Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 91% of U.S. towns · #244 of 758 in New York. What drives it
14 places in town are on the National Register, among them ten historic districts with 243 buildings between them. Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1897 on, and the census since 1820.
The Pittstown post office opened in 1804, the earliest record of the town by name. Three smaller post offices, Tomhannock (1807), Raymertown (1840) and Boyntonville (1875), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
More historic than 91% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Pittstown is more historic than 91% of U.S. towns, #244 of 758 in New York. All 3 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its National Register listings ranks highest and its share of homes from before 1940 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 Pittstown’s 484 sits above most of its state (91% of New York towns have fewer) while its 265 historic buildings outnumber those of 95% 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 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.
Pittstown had its own post office from 1804 to 1922. Three other post offices 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).
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Pittstown’s history is told.
From Wikipedia’s history of Pittstown.
The town is one of the original towns in the county and was created in 1788, from a patent dated 1761.
The Coletti–Rowland–Agan Farmstead, Howard–Odmin–Sherman Farmstead, and Tomhannock Methodist Episcopal Church are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Pittstown, cut from the printed page as they were published.
citizens are notably extravagant in the use of water, the consumption rate being unusually high. The sources of this water supply are the Tomhannock reservoir, five and one-half miles in length and from one half to two miles in width, located in the town of Pittstown and draining an area of sixty-seven square miles in that town and the adjoining towns of Brunswick, Grafton and Hoosick. Adjoining it on the south is the Quackenkill drainage area including a series of seven natural lakes besides a comparatively smaller reservoir located in the town of Grafton.
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.
Born hereIsaac Singer is born here
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
In the archiveA. S. Eycleshymer StoreOne decade in the archive so far: the 1910s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Pittstown. 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 Pittstown.
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 Pittstown’s page.
Retake this view · +15Lost a third of its people between 1880 and 1920, then more than doubled.
21 censuses, 1820–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Pittstown’s Wikipedia page.
Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Pittstown post office opened in 1804, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Pittstown is more historic than 91% of U.S. towns, #244 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.
14 listings: 4 buildings, among them the Sherman Farm (listed 2003, the first), and 10 historic districts with 243 contributing buildings. 265 historic buildings in all.
19% of Pittstown’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±6.0 points), against a typical 27% for a New York town; the median home was built in 1983.
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 (9), the Library of Congress (1), the National Register of Historic Places (14), 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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