Dundee Village Hall is located at 12 Union Street, Dundee NY 14837.
Phone: 607‑243‑5551.
Beginnings [1]
The first settlers in the area that was to become the Village of Dundee were Isaac Stark, Anson Stark, William Durland, Hendrick Houghtaling, Elias Fitzwater, Jonathan Botsford, John Walton, Benjamin Potter, Isaac Houghtaling, Lazarus Reed, and Joseph Green.
It is probable that Isaac Stark and the Houghtaling family came in the same year, ca. 1807. At that time the place was known as Harpendings Corners, and the word "corners" fully describes its extent at that time. There were only four principal streets, Main, Seneca, Water and Union. The appearance of the village was dreary and desolate. The streets were rough and uneven and filled with piles of lumber, shingles and staves, and were profusely decorated with stumps. Cows, pigs and geese ran at large, and pig-troughs were in front of some of the dwellings. There were no sidewalks, no shade trees, no churches, no lawyers, no justices or other town officers, no stages, livery or other public conveyances, and what will indicate a very low grade civilization, there was not a billiard of gambling room in the village. There were about 30 buildings, most of them small, ill-kept and scattered along the four principal streets, single and in small huddles. The sole hotel was kept by Samuel Harpending.
In those days Harpendings Corner was a dependent of Eddytown which was the favored village with its five stores, church, two hotels, lawyers, doctors and a variety of mechanics.
In the spring and summer of 1831 there was a small boom in building. Samuel Hudson built a store and dwelling on the corner of Water and Union streets. John Sweeney, Dr. Benjamin Nichols, B. B. Beekman, Thomas Swarthout and E. J. Smith each built dwellings on the west side of Main Street. The Harpending House was enlarged and the Baptists erected the first house of worship in the village. From this time, the future of the village was assured, and Eddytown as a business place was doomed, its prestige gone. Little by little its trade left and was absorbed by its young rival. One by one its stores disappeared; some closed out, some removed, and others went out legitimately (failed), until in time there were none left.
In 1841 Colonel Benjamin Tuthill put upon the road a one-horse vehicle in which mail and passengers were carried to and from Starkey Landing, on Seneca Lake.