Greenbush

Variant name of place

Green Bush

Geographic position

42.6122° N, 73.6994° W

Sources

Anderson, George Baker. Landmarks of Rensselaer County. Syracuse: D. Mason and Co. Publishers, 1897. Print; "History Information and Timeline." Rensselaer County, 2003. Web. http://www.rensco.com/history_timeline.asp; "Town History." The Town of North Greenbush, New York, 2013. Web. http://www.townofng.com/about/town-history/; Geo coordinates at https://www.google.com/#q=geographic+coordinates+of+east+greenbush+ny

General note

Greenbush was a town in central New York on the east bank of the Hudson River, located about five miles south of Albany. The name Greenbush comes from the Dutch "Greenebos," which referred to the many pine trees in the area when Dutch settlers first arrived. Originally, the area was inhabited by the Mohegans, but in 1629 Kiliean Van Rensselaer established the feudal manor of Rensselaerwyck and a tenant system that drew Europeans to the area. These settlers were primarily Dutch, and the majority of them were farmers. The area's population grew, and as early as 1642 Greenbush had a ferry across the Hudson River. In 1664, British colonists acquired the area from the Dutch and Greenbush became a part of the Province of New York. The town saw little action during either the French and Indian War or the Revolutionary War, but many of Greenbush's men served as soldiers in these conflicts. Occom visited the town several times beginning in 1785, using the Hudson River to travel to the town from both southeastern New York and Albany. In 1855, the original town of Greenbush was divided into East Greenbush and North Greenbush, both of which exist today as suburbs of Albany in New York's Rensselaer County.