About Owasco

Welcome to the Town of Owasco

Our heritage:  The Town of Owasco was formed from the Town of Aurelius on March 30, 1802, and celebrated its Bicentennial in 2002. Today, it is second only to the Town of Brutus in the population of Cayuga County Towns. What is presently Owasco Road was the second road laid out in the early settlement of the County in 1795, the old Genesee Road being the first.

The "old Chenango Road" as Owasco Road or 38A was once called, came from Chenango along the East side of Owasco Lake into Auburn. These early roads once followed the Indian trails along the lake and over the log crossing places over the Owasco River. In the Iroquois language they were called "Wasco" or "the Crossing," hence the name Owasco.

The Town of Owasco lies to the east border of the County, and south to the center of the county. The foot of Owasco Lake and the river form the west boundary. The Town of Sennett is on the north boundary, and on the east is the Town of Skaneateles in Onondaga County. The far south boundary is bordered by Niles.

Burrs 1828 Atlas shows an early map of Owasco, the stage coach routes, falling mills, saw mills and churches. There is only one 4 corners in the town, it being in the Hamlet of Owasco. The site of the present village of Owasco still shows the evidence of the Military Tract stipulation of reserving one corner for a "gospel lot, post office, and school." The village store, once the Post office is opposite the historic Owasco Reformed Church, and the first school was next to the church where the present parsonage is located.

The four pioneer families of Owasco were Samuel and Benjamin Depuy, Moses Cortright and Cornelius Delamater who arrived in 1792. On July 4th, 1793 a contingent of ten families arrived from Conewago Adams Co. Pennsylvania in "tented wagons." They were of Dutch and French Huguenot descent, and on September 23, 1796 in the log cabin of Col. John Hardenbergh, another Dutchman, they organized The Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of Owasco, and this church is designated the oldest church organization in Cayuga County. The settlers built a crude log church on a bluff near Dutch Hollow Brook on Owasco Road overlooking Owasco Lake. Worshipers came from both sides of the lake until 1810 when the congregations split by mutual consent. One group going up into the village to build the church still standing today, and the other congregation forming Sand Beach in Fleming........Read More About the Town's History