[3] Cossayuna Lake is located in the towns of Argyle and Greenwich, in southern Washington County, near the eastern border of New York.

Tradition, handed down from the time the St. Ange Frenchmen visited the Hoosick Valley before 1600, tells of a much-used fishing and hunting trail.

The trail led from the Tiashoke corn and pumpkin field of the local inhabitants, near Eagle Bridge, up the Owl Kill, through the present village of Cambridge to the Jackson ponds and over the hill and up the Cossayuna Creek to the lake.

The Argyle Patent included the present town of Argyle, the present village of Fort Edward, and that part of the town of Greenwich lying east of a north and south line passing through a point a short distance east of the Center Falls school house.

This Patent was granted by the Province of New York to a large group of Scottish Highlanders who came to America about 1740 from the Hebrides island of Islay.

The interested reader is referred to “A History of The Argyle Patent” published by the Washington County Historical Society.

None of the original patentees settled in the Cossayuna area except John McEachron who joined his brothers after the Revolutionary War.

The frontier location, the threat of invasion from the north, and the difficulties in obtaining land titles from the widely scattered patentee owners, discouraged prospective settlers.

The original houses had been log cabins with dirt floors and field stone mud-plastered chimneys.

Water power, even in such small measure as is to be found here, was in great demand in the early days for grinding grain and for sawing the vast harvest of logs.

The most extensive of the manufacturing enterprises was the blanket factory operated at the lower power site by William and James Alexander.

Civil Government Originally, all the community was in the town of Argyle in the county of Albany of the Province of New York.