Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 63% of U.S. towns · #579 of 758 in New York. What drives it
Its Register listing is the Oswego Meeting House and Friends' Cemetery. Below: maps from 1893 on and the census since 1830.
Union Vale dates its founding to 1716 (Wikipedia’s history). The census first counted it in 1830.
More historic than 63% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Union Vale is more historic than 63% of U.S. towns, #579 of 758 in New York. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull 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 Union Vale’s 4.4 sits below most of its state (33% of New York towns have fewer) while its 2 historic buildings outnumber those of 60% of U.S. towns.
Founding year: Wikipedia (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.
Seven 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 Union Vale’s history is told.
Lost half of its people between 1830 and 1900, then grew 4-fold.
20 censuses, 1830–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Union Vale’s Wikipedia page.
From Wikipedia’s history of Union Vale.
The region was originally part of the Beekman Patent. The town was first settled circa 1716, and was formed in 1827 from the towns of Beekman and LaGrange.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Union Vale, cut from the printed page as they were published.
the same until 1821, when the town of Freedom (now La Grange) was set off. Beekman was further reduced in 1827 by the erection of the town of Union Vale. Settlements within the present town limits are supposed to have been made early in the eighteenth century, but records relating thereto have been lost or destroyed. A man by the name of De Long is credited with keeping an inn near the present village of Green Haven as early as 1725, but his name does not appear in the list of free-
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
from portions of the towns of Fishkill and Beekman, February 9, 1821, under the name of Freedom. A strip of about five thousand acres was taken from it March 1, 1827, to form part of the town of Union Vale. . The town is bounded on the north by Pleasant Valley ; east by Union Vale and Beekman; south by Wappinger and East Fishkill, and on the west by the town of Poughkeepsie, from which it is separated by Wappinger Creek. The area thus embraced comprises 25,443 acres,
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.
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
2023Union Vale, NY, town hall
2020Unionvale-Hall-Christie-1
2010Dutchess County Route 9 - New York
2010CloveMountainFireTower
2009Staged car fire 8
2009Staged car fire 7
2009Staged car fire 6
2009Staged car fire 5
2009Staged car fire 4
2009Staged car fire 3
2009Staged car fire 2
2009Staged car fire 1
2009Sprout Creek3
2009Sprout Creek2
2009Sprout Creek
2009CR9 Dutchess County
2008Swollen Sprout CreekEvery edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Union Vale. 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 Union Vale.
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.
Nobody well known was born in Union Vale itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
In 1716, according to Wikipedia’s history of the town. Union Vale’s post office opened in 1826, and the census of 1830 counted 1,833 people here.
Union Vale is more historic than 63% of U.S. towns, #579 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.
One place: the Oswego Meeting House and Friends' Cemetery (listed 1989).
19% of Union Vale’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±7.0 points), against a typical 27% for a New York town; the median home was built in 1976.
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 (17), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, 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.
