Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Photo: Daniel Case · CC BY-SA 3.0More historic than 74% of U.S. towns · #492 of 758 in New York. What drives it
6 places in town are on the National Register, among them two historic districts with 6 buildings between them. Below: 3 old photos and papers, maps from 1893 on, and the census since 1830.
The Pleasant Valley post office opened in 1813, the earliest record of the town by name. Three smaller post offices, Washington Hollow (1822), Gretna (1882) and Netherwood (1882), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
More historic than 74% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Pleasant Valley is more historic than 74% of U.S. towns, #492 of 758 in New York. Its age holds the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
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 Pleasant Valley’s 20.4 sits near the middle of its state (56% of New York towns have fewer) while its 20 historic buildings outnumber those of 79% 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.
Pleasant Valley’s post office has been open since 1813. 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 Pleasant Valley’s history is told.
Lost half of its people between 1830 and 1920, then grew 8-fold.
20 censuses, 1830–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Pleasant Valley’s Wikipedia page.
From Wikipedia’s history of Pleasant Valley.
Settlers began arriving after 1735. The town was part of the Great Nine Partners Patent of 1697. The town was formed in 1821 from part of the town of Clinton.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Pleasant Valley, cut from the printed page as they were published.
He was a Captain of militia. After a few years passed in Pleasant Valley he moved into what is now the town of Westport. In 1807 the name of Joel Finney was mentioned in the Baptist Church book there and soon after the church was meeting at his house "at Northwest Bay." He is said to have afterwards lived along the Black River and his mortal remains were buried in the Black River cemetery.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
THE town of Pleasant Valley, as a separate municipality, dates from 1821, when the Legislature took territory from Clinton and formed the new town. The town of Clinton being Ifirge, and political objects and interests becoming weightier, it was considered advisable by the citizens of the villages of Pleasant Valley and Hyde Park, in union with those in the y^cinity of each, to petition for the division of the town. Accordingly upon the 26th day of January, 1821, a bill was passed by the State Legislature creating the towns
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
first felt for unloading supplies for the Arsenal at Pleasant Valley." Once on the western shore of Lake Champlain the military stores were put into rude carts and dragged over the rough mountain road to Pleasant Valley, crossing the Black River at Morgan's Forge, now Meigsville, as the present Elizabethtown — Westport turnpike route then lay through undrained swamps.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
The next settlement of importance within the town was near the village of Pleasant Valley, about the year 174>0, by both Presbyterians and Quakers. Among the earhest names recorded were the Aliens, Flaglers, Formans, MarshaUs, Beadles, Deans, Sellecks and Abbotts, who began to make use, in a primitive way, of the mill privileges afforded by the Wappinger creek. The famihes of Van Voorhees, Harris and Frost settled in the north part of the town in 1765.
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 hereJames Kirke Paulding is born here
Born hereGilbert Dean is born here
Born hereJulia Dean is born here
In the archivePleasant Valley Vineyards--Hammondsport, New York
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
BuiltInnisfree is builtOne decade in the archive so far: the 1870s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Pleasant Valley. 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 Pleasant Valley.
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 Pleasant Valley’s page.
Retake this view · +15The 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.
Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Pleasant Valley post office opened in 1813, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Pleasant Valley is more historic than 74% of U.S. towns, #492 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.
6 listings: 3 buildings, among them the Newcomb-Brown Estate (listed 1988, the first), 2 historic districts, the Bloomvale Historic District and the Innisfree, with 6 contributing buildings, and 1 structure. 20 historic buildings in all.
11% of Pleasant Valley’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±3.5 points), against a typical 27% for a New York town; the median home was built in 1979.
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 the Library of Congress (3), the National Register of Historic Places (6), 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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