Chateaugay

History

The first settlement took place in 1796. The town was formed in 1799 before Franklin County was established, from parts of the towns of Champlain and Plattsburgh. By 1802, Chateaugay comprised most of Franklin County. Subsequently, its territory was reduced to form other towns. The town of Malone was set off from Chateaugay in 1805. When Franklin County was established from Clinton County, part of Chateaugay remained in Clinton County. The town of St. Armand was taken off in 1822 and placed in Essex County. The remaining three towns derived from Chateaugay remained in Franklin County: Bellmont (1833) and Franklin (taken from Bellmont in 1834), and Burke (1844). Chateaugay was the hometown of Orville H. Gibson, who founded the Gibson Guitar Corporation in 1902. He died on August 21, 1918, in St. Lawrence State Hospital, a psychiatric center in Ogdensburg, New York. In 1856, a tornado demolished more than one hundred structures in the town. In 1868, the community of Chateaugay in the center of the town incorporated as a village. Since 1934, the McCadam Cheese Cooperative (founded in 1876) has made cheddar cheese in Chateaugay. The Chateaugay–Herdman Border Crossing was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014 as the U.S. Inspection Station–Chateaugay, New York.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which , or 0.02%, is water. The northern town line is the international border with Canada (Quebec), and the eastern town line is the border of Clinton County. U.S. Route 11 is an east–west highway crossing the central part of the town. New York State Route 374 is a north–south highway intersecting US-11 at Chateaugay village. The Chateaugay River, a tributary of the Saint Lawrence River, flows northward through the town from Lower Chateaugay Lake.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  2,399
• Song Sparrow

  Melospiza melodia (A.Wilson, 1810) · Aves
  1,918
• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  1,894
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,803
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  1,734
• American Goldfinch

  Spinus tristis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,485
• Red-winged Blackbird

  Agelaius phoeniceus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  1,391
• European Starling

  Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,237

Most recent

• M 2.7 — 2025-10-14
  4 km NNW of Chazy, New York
• M 2.5 — 2025-01-01
  6 km SSE of Fort Covington Hamlet, New York
• M 2.8 — 2024-07-29
  11 km SSW of Sainte-Martine, Canada
• M 2.5 — 2024-06-05
  10 km S of Franklin, Canada
• M 3.1 — 2024-02-01
  6 km WNW of Huntingdon, Canada
• M 2.8 — 2023-12-11
  8 km NNW of Canton, New York