Its Register listings are the Salisbury Center Covered Bridge, the Salisbury Center Grange Hall and the Augustus Frisbie House. Below: maps from 1900 on and the census since 1820.
Founding year: the first Salisbury post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Salisbury’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Salisbury is more historic than 85% of U.S. towns. All 3 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its share of homes from before 1940 ranks highest and its National Register listings lowest.
A−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Salisbury’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 Salisbury’s 15.5 sits near the middle of its state (52% of New York towns have fewer) while its 3 listings outnumber those of 65% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from B+ to A. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±14.2 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 Salisbury’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Salisbury contains parts of the Jerseyfield Patent of 1770. The town was formed in 1797 from the town of Palatine while in Montgomery County. Salisbury was annexed to Herkimer County in 1817.
The town justice was removed in 2024 for multiple acts of misconduct.
The Augustus Frisbie House, Salisbury Center Covered Bridge, and Salisbury Center Grange Hall are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The covered bridge is celebrated by the annual Covered Bridge Day town festival.
meet a committee from Leicester, to see if they can settle the difficulty between the two towns, and make report at an adjourned meeting." And, finally, April 14, 1796, it was " voted that the town of Salisbury will make the south line of lot 'No. 20 the jurisdiction line between the towns of Salisbury and Leicester, and on the 19th of April of the same year the committee made the following report :
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
back with their wdiole family, to make a permanent * As a saw-mill was erected at Sutherland's falls, in Eutland, about the year 1773, those living near Otter creek, in Salisbury and in other towns, could obtain boards (which were floated down the creek), for such purposes as making doors and tables. The first table, and the only one used in the family of Holland Weeks for several years after his settlement in Salisbury, was made of the crotch of a tree, hewed tolerably
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Hoyt family. A genealogical history of John Hoyt of Salisbury, and David Hoyt of Deerfield, (Massachusetts,) and their descendants1857 · page 32Read the page →
Read the text
in Amesbury, May 1, 1737, and dismissed to the second chh. in Salisbury, June 21, 1739, — reed, there July 1, 1739. He was residing in that part of Salisbury which was incorporated as South Hampton in 1742. His oldest child's birth is recorded in Amesbury, the second in Salisbury, the three next in S. Hampton, and the two youngest in Brentwood.
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
Salisbury, 1813 to 1966
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
The Salisbury post office opened in 1813, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Salisbury rank for history?
Salisbury is more historic than 85% of U.S. towns. 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 Salisbury?
Three places: the Salisbury Center Covered Bridge (listed 1972), the Salisbury Center Grange Hall (1999) and the Augustus Frisbie House (1999).
How old are the homes in Salisbury?
28% of Salisbury’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±14.2 points), against a typical 27% for a New York town; the median home was built in 1970.
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 (8), the National Register of Historic Places (3), 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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