Founding year: Wikidata. First post office: 1816.The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Minisink’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Minisink is more historic than 67% of U.S. towns, #550 of 758 in New York. All 3 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its age ranks highest and its National Register listings lowest.
B+
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Minisink’s overall grade.
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 Minisink’s 6.4 sits near the middle of its state (39% of New York towns have fewer) while its 3 historic buildings outnumber those of 65% of U.S. towns.
NoteThe founding year comes from Wikidata alone; no second source gives 1800.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from B− to B+. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±4.4 points).
Founding year: Wikidata (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 →
What stands out about Minisink’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The name Minisink is derived from the language of its original inhabitants, the Munsee. Its use dates to the mid-seventeenth century and historically applied to a large area traditionally bounded north-to-south by the Minisink Ford and Delaware Water Gap, and east-to-west by the Kittatinny Ridge and Pocono Mountains (See [1]). The Minisink Patent, granted in 1704, established a defined plot within this broader area. The current municipal borders were fixed in 1800. Due to the fact that the New York - New Jersey border was previously seven or eight miles north of its present location, Minisink was once in New Jersey.
Passages that mention Minisink, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Centennial celebration of the Minisink battle1879Read the page →
Read the text
that Brandt conceived the idea of exterminating the people of Minisink, which included that section of country where Port Jervis now stands, some twenty-five miles down the Delaware river. Gathering his braves to the number of about one hundred and forty, and some twenty-seven white tories, he stealthily made his way into the quiet little hamlet of Minisink, on the 20th, at night, or early in the morning of the 21st, murdering every man, woman and child in their way, and burning two saw-
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.
Timeline
Minisink, 1786 to 1906
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In 1800, according to Wikidata. Minisink’s post office opened in 1816, and the census of 1820 counted 5,053 people here.
How does Minisink rank for history?
Minisink is more historic than 67% of U.S. towns, #550 of 758 in New York. 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.
What is on the National Register in Minisink?
One place: the Hulet Clark Farmstead (listed 1998).
How old are the homes in Minisink?
12% of Minisink’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±4.4 points), against a typical 27% for a New York town; the median home was built in 1990.
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 (10), the National Register of Historic Places (1), 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.
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