In upstate New York (and probably elsewhere) there is a high occurence of very small towns (sometimes not even incorporated) named “XYZ Center”, where “XYZ” is another equally small town several miles away. Examples - Parishville/Parishville Center, Clarence/Clarence Center, Dickinson/Dickinson Center.
“XYZ” is usually a small town or hamlet, often unincorporated. “XYZ Center” is usually smaller, occasionally just a crossroads or ‘wide spot in the road’.
Why all the towns (“locations”, really) with the name “____ Center”? ‘Center’ of what?
The one I know of, Richland Center, WI, happens to be located at the approximate center of Richland County. I have no idea if that’s why it was named that, or if that applies in the cases you mentioned.
Center of the township, probably. Except that townships are called just ‘town’ in NY.
Yeah, OK, but…
Wouldn’t the center of Parishville township logically be, uh… Parishville? And not some spot five miles down the road from Parishville?
“Nah, let’s draw up the map so the houses and other buildings that make up the town will sit off at one edge of the land to be incorporated, and the center of the township will be… you know, where County Road 44 crosses the creek down by the Jones farm.”
Wouldn’t anybody incorporating a town generally make the “center” of their town the actual town itself? Assume 20 houses, a bar and a gas station decide to incorporate as a town. Why would they declare the center of their new town to be five miles away?
One possible explanation – every square inch of land (in New York State at least) has been arbitrarily deemed to be part of a “township”, even if it’s undeveloped wilderness and the town with the same name is quite a ways off. Is this the case? Again I do not know, so I ask.
Nope. In many if not most cases, the foundation of the crossroads community that later became the village predates the creation of the town(ship). Town(ship)s (in NY and NC, at least) are “space-filling” – every square inch of NC and every bit of NY outside an incorporated city is in a town(ship). (In NC, “town” means what “village” means in NY.) And in every case I’ve seen, including Adams and Adams Center and Worth and Worth Center in Jefferson County, the examples you cited in St. Lawrence County, and numerous examples from Central and Southwestern New York, the “center”-less community is (usually) the larger of the two and off towards one edge, while the “center” community is approximately dead center of the town.
My WAG is that it may be a throwback to the early days of the railroad. Depending on the size & volume of the station…for example:
Springfield terminal…may evolve into judt Springfield
and there my be a depot a little futer out that services people a litle futher out… and so on. Any one who has played Railway Tycoon knows what I am talking about
I don’t know how it is in most states, but I believe that in Ohio the township lines were draw up very early, indeed at the same time as the country lines. The township lines thus usually precede the towns in history.