On July 17th, Christopher Nolan released The Odyssey, a sprawling epic that follows the epic poem by Homer. The story starts at the end of the Trojan War with the Fall of Troy.
Obviously, this takes place in ancient Greece (the city of Troy itself was assumed to be in present day Turkey), but why does one of Upstate New York’s most historic cities share its name?
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Before Troy
Troy wasn’t always the name of the city on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Europeans began colonizing the Mohican territory in 1624, when the Dutch built Fort Orange.
The area thrived in early colonial America, but in 1707, Dirck Van der Heyden took control of the old farm of Pieterse van Woggelum, making the territory his. As such, the land between Poesten Kill and Piscawan Kill was named Vanderheyden (commonly referred to as Ashley’s Ferry). That wouldn’t last too long…
The Beginnings of Troy
By the late 18th Century, classical names for cities had become all the rage. Rome and Syracuse were notable, and Ithaca was also named after the same mythos that Troy was.
In 1789, the new settlers of the area rejected the Dutch name, and sent out a message to newspapers in Lansingburgh and Albany. That message said one thing:…