A history of Clayton,
then and now
Postcards, papers and photographs of Clayton from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗The town was formed from parts of the towns of Orleans and Lyme in 1833. The town was named after statesman John M. Clayton. The village of Clayton became the main railroad terminus for the Thousand Islands resort region, during its heyday at the turn of the twentieth century. The town of Clayton offered several hotels to visitors, some grand, now mostly vanished.
In 1872, the community of Clayton voted to set itself apart from the town by incorporating as a village.
Fairview Manor, Swarthout Site-A04507.000038, and Grindstone Island Upper Schoolhouse are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Clayton’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
1 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewClayton (Township), 1864: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Clayton, decade by decade
1990s
Nothing in Clayton is on the National Register yet
That’s true of most small towns. It doesn’t mean Clayton has no history, only that no one has written up a nomination. The closest listed place is Capt. Simon Johnston House in Clayton, 0.4 miles away.
Clayton and the nearest listed places
How a place gets listed
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Clayton (Township) (1864) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (3), the Library of Congress (2) and the National Register (1). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.