Delhi, Delaware county, New York

Delhi is a town in Delaware County, New York, United States. The population was 5,117 at the 2010 census.

The town is in the east-central part of the county and contains the village of Delhi, New York.

The town is named after the city of Delhi, the capital territory of India. The name was in honor of founder Ebenezer Foote, who was known as "The Great Mogul". Another founder, Erastus Root, a rival of Foote, is responsible for the pronunciation. Root preferred the name "Mapleton". When he learned the town was to be named Delhi, he exclaimed, "Delhi, Hell-high! Might as well call it Foote-high."

The town is the setting for the classic 1959 novel My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George. The State University of New York at Delhi is located in the town.

History

Delhi was formed from the towns of Kortright, Middletown, and Walton, March 23, 1798. It was named after Delhi in India.<ref></ref>

"Named through the influence of Judge Ebenezer Foote. The name 'Mapleton' was suggested by several prominent citizens," Gazetteer of Delaware County, New York, J.H. French, 1859

Delhi—was formed from Middletown, Kortright, and Walton, March 23, 1798. A part of Bovina was taken off in 1820, and a part of Hamden in 1825... It occupies a nearly central position in the co. Its surface is a hilly upland, broken by the deep valleys of the streams. The w. branch of hte Delaware flows s. w. through the center of the town, receiving from the n. w. Platners, Peeks, Steels and Elk Creeks, and from the s. e. Little Delaware River. The valleys are generally narrow and bordered by steep hills. The soil is a clay loam, and the surface is very stony in places. Delhi, the county seat, if finely situated on the n. bank of the w. branch of the Delaware. It was incorp. March 16, 1821. Besides the co. buildings, it contains the Delhi Academy, 4 churches, a bank, 2 printing offices, a woolen factory, an iron foundry, a gristmill and a sawmill. Pop. 919. The first religious meetings were commenced by Abel and John Kidder in 1785. The first church (Cong.) was formed in 1798.

Jay Gould, "How it was Named Delhi,” History of Delaware County, 1856, p. 449

Judge Foote, who was in the Legislature of 1796–97 from Ulster county, was instrumental in the formation of Delaware county, and was much interested, with many others, in the location of its county seat. The judge was appointed, from his earnest support of the formation of the new county, to give a name to the town so soon to be brought forth, and the clique with which he boarded and was intimate requested him to allow them to suggest a name; he consented. His nick-name was “The Great Mogul,” and they, knowing he was to reside here, suggested the name of Delhi, that being the city of the Mogul, and he, agreeable to his promise, so named it. This is the proper account, and will explain why so singular a name appears among the many that followed naturally. A former history of this county gives a ludicrous scene that occurred among other warm friends of the new county, who wished the name to be “Mapleton.” General Erastus Root, who was an impulsive gentleman, and leader of those who insisted upon the latter name, when told that the name should be Delhi, said: “Del-hi—hell-hi! Better call it Foote high!” The name was thus given, and the town formed took rank among sister towns in the general work of the new county.

Geography

The town is in the center of Delaware County. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of Template:Convert, of which Template:Convert is land and Template:Convert, or 0.62%, is water.<ref name="Census 2010">Template:Cite web</ref> The West Branch Delaware River flows through the center of the town. The Little Delaware River enters the West Branch from the east, just south of Delhi village.

There were 1,493 households out of which 26.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.2% were married couples living together, 8.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 37.8% were non-families. 30.0% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.29 and the average family size was 2.84.

In the town, the population was spread out with 16.0% under the age of 18, 27.5% from 18 to 24, 18.0% from 25 to 44, 20.6% from 45 to 64, and 17.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 100.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 98.3 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $35,861, and the median income for a family was $48,125. Males had a median income of $31,136 versus $25,542 for females. The per capita income for the town was $16,842. About 5.9% of families and 9.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 13.1% of those under age 18 and 5.9% of those age 65 or over.

Communities and locations in the Town of Delhi

• Delhi – a village in the center of the town
• East Delhi – a hamlet northeast of Delhi village. The Christian Church and Fitches Covered Bridge are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
• Fraser – a hamlet southwest of Delhi village on New York State Route 10
• West Delhi – a hamlet west of Delhi village.

Landmarks

• Delaware County Courthouse
• Gideon Frisbee House, where Delaware County was formed in 1797, now the site of the Delaware County Historical Association
• Soldiers Monument, erected to honor Civil War veterans, on the Courthouse Square
• Delhi Village Hall, formerly the Delaware County Courthouse, where trials were held during the Anti-Rent War
• Fitches Covered Bridge, built in 1870
• The Judge Gideon Frisbee House, Murray Hill, and Sherwood Family Estate are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.<ref name="nris"/>

External links

• Town of Delhi official website
• Delaware County Chamber of Commerce
• Centennial History of Delaware County

Delhi, New York, and the Naming of Delhi

A place’s name is not the place itself, but it can be a snapshot of its history, if it’s old enough to have one — and I’m not unaware of how peculiarly American it must seem to others, to have “places” too young to have a history.

The standard local history of my hometown maintains that after a church was burnt down by a carpenter who wasn’t paid for his work, the town fathers were so embarrassed that they renamed the place in honor of a War of 1812 naval hero. The hero’s subsequent career didn’t add much to the village’s luster, but the name remains, pinning the town to the early 19th century. Around it is a welter of places named for home by the ex-New Englanders who settled the region: Sherburne, Mt. Upton, Afton, Coventry and places with names borrowed from a vague understanding of Indian languages, like Otsego, Otego, Otsdawa, Chenango and Susquehanna.

When the interior of New York opened up after the Revolution, the state parceled out names as fast as Adam must have and the tracts given as pay to Continental Army soldiers drew a library of names from classical literature, then very much in fashion: Syracuse, Manilius (now Manlius), Clay, Cicero, Pompey, Apulia and many more. D.G. Rossiter of Ithaca posits that the names came from John Dryden's translation of Plutarch's "Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans." Whatever -- The stately architecture of the region’s oldest buildings echoes the theme.
Among my favorite origin stories, though, is that of Delhi, a county seat in the northern Catskills: When the time came to give the narrow valley and the township around it a name in 1802, politicians thought to honor Judge Ebenezer Foote, a landowner and state senator known as “the great mogul” to his buddies — for wealth, but also because he was short and fat. They offered “Delhi,” it being the Indian potentate’s home.

Proponents of “Mapleton” grouched about the choice, and Erastus Root, a fellow politican who eventually became lieutenant governor (he was buried in Delhi for a while), quipped: “Dell-high, hell-high — better call it Foote-high!”

The maple lovers got Maple Grove on the East branch of the Delaware River, but Delhi became the county seat — graced by a lovely, warm-brick French Empire courthouse and the ample homes of well-to-do 19th-century lawyers — while Maple Grove remains only in the bitter memories of onetime residents; it was lost under the Pepacton reservoir.
Now, you should take origin stories with a grain of salt. They’re no more provable than Homer’s (another Upstate New York placename) tale of the Trojan Horse, but they’re just as important to the town’s identity, and you question them at your peril.
"P." http://www.placeblogging.com/place_names retrieved 6 Feb, 2011.

New York, a guide to the Empire state. American guide series, US History Publishers, 1949

Delhi, (1,370 alt., 1,840 pop.) home of a State School of Agriculture, is a neat, modern town. Shortly after the Revolutionary War Ebenezer Foote was so influential locally and as a member of the State legislature that he was nicknamed 'the Great Mogul.' At the suggestions of facetious citizens the community was named after Delhi, India, the capital city of the real Great Mogul. At Delhi is the junction with State 10, which follows the valley of the West Branch of the Delaware, locally known as Cat Hollow since 1843. At that time there was a lumber camp operating in the valley that was dominated by an Amazon of a cook. Not only did she knock out the bully who killed her cat but further punished the whole crew by serving the pet in a surprise meat pie.