Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the land Wayne County encompasses was originally part of the
Iroquois Confederacy, which had existed from around August 31, 1142. When counties were established in
New York State on November 1, 1683, it became part of
Albany County. Prior to its establishment, the territory that became Wayne County passed through successive administrative jurisdictions including
Montgomery County (formed from Albany County in 1772),
Ontario County (1789), and
Seneca County (1804). On April 11, 1823, Wayne County was formed by combining portions of Seneca and Ontario counties. The county was formed from the towns of Wolcott and Galen in Seneca County, and Lyons, Sodus, Williamson, Ontario, Palmyra, and Macedon in Ontario County. The first election for county officers was held on May 6, 1823, and the first court convened later that month in Lyons. The first meeting of the county Board of Supervisors was directed to be held in October 1823 at the house of Henry L. Woolsey in Lyons. John S. Tallmadge served as the county’s first Surrogate and presided over its earliest court proceedings.
Westward expansion The first settlers of European extraction came to the region located along the Ganargua River, just west of present-day
Palmyra. In 1788 the area became part of the
Phelps and Gorham Purchase, a tract of land sold to
Oliver Phelps and
Nathaniel Gorham by the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Sir
William Pulteney, a British baronet and English land
speculator, along with his partners in
the Pulteney Association, purchased a of the former Phelps and Gorham Purchase in 1790. The first westward road was one coming from near
Utica to
Geneva, and, with the building of the Cayuga Bridge in 1800, was the road chosen by nearly all of the westward travelers. This highway left the future Wayne County region somewhat isolated and settlers desiring to locate there came by way of streams and lakes lying to the north of the road. It was only a few years after that the "new road" came west, passing through the county, opening up the fertile Ganargua lands to easier settlement. Sir William Pulteney selected Charles Williamson as land agent to develop the purchased . In 1792, Williamson, a Scotsman, came to the unsettled wilderness in
upstate New York to develop the land by building roads, selecting sites for towns, dividing land into lots, and building gristmills, taverns, stores and houses. Because of its shoreline and access to
Sodus Bay, the region was vulnerable to naval raids. Local defense relied primarily on
militia units drawn from Wayne and neighboring counties, as regular
U.S. Army forces were concentrated at larger posts such as
Sackett’s Harbor and
Oswego. Yeo’s squadron had previously raided
Oswego to the east and had withdrawn from an unsuccessful engagement at
Rochester before attempting to secure provisions from
Pultneyville. An agreement was initially reached with local residents allowing
British forces to take supplies without resistance. A dispute followed, however, and an exchange of gunfire ensued, including cannon fire from British vessels positioned offshore in
Lake Ontario. In 1874 the first railroad appeared when the Lake Shore Railroad line opened and the center of trade moved south to Williamson and Pultneyville's significance as a commerce center sharply declined.
Religion: Wayne County and the Second Great Awakening Wayne County played host to key events in the development of significant American religions during the country's
Second Great Awakening period of the early 19th century. The Fox Sisters heard rappings from a dead
peddler in Hydesville and spawned a movement that eventually garnered a million followers at its peak.
Palmyra became the birthplace of the
Latter Day Saint movement in the 1820s.
Shakers in Wayne County Sodus Bay also was the site of a community of
Shakers from 1826 to 1836. The site provided convenient access to travel by water on the Great Lakes Ontario and Erie, for visits to Shakers who lived in Ohio. This site might also have been useful for abolitionists moving former slaves to freedom in Canada via the
Underground Railroad. The first Shaker leadership team, Elders Jeremiah Talcott and Eldress Polly Lawrence, along with their assistants John Lockwood and Lucy Brown, came to Sodus from the Shakers' parent community at
New Lebanon, New York. With 72 converts during their first year, they soon had 200 acres under cultivation. By 1835, the community had grown to almost 150. However, they learned in 1835 that a canal had been proposed to be dug through their land, and by New York state law, the canal company had the right to seize the property it chose. The Shakers responded by selling their land and 23 buildings to the canal company and moving inland to the 1,700 acres they purchased at
Groveland, in
Livingston County, New York. However, the canal was never built; two years later, the Shakers were asked to take their property back, but, having reestablished their village elsewhere, and knowing that the land could later be taken for the same purpose, they refused. Several diaries and journals describing the Shakers' early years at Sodus and Groveland can be found at the
Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio. These manuscripts are available on microfilm at more than 20 locations throughout the U.S.
Latter-day Saints (Mormons) Wayne County is the birthplace of the
Latter Day Saint movement and
Mormonism. Founder
Joseph Smith, whose family lived on a farm that straddled the line between
Palmyra and
Manchester, claimed to have been visited by God the Father and Jesus Christ in 1820, an event known as the
First Vision. In 1830 the
Book of Mormon was first published in the
village of Palmyra by
E.B. Grandin, in the present
Book of Mormon Historic Publication Site.
Spiritualism and the Fox sisters Spiritualists often set March 31, 1848, as the beginning of their movement. On that date,
Kate and Margaret Fox, of
Hydesville, reported that they had made contact with the spirit of a murdered peddler. What made this an extraordinary event was that the spirit communicated through audible rapping noises, rather than simply appearing to a person in a trance. The evidence of the senses appealed to practical Americans, and the Fox sisters became a sensation. Demonstrations of
mediumship (
seances and
automatic writing, for example) proved to be a profitable business, and soon became popular forms of entertainment and spiritual catharsis. The Foxes earned a living this way, as did many others.
Civil War and Underground Railroad During the
American Civil War Wayne County inhabitants were active in support of the
Underground Railroad due to the area's proximity to slavery-free Canada. Wayne County also raised companies for multiple volunteer
Union regiments, including the
33rd New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the
98th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the
111th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and the
9th New York Heavy Artillery Regiment. A detailed compilation of Wayne County’s Civil War participation, including enlistment records organized by town and casualty figures, was published in 1883 by local historian Lewis H. Clark, drawing on state muster rolls, adjutant general reports, and county records. During the Civil War, men from Wayne served in the 111th New York Infantry, under Colonel Clinton D. MacDougall. The 111th New York was present at, among others, the
Battle of Gettysburg, the
Battle of the Wilderness, the
Battle of Cold Harbor and the
Appomattox Campaign. During the Battle of Gettysburg, the 111th took the second highest casualties as a regiment of the entire battle. Throughout the war, the regiment took a total of 1803 casualties, of which 158 were
Killed in action, 557 were
Wounded in action (490 of whom recovered to some extent), and 1088
Missing in action.
Erie Canal The
Erie Canal transits the southern edge of the county. The villages of Clyde, Lyons, Newark, Palmyra and Macedon all became homes to
canal locks when the
Albany to
Rochester section of the canal opened on September 10, 1823. On that day these communities became part of a direct water-link between the
eastern seaboard metropolises of New York City and
Baltimore and America's expanding western frontier.
Agriculture and the Fruit Belt Following the opening of the
Erie Canal in 1823, agriculture became the dominant economic activity in Wayne County. Improved transportation reduced shipping costs and allowed farm products to reach eastern urban markets more efficiently. The fertile glacial soils of the region, combined with the moderating climatic influence of
Lake Ontario, encouraged commercial fruit cultivation along the county’s northern towns. By the mid-19th century, apple orchards, along with cherries, peaches, and pears, were being grown commercially in towns including
Williamson,
Ontario, and
Sodus. Railroad expansion in the mid- to late-19th century further stimulated agricultural growth by allowing perishable produce to reach markets more rapidly than canal transport alone. Fruit packing houses, cold storage facilities, and cooperative marketing associations developed during this period to support orchard expansion. By the early 20th century, Wayne County ranked among the leading apple-producing counties in
New York State, a position it has frequently maintained. In addition to fruit cultivation, dairy farming, grain production, and vegetable growing remained significant components of the county’s rural economy throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Railroads and industrial development Beginning in the 1850s, railroad lines supplemented canal traffic and gradually shifted commercial activity toward inland villages. Communities such as
Newark,
Lyons, and
Clyde developed small manufacturing centers that included flour mills, foundries, canning operations, and agricultural equipment production. The opening of the
Lake Shore Railroad in 1874 reduced the commercial importance of smaller Lake Ontario ports such as
Pultneyville as trade increasingly moved along rail corridors. By the late 19th century, the county’s economy was primarily agricultural, supplemented by localized industrial activity.
Twentieth-century developments During the early 20th century, improvements in transportation, refrigeration, and mechanized farming further transformed the county’s agricultural economy. Cooperative fruit marketing expanded, and commercial food processing operations became more prominent. Following World War II, mechanization reduced the number of small farms while increasing production efficiency. Residential development expanded along major transportation corridors, including U.S. Route 104. Tourism and recreational boating increased along
Sodus Bay and the
Lake Ontario shoreline during the mid-20th century.
Late 20th and early 21st century In the late 20th century, Wayne County remained heavily agricultural, particularly in apple production.
Agritourism,
wineries, and
farm markets became increasingly significant components of the local economy. Elevated Lake Ontario water levels in 2017 and 2019 prompted renewed attention to shoreline management and flood mitigation efforts.
Hoffman essays Wayne County high school seniors are offered the opportunity to win a scholarship by The Augustus L. and Jennie D. Hoffman Foundation Scholarship Essay Program. Established in 1954 to encourage the study of local history, students research and write essays on some aspect of Wayne County history or civic affairs. Between its inception and 2007 over 600 essays have been submitted.
Nuclear power On June 1, 1970, the
Robert E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant started commercial operation on the shores of
Lake Ontario, just over the
Monroe County line in the Town of
Ontario. The Ginna plant was the site of a minor
nuclear accident when, on January 25, 1982, a small amount of radioactive steam leaked into the air after a steam-generator tube ruptured. The leak which lasted 93 minutes led to the declaration of a site emergency. The rupture was caused by a small pie-pan-shaped object left in the steam generator during an outage. This was not the first time a tube rupture had occurred at an American reactor but following on so closely behind the
Three Mile Island accident caused considerable attention to be focused on the incident at the Ginna plant. In total, 485.3
curies of
noble gas and 1.15
millicuries of
iodine-131 were released to the environment.
Historical societies In addition to the county
historical society, there are a number of other historical preservation organizations. Most of these are town or village based. • Newark-Arcadia Historical Society • Butler Historical Preservation Society • Galen Historical Society • Historic Palmyra, Inc. • Lyons Heritage Society • Macedon Historical Society • Marion Historical Society • Ontario Historical & L.P. Society • Pultneyville Historical (please refer to Williamson-Pultneyville Historical Society) • Red Creek Historical Society • Rose Historical Society • Town of Sodus Historical Society • Sodus Bay Historical Society • Walworth Historical Society • Wayne County Historical Society • Williamson-Pultneyville Historical Society (www.w-phs.org) • Wolcott Historical Society ==Law, government and politics==