Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 94% of U.S. towns. What drives it
4 places in town are on the National Register, among them a historic district with 108 buildings. Below: 2 old photos and papers, maps from 1904 on, and the census since 1820.
The Jefferson post office opened in 1819, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, South Jefferson (1866), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
More historic than 94% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Jefferson is more historic than 94% of U.S. towns. All 3 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its National Register listings ranks highest and its age lowest.
New York towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical New York town has 12.3 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Jefferson’s 905 sits above most of its state (95% of New York towns have fewer) while its 111 historic buildings outnumber those of 90% of U.S. towns.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Jefferson’s history is told.
The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
Peaked at 2,033 in 1840; 1,333 people lived here in 2020.
21 censuses, 1820–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Jefferson’s Wikipedia page.
From Wikipedia’s history of Jefferson.
The town was unoccupied by settlers during the American Revolution, first being settled around 1793 by New Englanders.
In 1803, the town was created from part of the Town of Blenheim.
The First Presbyterian Church of Jefferson and Parker 13-Sided Barn are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Jefferson, cut from the printed page as they were published.
During his boyhood andearly manhood Merritt A. Cleveland worked upon his father's farms, attending school at Houndsfield, Brownville, Dexter and Watertown, all in Jefferson county, until 1869. The following year he joined the civil engineering corps of the Carthage, Watertown and Sackett's Harbor Railroad, where he was employed in constructing the. railroad, and later was employed by the Clayton and Theresa Railroad and also by the Watertown Water Works, and' employed in the .city engineer's office the first year that Watertown was in-
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
short time, and in advance of his family in the year 1797 he with David Starr and others came and took up timber land in the town of Champion, this county,, and is said to be the first man who chopped a, tree in Jefferson County for the purpose of settlement, and consequently was its first settler. In 1799 he moved his family thither, and began a pioneer life in a trackless wilderness. Struggling with poverty and the hardships coincident with a new country, he carved out a fine
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
It will be noticed by reference that the present town of Pinckney, in Lewis county, organized February 12, 1808 then a part of the town of Harrison, in Jefferson, was then divided by a line that was a continuation of the west lines of townships 8 and 3, of Boylston's tract; and that from the line between Champion and Denmark, on Black river, the division ran straight to St. Lawrence county, where the line of townships 7 and 11, of tract III., touched the
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.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In the archiveJefferson (Township)
BuiltParker 13-Sided Barn is built
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyOne decade in the archive so far: the 1860s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
2022Jefferson Thrift Store, Schoharie County
2022Jefferson Historical Society
2022Jefferson General Store
2022Jefferson Central School
2022Jefferson Central School, Schoharie County
2022Jefferson Baptist Church
2022J.J. Weymeyer Ceramics
2022J&H Express Mart
2022House on Potter Hill Road
2022Heartbreak Hotel
2022Hamlet of
2022Fuller Fire District No. 4
2022Facilities at The Zone
2022East End Garage
2022Dollar General
2022Dog clean-up sign
2022Diggers
2022Daily Star mailbox in
2022Creative Spirit
2022Countryside in
2022Country Inn
2022Clapper Hollow State Forest
2022Children Under 12 Must Be Accompanied by Adult Superv…
2022Cemetery sign
2022Buck Hill Farm Maple Products
2010FarmlandEvery edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Jefferson. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Jefferson.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Jefferson’s page.
Retake this view · +15Jefferson’s post office has been open since 1819. Another post office, South Jefferson, opened and closed inside today’s town.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Jefferson post office opened in 1819, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Jefferson is more historic than 94% of U.S. towns. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
4 listings: 3 buildings, among them the Parker 13-Sided Barn (listed 1984, the first), and 1 historic district, the Jefferson Historic District, with 108 contributing buildings. 111 historic buildings in all.
26% of Jefferson’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±6.2 points), against a typical 27% for a New York town; the median home was built in 1978.
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
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).
From Wikimedia Commons (28), the National Register of Historic Places (4), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System 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.
1866
