Asa Eastwood (1781-1870) was an early settler and a prominent citizen of Cicero in Onondaga County, New York. He grew up in New Jersey and New York City, and in 1800 he shipped out on the frigate Constellation to fight the French. Upon Eastwood's return in 1801 from the navy he undertook a variety of ventures in New York, including driving a horse and cart and keeping a grocery. He was married and began to have a growing family. Eastwood's income was frequently supplemented by his service as a constable, an employment that probably reflected his loyalties to the Democratic Party. He was also active in the Tammany Society, the Freemasons, and the local militia.
Despite the position of widening public importance in New York indicated by these associations, Asa Eastwood decided in 1817 to leave the city and buy a farm. He found one in Cicero, New York, and moved his family and belongings north on a wagon. There followed some lean years, clearing and cultivating the land with back-breaking work. Long afterwards, Eastwood wrote of that time, "How we got through, we cannot tell."
Eastwood did not, the evidence suggests, find farm life in itself satisfying to his energetic nature, and throughout his life he was also active in political and public affairs. He was the delegate for Onondaga and Oswego counties at the 1821 New York State Constitutional Convention and, while back in New York city briefly in 1822-1824 he was elected a sachem, the highest office of the Tammany Society. He was a member of the 1833 New York State Assembly, the Onondaga County Agricultural Society, the Cicero Temperance Society, and the Salina Literary Society. He achieved considerable prominence in local part politics and town meetings. He left the Democratic Party in the 1850s over the question of the extension of slavery, and remained a Republican the rest of his life.
Asa Eastwood married Mary Doxsey in 1801 with whom he had 11 children and shared sixty years of married life. Eastwood had outlived not only his wife and most of his contemporaries but also many of his children and grandchildren when he died in 1870 at the age of 89. A tentative genealogical chart is provided which shows Asa Eastwood and his most immediate relatives; the names of individuals whose papers comprise part of this collection are given in all capitals.
From the guide to the Asa Eastwood Papers, 1804-1872, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)
