Re: Watertown street names: “Dewey Ave.,” it has been noted, “was in place long before Thomas Dewey was Governor” of New York. Yes, and long before Dewey Avenue, David Dewey, a Revolutionary War veteran, his wife Polly (Cole) and their family moved to Jefferson County. That was in 1825. Perhaps the most notable of their eight children was the fourth, Hiram Dewey, who was born at Warren, N.Y., Sept. 6, 1813. Hiram purchased a sawmill in 1832, sold out about four years later and bought a farm of 118 acres in Orleans, near LaFargeville, which he eventually increased to 464 acres while serving as an assessor for a year, justice of the peace for five years, supervisor for five and county judge for five years. Judge Dewey, as he was known, was a charter member and director of the Agricultural Fire Insurance Co. of Watertown which he helped organize in 1853, well before his marriage to fourth wife Delia Sylvester, and was general agent at the time of his death, Oct. 13 1883, when the company’s assets were nearly $2 million. He was also a charter member, large stockholder and director of the Watertown Fire Insurance Co. In 1860, Dewey was selected for the Electoral College and went to Albany where he cast his vote for Abraham Lincoln. Originally a Whig, then a Republican, Hiram was fondly recalled in his obituary as “a strong Baptist from early manhood, just, generous, true and every inch a man whom none knew but to love and cherish, and whose sympathy and influence always went back in return." He rests today at Brookside Cemetery in Watertown. As for the street name, I have no knowledge of whom it was selected to honor, but would nominate Hiram Dewey. Tony Sylvester Kitty Hawk, NC