Organization

Gallatin,

Columbia County,

New York.

By Capt. Franklin Ellis²⁵²

1878

     This town was formed from Ancram, March 27, 1830, by running a north and south line across the town near the centre.  It was named Gallatin in honor of Hon. Albert Gallatin, who was secretary of the treasury of the United States in 1801-13.  When the town of Livingston was divided, in 1803, the part which was afterwards called Ancram was named Gallatin.  This was changed, in 1814, to Ancram, and when the division of 1830 occurred the name of Gallatin was revived and assumed by teh new town.  The first town meeting was held in the following April, and we append a copy of the record:

     "At a town-meeting held, agreeable to law, at the House of John P. Killmer, in the Town of Gallatin, on the Sixth Day of April, 1830, when the following persons were Elected to office, and the following regulations were adopted, viz.:  John S. Harris was chosen moderator of the day; Abraham F. Miller, supervisor; Marks Piester, town clerk; John a. Hoysradt, Jacob Teal, Jr., and William I. Coon, assessors; John L. Duntz, Cornelius Vanbenschoten, and John R. Loomis, commissioners of highways; George Rowe, Job D. Tanner, and Adam Hoysradt, commissioners of schools; Isaac T. Loomis, Robert N. Van Deusen, and Henry Younghause, inspectors of schools; John P. Killmer, Philip H. Mink, and Lodawick Snyder, overseers of the poor; Job D. Tanner, justice of the peace; James H. Miller, collector; James H. Miller, John Smith, John A. Smith, and Humphrey Crary, constables; Duncan Thompson, poundmaster; Andris Colpough, inspector and sealer of weights and measures.  (Then follows a list of thirty overseers of highways, and the usual restrictions upon the running at large of animals.)

     "It was voted at said Meeting that the collector's fees shall be Three cents on a Dollar."

"MARKS PIESTER, Town Clerk."

     The town subscribed for four hundred and fifty shares of the proposed Rhinebeck and Connecticut railroad, and issued ninety town bonds of the amount of $500 each, and paid them to the president of the company, Edward Martin, Oct. 27, 1874, in payment of the subscription.  The road was built through this town in the summer of 1874, and it has about five and two-elevenths miles of track lying within its limits.  Mount Ross station (named after and Englishman named Ross, who settled near it at an early day, erroneously mentioned in the Gazetteer as being in the neighborhood of Gallatinville), just beyond the town line, in Dutchess county.  Gallatinville, Jackson's Corners, and Elizaville (near Union Corners), are the stations in and adjacent to this town.

     At a meeting of the board of town auditors, held Feb. 8, 1875, it was resolved to issue another series of bonds, to the amount of $25,000 payable (after seven years) $2000 annually.

     The town-meetings are usually held either at Gallatinville or Weaver Hollow, but sometimes at other places.  The town is divided into two election districts, the polling-places being located at Gallatinville and Weaver Hollow.