Let’s Go to the Pub and Pick a Name Out of a Hat | Post 12 | New York

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5 min readJul 13, 2016

On this spot, in 1798, a group of men gathered at Bagg’s Tavern and picked the town name of “Utica” out of hat.

Through that stone gate and behind that tree a stone monument is visible. The choice of construction material would seem a bit odd, or non-commemorative. Most preceding structures on the site were brick — like many of the surrounding buildings — and Bagg’s Tavern was a two story wooden building, itself an upgrade from Moses Bagg’s original “shanty made of hemlock boards nailed to the stubs of trees” (via his grandson).

But stone is the theme because this central New York site also commemorates Old Fort Schuyler, a pre-Revolution, pre-Bagg, pre-Utica outpost strategically situated to guard a key fording point on the adjacent Mohawk River and protect against French and Indian incursions. The British built several such forts along the “Northern Frontier” in the 18th century, including another Fort Schuyler (without the “Old”) up the river in Rome.

Bagg came to town in the 1790s, after the fort was retired but opportunely as commercial activity was heating up. The stretch of the Mohawk River by Old Fort Schuyler was long an Iroquois and colonial trading post, but after the Revolutionary War east-west travel in New York greatly increased as settlers migrated to central and western portions of the state, including soldiers who had earned 500-acre plots of land in the New Military Tract townships for their service in the Revolution.

Bagg’s tavern and hotel served this traffic — and the likes of George Washington and Henry Clay — benefitting further when New York State developed the Great Genesee Road west from Old Fort Schuyler along old Iroquois trails, later improved as the Seneca Turnpike toll road. By the early 1800s, travel by land rivaled waterways for ease of east-west movement. Moses Bagg’s tavern made an ideal rest stop.

When it came time to incorporate Old Fort Schuyler as a town, authorities evidently also considered Bagg’s Tavern the best spot to congregate. There, a decision was made to select the town name by chance. Names were penned on slips of paper — perhaps including “Schuylertown” or “Baggville” or “Mohawk Crossing”? And someone wrote “Utica”.

Where did he come up with that?

Central New Yorkers and drivers of I-90 know that the upstate New York map resembles a fractured syllabus of ancient Greek and Roman history: Troy, Rome, Syracuse, Cicero, Cincinnatus, Ithaca, Pompey, Delphi Falls, Sempronius, and so on. Responsibility for this proliferation lies with Robert Harpur and Simeon De Witt, classics buffs who worked in the office of the Surveyor General of the State of New York at the turn of the 19th century and bestowed ancient names on New Military Tract townships.

Neither Harpur nor De Witt stuffed the hat at Bagg’s Tavern, but historical opinion suggests the duo were trendsetters. While some settlers lobbied for place names representing origin (Norway, N.Y., is nearby) or geography (X Falls, Y Springs, Z Corner), a certain post-Revolution spirit pervaded as well. Builders of a new nation sought to espouse their new republican values, and they did so by honoring the heroes of early Western civilization.

The original Utica, whose 3000-year-old ruins lie in present-day Tunisia, was the first Phoenician colony in North Africa. The name means “old town”. For centuries, fittingly, Utica was a key Mediterranean port, serving traders headed west to the Straights of Gibraltar and the Atlantic Ocean.

The current incarnation of the Iroquois trails, Great Genesee Road, and Seneca Turnpike that profited Moses Bagg’s establishment is New York State Route 5 — the same road I followed into Utica. I passed a modest home with a porch embellished with Roman columns, an architectural feature that caught my eye earlier in more scenic environs. Another central New York trend, echoing the classical town names?

And traveling Route 5, crossing the Mohawk River, and clicking down Bleecker Street to the Bagg’s Tavern site provides a good microcosm of Utica and the region. Central New York marks the eastern edge of the Rust Belt; economic decline is evident, though large firms still exist (including DeIorio’s, official dough company of the United States Pizza Team) as well as hopeful urban efforts — a Children’s Museum stands next to the Bagg’s Tavern site and economic revival in Utica is spearheaded by none other than the Bagg’s Square Association.