A few weeks ago we looked at county and local governments in this blog, and that got me to thinking about our local counties themselves.
Counties are created, altered, and abolished by the state legislatures, contrary to the bizarre theory that counties are somehow the only legitimate unit of government.
On paper our area after 1691 was part of Albany County. In 1772 part of Albany became Tryon County… named to honor a British aristocrat, then changed to Montgomery for a hero of the Revolution. The Iroquois would have found all this hilarious, given that they still ruled almost a century after New York colony drew those Albany County lines on the map.
What was Montgomery County back then comprised all or parts of some thirty counties today, and all those arrangements actually started to mean something about 1789, when Ontario County was erected from Montgomery. Ontario ran from the state line to Lake Ontario, and roughly from the Genesee River to Seneca Lake, which pretty much matched the “Pulteney Purchase” by British investors. Steuben County was separated out in 1796. As new counties were created Ontario became progressively smaller until it reached its current boundaries in 1828 – which explains why a county with that name comes nowhere near the lake.
Allegany County was created (from Genesee) in 1806, later gaining land from Steuben but losing to Livingston, Wyoming, and even back to Genesee. Parts of Genesee and Ontario formed Livingston County in 1821, and boundary adjustments went on as late as 1922.
Yates County came out of Ontario in 1823 and added part of Steuben three years later. As years went on it gave up land to Tompkins and Seneca Counties, but added space (all under water) from Schuyler and Seneca in 1946.
A very large Tioga County came to be in 1791, and Chemung was created from Tioga in 1836.
And to complete our local (Corning-area) county map, and looking only in New York state, in 1854 Chemung, Steuben, and Tompkins all gave up land to make Schuyler County, the baby of the family. This is when Steuben finally lost its shoreline on Seneca Lake, having already given up some of Keuka for Yates County.
That lays out the boundaries. Where did all these county names come from?
ALBANY was named after the city, which took its name from one of the Duke of York’s subsidiary titles. TRYON was a colonial governor, and General Richard MONTGOMERY was killed in the Revolution, leading an attack on Quebec.
ONTARIO is of course the lowest and smallest of the Great Lakes, its name reportedly meaning Lake of Shining Waters in the Huron or Wyandotte tongue. ALLEGANY honors the memory of an early people driven out by the invading Iroquois. The name CHEMUNG reportedly derives from a Delaware word meaning “big horn,” referring to a mammoth tusk found nearby.
Baron STEUBEN was the man, more than any other, who trained and disciplined the Revolutionary troops into a true fighting army. Robert LIVINGSTON was also (reluctantly) a hero of the Revolution. He later swore in George Washington as President, and helped arrange the Louisiana Purchase. Philip SCHUYLER was a Revolutionary general, though not one whose career has impressed historians, and Governor Joseph YATES signed the law creating Yates County. From time to time in the future we’ll look at some swell stuff in each county, one by one.