Place:Chemung, New York, United States

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Chemung County is a county in the southern tier of the U.S. state of New York. The population was 84,148 as of the 2020 census. Its county seat is Elmira. Its name is derived from a Delaware Indian village whose name meant "big horn".

Chemung County comprises the Elmira, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Elmira-Corning, NY Combined Statistical Area.

Many signs posted along roads in Chemung County refer to the area as "Mark Twain Country," because the noted author lived and wrote for many years in Elmira.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Chemung County was formed from of Tioga County in 1836.

In 1854, Chemung County was divided and became Schuyler County, reducing Chemung to , its current size.

In the late 1870s, the Greenback Party became prominent in Chemung and nearby counties in western New York. Here it was primarily allied with labor in a critique of capital, reaching its peak in 1878, the year following the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Scranton General Strike in Pennsylvania. There were also strikes that year in Albany, Syracuse and Buffalo, starting with the railroad workers. In Steuben and Chemung counties, Greenbackers were elected to county councils in 1878 instead of Democrats, and others were elected from there and nearby counties to the state legislature, gaining votes of more than 25 percent in several of the Southern Tier counties. It gradually declined after that, due to internal dissension and the strength of the two major parties.

Timeline

Population History

source: Source:Population of States and Counties of the United States: 1790-1990

Research Tips

External links

• Outstanding guide to Chemung County family history and genealogy resources (FamilySearch Research Wiki). Birth, marriage, and death records, censuses, wills, deeds, county and town histories, cemeteries, churches, newspapers, libraries, and genealogical societies.
• www.rootsweb.com/~nychemun/chemweb.htm