Tryon County was a

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

in the colonial

Province of New York The Province of New York (1664–1776) was a British proprietary colony and later royal colony on the northeast coast of North America. As one of the Middle Colonies, New York achieved independence and worked with the others to found the U ...

in the British American colonies. It was created from Albany County on March 24, 1772, and was named for William Tryon, the last provincial governor of New York. The county's boundaries extended much further than any current county. Its eastern boundary with the also-new Charlotte County ran "from the

Mohawk River The Mohawk River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 river in the U.S. state of New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson River. The Mohawk ...

to the

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

line, at a point near the old village of St. Regis and passing south to the Mohawk between

Schenectady Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...

and Albany." It extended north to the St. Lawrence River; its western boundary was the

Treaty of Fort Stanwix The Treaty of Fort Stanwix was a treaty signed between representatives from the Iroquois and Great Britain (accompanied by negotiators from New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania) in 1768 at Fort Stanwix. It was negotiated between Sir William ...

Line of Property The Line of Property is the name commonly given to the line dividing Indian lands from those of the Thirteen Colonies, which were established in the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix between British officials and the Iroquois tribes. In western Penns ...

, following the

Unadilla River The Unadilla River is a river in the Central New York Region of New York State. The river begins northeast of the hamlet of Millers Mills and flows generally south to the village of Sidney, where it converges with the Susquehanna River, which d ...

Oneida Lake Oneida Lake is the largest lake entirely within New York state, with a surface area of . The lake is located northeast of Syracuse and near the Great Lakes. It feeds the Oneida River, a tributary of the Oswego River, which flows into Lake Ontario ...

, Onondaga River and Oswego River to

Lake Ontario Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border sp ...

, as the Iroquois Confederacy still controlled locations further west in the

Indian Reserve In Canada, an Indian reserve (french: réserve indienne) is specified by the '' Indian Act'' as a "tract of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that has been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band." In ...

. Tryon County's seat was Johnstown, which is today the county seat of Fulton County.Anderson
p. 67 The Tryon County Courthouse, built in 1772–1773, was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1972. The Tryon County Jail, also built in 1772–1773, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. The county was divided into five districts: Mohawk, Palatine, Canajohorie, German Flatts, and Kingsland. The county court house and jail were erected in Johnstown in 1772 establishing Johnstown as the county seat. Three of the seven original judges were relatives of Sir William Johnson: Sir John Johnson (son), Guy Johnson (nephew), and

Daniel Claus Christian Daniel Claus (17271787) was a Deputy Agent in the British Indian Department and a prominent Loyalist during the American Revolution. He was born September 13, 1727, at Bönnigheim, Württemberg the son of Adam Frederic Claus and his ...

(son-in-law) with a fourth judge being close business associate and neighbour, Colonel John Butler. The remainder of the original seven judges were Peter Conyne, Jelles Fonda and John Wells. Guy Johnson, John Johnson, Daniel Claus and John Butler sided with Britain during the American Revolution while Fonda, Wells and Conyne supported the American cause. Its members in the

assembly were Sir John Johnson and Hendrick Frey.

American Revolution

In August, 1774, shortly before the outbreak of the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

, some members of the county formed the Tryon County Committee of Safety to harass their Loyalist neighbors, eventually causing many to flee to the safety of

. Guy Johnson and a large party of supporters left in May, 1775. Sir John Johnson and a large party of his supporters left in May, 1776. By 1776, most of the Loyalists in Tryon County had fled. In December 1780, the results of a census stated that the number of uncultivated farms was 1200 and that 354 families had abandoned and had fled the county. In some places such as Cherry Valley, Springfield, and Harpersfield there was no one to conduct a census. This was out of a pre-war population of around 10,000. Schenectady came near to being the limit of civilization.

After the war

On April 2, 1784, the new state's

legislature A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known ...

voted to change the name to Montgomery County, in honor of General

Richard Montgomery Richard Montgomery (2 December 1738 – 31 December 1775) was an Irish soldier who first served in the British Army. He later became a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and he is most famous for l ...

, a

Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies (the Thirteen Colonies) in the Revolutionary-era United States. It was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, and was establis ...

General slain during the Battle of Quebec. The Legislature stated, “From and after the passing of this act, the county of Tryon shall be called and known by the name of Montgomery, and the county of Charlotte by the name of

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

.”Sylvester, p. 12

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

History of Tryon County, NY
{{New York Former counties of the United States Pre-statehood history of New York (state) History of the Thirteen Colonies New York (state) counties

American Revolution

After the war

See also

References

Bibliography

External links