Patterson, New York
| Patterson | |
| Town | |
 Town Hall
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| Official name: Town of Patterson | |
| Name origin: after local farmer Mathew Paterson | |
| State | New York |
|---|---|
| Region | Hudson Valley |
| County | Putnam |
| Coordinates | 41°28′N 73°35′W / 41.467°N 73.583°WCoordinates: 41°28′N 73°35′W / 41.467°N 73.583°W |
| Highest point | Cranberry Mountain |
| - elevation | 1,232 ft (376 m) |
| - coordinates | 41°30′N 73°34′W / 41.500°N 73.567°W |
| Lowest point | East Branch Croton River at south town line |
| - elevation | 430 ft (131 m) |
| - coordinates | 41°27′N 73°24′W / 41.450°N 73.400°W |
| Area | 32.9 sq mi (85 km2) |
| - land | 32.3 sq mi (84 km2) |
| - water | 0.6 sq mi (2 km2) |
| Population | 12,023 (2010) |
| Density | 365/sq mi (141/km2) |
| Founded | 1795 |
| Supervisor | Michael Griffin |
| Timezone | EST (UTC-5) |
| - summer (DST) | EDT (UTC-4) |
| ZIP Code | 12563 |
| Area code | 845 Exchange: 278 |
| FIPS code | 36-56748 |
| GNIS feature ID | 0979345 |
 Location of Patterson, New York
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| Website: Town of Patterson, NY | |
Patterson is a town in Putnam County, New York, United States. The town is in the northeast part of the county. Interstate 84 passes through the southwest part of the town. The population was 12,023 at the 2010 census. The town is named after early farmer Matthew Paterson. The reason Patterson was spelled with two "t"s was due to the looseness with which Paterson spelled his own last name.
The town was first settled around 1720 in The Oblong, which was a disputed area in southeastern New York also claimed by the colony of Connecticut. The Oblong was a strip of land approximately 2.9 km wide between Dutchess County New York and Connecticut, ceded to New York in the 1731 Treaty of Dover. Between 1720 and 1776 a large number of mostly Connecticut families settled in the southern Oblong who could not settle west of it because that land was privately owned by the Philipse Family, who owned virtually all of the rest of the future Putnam County. The first such settlers were the Hayt family, who built a house at The Elm in 1720. Another early settler was Jacob Haviland, who settled Haviland Hollow in 1731. The first village in Putnam County, the hamlet of Patterson, was originally called Frederickstown, which lent its name to the eastern part of the future Putnam County other than the oblong, which was called Southeast Precinct (not the same as the current town of Southeast).
After the revolution, the Philipse land was confiscated, and in 1788, the former Philipse portion of the Oblong was chartered as the Town of Southeast, the remainder of the region being chartered as the Town of Fredericktown. In 1795, Fredericktown township was split up into four parts: 1. the Town of Carmel, 2. a part which was combined with the northern half of Southeast and became the Town of Franklin which was renamed the Town of Patterson in 1808, 3. a part which was combined with the southern half of Southeast and became the new, much larger town of Southeast, and 4. the remnant of the town, which was the Town of Frederick for a while, but was renamed the Town of Kent in 1817.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 32.9 square miles (85 km2), of which, 32.3 square miles (84 km2) of it is land and 0.6 square miles (1.6 km2) of it (1.95%) is water.
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Wikipedia