The first town meeting was held at the school-house near Nathaniel Kent's May 4, 1830, and the following officers elected: William Teall, supervisor; Benjamin Healey, town clerk; Wilkes Richardson, Isaac C. Pool, Silas Williams, assessors; Martin L. Cook, John Matoon, over-.

seers of the poor; Simeon Peterson, Jesse Worden, Shubael Parker, commissioners of highways; Wilkes Richardson, Robert Gotham, Harry Tanner, commissioners of schools; Benjamin Healey, Aaron Teall, C. D. Morehouse, inspectors of public schools; Charles O. Redfield, collector; Ariel Wrisley, Charles C. Redfield, constables.

The town originally embraced the township of Fitzwilliam and a strip one mile (1.6 km) by six from the southwest side of De Kalb.

On November 17, 1852, the supervisors annexed a tract from the southeastern corner of the town of Edwards, leaving in Hermon 36,686 acres (148.46 km2).

The first white settler was James Taylor, who made a small clearing in the western part circa 1805.

The first marriage in the town was that of Ashbel Tryon and Harriet McCollum, July 4, 1821; and the first death was that of Peter, infant son of Germain Sutherland, in 1818.

Henry Reed, Orlando Babbitt, Dr. H. Alexander, Reuben L. Willson, John Gardner, and Asa, his son, Frank Matteson, Ransom and John Day, Noah Hamilton, Ezra Leonard, Alexander Brown, Almon and Amos V. Farnsworth, Silas Williams, A. F. Gates, a prominent dairyman and farmer, William Rasback, Thomas Thornhill, Alvin A. Corey, William A. Scripter, E. J. Stewart, son of Philemon Stewart, an early settler.

The early industries of this town were connected with lumbering, the clearing of land and raising such crops as were needed by the people.

But early in the history of this locality its excellent adaptability to grazing became apparent and more attention was given to stock-raising and dairying, and in recent years the latter industry has given it a rank among the best towns in the county.

There are large deposits of hematite iron ore in the town and early attracted attention, and it was long believed they would prove to be a source of wealth.

Mining operations were begun on an extensive scale in 1864, and J. W. Lowden, an eastern capitalist, also erected a furnace at Cooper's Falls in De Kalb.

Like most of the other attempts to successfully mine and produce iron in this county, there seem to have been conditions and circumstances which, coupled with the cheap production elsewhere, rendered it impossible to profitably pursue the industry here.