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August 11, 2008

<a href="mailto:jmeyers@pressrepublican.com">By JEFF MEYERS</a> The Press Republican Mon Aug 11, 2008, 11:08 AM EDT

PLATTSBURGH — Charters for all towns within Clinton County are available for review or copying at the Clinton County Historian’s Office.

The office has the complete collection of “Laws of the State of New York,” a publication printed annually by the State Legislature containing all of the laws enacted during each particular year.

“Every charter for any place in the state — a county, a town, a village — anywhere across the state can be found in ‘Laws of New York,’” County Historian Anastasia Pratt said recently from her office in the Clinton County Government Center.

“And every one of them is indexed, so it is pretty easy to find out what you’re looking for,” she added. “You just need to know which year you are interested in.”

LOCAL CHARTERS

Charters for municipalities vary in length. Some are little more than a paragraph long, while others may be two or three pages in length.

On March 29, 1839, for instance, the towns of AuSable and Black Brook were chartered, and a one-paragraph amendment to the charter was signed May 7 of that year, adjusting a portion of the town’s original borderlines.

The Town of Plattsburgh Charter was passed on April 4, 1785, and it not only identified the boundaries of the town but also established governmental policies, including to “chuse (sic) annually a supervisor, assessors, town clerk, collector, commissioners for laying out high-way, overseers the poor, fence viewers and poundmaster.”

The charter also enabled founder Zephaniah Platt to mine iron ore Crown Point and to manufacture the ore in the township for a term not exceeding 10 years.

PRISONS

The “Laws of New York” also contains information on other state actions, including approval for construction of highways and organization of corporations and all actions involving state prisons, such as Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, Pratt noted.

“It is quite fascinating to see what is available in these volumes.”

Volumes up to the mid-1920s are kept in her office, while the more recent volumes are stored in the vault at the County Planning Office, though Pratt will retrieve those volumes for anyone wishing to look up material.

She hopes to soon have all the volumes in one place as she continues to reorganize her new office. She became county historian in June.

She also has a list of charters from the county, including dates of each, so anyone looking for a specific charter without a date can find which volume from the state laws to access.

She will also help people research state laws through the Lexus Nexus Online Program available through Plattsburgh State.

“It’s interesting to research state laws. There are some very obvious differences in style over the years that says something about the people who wrote the laws.”

TOWN NAMES

Pratt has also developed a list of the origins of names for each town in the county. For instance, Altona comes from the name of a suburb of Hamburg, Germany, and Churubusco from a famous battle in the Spanish-American War.

Peru was named after the country in South America because the Adirondacks in the distance somehow reminded early settlers of similar views in Peru, South America, she said.

The County Historian’s Office, located at the Clinton County Government Center on Margaret Street in Plattsburgh, is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.

County Historian Anastasia Pratt can be reached at 565-4749 or via e-mail at pratt@co.clinton.ny.us.

E-mail Jeff Meyers at:

jmeyers@pressrepublican.com