Conrad Edick House, Deposit New York

Date added: February 18, 2010 Categories: New York House Federal Style

The structure is located facing the West Branch of the Delaware River very close to the line between Broome County and Delaware County. This line was originally the Fort Stanwix Treaty Line of 1768 and thus marked the western frontier of white settlement in New York State according to the agreement between the Indians of the Six Nations and Sir William Johnson, the British Crown's commissioner. The older portion of the village of Deposit, and its first center, was situated nearby, on the Delaware County side, east of the old Treaty line. Much of the village soon developed on the western or Broome County side. The site of this property is almost on the spot where the Treaty line meets the Delaware River, which it then follows southward. Its location was thus very easily identifiable In the early days.

An old description places the site of this house at the corner of "Water and West Main Streets". Since neither street name now exists, it is thought that "West Main" is "River" and "Water" is "Front" Street.

Originally owned by Conrad Edick, a Revolutionary soldier and early Deposit merchant. Conrad Edick was born September 15, 1763, at German Flats, Herkimer County, New York on the Mohawk River, where he remained until the place was burned in 1779, when he moved with his stepfather, Nicholas Weaver, to Stone Arabia, Montgomery County, New York. In the spring of 1780, he volunteered for nine months as a ranger under Capt. Crosselmas, to scout the surrounding country through the woods along the Mohawk Valley after Indians and Tories. He was in Fort Paris when a part of Stone Arabia was burned by the British Indians and Tories under Sir John Johnson and John Brant. Edick moved to Green bush, near Albany, New York, and in the spring of 1781, he enlisted for nine more months and marched to Fort Plain, Montgomery County, New York, on the Mohawk River. During this term of service he was frequently employed in riding express between the forts.

Late in 1781, Edick volunteered at Fort Plain for three years in a regiment being raised by Col. Marinus Willett and was appointed Corporal and served until the regiment was disbanded in 1784.

For two or three years after the war he found employment in different places, then in 1787, he proceeded to a place on the Delaware River, two miles below Deposit, New York, and finally settled in Deposit.