History of Burke

The following was enacted on April 26, 1844: 

“The people of the state of New York, represented in the Senate and Assembly do enact as follows: All that part of the town of Chateaugay in the county of Franklin lying west of a line commencing at a point in the Southern boundary line of said town Chateaugay 160 rods east of the southwest corner of lot No. 15 of Joseph H. Jackson’s survey of said town; Thence north through lots No. 15, 26, 35-46, 5566,75-86 on a line parallel with west line of said lots to the northern boundary line of said town being also the boundary line of the state of New York. Shall be and is hereby erected into a separate town by the name of Burke, and the first town meeting for said town shall be held the fourteenth day of May next at the school house in district No.2 in said town and annually thereafter at such place as a majority of the electors of said town shall determine on the same day that the other towns in said county shall by law hold their annual meetings.”

Listed below are Burke’s first town officials elected on May 14, 1844.

Supervisor – Loren Botsford 

Town Clerk – Arthur Smithe 

Assessors – Winthrop Newton, Willis Webb, Hanson Green. 

Commissioners of Highways – Gustavus V. Spencer, Patrick Dineen, Charles I. Clark 

Collector – John Newton 

Overseer of Poor – Ranson B. Crippen, Ezra G. Bowers 

Inspectors of Elections – Allen Wilmarth, Ira Eggleston, Julius C. Chipman Constables – Allanson Green, Orson Beaman, Rupel Andrews, George L. Pike.

At the annual meeting in March of 1852, a resolution was passed to raise $500 for the purchase of a site for and the building of a Town House. The first meeting in the Town House located across from the Presbyterian Church was held on the first Tuesday in March in 1853.