44 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



There have been many and very excellent reasons for the creation 

 of such a board and these were fully appreciated, both by the late 

 Commissioner of Education and the committees of the Legislature 

 before whom the proposition was brought, and expressed in the 

 enactment. Local place names in the State have often gone astray 

 from their original significance; very frequently names which have 

 no propriety within the State of New York have been, of late years, 

 added to its already somewhat incongruous assemblage ; meaningless 

 names, names which are combinations of euphonious, perhaps, but 

 jejune syllables have been imposed upon the State, often at the 

 instigation or by the connivance of public service corporations. 

 New York has had its own troubles in its place names and there 

 probably is not another equal area in America which is so be- 

 spangled with classical names without the remotest relationship to 

 this country, as the Old Military Tract of central New York. 



This board has been called upon to exercise its functions on 

 several occasions in regard to the institution of new or proposed 

 names, and this has been without solicitation or warning on its own 

 part. It seems, however, quite likely that in the further rearrange- 

 ment of place names in the State, it may be part of the duty of the 

 board to direct attention to the existence of the law and to invite 

 conformity therewith. 



As a present evidence of the activity of the board and its purpose 

 to do something more than pass upon applications made to it from 

 whatever quarter, there is submitted herewith a glossary of the place 

 names of three of the counties of the State, Albany, Schenectady and 

 Rensselaer. The prosecution of such work as this, if carried out 

 thoroughly, would form a useful series of documents bearing upon 

 the historic development of settlements in the State and such work 

 should be pursued even more completely than is here indicated. 

 It will be understood that the present brief definition of the place 

 names herewith attached is only a suggestion or a hint of the appro- 

 priate direction which some of the labors of the board may take. 



THE PLACE NAMES OF ALBANY COUNTY 



Adams Station. Hamlet. Named for Nathaniel Adams, early 

 settler. Also known as Adamsville. (Now Delmar, absurd 

 misappropriation of well-known town name on border of Dela- 

 ware and Maryland.) 



Albany. County and city. Named in honor of James, Duke of 

 York and Albany (1664), afterwards James II. 



