Auburn is a picturesque city with Historic District neighborhoods. It also has grand old homes, such as Seward House, home of William H. Seward, Secretary of State in the administrations of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. The city is the home of varied manufacturing enterprises, including a major diesel engine block manufacturer and a mini-steel plant.
Captain John Hardenbergh, a member of the General Sullivan expedition in 1779, returned to Auburn, then Wasco, to build a log cabin and a gristmill at the rear of the present City Hall. Several mills sprang up on the Owasco Outlet, along with a stagecoach stop and tavern, and the settlement became known as Hardenbergh’s Corners. In 1803, the name was changed to Auburn after "the loveliest village of the plain" in a poem by Oliver Goldsmith. By 1810, there were fourteen mills along the Owasco Outlet, including mills that made linseed and sunflower oil. Auburn donated land to the state for a state prison and construction began in 1816. Prison reform dictated solitary cells for prisoners, and Auburn prison became the first prison in the United States to have a cellblock. The first electric chair in the world was built in Auburn in 1890.
The Auburn Theological Seminary was built in 1820-21. The seminary trained Presbyterian ministers until it was closed in 1939 and merged with the Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
Excerpt from Persons, Places and Things In the Finger Lakes Region
by Emerson Klees
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