Hornby's 200-year story starts as a town cut from Painted Post

Hornby has the kind of Southern Tier history that starts with a map being trimmed and retrimmed. It is not a loud story, but it explains why the town feels tucked into Steuben County’s eastern edge instead of gathered around one famous landmark.

The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society’s Steuben town list says Hornby was settled in 1814 by settlers from Otsego County. It was formed in 1826 from the old Town of Painted Post, now Corning. A few years later, in 1831, Campbell was formed from Hornby.

That is a small-town boundary story with a long memory. A place can be settled before it is officially a town, then lose pieces as nearby communities take shape. Hornby carries that older pattern quietly in its roads, hamlets, and town offices.

That makes Hornby worth noticing beyond a drive through farm and hill country. The town is a reminder that many New York places were not born all at once. They were cut out, renamed, narrowed, and kept going by residents who still had to build ordinary civic life on the new map.