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ludlowville unionschool600Before the current Lansing Central School District was formed Lansing was divided into 23 school districts, each with its own school house. A few of these school houses still exist. The largest is the Ludlowville Union School (district #9), which sits in faded glory on a hill, hidden behind the main street in Ludlowville.

Lansing turns 200 in 2017! Details are sketchy at this point, but town officials are working on special events for later this year. The Lansing Star celebrates all year with a new feature by Lansing's Town Historian Louise Bement, 'Lansing Bicentennial Minute'.
2017 is the bicentennial year of Tompkins County and also the bicentennial year of the Town of Lansing. The Town of Groton is the only other town in Tompkins county that shares this date of origin.

The Town of Lansing was originally part of the Town of Milton which was one of the 28 military townships erected in New York State's wilderness in 1789. The Military Townships were set up and divided into 100 Great Lots of 600 acres each. These large lots were to be given to the Revolutionary soldiers as payment for their service in the war, and The Land Office began making allotments in 1790 with the requirement that actual settlement was to be made within seven years after January 1, 1790. Many of the soldiers, not wanting to 'tame the wilderness', sold their lots. So while we have the names of the original owners, many of them did not become residents in our town.

In 1808 the name Milton was changed to Genoa.
Fun Lansing Fact: Members of the North family moved to Michigan around 1836 and named the new settlement Lansing after their New York home town.  The family's log cabin, originally near the intersection of Conlon and Searles Roads is now on display near the entrance to Myers Park.
The Town of Lansing was set off from Genoa in 1817 under the act that created Tompkins County. In that act we received 60 great lots and the Town of Genoa kept 40. I asked the Town of Genoa why we got more lots than they did and they said it was because the farm land was not as good in Lansing as it was in Genoa and this was to make up the difference. We were named Lansing in honor of John Lansing, a Supreme Court Judge and State Chancellor.

Some of our early settlers were the Ludlows, Tookers, Myers, Miniers (who built Rogue's Harbor), Strongs, Teeters, Shoemakers, Blooms, Labars, Rhodes, Storms, Holdens, Bucks, Bowers, Townleys, Osmuns, Clarks, and Woods.

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