Oneida Lake is the largest lake entirely within

New York state New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. sta ...

, with a surface area of . The lake is located northeast of Syracuse and near the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...

. It feeds the

Oneida River The Oneida River is a river that forms a portion of the boundary between Oswego and Onondaga counties in central New York. The river flows from Oneida Lake's outlet to its confluence with the Seneca River, where the two rivers combine to form ...

, a tributary of the Oswego River, which flows into

Lake Ontario Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border spa ...

. From the earliest times until the opening of the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducin ...

in 1825, the lake was part of an important waterway connecting the Atlantic seaboard of North America to the continental interior. The lake is about long and about wide with an average depth of . The shoreline is about . Portions of six counties and 69 communities are in the watershed.

Oneida Creek Oneida Creek is a small river in New York in the United States. The creek enters the southeastern corner of Oneida Lake at a location known as South Bay, a bay of the lake. The name is derived from the Oneida tribe of the Iroquois. Stockbridge ...

, which flows past the cities of Oneida and Sherrill, empties into the southeast part of the lake, at South Bay. While not geologically considered one of the

Finger Lakes The Finger Lakes are a group of eleven long, narrow, roughly north–south lakes located south of Lake Ontario in an area called the ''Finger Lakes region'' in New York, in the United States. This region straddles the northern and transitional ...

, Oneida Lake, because of its proximity, is referred by some as their "thumb". Because it is shallow, it is warmer than the deeper Finger Lakes in summer and its surface freezes solidly in winter. It is popular for the winter sports of

ice fishing Ice fishing is the practice of catching fish with lines and fish hooks or spears through an opening in the ice on a frozen body of water. Ice fishers may fish in the open or in heated enclosures, some with bunks and amenities. Shelters Longe ...

and

snowmobiling A snowmobile, also known as a Ski-Doo, snowmachine, sled, motor sled, motor sledge, skimobile, or snow scooter, is a motorized vehicle designed for winter travel and recreation on snow. It is designed to be operated on snow and ice and does not ...

Name

The lake is named for the Oneida, the

Iroquoian The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking. As of 2020, all surviving Iroquoian ...

Native American tribe that historically occupied a large region around the lake, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois. The name Oneida comes from the word ''Oneyoteaka'', their

endonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

which translates to "People of the Standing Stone". The Oneida called the lake ''Tsioqui'' in their language, meaning "White Water".

History of navigation

During the 18th and early 19th centuries Oneida Lake and its tributary Wood Creek were part of the Albany-Oswego waterway from the Atlantic seaboard westward via the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between New ...

and through the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a mountain range, system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovicia ...

via the

Mohawk River The Mohawk River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 river in the U.S. state of New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson River. The Mohawk fl ...

; travel westward then was by portage over the

Oneida Carry The Oneida Carry was an important link in the main 18th century trade route between the Atlantic seaboard of North America and interior of the continent. From Schenectady, near Albany, New York on the Hudson River, cargo would be carried upstrea ...

to the Wood Creek-Oneida Lake system. The navigable waterway exited Oneida Lake by the Oneida River, which led to the Oswego River and

, from where travelers could reach the other

. Following the American Revolutionary War, the United States forced the Iroquois nations to cede most of their lands in that region, as most of them had allied with the British, who were defeated. In addition, demand from settlers created pressure for such cessions. White settlers improved the natural waterway by constructing a canal with locks within Wood Creek to Oneida Lake. This system was significantly improved—from 1792 to 1803—by cutting a canal across the Oneida Carry, after which commercial shipping across Oneida Lake increased substantially. This paper won the 2004 Robert M. Vogel Prize as the outstanding article in the previous three years published in ''IA, The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology''; see Even more significant was the completion in 1825 of the

, which bypassed the Oneida Lake system and enhanced travel through the entire Mohawk Valley. This caused the population around the lake to lose their navigable waterway eastward. In 1835 Oneida Lake was connected to the Erie Canal system by construction of the (old) Oneida Canal, which ran about from Higginsville on the Erie Canal northward to Wood Creek, about upstream of Oneida Lake. Built poorly with wooden locks, the Oneida Canal was closed in 1863. When the

was redesigned and reconstructed to form the

New York State Barge Canal New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...

in the early 20th century, the engineers made use of natural rivers and lakes where possible. The new barges were powered internally (by diesel or steam engines), so they could travel open water and against a current; the system no longer needed infrastructure for drawing vessels externally — i.e., drawpaths and draft animals. After it straightened Fish Creek on the east, the new canalway entered Oneida Lake at Sylvan Beach and exited west with the Oneida River at Brewerton. New terminal walls at Sylvan Beach, Cleveland, and Brewerton allowed barges to load and unload cargo and to stay overnight. A new break wall was installed, preventing lake waves from entering the canal and protecting against shoaling. These improvements provided towns along the shoreline of Oneida Lake with access again to navigable waterways east and west.

Geology

Oneida Lake is a remnant of Glacial Lake Iroquois, a large prehistoric lake formed when

glaciers A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such a ...

blocked (from downstream) the flow of the

St. Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connectin ...

, the outlet of the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.

Adjacent places

Counties

* Madison County * Oneida County *

Onondaga County Onondaga County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 476,516. The county seat is Syracuse. Onondaga County is the core of the Syracuse, NY MSA. History The name ''Onondaga'' derives fro ...

* Oswego County

Towns and villages

* Brewerton—Southwest *

Bridgeport Bridgeport is the most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the fifth-most populous in New England. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonn ...

—Southwest *

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...

—Southwest *

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U ...

—North * Constantia—North *

Hastings Hastings () is a large seaside town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, ...

—West * Jewell—Northeast * Lakeport—South * Lenox—South * South Bay—Southeast *

Sullivan Sullivan may refer to: People Characters * Chloe Sullivan, from the television series ''Smallville'' * Colin Sullivan, a character in the film ''The Departed'', played by Matt Damon * Harry Sullivan (''Doctor Who''), from the British science f ...

—South * Sylvan Beach—East *

Verona Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city municipality in the region and the second largest in n ...

—East *

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

—North * West Monroe—Northwest

State parks

* Frenchman Island State Park *

Verona Beach State Park Verona Beach State Park is a state park located on the eastern shore of Oneida Lake in the Town of Verona, Oneida County, New York. The park is located on NY 13 northwest of the City of Oneida and south of Sylvan Beach. Oneida Creek ente ...

Namesakes

Oneida Lake is the namesake of Oneida Lacus, a hydrocarbon lake on the

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...

ian moon

Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictio ...

. That "lake" is composed of

liquid A liquid is a nearly incompressible fluid that conforms to the shape of its container but retains a (nearly) constant volume independent of pressure. As such, it is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, gas, ...

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on ...

and

ethane Ethane ( , ) is an organic chemical compound with chemical formula . At standard temperature and pressure, ethane is a colorless, odorless gas. Like many hydrocarbons, ethane is isolated on an industrial scale from natural gas and as a petr ...

, and is located at 76.14° N and 131.83° W on

's globe.

Oneida County, Idaho Oneida County is a county located in the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2010 Census the county had a population of 4,286. The county seat and largest city is Malad City. Most of the county's population lives in Malad City and the surrounding ...

is also named for the lake.

References

Notes Further reading * From 1900 to 1970, a region near the southeast shore of Oneida Lake was "the onion capital of the world".

External links

Oneida Lake View
Webcam of Oneida Lake, North Shore
NYCanals.com:
A guide to boating on Oneida Lake and surrounding waterways.

{{authority control Oneida Lakes of Madison County, New York Lakes of Oneida County, New York Lakes of Onondaga County, New York Lakes of Oswego County, New York Tourist attractions in Madison County, New York Tourist attractions in Oneida County, New York Tourist attractions in Onondaga County, New York Tourist attractions in Oswego County, New York Central New York Lakes of New York (state)