The first inhabitants were hunters who came here following the game some 13,000 years ago. They were followed the Iroquois, one of the Five Nations that formed a confederacy in 1450. Early European explorers wrote about the wonders of this place and the peoples who lived here; Jesuit missionaries came to convert the natives. But little changed until the American Revolution when George Washington sent an army under Generals Sullivan and Clinton to drive the hostile Indians from their lands in 1779.

After the war settlers began arriving, some of them former soldiers given land for their service. Log cabins replaced longhouses, forests were cleared for farm fields, and mills and factories sprang up along the waterways that powered them. People and businesses came and went, as the economy fluctuated and the west beckoned, but there was little major change in daily life for half a century.

After the Civil War, inventors built shops and factories, industrializing the county. Cornell University was chartered in 1868 as a curious blend of land grant and private colleges. When it opened high atop East Hill it forever changed the nature of Tompkins County, bringing the world to this community, improving the farming practices, enhancing the economy, and enriching the educational opportunities of all the people. Ithaca College opened downtown in 1892, initially as a conservatory of music. Education began to replace industry as the major economic force in Ithaca, while in most of the surrounding county agriculture and the industries that supported it still held sway.

Creativity and inventiveness were hallmarks of Tompkins County throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As factories closed, people who wanted to stay here devised new businesses. We may no longer make bridges and typewriters, but instead produce tofu, yogurt, and high-tech solutions to a variety of problems. And education and the gorges endure.

Learn more

Read books available at local bookstores or in the Local History section of the Tompkins County Public Library.

Visit a local museum. The Tompkins County Museum, 401 E. State St., Ithaca, (phone 273-8284), features exhibits and programs on aspects of county history. It also has a reference room for those interested in further research. Smaller museums which focus on specific towns include the Dryden History House in the village of Dryden, the Groton Historical Society in the village of Groton, the Caroline Historical Association in Slaterville Springs, and the Ulysses Historical Society in the village of Trumansburg.

Visit Historic Ithaca in the Clinton House for information about Tompkins County. They have self-guided walking tours for sale. They also own the historic State Theatre and offer tours.

Walk around the streets of Ithaca or any one of the villages and hamlets or travel the roads of the county to get a first-hand view of where history happened.