Founding year: the first Penn Yan post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Penn Yan’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Penn Yan is more historic than 98% of U.S. towns, #52 of 758 in New York. All 3 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its share of homes from before 1940 ranks highest and its age lowest.
A+
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Penn Yan’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 Penn Yan’s 458 sits above most of its state (91% of New York towns have fewer) while its 216 historic buildings outnumber those of 94% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from A to A+. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±8.2 points). The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
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 →
What stands out about Penn Yan’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The Penn Yan area was home to several Seneca villages until their destruction in the 1779 Sullivan Expedition, after which most of the Seneca population fled westward. The Seneca leader Red Jacket grew up on Keuka Lake. The first white settlers in Western New York were the followers of the Public Universal Friend, a religious enthusiast born in Cumberland, Providence County, Rhode Island, who obtained a large tract for a settlement (called Jerusalem in 1789) in the present Yates County, and founded the village of Hopeton on the outlet of Keuka Lake, approximately one mile from Seneca Lake. Many followers settled there, and lived there after 1790, but the community gradually broke up.
Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Passages that mention Penn Yan, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The military history of Yates County, N.Y.1895 · page 64Read the page →
Read the text
York Volunteers, was organized, and on the 22d it was regularly mustered into the United States service for three years.* * Colonel Ephraim M. Whitaker, of Penn Yan, one of Yates County's patriotic citizens, having conceived the idea of presenting the new organization with a stand of colors, by his own personal efforts collected the money and made a trip to New York to procure the material for a flag, which was made and wholly finished by the ladies of Penn Yan.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
The military history of Yates County, N.Y.1895 · page 97Read the page →
Read the text
On the 17th of December, 1861, a new company, under Captain Joseph J. Morrison, t recruited in part in Penn Yan, was mustered iuto the United States service for three years at New York. The company remained in garrison at Palace Garden in that city until the following March, when orders were received to go to the front. The company went from New York to Arlington Heights, and after being stationed in Fort Corcoran, Fort Ethan Allen, and Fort DeKalb, was
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
Penn Yan, 1849 to 1947
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
The Penn Yan post office opened in 1818, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Penn Yan rank for history?
Penn Yan is more historic than 98% of U.S. towns, #52 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.
How old are the homes in Penn Yan?
50% of Penn Yan’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±8.2 points), against a typical 27% for a New York town; the median home was built in 1938.
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 (1), the Library of Congress (11), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress) 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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1907![Elm St., Penn [Yan], N.Y](https://images.townratings.com/story/11729/fa4d824acc4130f87c79-s.jpg)
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