Town of Livingston

The Town of Livingston was organized in 1788 by Robert Livingston. Robert was the 1st lord of the manor located in Livingston which was named after him. Livingston was originally the northern part of Dutchess county. It embraced a tract of land extending from a point five miles south from Hudson, twelve miles along the Hudson river, and eastward to the Massachusetts line about twenty miles. In 1715 this territory was constituted the "Manor of Livingston," and invested with court privileges by the king of Great Britain. On the 24th of March, 1772, it was formed into a district under an act which authorized the election of civil officers. In 1786 the manor was attached to the new county of Columbia, and on the 7th of March, 1788, was organized as a town. Germantown was taken off from the original manor in 1710, and Clermont from the district in 1787. The town was reduced to its present area, twenty-two thousand eight hundred square acres, or nearly thirty-six square miles, in 1803, by the formation of Taghkanic and Ancram from its eastern part.

Livingston received its name from the first lord of the manor, and is south from the center of the county, bordering on the Hudson from the town of Greenport south to Roeliff Jansen's Kill, and extending southeast along that stream to its southernmost bend, near the Dutchess county line thence north along the towns of Gallatin and Taghkanic to the town of Claverack on its northeast, being almost triangular in shape.