The Lebanon Reservoir Story: Chenango Canal
The Chenango Canal was built by the State of New York in 1834-1836 to assist commerce between Binghamton and Utica where it intersected with the Erie Canal. In order to provide an ample year-round water supply for the Canal, several reservoirs and an elaborate feeder system were needed. Kingsley Brook Reservoir (Lebanon Reservoir) was the southern most of these water impoundments. It is still maintained by the state of New York under the auspices of the Canal Corporation subsidiary of the Thruway Authority.
Avery Kingsley, the youngest son of Amos Kingsley ran the family farm when the Canal was constructed sued the State of New York for damages for the loss of the water in Kingsley Brook, but was unsuccessful. The dam of the Reservoir ruptured in 1843, creating a crisis downstream in the Chenango Valley. The rush of water and rocks down the 80 foot deep gorge along the 1.5 mile stretch between the Reservoir and the valley below, washed tons of debris onto the Kingsley farm fields. Later, a higher dam doubled the acreage of the Reservoir to its present size.
A direct family connection exists between the Hartshorn’s and the Kingsley’s. Ryal Hartshorn, born in Lisbon, Connecticut in 1789 and a veteran of the War of 1812, married Amos Kingsley’s daughter, Maria, in Lebanon after moving here along with his brothers Ira and Oliver. Ryal is a fourth generation ancestor of the current proprietors of Lebanon Reservior Campground.
The upland hill property taken for Lebanon Reservoir where Kinglsey Brook was dammed, known as the Campbell settlement, belonged to nine Campbell brothers. A cemetery bearing the Campbell name on Geer Road provides a direct connection to the family. Carolyn Faucett Hartshorn is a direct descendant of the Campbell family and grew up in a home adjacent to the cemetery. The first wife of her grandfather, John M. Faucett, Alcie Campbell, provides the connection. Their farm land surrounded two-thirds of the shoreline of Lebanon Reservoir. This property then passed to John N. Faucett and his wife Alice Bills, parents of Carolyn Faucett Hartshorn. Carolyn grew up on the family farm and her father oversaw a boat rental business for fishermen on the Reservoir. This 300 acre property was sold for development by Carolyn’s father, John, in 1955, and he continued to live on the family homestead through the 1960s.
The property that forms the backbone of Lebanon Reservoir Campground was also originally Campbell farm land and comprises the remainder of the Reservoir water frontage but it came to Carolyn from her mother’s family, the Smith’s and Bills’. Carolyn’s mother, Alice Bills Faucett was raised on the farm that later became the campground by her mother, Mary Rose Smith Bills and grandparents George and Sarah Smith. The Smith’s celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary on the farm in the 1900. Carolyn inherited the eighty acre property that became the campground in 1948 on the passing of her mother Alice.
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