Page "Patterson, New York" Paragraph 1

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 Phillipse 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 ).

In 1788, when a portion of the Oblong was chartered as the Town of Southeast, the remainder of the region was chartered as the Town of Fredericktown.

In 1795, Fredericktown township was split up into three parts: the Town of Carmel, the Town of Franklin which was renamed the Town of Patterson in 1808, and the remnant of the town, which was the Town of Frederick for a while, but was renamed the Town of Kent in 1817.

Also in 1795, the Town of Southeast took on its current shape by losing its northern half to Franklin ( Patterson ) and expanded on its west.