Austerlitz is a town in Columbia County, New York, United States.

A little more than one-fifteenth of the present town was taken from Chatham, a little over one-eighth from Canaan, and a little less than five-sixths from Hillsdale.

From the fact that among the first settlers there were no less than twelve families of Spencers, the north part of Hillsdale had been known from the first as "Spencer's-town."

When the bill erecting it passed the Legislature, however, Martin Van Buren, then a State Senator, and who, being an ardent admirer of the great Napoleon, was somewhat incensed at one of his political opponents (Elisha Williams, if we mistake not), who had succeeded in having a town in Seneca County christened "Waterloo," leaped to his feet and moved to amend by calling the new town "Austerlitz."

"Edna St. Vincent Millay, Pulitzer-prize winning poet, lived at Steepletop, a more than 800-acre (3.2 km2) property that had previously been a farm.

Norma and her husband, Charles Ellis, in 1973 founded a non-profit artist residency program, the Millay Arts (formerly the Millay Colony for the Arts[4]), and deeded a small portion of the land to the organization.

In 1978, Norma created the non-profit Edna St. Vincent Millay Society that now oversees the house and remainder of the property.