Research Notes from Newspapers Published in Cazenovia, NY
Daniel H. Weiskotten
Last Modified May 22, 2007
Cazenovia, Fenner and Nelson main page
Newspaper main page
Newspapers are an unparalleled resource for conducting local history
research of all kinds. They contain local news, advertisements,
foreclosures and birth, death and marriage notices that often cannot be
found elsewhere.
The quality of the information varies greatly over time, with the earleist paper,
The Pilot,
containing little local news and but a few local advertisements.
As time rolls on the editors become the chroniclers of the community,
with wonderful commentary on local events, family news, and other
tidbits that sold papers in their day, but which draw researchers to
them in this time.
I started collecting notes from the local papers in 1977 when I started
research on the Annas family, who had built and occupied for over a
hundred years the house I had grown up in. That project lasted
through my junior and senior years in highschool and carried me through
the papers from 1808 to 1932. From all the other information I
had seen I grew more interested in local history, primarily the village
of Cazenovia, and in the 1980s I went through the entire set of films
once more, from 1808 to the 1850s. Since then I have been through
theim in their entirety at least twice as I conduct more research and
work to get my notes cleaned up and more usable. At present, in
the winter of 2003-2004 I am redoing my notes for Cazenovia's first
paper,
The Pilot, as this was
the set of notes on community history I first took back in the early
1980s and I was focused on only village businesses, and nothing else
(not to mention a few other problems with the methods by which I took
and typed up my notes!)
In the on-line prentation of my notes I will post the notes that are
suitable for others to use for proper research. This leaves a
considerable pile of my notes that I do not feel comfortable letting
out to the researching world (as they are so sloppy and incomplete),
but I am actively rereading athe papers in an attempt to clean them up
and present them.
I have begun reexamination of
The Pilot,
and will present my notes here as I complete them for each year.
I also have several other collections of notes from particular papers
that I will present in the near future.
Notes are paraphrased except where indicated by "quotes"
The first date given is that of the issue in which the item appears
The date at the end in parentheses is the internal date of the advertisement
For the sake of space I have not retained the layout of the original items, but I have retained the font.
Because many advertisements ran for months I have made a list of advertisers
appearing in the first issue of the months of January, April, July and October.
Research Notes from the Madison County Eagle and Whig, 1843, 1845, 1853, 1854, 1855 (several individual issues are listed so far)
Research Notes from the Cazenovia Republican, 1854-1855 (I have notes for 1856 to 1872, but they are not entered yet)