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Montgomery County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 49,532. The county seat is Fonda. The county was named in honor of Richard Montgomery, an American Revolutionary War general killed in 1775 at the Battle of Quebec. Historically occupied by the Mohawk people, one of the original Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, the county was created in 1772 during the period of British colonial rule as Tryon County. In 1784, after the Americans gained independence in the War, it was renamed Montgomery County for one of the heroes. Montgomery County comprises the Amsterdam, NY Micropolitan Statistical Area. The county borders the north and south banks of the Mohawk River.
[edit] History
This area was occupied by the Mohawk for hundreds of years prior to European colonization. Many warriors allied with the British during the war. When the British lost, they ceded all the Iroquois territory of the Six Nations (the Tuscarora had joined the confederacy in the 18th century) to the United States, without consulting the tribes or bringing them into negotiation. In 1784, following end of the American Revolutionary War, the European-American settlers renamed Tryon County as Montgomery County. This change was to honor the general, Richard Montgomery, who had captured several places in Canada and died in 1775 attempting to capture the city of Quebec during the Revolutionary War. It replaced the name that formerly honored the last provincial governor of New York. In 1789, Ontario County was split off from Montgomery. The area of the new county was much larger than the present Ontario County, as it included the present Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara, Orleans, Steuben, Wyoming, Yates, and part of Schuyler and Wayne counties. In 1791, Herkimer, Otsego, and Tioga counties were split off from Montgomery. In 1802, portions of Clinton, Herkimer, and Montgomery counties were combined to form St. Lawrence County. In 1816, Hamilton County was split off from Montgomery. In 1838, Fulton County was split off from Montgomery. In 2012, Montgomery County voters approved a charter for government, making it the 21st county in New York state to do so. In 2013, Matthew L. Ossenfort was elected at-large as the first County Executive in the county's history. Ossenfort took office in 2014, the same year the charter went into effect. Under the terms of the charter, the Board of Supervisors was replaced by a nine-member County Legislature, with members elected from single-member districts. Thomas L. Quackenbush, one of the members, was elected as the first Chairman of the new legislative body, which will be a circulating position. [edit] Congressional districts
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