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New York Counties

There are 62 counties in the State of New York. The first twelve counties in New York were created immediately after the British annexation of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, although two of these counties have since been abolished. The most recent county formation in New York was in 1912, when Bronx County was created from the portions of New York City that had been annexed from Westchester County. New York's counties are named for a variety of Native American words, British provinces, cities, and royalty, early American statesmen and generals, and state politicians.

Sullivan County, New York

Sullivan County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Monticello
Year Organized: 1809
Square Miles: 970

Court House:

100 North Street
County Government Center
Monticello, NY 12701-0000

Etymology - Origin of County Name

in honor of Major General John Sullivan, Revolutionary hero and commander of an expedition against the Six Nations of Indians

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

Long Island was discovered in the summer of 1524 by Giovanni Varrazano, a native of Florence, Italy. Employed by Francis I of France to explore the New World. Verrazano, having sailed his ship, the Daphne across the Atlantic, skirted the east coast of North America from below the Virginia to the west end of Long Island. There he was rowed through the Narrows to New York's upper bay and the mouth of the Hudson River. Then returning to his ship, he skirted Long Island's south shore to the vicinity to Block Island which he named the Island of Luisa. Landing on Montauk in the spring of 1614, Adrian Block became the first white man to tread the soil of future Suffolk County; also was the first to contact its aboriginal inhabitants. It was he who, upon returning to Europe, first sold the idea the Paumanok, as the Indians called the Island, was a very desirable piece of real estate and, like the immediate mainland, was well work any government taking it over. This the Netherlands did, at the same time claming all the coastal territory from Canada, where the French had already gained a foothold, to Virginia which had become British as early as 1607, as well as all the wilderness streching west ward to a distance which was anybody's guess. For more than thirty years after Adrian Block's Local expoloration, Long Island remaind all Indian. In 1639, the first two groups of New Englander's founded on either side of the Island's east end. They were Southold, over looking the Sound, and Southampton, fronting upon the Atlantic Ocean. Quite independent of one another, with the Peconic Bay laying deep between them. These two towns had only one thing in common. Englishmen. The first nine family's of East Hampton were: John Hand, Thomas Talmag, JR., Daniel Howe, Thomas Thomson, John Stretten, SR., Robert Bond, Robert Rose, Joshua Barns, and John Mulford. They were soon joined by Thomas Osborn, William Fithian, Richard Brooks, William Simonds, Samuel Belknap, Samuel Parson, Joshua Garlick, Fulke Davis, Nathaniel Bishop, William Barnes, Stephen Hand, Thomas Baker, Richard Shaw, Jeremiah Meacham and already settled on his Island estate, Lion Gardiner. In 1650, the line of division coincided almost identically with the subsequent Nassau-Suffolk county line, and thus for the first time the Suffolk County area assumed a distint political identity although, except for three townships and Gardiner's Island Manor, it also was still a wilderness unmarked and unclaimed by the whiteman. In 1642 came the settlement of Hempstead, 1652 Shelter Island, and the Hicksville area. The following year Oyster Bay, and Huntington, in 1655 Brookhaven and in 1656 Jamacia, in 1663 Smithtown, 1710 Islip, 1792 Riverhead and 1872 Babylon.

From the Book: Early Long Island, it's Indians, Whaling and Folklore Rymes.
By: Paul Bailey

Bordered for scores of miles by the once deep and swift Delaware River, covered with rich forests, much of hemlock, and part of the southern tier “wedge” separating the mines of New Jersey and coal fields of Pennsylvania from Hudson River ports, Sullivan County began its existence merely as a thoroughfare for Dutch and Spanish miners in search of precious metals. Full History at NYSAC

Geography

Sullivan County is in the southern part of New York State, southeast of Binghamton and southwest of Albany. It is separated by the Delaware River from Pennsylvania.

The county, which starts about 75 miles northwest of New York City, is nestled firmly within the Catskill Mountains. Its northeastern corner is within the Catskill Park.

The highest point in the county is a 3,118-foot (950 m) peak unofficially known as Beech Mountain, near Hodge Pond, a subsidiary summit to Mongaup Mountain across the Ulster County line. The lowest point is along the Delaware River.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 997 square miles (2,582 km²), of which, 970 square miles (2,512 km²) of it is land and 27 square miles (70 km²) of it (2.72%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Delaware County, New York - north
Ulster County, New York - northeast
Orange County, New York - southeast
Pike County, Pennsylvania - southwest
Wayne County, Pennsylvania - west

Cities and Towns:

- Bethel	town
- Bloomingburg	village	Incorporated Area
- Callicoon	town
- Cochecton	town
- Delaware	town
- Fallsburg	town
- Fremont	town
- Jeffersonville	village	Incorporated Area
- Liberty	village	Incorporated Area
- Lumberland	town
- Mamakating	town
- Monticello (County Seat)	village	Incorporated Area
- Neversink	town
- Port Jervis	city	Incorporated Area
- Rockland	town
- Thompson	town
- Tusten	town
- Woodridge	village	Incorporated Area
- Wurtsboro	village	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

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