Halfmoon

Half Moon

42.8567° N, 73.7425° W

Gannett, Henry. The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States. Washington, DC: The US Government Printing Office, 1905; Kennedy, Ellen. "A Brief History of Early Halfmoon." Town of Halfmoon, New York. Web. http://www.townofhalfmoon-ny.gov/historian; "A Brief History of Our Towns: Clifton Park and Halfmoon." Clifton Park-Halfmoon Public Library, 2015. Web. http://www.cphlibrary.org/historical/cph-history-p1.html; The Saratogian. History of Halfmoon, NY. Boston: Boston History Company, 1899. Web. Sylvester, Nathaniel Bartlett. History of Saratoga County, New York. 1878. Web. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nysarato/Sylvester/chap36.html; http://history.rays-place.com/ny/halfmoon-ny.htm; Geo coordinates at https://www.google.com/#q=geographic+coordinates+of+halfmoon+ny

Halfmoon is a town located fifteen miles north of Albany at the convergence of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers in central New York's Saratoga County. The Mohawk and Mohegan Indians first occupied the area, eventually engaging in a prosperous fur trade with Europeans along both rivers. Europeans began to settle the area after 1664 when Mohegan Indians sold two Dutchmen a tract called Halve Maen, a name that refers to the the crescent shape of the land between the Mohawk and Hudson. Settlement increased after the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, which marked a formal end to regional conflicts between the English, French, and local Indians. Halfmoon saw little action during either the Revolution or the War of 1812. Occom visited the town often in the late 1780s during his preaching tours along the Mohawk River when most of the town's settlement was clustered around the southern Halfmoon Point. Occom preached at the yellow Halfmoon Meeting House, which likely became the town's Presbyterian Church. Halfmoon was incorporated in 1788 but lost much of its area after the formation of the town of Waterford in 1816. The Erie Canal opened in the southern part of Halfmoon in 1825, and today the town serves as a "bedroom" community for Albany.