Pittstown Keeps Its Old Patent Story in the Hills

Pittstown has a story that sits outside the main Albany-Troy commute map. Town materials say it was founded as a township by patent in 1761, with King George III naming it for William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. The town’s own description points people toward rolling hills, valleys, backyard creeks, farmland, forests, and shoreline views of the Tomhannock Reservoir.

The historian page connects that local memory to the Pittstown Historical Society. That keeps Pittstown from sounding like a blank rural label. It becomes an old Rensselaer County hill town with a patent story, a water edge, and countryside that still shows up in the way the roads feel.

The Tomhannock Reservoir edge is the easy way to picture it. It gives the roads, farms, creeks, and views a real waterline to gather around.

Pittstown’s old patent date is paperwork on its own. Put it beside the hills and reservoir, and the paperwork starts to feel like a place. That is the charm here: an official origin story with enough landscape around it to breathe, plus a town historian keeping the local memory from flattening out.