"The long and deadly struggle of the Revolution, with its accompaniments of invasion, house-burning, and Indian outrage, had naturally developed a very bitter feeling among the people, especially on the frontiers, against everything of English name or origin. Even the name of Queen Charlotte was not agreeable to the inhabitants of Charlotte county, whose farms had been devastated by the troops of Queen Charlotte's husband. Still more unpleasant was the name of Tryon county, derived from the last British governor of New York, to the people of the Mohawk valley, where the work of burning and massacre had been carried on year after year by Tories and Indians in British employ,.
   "Accordingly, on the second day of April, 1784, the Legislature passed an act changing the two names just mentioned. It was a model of brevity and precision, and, after the enacting clause, read as follows:
   'From and after the passage of this act the county of Tryon shall be known by the name of Montgomery, and the county of Charlotte by the name of Washington.'
   "Thus the most honored appellation known to Americans was conferred upon this county. The name was not as common then as now, and we believe this is the oldest 'Washington county' in the United States,--a venerable patriarch with nearly forty namesakes among counties, besides an almost countless host of towns, villages, and post-offices."

Text taken from "History of Washington County, New York" by Crisfield Johnson, originally published in 1878.

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