Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Downsville, NY

Downsville is a hamlet, census-designated place, and former village in the town of Colchester, Delaware County, New York, on the East Branch of the Delaware River.

Downsville is named for Abel Downs, who arrived in Colchester in 1794 and ran a tannery there; the name replaced the earlier name Shack Port in 1847.

Downsville became a boom town in the 1940s as workers and engineers poured in to build New York City's Pepacton Reservoir project.

In March 1950, Downsville's voters approved dissolving their village by a narrow 99-to-46 vote, partly because the new Downsville Dam lay outside the village limits and its tax payments would go to the town instead.

The Downsville Dam, completed in 1954 just outside the hamlet, created the Pepacton Reservoir, the largest reservoir by volume in the New York City water supply system, holding about 140 billion gallons and supplying nearly a quarter of the city's drinking water.

Filling the Pepacton Reservoir displaced 974 people and submerged four neighboring hamlets - Arena, Pepacton, Shavertown, and Union Grove - forever changing the valley around Downsville.

Two Downsville landmarks, the Downsville Bridge, a covered bridge, and the historic Union Free School, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Downsville had 474 residents at the 2020 census, down from 617 in 2010, and New York State Route 30 passes through the hamlet on its way along the reservoir to Margaretville.