Bath, New York: Named for a British Spa City

The village of Bath was founded in seventeen ninety-three as part of a grand land scheme by the wealthy English financier William Pulteney, who purchased more than a million acres of western New York after the Revolution. The name is usually tied to the English spa city of Bath, though some accounts credit Pulteney's daughter, Lady Laura.

The name proved more lasting than the scheme. Pulteney's plans for a refined settlement never quite materialized, but Bath survived and became the county seat of Steuben County when the county was erected in seventeen ninety-six. Courts began meeting here in the county's early years, and the village has served as the center of Steuben County government ever since, a record of more than two hundred years of unbroken administrative continuity.