The Mansfield post office opened in 1831, the earliest record of the town by name. Three smaller post offices, Eddyville (1849), Maples (1892) and Orlando (1898), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
First census: 378 in 18302020 census: 843195 years
Founding year: the first Mansfield post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Mansfield’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The area was first settled circa 1817. The town of Mansfield was formed in 1830 from part of the town of Town of Little Valley. The town was first called "Cecilius". The name "Mansfield" was adopted in 1831.
Mansfield had a post office by 1840. It is implied to still have a post office as late as 1933 but merged with the Little Valley post office some time before the establishment of ZIP Codes in 1963. (Within the 147 prefix, Little Valley and Mansfield are adjacent to each other alphabetically and geographically.) The ZIP Code Tabulation Area for 14755, the ZIP Code for Little Valley, shows a clear 8 shape illustrating the territory each office covered.
Passages that mention Mansfield, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The life and times of Col. James Fisk, Jr.1872 · page 479Read the page →
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Mansfield's, at that time. They were both looked upon as most respectable and reputable people, and Miss Mansfield was not only without reproach, morally, but when we subsequently heard of her connection with Fisk, we could not believe it possible, for we had previously looked upon her as not only a strictly virtuous character, but an exceedingly retiring and modest woman, as respected her manner and disposition.
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Historical and biographical history of the township of Dayton, Cattaraugus County, New York1901 · page 144Read the page →
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John M. Parmelee is a prominent town official, a social companion and an enterprising business man of Dayton, He was born June 1, 1853, in the town of Mansfield, Cattaraugus Co., N. Y Mr. Parmelee was reared on a farm and educated in the common schools. When sixteen years of age he went to Cattaraugus and there learned the cabinet trade of James H. Rider, with whom he afterward furmed a co-partnership which was continued for two years. He came to Dayton in 1874 and started the first furniture store in town. This business he successfully conducted for three years when he sold
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Mansfield, 1801 to 1923
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
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, 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.
