On December 11, 1875 the first train of the Utica, Ithaca & Elmira railroad crossed the trestle over Six Mile Creek at Brooktondale. The train from Elmira entered Caroline from the south, came up the White Church valley, crossed the creek, and headed east to East Hill in Ithaca along the south side of Snyder Hill, crossing Slaterville Road at its intersection with Besemer Hill Road.
Josiah Besemer (1814–1894) thought that his property would be a good location for a station. When the UI&E demurred, Besemer and his son Willis (1856–1936) built it themselves, even before the train service began, and named the station Besemers, which is recorded in various records as Besemers, Besemer’s, and Besemers’. The UI&E apparently acquiesced to the plan, and added a water tower, the concrete base of which still stands a short distance west of the station location.
On March 9, 1876 a postoffice named Besemer’s Depot was established at the site, with Mary A. Besemer (1821–1900?), Josiah's wife, as postmaster. In January 1883 the name of the postoffice was changed to Besemer. However, the name of the station perhaps did not change: It was still referred to as Besemers in the minutes of the county Board of Supervisors later that year, and in a timetable from 1924. In 1900 Willis became the postmaster. The postoffice was discontinued and its service removed to Brooktondale in 1915.
In the 1888 Ithaca City Directory, Willis was described as a buyer of “coal, salt, lime, plaster, and country produce”. It seems that while his father ran the station, and his mother ran the postoffice, he took advantage of this nexus of transportation and communication to engage in local commerce. In 1894 his father died, and he became station master.
In 1912 the town of Caroline and Tompkins County complained to the New York Public Service Commission about the dangerous intersection of the railroad track and Slaterville Road. The case was settled to the satisfaction of the complainants when the railroad agreed to install an audible, visible signal at the crossing.
The railroad ceased operation with the last train on June 30, 1935. When Willis died in 1936, he had served as station agent for almost 60 years, starting at the age of 18.
The house in the background to the right of the station still stands at 2028 Slaterville Road.
- Cornell University Library, New York State Aerial Photographs.
- Derr, Laraine, Derr, Rollins and Burns Family Tree,, ancestry.com.
- Empire State Postal History Society, http://www.esphs.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Tompkins-County.pdf
- Hanford, George, Norton's Ithaca City Directory for 1888–1889…Together With a County Business Directory, p. 270.
- Kone, Barbara, Town of Caroline, in Kammen, Carol, et. al., Place Names of Tompkins County, Ithaca, 2004.
- Lee, Hardy Campbell, A History of the Railroads in Tompkins County, DeWitt Historical Society, Ithaca, 2008.
- New York Public Service Commission, Annual Report, Volume 6, Issue 1, 1913, p. 435.
- Proceedings of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Tompkins, for the Year 1883, Ithaca, 1883.
- Register of the Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States, on the Thirtieth of September, 1877, Government Printing Office, 1878.
- Sobel, Ted, The Old Mill, 2019
- Trice, Herbert V., The Gangly Country Cousin, DeWitt Historical Society, Ithaca, 2008.