Hemlock, NY

Hemlock is a Livingston County hamlet and census-designated place in the Town of Livonia, on the north end of Hemlock Lake. The 2020 census counted 452 residents. Route 20A runs through the center, with New York 15A leading south toward the lake and Springwater. The Hemlock post office serves the southeast part of Livonia as well as pieces of Richmond and Canadice in Ontario County. Hemlock Fire District volunteers cover a broad rural area, giving the hamlet a civic role beyond its small population.

The post office was first called Hemlock Lake, briefly became Holden in the 1890s, and returned to Hemlock after local residents resisted the change. Nineteenth-century lumbering and waterpower shaped the outlet and the lake community. Today the lake is both a local landscape and a regulated water supply, while the hamlet's roads, post office, fire company, and nearby Livonia services handle ordinary needs. Hemlock is a Finger Lakes crossroads with a long memory of timber and water, where a small main street serves homes spread across the lake country.