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History · Honeoye

Honeoye’s post office opened in 1811, and 20% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: maps from 1901 on and old-book passages.

1811first post office
0on the National Register
20%homes built before 1940
2famous people
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Quick answers

How Honeoye began

When was Honeoye founded?

1811

The Honeoye post office opened in 1811, the earliest record of the town by name.

2020 census: 723215 years
Founding year: the first Honeoye post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Honeoye’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Honeoye are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.On the map since 19013 editions of the USGS map, 1901 to 1951. Watch Honeoye change.Deep rootsA post office since 1811: 215 years of Honeoye.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Honeoye’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Honeoye’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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On the map

Honeoye on the map, 1901 to 1951

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Honeoye. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Honeoye on the 1901 USGS mapHoneoye on the 1942 USGS mapHoneoye on the 1951 USGS map1901Honeoye sheet · 1:62,500

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Honeoye.

Timeline

Honeoye, 1837 to 1901

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1837Born hereEsther Saville Allen is born here
  3. 1838Born hereHelen Pitts Douglass is born here
  4. 20th century
  5. 1901On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
The story

How Honeoye came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Honeoye.

Read it all →

The name Honeoye is derived from the Seneca word ha-ne-a-yah, which means lying finger, or where the finger lies. The name comes from the local story of a Native American whose finger was bitten by a rattlesnake and who therefore cut off his finger with a tomahawk.

The area that is now the hamlet of Honeoye is thought to have first been inhabited by the Point Peninsula Indians more than 10,000 years ago. Following them came the Seneca, who settled their village at the northeast part of Honeoye Lake, just north of the present-day community of Honeoye Lake Park.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

From the old history books

What they wrote about Honeoye in 1893

Passages that mention Honeoye, cut from the printed page as they were published.

Sonnontonan, otherwise known as Totiacton, Tegaronhies, and also as La Conception, was located a mile and a half northwest of Honeoye Falls, on the northeastermost bend of Honeoye outlet, in the town of Mendon, Monroe county. It was about ten miles west of Gandagaro on Boughton Hill. A second locat…
History of Ontario county, New York1893 · page 45Read the page →
Read the text

Sonnontonan, otherwise known as Totiacton, Tegaronhies, and also as La Conception, was located a mile and a half northwest of Honeoye Falls, on the northeastermost bend of Honeoye outlet, in the town of Mendon, Monroe county. It was about ten miles west of Gandagaro on Boughton Hill. A second location of this village, and the one probably occupied by it when it was destroyed in 1687, was on the Ball farm, a mile west of Honeoye Falls village. This great village was for some time the western door of the Long House, and the residence of Tegar-

Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
ON February 11, 1833, that part of township number 10 of range 5, which lay east of Honeoye Outlet, was set off from the old town of Bloomfield and given a separate organization under the name
History of Ontario county, New York1893 · page 443Read the page →
Read the text

ON February 11, 1833, that part of township number 10 of range 5, which lay east of Honeoye Outlet, was set off from the old town of Bloomfield and given a separate organization under the name

Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.

Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.

By decade

No old photos in the archives yet

Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.

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Famous people

2 famous people were born in Honeoye

Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.

See all →
Helen Pitts DouglassAmerican suffragist · b. 1838
Esther Saville AllenAmerican writer · b. 1837

Questions about Honeoye’s history

What year was Honeoye founded?

The Honeoye post office opened in 1811, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

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Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.