January 8 Where was Covert before 1817

Since there aren’t a lot of Snippet items for early January I’m sharing another one of the “background information” items today.

If you have done any genealogy, or purchased property in this area, you know that people have lived here at least back to the 14^th century. (We will explore those first settlers later this summer).

After the American Revolution, the Sullivan Clinton Campaign came through here driving the Native Americans from the area and destroying their crops.

As a reward for signing up to serve in the Revolution Army men were granted acres of land. The military lots were grouped into towns with 100 lots in each town. Those early towns were all in Montgomery County, and had names from classical literature: Ovid, Ulysses, Hector…to name a few. See January 6th for a discussion on Military lots.

As the men came here to settle, or as others bought out the veterans’ lots, the need for a county seat closer to the area was realized. In 1791 the area became part of Herkimer county. By 1794 this area was in Onondaga County with Syracuse as the county seat. Cayuga county was created in 1799, and then in 1804 Seneca County.

The 1804 Seneca County was much larger than today. It stretched from Lake Ontario (now Wayne County) south to today’s southern edge of Ithaca, Enfield, and Hector.

The town of Ovid included all of what is today Ovid, Covert and Lodi. The creation of these last two will be Snippet items of their own, and the reason we are celebrating this bicentennial year.

When you go looking for records before 1817 you need to know both the town and county where events were taking place, be they census records, land records, marriage or death related records. 

The other reminder that I’ve often shared when teaching genealogy, “town and county lines are lines on a map, don’t forget to look across the road into the next town or county when you go searching for someone.” The girl next door and her parents might actually live in the next town or county. At least Covert is in the middle of the state so it’s always been part of New York. 

Dewitt's Diary: Saturday January 8, 1921 Sunny and warm, temperature 38. Got up late this morning. Edna is dusting and cleaning up for Sunday. Cleaned out chicken house this morning. 
Going down to [parents'] home to supper this evening.
Saw meadow larks last week and my brother saw a robin yesterday. 
John Lincoln and family were up to father's for supper tonight. Froze hard tonight. Got home from town at 12 o'clock. Henry Bassett who plays in Watkins sanitarium is home for a vacation. [Henry is the son of Wheeler Bassett and grew up across the road from Dewitt.]