Around Sylvan Beach

On the sandy shores and calm waters of Oneida Lake rests Sylvan Beach. For many years, the entire region was simply known as Fish Creek, and it was settled by George Haskins in the early 1800s. When the Erie Canal was completed in 1825, the area began to flourish. James D. Spencer arrived in the hamlet of Fish Creek in the 1840s and settled near Wood River and the Oswego Midland Railroad station. In the 1870s, he began to develop the sandy shores along Oneida Lake, and the first visitors to...