Clinton County

Peru is a town in the eastern part of Clinton County, NY, just south of Plattsburgh, NY.

Nestled between the Adirondack Mountains and Lake Champlain, the Town of Peru was formed from Plattsburgh and Willsborough on Dec. 28, 1792. A part of it was annexed back to Willsborough in 1799 and the towns of Ausable and Black Brook were taken off in 1839. Its present boundaries are the towns of Saranac, Schuyler Falls and Plattsburgh on the north, the towns of Ausable and Black Brook on the south, Lake Champlain on the east and the town of Black Brook on the west. The area of the town is approximately seventy-nine square miles. Some of the early settlers thought that the mountains surrounding the town resembled those of Peru, South America. Hence, the origin of the town's name. The earliest concentration of settlers was in an area called the "Union", a Quaker settlement in the vicinity of the present Keese Homestead and Quaker Cemetery on what is now Union Road. These early Quaker settlers or "Friends" as they preferred to be called, were mainly farmers and came from Dutchess County, NY and previously England. Some of the family names of those pioneer settlers still abound in the town today: Allen, Arnold, Baker, Elmore, Everett, Hay(s), Keese and Thew, to mention a few.