The Geographical Evolution of Present Day Washington County, NY.

By Leslie B. Potter
Glen Mills, PA

I am a subscriber to a Rootsweb Mailing List, named NYWashin. Recently, another subscriber asked the List where he could find early land records for Washington Co, NY. I answered, quoting the information found in “The Handybook”. Leslie, another subscriber, answered my reply, as follows below.

Leslie is a lawyer, who attended law school in New York State.  She earned a B.A in history from the Pennsylvania State University in 1966. She was graduated from Albany Law School, Union University in Albany, NY in 1972 and was admitted to practice in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that same year. Before she was disabled by asthma and chronic allergic bronchitis in 1993, she had published a property base line map of Middletown Township Delaware County, PA based on the 1798 United States Direct Tax List and written six successful National Register Nominations, in addition to practicing law. She is currently working on an historic site registration for Benjamin Rush's summer house in the Oxford (township) section of Philadelphia County. (Rush was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.)

 She is also currently compiling a community history of the civilian population of the Saratoga Tax District of Albany County in the spring of  1777.  She is counting noses, located the tenant farmers on the land, and documenting the web of relationships between and amongst the families of the 1779 Saratoga District taxpayers.  So she pays particular attention to the surnames being sought in all Washington County mailing list postings. She keeps hoping that she will find descendants of the 1779-taxpayers and 13th Regiment of the Albany County Militia.

She is also recording the settlement patterns. The early settlers came in extended family groups and when they went west they left in extended family groups.

I thought her review would be interesting to Olmste(a)d researchers, as it may explain why we can not find some of the people we are looking for in Washington County.

The geographical evolution of Washington County into its present configuration was a little more complicated than the material that Carl quoted from the "The Handybook" would lead one to believe.  For my part, I simply zeroed in on the date that the Saratoga and Cambridge Tax Districts of Albany County were added to Washington County.

On March 12, 1772, a municipal entity called Charlotte County was created out of Albany County.  It contained 11,170 square miles of land.  Charlotte County included a rather large portion of the present day state of Vermont. 

On March 24, 1772, Charlotte County lost land to Cumberland County and exchanged land with Gloucester County.  This event caused a net loss of 9,300 square miles of land. 

On April 1, 1775, Charlotte County gained more land from Albany County and exchanged land with Cumberland County, a net gain of 9,330 square miles of land.  On January 15, 1777, Charlotte County lost land to Vermont, a loss of 5,570 square miles of land.  On June 26, 1781, Rutland (VT) overlapped Charlotte County, when Vermont attempted to annex part of New York State. 

On February 23, 1782, the overlap by Rutland (VT) was eliminated when Vermont gave up its attempt to annex part of New York. 

On April 2, 1784, Charlotte County was renamed Washington County.  On March 1788, Washington County lost 1,560 square miles of land when Clinton County was created.  On February 7, 1791, Washington County gained 1/2 of the Saratoga Tax District and all of the Cambridge Tax District of Albany County, a gain of 1,770 square miles of land.

On April 3, 1801 Washington County gained 1,810 square miles of land from Montgomery County.  On March 12, 1813 Washington County lost 840 Square miles of land when Warren County was created. 

On March 29, 1822, Washington County lost 840 square miles of land to Rensselaer County. 

On April 7, 1880, Washington County gained 840 square miles of land from Rutland (VT).

(Please see New York, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries, Compiled by Kathryn Ford Thorne, and edited by John H. Long.  © 1993, pages 200 to 205 for more information.)

Since I knew that the questioner was interested in land in the Cambridge Tax District, I considered the important date for the land records to be to be 1791.  Any deed, filed in the ordinary normal course of business, will be filed in the Clerk's Office in and for the county in which the land is situate.  Early deeds that were not filed in a timely manner, but filed later, may be in Ft. Edward, county seat of Washington County, instead of the Albany County Clerk’s Office, but such a deed will be the exception, not the rule. I suggested that one should look at the Albany County Grantor and Grantee Indexes for transactions before 1791.  The next thing to do would be to check the Washington County Grantor and Grantee Indexes.  Then one should wander down stairs to the Washington County Archives.

I have also found land records at the New York State Archives in what I consider the strangest places.  Although I am a graduate of a New York State law school, I do not speak New York legalese fluently.  So why I would find land records in the Department of State Dockets is beyond me, but I am sure that New York lawyers have a logical explanation for this practice.

Although the employees in the Washington County Clerk's Office are helpful, they will not do your work for you.  Even though I am an attorney, with 32 years experience working with 17th and 18th century legal documents and am licensed to certify title to land, I find running titles in Washington County to be particularly difficult, primarily because so little of what I have been looking for has been recorded. 

You might also want to get a hold of Thorne's book.  In the back she has a section entitled Census Outline Maps.  Montgomery and Herkimer Counties go through some interesting gyrations that only looking at maps can adequately communicate.  Also maps best communicate the boarder shifts between Vermont and Washington County.