A store was established on the present site of Ilion as early as 1816, but the village really dates from the completion of the Erie canal in 1825.
2
Here General Herkimer began his advance to raise the siege of Fort Schuyler (1777), and subsequently Ilion was the rendezvous of Benedict Arnold's force during the same campaign.
3
Ilion is a part of the township of German Flats (pop. in 1900, 8663; in 1905, 9489), settled by Palatinate Germans about 1725.