Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 79% of U.S. towns · #436 of 758 in New York. What drives it
4 places in town are on the National Register. Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1900 on, and the census since 1820.
The Volney post office opened in 1825, the earliest record of the town by name. Five smaller post offices, Seneca Hill (1855), North Volney (1859) and Ingalls Crossing (1870), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
More historic than 79% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Volney is more historic than 79% of U.S. towns, #436 of 758 in New York. All 3 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its age ranks highest and its National Register listings 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 Volney’s 10.6 sits near the middle of its state (47% of New York towns have fewer) while its 6 historic buildings outnumber those of 72% 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.
Volney had its own post office from 1825 to 1908. Five 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 Volney’s history is told.
Lost two-thirds of its people between 1860 and 1920, then more than doubled.
20 censuses, 1820–2010.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Volney’s Wikipedia page.
From Wikipedia’s history of Volney.
The Town of Volney was formed from part of the Town of Mexico in 1806. The original name of the town was Fredericksburgh, which was changed to Volney in 1811.
The First Congregational Church and Society of Volney was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Volney, cut from the printed page as they were published.
many a mile around in rustic devotion at the shrine of Terpsichore. It is seldom, however, that that devotion is carried as far as in the case which will be related in the history of the town of Volney, when three young men walked twelve miles through the pathless forest from New Haven to Volney Centre, found three girls whom they had never .seen before, persuaded them to walk back with them to a " house-warming" in the former locality, running the risk
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
ney Centre, where all the town business was done, remaining in this locality until about 1830L- When the town of Volney was divided, he came to the village of Fulton, and kept a hotel for thirty years ; and, during the entire period of his hotel life,
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 hereJoel Prentiss Bishop is born here
Born hereWillard Johnson is born here
Born hereHorace B. Willard is born here
In the archiveVolney (Township); Volney Center (Village); Volney Center Business Directory
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyOne decade in the archive so far: the 1860s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Volney. 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 Volney.
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 Volney’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 Volney post office opened in 1825, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Volney is more historic than 79% of U.S. towns, #436 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.
4 listings: 4 buildings, among them the David Van Buren House (listed 1988, the first). 6 historic buildings in all.
19% of Volney’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±4.9 points), against a typical 27% for a New York town; the median home was built in 1978.
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 (1), the National Register of Historic Places (4), 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.
