It is located to the north of Woodrow, to the west of Arden Heights, and to the south and east of the Arthur Kill.

[1] Originally inhabited by the Raritan Indians, the area that eventually became known as Rossville remained largely free of European settlers until 1684 when the first land survey of the area was made by the British, who obtained Staten Island from the Dutch in the Treaty of Breda, which ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

In 1692, Daniel Perrin, a Huguenot originally from Jersey, was granted 80 acres (320,000 m2) of land in the area (then known as Smoking Point) by Governor Benjamin Fletcher.

[3] The Blazing Star Ferry, which crossed the Arthur Kill to Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, was established in the years before the American Revolution.

When the Richmond Turnpike (known today as Victory Boulevard) was built across Richmond County in 1816, it improved connections to the western parts of the island and to the competing New Blazing Star Ferry in Long Neck (known today as Travis), which had steamboat and stagecoach connections to Philadelphia.

The resulting residential building boom encouraged longtime farmers to sell their land to developers which fueled rapid growth in the area, continuing to this day.

The island's main hub for oyster harvesting was Prince's Bay, within walking distance from the Sandy Ground community.

Sandy Ground also served as an important stop on the Underground Railroad, and is the oldest continuously settled free black community in the United States.

Once the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge was opened 19 months later, it and many other Staten Island neighborhoods saw massive new home construction.

Witte acquired them faster than he could break them up; the end result is dozens of vessels slowly rotting in the muck of the Arthur Kill.

[23] Scenes from the 2010 thriller Salt, starring Angelina Jolie, were filmed on location at the Witte Marine Scrapyard.

Engine 168 operates out of a brand new firehouse located at the corner of Rossville Avenue and Veterans Road East, which was built in 2004, and is staffed with an FDNY EMS Battalion.

[27] Rossville is served by the New York City Department of Education and is located in Region 7, Community School District 31.

[34] Some parts of Rossville are also within walking distance to the Pleasant Plains station on the Staten Island Railway.