1788. In 1801, a year before St. Lawrence County was formed the area of the county, which was 10 survey townships, was combined as the town of Lisbon, all towns in the county are descended from Lisbon. New York experimented with different types of municipalities before settling upon the current format of towns and cities occupying all the land in a county, and all previous forms were transformed into towns (or divided into multiple towns) in 1788 when all of the state of New York was divided into towns. Some early forms of government in earlier years included land patents with some municipal rights, districts, precincts, and boroughs. Though originally intended to be mere “…involuntary subdivisions of the state, constituted for the purpose of the more convenient exercise of governmental functions by the state for the benefit of all its citizens” as defined by the courts in 1916 (Short v. Town of Orange), towns gained home rule powers from the state in 1964, at which time towns became "a municipal corporation comprising the inhabitants within its boundaries, and formed with the purpose of exercising such powers and discharging such duties of local government and administration of public affairs as have been, or, maybe [sic] conferred or imposed upon it by law.” The following is a timeline showing the creation of the current towns from their predecessors stretching back to the earliest municipal entity over the area. The timelines only represent which town(s) a particular town was created from and does not represent annexations of territory to and from towns that already existed. All municipalities are towns unless otherwise noted as patent, township, borough, district, or city. Essex County Notes Clinton and Franklin counties Notes St Lawrence County Notes Ten survey townships were created within Oneida, Herkimer, and Montgomery counties in what is today St. Lawrence County, and in 1801 they were combined into one town called Lisbon and made part of Clinton County. In 1802 Lisbon became the county of St Lawrence and three more towns were split from the original Lisbon. Lewis County Notes Jefferson County Notes See also Timeline of town creation in Downstate New York Timeline of town creation in the Hudson Valley Timeline of town creation in New York's Capital District Timeline of town creation in Central New York References General French, John H. (1860). Gazetteer of the State of New York. R. Pearsall Smith. Specific