Grafton was formed from the towns of Troy and Petersburgh on March 20, 1807, and even at this comparatively late day it had few inhabitants.

Abel Owen is generally believed to have been the first man to enter the rather unattractive mountain wilderness and build himself a home.

He was sturdy farmer, an indefatigable laborer, and to encourage further settlement the patroon, Stephen Van Rensselaer III, gave him a grant of 200 acres (81 ha) or more of what was then thought to be the best land in that section adapted to farming.

[7] There is nothing to show when Mr. Owen moved to Grafton, but from subsequent settlements and other occurrences it is thought that it could not have been very long after the Revolutionary War.

Abel Owen is recorded as a Revolutionary soldier, so the town likely was not settled until the closing years of the war or later.

Circa 1786, Owen had at least two neighbors, families names Coon and Demmon being early lessees of the patroon's lands.

About 1796 Abel Owen sold his farm to Lemuel Steward and moved with his family to Onondaga County.

It was the most pretentious affair in the town and for many years one of the most prominent taverns in the central part of the county.

[9] About the year 1800 Josiah Litchfield opened a general store at Quackenkill, erecting a saw mill about the same time.

[9] The first physician to practice in town of whom there is any knowledge was Dr. Rufus S. Waite, a native of Petersburgh, who came to Grafton Center from Brownsville in 1819.

Dr. Amos Allen, also a native of Petersburgh, settled in Grafton in 1846, immediately after his graduation from the Berkshire Medical School.

Elijah Smith was shot by an unknown person during one of the numerous struggles which took place between the anti renters and the authorities of the county.

As the timber was cleared away the inhabitants began to pay more attention to agriculture, stock raising, and dairying.

It is bounded on the north by Pittstown and Hoosick, on the east by Petersburgh, on the south by Berlin and Poestenkill and on the west by Brunswick.

Its surface contains more small lakes and ponds than any other town in the county, and these are the headwaters of many streams flowing in every direction.

It is located within the limits of the Rensselaer Plateau[14] and the principal peaks in the town reach an altitude of 1800 feet above the level of the sea.

Nevertheless, many of the inhabitants of Grafton have farms which, by years of constant care and cultivation, have been rendered almost as productive as any within the county.