06/14/2026
Commodore Truxton...
Did you know that the town of Truxton was named after a military officer of the American Revolution?
Truxton is part of the Military Tract, which is land that was given to soldiers for their military service during the Revolutionary War. It was originally part of the town of Fabius until Cortland County was set apart from Onondaga County in 1808. The names of towns in the Military Tract were of Greek and Roman origin, but since Truxton was divided from Fabius, it was not an original town of the Military Tract, and as such, it was named after Commodore Thomas Truxtun.
Thomas Truxtun was born in 1755 near Hempstead, on Long Island. His father died when he was a child, and he was placed in the care of a family friend. At the age of twelve, young Truxtun went to sea, joining the crew of a British merchant ship. He became a skilled sailor and was in command of his own vessel by the time he was twenty. As the relationship between the colonies and Great Britain became more contentious, Truxtun was impressed into the Royal Navy. He turned down a midshipman’s commission, and after he was wounded in action against an American privateer, Truxtun vowed he would not fight his own countrymen again. He became a privateer during the Revolution and captured several British ships.
A capable seaman, Truxtun spent the next dozen years sailing the world. He commanded the vessel Canton, one of the first American ships to trade with China. In the tumultuous years after the Revolution, America and France were involved in the Quasi-War, a two year undeclared war, and Truxtun was appointed by President George Washington as one of the first six captains in the United States Navy. He served admirably and was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal on March 29, 1800, for his victory against the French vessel La Vengeance.
Truxtun wrote and published several books on navigation and naval tactics, and he designed the US Navy signal manual as well as wrote the predecessor to the Navy Regulations used to this day.
A hero of his day, Truxtun was well known when the town of Truxton was formed in 1808, and though the spelling was changed when the town was named, it was an honor for a small rural town in New York to be named after a great commodore of the US Navy. ~Tabitha Scoville, CCHS Director
Image from Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/resource/ds.00246/
