Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Clinton Clinton, NY

Clinton is a village in Oneida County, New York, within the town of Kirkland southwest of Utica, and its Seneca name, Ka-dah-wis-dag, means "white field."

Clinton was settled in March 1787 when Revolutionary War veteran Moses Foote brought seven other families from Plymouth, Connecticut, to the site.

The village is named for George Clinton, the first governor of New York, and it was incorporated as a village in April 1843.

In 1793 the Presbyterian minister Samuel Kirkland founded the Hamilton-Oneida Academy in Clinton as a seminary that admitted both white and Oneida boys, naming it for Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, who served on its first board of trustees.

The academy became Hamilton College in 1812, making it the third-oldest college in New York State after Columbia and Union.

Clinton was known in the 19th century as the "village of schools" — dozens of private academies, seminaries and boarding schools operated there alongside Hamilton College.

The pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb began in Clinton in 1887 as the Clinton Pharmaceutical Company, founded above 3-5 West Park Row by two Hamilton College graduates, William Bristol and John Myers.

Elihu Root, who served as Secretary of War and Secretary of State under Presidents McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, was born in a building on the Hamilton College campus.

The 2020 census counted 1,684 people in Clinton, down about 13 percent from 1,942 in 2010, while the 2000 census recorded 922 households in the compact 0.63-square-mile village.

Life in Clinton centers on its Village Green, which hosts a summer farmers market, the Clinton Art and Music Festival and the Shopper's Stroll after Thanksgiving.