History of the Town of Georgetown
Oddly enough the citizens of this early community wanted to name it Washington, after the beloved first President George Washington. The United States government informed them that there were already too many Washington’s, so they were persuaded to change it.They did, they called it Georgetown.
Among its many early settlers was the mysterious Louis Anthe Muller who in 1810 built his Muller Mansion. Muller came from France after Napoleon took power, leading many people to believe that he was Charles X in hiding. Some also believed that Muller's wife was the daughter of Peter Stuyvesant, a descendant of the former Governor of New York; others sources say that deeds claimed it to be Adeline or Amy Brown. Whatever the case, Louis Anthe Muller would return To France after Napoleon’s fall in 1837 and the Muller Mansion would be purchased by Stuyvesant’s son Nicholas for his grandchildren, fostering suspicions that these children were the three children Muller left behind.
Eventually the Muller Mansion would become a popular tourist spot on hot Sunday afternoons when the fashionable would picnic there, and take a piece of something as a souvenir. (One such piece is held by the Madison County Historical Society in Oneida in its 100 year collection.)
Georgetown's treasured “Spirit House’ is still standing today in fine condition. The house which looks like a ginger bread house in white was one of two unusual structures built by spiritualist Timothy Brown. Brown claimed that it was the “Spirits” that guided him to build it. His first house was a very ornate home with fancy roof attachments that ended with what appeared to be hanging balls. The house was rightfully called the “House with Green Balls’. This house is also still standing below Georgetown and perhaps they both have survived, protected some say by “the spirits”! Even today, the architecture of both houses amazes the professional and the common passer-by!
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