Have you ever wondered how Glens Falls got its name? In this post, learn all about the history of this city’s unique name.
The location of Glens Falls makes it a great place to enjoy the beautiful Hudson River and its wonderful outdoor offerings. For example, walking the Feeder Canal Trail at Overlook Park is a lot of fun!
One of the best things about the city is that you really have the best of both world there. All of the beautiful nature nearby, but the amenities of a pretty large city, with all of the shopping, entertainment, and eateries that you could wish for.
Plus, it’s basically right at the foot of the Adirondacks and convenient to lots of beautiful places like Lake George and a great launching point to many other North Country locations.
Are there waterfalls in Glens Falls?
Yes, there are waterfalls still located in Glens Falls. The river drops by about 50 feet at these falls.
The Hudson River has been significantly altered by humans over the course of the last few hundred years, and the waterfalls currently in Glens Falls are at the site of the dam. People can see the waterfalls at the dam, which is still pretty spectacular, where US Route 9 crosses the Hudson River in Glens Falls.
What was Glens Falls called before?
The settlement of Glens Falls has gone through a few different names in more than one language within the past 300 or so years. Each name has a bit of a story behind it that gives you some insight into how the land was viewed by those who used it.
Before the exploration by the first Europeans in the area of what is now Glens Falls, the location had a name that had been given to it by the Native Americans living in the region. They called this place Chepontuc, which means “a difficult place to get around” because of the rocky falls.
In the late 1700s, the industrial revolution was really starting to heat up, and the European-American settlers to this part of New York saw the power that could be created by the fall in the water in the Hudson River around Chepontuc, which had begun to be called “The Corners” in English by European-Americans.
A man named Abraham Wing was a settler member of the Queensbury Patent, and he led the effort to dam the Hudson River here and build a mill. This led to Chepontuc thus being known in English as Wing’s Falls.
Within about 20 years, as the stories go, the naming rights to Wing’s Falls and the settlement of the same name were transferred to Colonel Johannes Glen as either payment for a debt or a payment for a favor. The exact sequences of events is unclear, but it is at this time that the name Glen’s Falls falls into use.
Eventually, we see the apostrophe dropped and the spelling normalized (sometimes it had been spelled with two “n’s”), and it was known, as it is today, as Glens Falls.
Was there someone named Glen?
So, yes, there was a man named Johannes Glen that this well-known town was named after. His real first name was likely Johannes, since most of his ancestors appear to be of Dutch heritage, but he does appear to have used the first name of “John”, the English translation, during parts of his life, especially during legal transactions.
The last name “Glen” is not typically a Dutch name, so you might wonder where the last name came from. Some further research has revealed that the name is of Scottish origin.
Johannes Glen’s great-grandmother’s name was Cathalina Donchasen (or Doncassen), a Scot, and the supposition is that her North American family chose to go by the surname of Glen.
When was Glens Falls founded?
The town of Glens Falls was officially incorporated in 1839, but people had been living at his settlement and calling it Glens Falls for decades at the time of incorporation.
The newspaper clipping above is from the Buffalo Gazette, April 13, 1813. You will note that it mentions that 30 young men from “Glen’s Falls” were enlisted for service for the War of 1812.
This is a substantial number of men for a small town, which definitely gives the impression that there were many families living in Glens Falls in 1813. Certainly there could have been families who had been living there since the earlier settlement attempts from the 1760s.
Conclusion
I hope that you learned all that you wanted to know about the history of the name of Glens Falls. New York has such an interesting history, and Glens Falls is certainly a part of this fascinating legacy.
If you have any questions about something that you read in this article, or if you want to share your own story about the history of Glens Falls, please join in the discussion below.
Thanks for reading today!