1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Potsdam (New York)

POTSDAM, a village of St Lawrence county, New York, U.S.A., in the township of Potsdam, on the Raquette river, about 68 m. N.E. of Watertown. Pop. of the village (1905) 4162; (1910) 4036; of the township (1905) 8992; (1910) 8725. The village is served by the New York Central & Hudson River railway. It has a public library and is the seat of a state Normal School (1869), an outgrowth of St Lawrence Academy (founded in 1810 by Benjamin Raymond and maintained by him until 1816, when it was incorporated); of the Thomas S. Clarkson Memorial School of Technology (1896), founded by his sisters in honour of Thomas Streatfield Clarkson (1837–1894); and of the Crane Normal Institute of Music. The village has a considerable trade in dairy products. In the neighbourhood are extensive quarries of the well-known “Potsdam sandstone,” the uppermost division of the Cambrian system, described as a “fine-grained sandstone cemented with silica,” and very durable. The House of Parliament at Quebec, All Saints Cathedral at Albany, New York, and many other public edifices were built of this stone.

The “Ten Towns” of St Lawrence county, including the township of Potsdam, were sold by the state in 1787. The first settlement was made on the Raquette river, close to the present village, in 1803; the township was incorporated in ISO6 and the village in 1831. Potsdam was named after Potsdam in Prussia because of the occurrence in each locality of reddish sandstone.