Earlville, NY

Earlville is a village literally divided by a county line: East and West Main Street run along the boundary between Madison and Chenango counties, with the Chenango River to the west and Sangerfield River to the east. The 2020 census counted 774 people. The village began around 1792 as Forks or Madison Forks, then took the name Earlville when the Chenango Canal was being built in the 1830s, honoring canal commissioner Jonas Earl. The canal turned a crossroads into a transportation town, and later railroads extended that commercial reach.

That history survives in the built landscape. Earlville's Victorian and Second Empire homes sit alongside a National Register historic district, while the Earlville Opera House remains a center for theater, galleries, an arts cafe, and a gift shop. Quincy Square Museum adds local stories about the canal, rail, and merchant era; early twentieth-century Earlville had churches, a school, newspaper, stores, mills, and workshops around those connections. Today, the village's main street still crosses two counties at once, and its local routines are organized around historic buildings, small-town services, and the nearby river corridors.