I'm sure that many people are wondering...How did the city that, among it's many achievements, boasts the #1 hoops team in all the land, come to be called Syracuse?
...
In 1819 Joshua Forman and John Wilkinson engaged with others in the community to determine what their growing town's eventual name should be.
The village, whose primary landmark was The Old Red Mill, had first been called Bogardus' Corners after a tavern located at what is now the northwest corner of Salina and Genesee Streets; then later referred to as Milan, South Salina, and finally, Cossitt's Corners .
Joshua Forman, a man highly respected by the community, came up with the name Corinth, because it brought to his mind a pleasant and historic old world city. For a time this settled the issue, and Corinth was accepted as the name...
Then John Wilkinson applied to the federal government for two things: a post office for Corinth, and his own nomination as postmaster. The second request came through. Wilkinson became the postmaster. But Corinth was rejected as a name, because it had already been claimed by another village in New York State.A chance moment of leisure in a waiting room in New York City in 1820 finally put Wilkinson on the right track. Thumbing through a periodical, he came upon a poem. It was titled "Syracuse".
The verse described a community in Sicily with a nearby lake where salt and fresh water mingled. It had a nearby town called Salina. The statesman, Marcellus and Cicero, were mentioned by name. And as the final coincidence, the measurements of Syracuse, Sicily and Corinth, New York were identical...one mile long and half a mile wide!
Another literary comparison could be found in a French book published in 1666, which likened the Lake of the Onondagas to that of the Syracuse in the Mediterranean.
Wilkinson and his fellow townsman knew that they had found their name...
"Syracuse"
Source: "They Built A City" 1976 William F. Roseboom and Henry W. Schramm
