Penn Yan

A lovely village in the state of New York, founded in 1790.  A lovely riverside trail runs north and south, with brambles and fresh blackberries aplenty. Penn Yan has an old history by US standards. For more information, read from The World Atlas, below*
~ A heron on the Keuka Lake Outlet stream.
~ Penn Yan from the opposite direction.

* Penn Yan was originally part of the territory of the Six Nations Confederacy, otherwise known as the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois Confederacy. In 1788, two men named Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham negotiated with the Six Nations Confederacy to purchase over two million acres of land between Lake Ontario and Pennsylvania. This land included the location of present-day Penn Yan. George Wheeler purchased the land on which the village now sits in 1791.


The first settlers in the new community were followers of an American preacher named Jemima Wilkinson. In the 19th century, the community was settled by people from Pennsylvania and New England. During this time, the community was unofficially called Union. The community's residents, however, disliked this name and wanted a new one. However, this led to disagreement between the settlers from Pennsylvania, who wanted a name that reminded them of their old home state, and settlers from New England, who wanted a Yankee-sounding name, as "Yankee" was used as a term for people who came from New England. Eventually, a compromise was reached when the community was renamed Penn Yan, Penn for Pennsylvania, and Yan for Yankee.