The plain post had been used as a type of bulletin board and when the white settlers moved into the area they painted it.

[citation needed] The Erwin brothers are considered the first wealthy European descended settlers to have settled in the Painted Post area in the late 18th century (Painted Post village is in the town of Erwin, named for the brothers and incorporated in 1796).

The following footnote appears in French's Gazetteer of New York State[4] and gives two possible versions of the origin of the name: In the summer of 1779, a party of tories and Indians, under the command of a loyalist named McDonald, returned from an incursion into the Susquehanna settlements, bringing with them many of their number wounded.

At the confluence of Tioga and Conhocton [sic] Rivers, Captain Montour, son of the famous Queen Catharine, a Seneca chief of great promise, died of his wounds.

"His comrades buried him by the riverside, and planted above his grave a post on which were painted various symbols and rude devices.

Patterson, the hunter, by a man named Taggart, who was carried to Fort Niagara a prisoner by McDonald's party, end was a witness of the burial of Capt.

Col. Harper, of Harpersfield, the well known officer of the frontier militia of New York in the Revolution, informed Judge Knox, of Knoxville, in this co., that the Painted Post was erected over the grave of a chief who was wounded at the battle of the "Hog-Back" and brought in a canoe to the head of the Chemung, where he died.

It was well understood by the early settlers that this monument was erected in memory of some distinguished warrior who had been wounded in one of the border battles of the Revolution and afterward died at this place.

Simm's Hist, Schoharie, p. 333.In June 1972 the remnants of Hurricane Agnes stalled over the New York–Pennsylvania border, dropping up to 20 inches (500 mm) of rain into the Chemung Valley, which was among the worst hit areas by the resultant flooding.

The Chemung, Tioga, and Cohocton rivers all overflowed their banks, leaving widespread areas of Painted Post as well as Corning, Big Flats, and Elmira under water and destroying many bridges.

Painted Post is featured in the Stephen Vincent Benét poem "American Names".

New York State Route 415 passes through the village, which also borders the Southern Tier Expressway and the Cohocton River.