewis Lawrence was born.