Nassau Changed Names, but Kept a Deep Town-History Habit

Nassau’s town history has a name-change story that makes the place easier to remember. The official history page says the town was formed from portions of Schodack, Stephentown, and Petersburgh on March 31, 1806.

It was named Philipstown for Patroon Philip Van Rensselaer, then renamed Nassau on April 6, 1808. That gives the town an old Rensselaer County naming layer before you even get to later local records.

The same page points to bicentennial materials, World War I records, cemetery and Civil War resources, and the town historian. Nassau’s civic memory is more than one origin story; it is a habit of keeping old names, service records, and anniversary work close to government.

That makes the town feel more specific than a rural label. Nassau has fields and back roads, but it also has a paper trail of names, wars, cemeteries, and local-history work that residents kept within reach.

The name-change detail gives the town a nice hook. Philipstown becoming Nassau is more than trivia; it shows how Rensselaer County places carried older landholding names into newer civic identities.