Founding year: Wikipedia. First post office: 1808.The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Pittsford’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Pittsford is more historic than 91% of U.S. towns, #36 of 71 in Vermont. All 3 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its age ranks highest and its National Register listings lowest.
A
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Pittsford’s overall grade.
Vermont towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Vermont town has 147 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Pittsford’s 83.0 sits near the middle of its state (53% of Vermont towns have fewer) while its 24 historic buildings outnumber those of 80% of U.S. towns.
NoteThe founding year comes from Wikipedia alone; no second source gives 1769.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from A− to A. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±8.9 points).
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 →
What stands out about Pittsford’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Pittsford was first settled as a frontier town in 1769, about 60 miles (97 km) north of Bennington. It is the location of two historical picket forts used by the militia during the American Revolutionary War: Fort Mott (built in 1777), and Fort Vengeance (built from 1780 to 1781), about a mile north.
The town of Pittsford, New York, was named by Colonel Caleb Hopkins after his hometown of Pittsford, Vermont, named after William Pitt.
Passages that mention Pittsford, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Rutland County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers1886Read the page →
Read the text
Asa Nourse came to Pittsford to reside with his brother Josiah in 1 8 19; he taught school for several seasons. In 1824 he purchased an undivided onehalf of the saw-mill north of the Colburn bridge, and in 1830 he bought of Andrew Leach some land and buildings just east of Leach's blacksmith shop.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Rutland County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers1886 · page 451Read the page →
Read the text
known as the two-story school-house. The history of this district is briefly as follows: Previous to 1836 there was no school district at the falls; the socalled Humphrey farm belonged to District Number 10, while all north of his farm and south of Pittsford was considered a part of the south, or Kingsley District of Pittsford. When Moses and Willard Humphrey began business, in 1836, a new district was formed and numbered fourteen, including all of the territory south of the Pittsford line to Joel M. Mead's farm. They began an attempt to secure the erection of a school-house for the new district by sub-
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
lie was one of the committee of five, appointed by the proprietors, who laid out the three principal highways through the town, from Pittsford to Leicester, and from Pittsford to Sudbury, which was in November, 1783.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
He was first on the committee appointed by the proprietors, before the town was organized, to lay out the principal roads " from Pittsford to Leicester, and from Pittsford to Sudbury, on the west side of the Creek, and from Pittsford to the mills, now the village, on the east side of the Creek, (" four rods wide.") He was often appointed to some
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.
By decade
Pittsford, decade by decade
5 decades in the archive, from the 1840s to the 1940s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
In 1769, according to Wikipedia’s history of the town. Pittsford’s post office opened in 1808, and the first U.S. census counted 850 people here in 1790.
How does Pittsford rank for history?
Pittsford is more historic than 91% of U.S. towns, #36 of 71 in Vermont. 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 Pittsford?
7 listings: 2 buildings, 1 site, and 4 structures. 24 historic buildings in all.
How old are the homes in Pittsford?
21% of Pittsford’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±8.9 points), against a typical 22% for a Vermont town; the median home was built in 1972.
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 (6), the Library of Congress (5), Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (7), 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.
1898
1913
1913
1913
1941
1941
