Sidney, New York

The village of Sidney in Delaware County sits on the Susquehanna River at the foot of the Catskills. Early settlers called the place Johnston before renaming it in eighteen oh one in honor of Sir Sidney Smith, a British naval officer then admired on both sides of the Atlantic for his defense of Acre against Napoleon. The Susquehanna Turnpike arrived in eighteen oh five, and the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad followed in the eighteen sixties, connecting the village to larger markets.

Sidney's most consequential employer arrived in the twentieth century when a connector manufacturing firm eventually known as Amphenol Aerospace established operations here. Today Amphenol is the largest employer in Delaware County, making precision interconnect products for military aircraft, commercial aviation, and industrial systems.