It is true that the Dutch pioneers played an important part in the early history of the state and are still widely represented by their descendants in the Mohawk valley, but the leading spirit of colonial days on the river was a native of Ireland who came when a young man to manage his uncle’s estates in America. This was in 1738, nearly fifty years after the Schenectady massacre. The young man, who was in the confidence of the governor of New York and of the king as well, is known to all readers of American history as Sir William Johnson. He built a fine stone mansion a short distance west of the present city of Amsterdam and lived there many years. He also founded Johnstown, a few miles to the north, now a thriving little city. He dealt honestly with the Indians, when many tried to get their lands by fraud, and he served as a high officer in the French and Indian wars. As the Dutch settled the lower Mohawk valley, so the upper parts were taken up and the forests cleared by Yankees from New England. One of these was Hugh White, a sturdy man with several grown children. He left Middletown, Connecticut, in 1784, and came by water to Albany, sending one of his sons overland to drive two pair of oxen. Father and son met in Albany and went together across the sands to Schenectady, where they bought a boat to take some of the goods up the river. Four miles west of where Utica now stands they stopped, cut a few trees, and built a hut to shelter them until they could raise crops and have a better home. Thus the ancient village of Whitesboro was founded. White was one of many hardy and brave men who settled in central New York at that time, and they doubtless thought that they had gone a long way “out West.” Certainly their journey took more time than the emigrant would now need to reach California or Oregon. To cut the trees, build cabins, guard against the savages, and get enough to eat and wear gave the settlers plenty to do. Only the simplest ways of living were possible. Until a grist mill was built they often used samp mortars, such as the Indians made. They took a section of white ash log three feet long, and putting coals of fire on one end, kept them burning with a hand bellows until the hole was deep enough to hold the corn, which was then pounded for their meals of hominy. By and by a mill was built, and here settlers often came from a distance of many miles, sometimes carrying their grists on their backs. A dozen years after White came, General William Floyd set up another mill in the northern part of what is now Oneida county. He was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. One settler cleared several acres and planted corn with pumpkin seeds sprinkled in. The pigeons pulled up all the corn, but hundreds of great pumpkins grew and ripened. Since the crop was hardly enough, however, for either men or beasts, the latter had to be fed the next winter on the small top boughs of the elm, maple, and basswood.