Rensselaer County, NY GenWeb site - Cities, Towns and Villages

Rensselaer County
Cities, Towns and Villages

This page was last updated 17 July 2014

Rensselaer County, New York is today divided into two cities and 14 towns; these are all shown on our map of the county and are described in the tables below. There is no part of Rensselaer County that does not lie either within one of the two cities or within one of the 14 towns. Our glossary defines locality terms, most importantly town in the New York state sense of the word.

In the tables below, we show both of our cities, all 14 of our towns and all six of our present-day incorporated villages. Click on a town or city name in the left column for its history as of 1880, including the names of early settlers, the details of early churches and the names of men who participated in the American Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the US Civil War. The exception is the City of Rensselaer, which didn't exist in 1880; we link you instead to the city government page that explains about the city's charter. On our Place Names page, we also list as many of our unincorporated hamlets as we can find.

Cities

City	Date Chartered	Website
City of TROY* (see footnote)	Created as Town of Troy from Manor of Rensselaerwyck March 18,1791; Incorporated as Village of Troy April 2, 1801; Chartered as City of Troy April 12, 1816	City of Troy
City of RENSSELAER	Chartered as City of Rensselaer from Town of Greenbush April 23, 1897; there never had been a town named Rensselaer; see Town of Greenbush in link below to table of Localities Whose Names Have Changed	City of Rensselaer

Footnote

*WEST TROY	West Troy was always in Albany County, NY. It lay across the Hudson River from Troy. It was not a part of the City of Troy. It was a village in the town of Watervliet, and its name was later changed to Watervliet.
*NORTH TROY	North Troy is not an incorporated entity; the term is used informally to refer to the northern part of the City of Troy.
*EAST TROY	Although I've never found an "East Troy" in any written records, one of our guests kindly emailed to say, "I lived in South Troy, and we always called the Albia area `the East side'." If any of you can shed any further light, please do let us know!
*SOUTH TROY	South Troy is not an incorporated entity; the term is used informally to refer to the southern part of the City of Troy.

Towns

Town	Date Founded or Incorporated	Created From	Website/Notes
Berlin	Created as Town of Berlin March 21, 1806	Towns of Petersburgh, Schodack and Stephentown	Berlin website; pronounced "BURR-lin"
Brunswick	Created as Town of Brunswick March 20, 1807	Town of Troy	Brunswick website
East Greenbush	Created as Town of Clinton February 23, 1855; renamed Town of East Greenbush April 14, 1858	Town of Greenbush; Town of Clinton	East Greenbush website
Grafton	Created as Town of Grafton March 20, 1807	Towns of Troy and Petersburgh	Grafton website
Hoosick	Hoosick Patent granted June 3, 1688; designated District of Hoosick March 24, 1772; created as Town of Hoosick March 7, 1788	Original	Hoosick website
Nassau	Created as Town of Philipstown March 31, 1806; Name changed to Town of Nassau April 6, 1808	Towns of Petersburgh, Schodack and Stephentown; Town of Philipstown	Nassau website Village Green Newsletter
North Greenbush	Created as Town of North Greenbush February 23, 1855	Town of Greenbush	North Greenbush website
Petersburgh	Created as Town of Petersburgh March 18, 1791; not sure when (or even whether) the final h was dropped; modern sources and maps use both spellings.	Town of Stephentown	Petersburgh website
Pittstown	Designated a "township by patent" July 23, 1761; created Town of Pittstown March 7, 1788	Original	Pittstown website
Poestenkill	Created as Town of Poestenkill March 2, 1848	Town of Sand Lake	Poestenkill website; pronounced "POOSE-ten-kill"
Sand Lake	Created as Town of Sand Lake June 19, 1812	Towns of Greenbush and Berlin	Sand Lake website
Schaghticoke	Designated a district March 24, 1772; created Town of Schaghticoke March 7, 1788	Original	Schaghticoke website; pronounced "SCAT-uh-cook"
Schodack	Created as Town of Schodack March 17, 1795	Manor of Rensselaerwyck	Schodack website; pronounced "SKOH-dack"
Stephentown	Created as Town of Stephentown March 29, 1784	Manor of Rensselaerwyck	Stephentown website

Villages

Village	Town in Which It Lies	Notes
Castleton-on-Hudson	Schodack	incorporated in 1827; has its own Castleton-on-Hudson website
East Nassau	Nassau	incorporated after 1996; had previously been incorporated as a village prior to 1880; original name had been Schermerhorn's Village; has its own East Nassau website
Hoosick Falls	Hoosick	incorporated April 14, 1827
Nassau	Nassau	chartered as Village of Nassau on 12 March 1819; charter revised 17 April 1866; original name had been Union Village; has its own Nassau village website
Schaghticoke	Schaghticoke	formerly Village of Hart's Falls
Valley Falls	Pittstown	formerly Pittstown Station

Looking for our "Hamlets" table? Click here.

Looking for our table of "Localities Whose Names Have Changed"? Click here.

Over time, towns are sometimes divided, joined together or renamed. The former Town of Lansingburgh, for example, is now mostly part of the City of Troy, with the rest of it now part of the Town of Schaghticoke. When a town is absorbed into another municipality, any previously existing local government ceases, and the town's formal separate identity ends; however, that town's informal identity often continues. More than a century after Lansingburgh became part of Troy in 1900, the area that now shows on Troy maps as "North Troy" is still, in the minds of many of the residents, "Lansingburgh".

In old records, you will find many places in Rensselaer County, NY referred to as villages that are not listed in the villages table but are instead listed in our table of hamlets. I confined the villages list to the present-day villages, because they still have their own local governments, their own vital-record offices and their own village historians. Places that once were villages and once had all these things but no longer are villages and no longer have governments are now on the hamlets list; to access any records they once may have held, you would write to the vital-records office of the town in which that place is located.

For a table listing the old and new names of places in Rensselaer County whose names have changed, click here.

For origins of place names in Rensselaer County, click here.

Ray Brown's website Ray's Place has town histories as published in Landmarks of Rensselaer County by George Baker Anderson (Syracuse, NY: D. Mason & Co., Publishers, 1897).

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Debby Masterson

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