The Town of Webb is located in the northernmost portion of Herkimer County, in the west-central Adirondack region of New York State. The Town is wholly within the boundaries of the Adirondack Park. It is the largest township in New York State, with a total area of approximately 466 square miles. The town averages 14 miles in width (east to west) and is about 35 miles in length (north to south). Elevations range from approximately 1500 to 2500 feet above sea level.
No incorporated villages are located within the township. Three of the town’s hamlets, (Old Forge, Eagle Bay and Thendara), along the Route 28 corridor, are the areas of concentrated population and development. These hamlets are typical of the more than one hundred hamlets in the Adirondack Park containing retail establishments, a clustering of homes and, in most cases, a post office. They help define the unique landscape of the Adirondacks. Smaller population and development areas include Big Moose Station, McKeever, Okara Lakes, Fulton Chain of Lakes, Rondaxe Lake, Big Moose Lake, Stillwater, and Beaver River.
In 1792, Alexander McComb purchased one of the first series of land patents granted in northern New York State following the American Revolution. The vast two million-acre wilderness was virtually unexplored except by Native Americans and white fur traders. John Brown, a successful Providence, Rhode Island importer, acquired nearly 210,000 acres of property in McComb's Purchase in 1798. Brown hired surveyors who were the first to map the region and divide the Tract into eight townships. A pious man, John Brown gave the following names to the townships: Frugality, Unanimity, Perseverance, Sobriety, Regularity, Enterprise, Economy, and Industry. To encourage settlers to buy land, Brown built a dam on the middle branch of the Moose River, a gristmill, and a sawmill in the township called Economy - the future location of Old Forge, NY. Early maps show Brown's Tract located in the what was to become the Town of Wilmurt in northern Herkimer County. Part of Brown
'sTract was located in Lewis County to the west and Hamilton County to the north. In 1896, the northern-most township in Herkimer County, the Town of Wilmurt, was divided and renamed Town of Webb in honor of Dr. William Seward Webb.Map from 1802 of Brown's Tract. Click here to view a larger version of the Map.
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