History of Meridian, Part 1 -- In the Beginning

In the beginning…


That’s the usual place to start a history of just about anything, so it seems appropriate to begin this one the same way.

Meridian’s beginnings, like any place on Earth, started with the condensation of a ring of dust and debris around the sun. That ring of dust and debris became the series of planets that make up our solar system. However, that beginning is covered in a lot of other books, so we’ll skip much of the first 4 billion years and start with the most recent Ice Age, which lasted over 100,000 years, ending between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago.

If you look around, you’ll notice the fairly uncommon landscape that surrounds Meridian. The village sits in the middle of a large field (sometimes called a “swarm”) of glacially-formed hills called “drumlins.” There are about 10,000 drumlins in upstate New York, following the southern shore of Lake Ontario. There are drumlins on the floor of Lake Ontario itself and another 7,000 drumlins exist across the Lake on its northern shore in Canada. Other drumlin fields on Earth are much, much smaller

Drumlins follow the direction of the glaciers, ice thousands of feet thick, that formed them. As these massive rivers of ice moved southward, they sculpted the landscape. Drumlins are very visible evidence of the glaciers’ movement. Those around Meridian are aligned askew from north-south, inclined slightly to the northwest. The shape of drumlins has been compared to that of whales, long and narrow. Traveling from east to west or vice versa in the Meridian area can sometimes feel similar to riding a roller coaster.

The eastern entrance to the village on Route 370 cuts through a classic drumlin. The northern half of it used to be called “Butter Factory Hill.”

That same Ice Age, as its glaciers moved southward, gouging out the landscape, was responsible for the creation of the Finger Lakes as well as the drumlin field. The two lakes south of the village, Otter and Cross Lakes, may not be as long or as deep as Cayuga or Seneca or the other, more “official” Finger Lakes, but they were created in the same way and are equally important evidence of the huge effect of glaciers on the New York State landscape.

Lakes such as Cross and Otter Lakes aren’t as deep as some of the other Finger Lakes, and there are still shallower depressions that resulted from the glaciers. Today we see lowlands and marshes in these shallow depressions that aren’t deep enough to be lakes. The “Sunnyside” area, east of the village, is a classic example, as is the swampy area to the northwest of Cato Meridian School. The Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge at the north end of Cayuga Lake, is an extreme example.

Those swampy areas had in important role in later New York State History, creating difficulties for early settlers because they were perfect breeding grounds for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Many of the workers who built the Erie Canal, the main means of transportation to Meridian’s region, died of malaria.

The glaciers also deposited soil. That soil was later the basis for the agriculture that made upstate New York an excellent place for the human beings, both Native American and European, that eventually settled here.