Cayuga County Fun Facts

The Finger Lakes region is chock-full of rich history and culture.

In this series I’m sharing with you all the firsts, important historical events, notable individuals, world records, and occasional quirky roadside attractions I come across in my explorations, organized by county.

Here are some fun facts about Cayuga County. For random facts about the other 13 Finger Lakes counties, check these posts:

Chemung, Cortland, Livingston, Monroe, Onondaga, Ontario, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga, Tompkins, Wayne, Yates.

I know I’m only scratching the surface of all the cool things to know, so please tell me interesting facts to add! You can comment below or send me a message.

And make sure you subscribe to the Finger Lakes Family Fun email list or follow on Instagram, where I’ll be sharing my latest discoveries.

Cayuga County Basic Facts

Population: 76,248

County seat: Auburn

Origin of name: the Cayuga people of the Iroquois Confederation

Tourism site: Tour Cayuga

County fun fact

With eight lakes, Cayuga County has more waterfront land than any other county in the state that’s not adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean.

Auburn

Case Research Lab

Case Research Lab is considered the birthplace of sound film. Chemist, physicist and inventor Theodore Case invented the first commercially successful system of sound on film in 1923. The lab can be visited at the Cayuga Museum of History and Art.

Abner Doubleday

Born in 1819 in Ballston Spa, NY (Saratoga County), Civil War hero Abner Doubleday spent his childhood in Auburn, which his father Ulysses F. Doubleday represented for four years in the U.S. Congress. Abner is famous for firing the first shot at Fort Sumter, the first battle of the Civil War, and he had an important role in the Battle of Gettysburg. The myth that he invented baseball has been debunked, but the Auburn Doubledays, a collegiate summer baseball team, are still named after him.

Finger Lakes Drive-In

Opened on July 15, 1947, Auburn’s Finger Lakes Drive-In is the oldest continually running drive-in theater in New York.

Find out more about it and other Finger Lakes drive-in movie theaters.

Insanity Plea

In 1847, the insanity plea was used for the first time in a U.S. court. Lawyer William H. Seward, who later served as New York governor as well as U.S. senator and Secretary of State, represented William Freeman, a Black and Indigenous man who had been previously abused in prison, in a murder case. The first judge refused to let a medical expert testify to support the plea and Freeman was found guilty. An appellate court reversed the decision and granted a new trial, but Freeman died soon after the decision. Seward’s former home in Auburn is now the Seward House Museum.

Harriet Tubman

Perhaps the most famous person associated with Auburn is abolitionist Harriet Tubman. She was born in 1822 and escaped from slavery in Maryland to Philadelphia. Tubman purchased a 7-acre parcel in 1859 from Frances Seward, the wife of William Seward (see above), technically an illegal transaction to a self-emancipated person, and lived there until the end of her life in 1913. As a member of the Underground Railroad, she helped free dozens of enslaved people, including her family, and she also served as a spy for the Union Army during the Civil War. You can learn more about her life and work at the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park.

Manowar

Heavy metal band Manowar was formed in Auburn in 1980. They set the Guinness World Record for loudest band in 1984, beating it twice in 1994 (129.5 dB) and 2008 (139dB), though by then the category had already been retired. (Such high noise levels can lead to immediate hearing loss.)

Willard Memorial Chapel

Willard Memorial Chapel was built in 1892-1894 and is the only known religious interior entirely designed by the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company that remains complete and unaltered.

Moravia

Millard Fillmore

The 13th U.S. president, Millard Fillmore was born in 1800 in a log cabin on a farm in what is now Moravia.

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Page header photo: Googoo85, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.