From our walking tour brochure:

The village of Potsdam was founded in 1803 by Benjamin Raymond, a land surveyor for the Clarkson family of New York City, majority owners of the 40 mile-square Town of Potsdam. Within a year, settlers moved to the Town to plant farms in the wilderness, a sawmill was in operation and a grist mill was erected at the falls on the west side of Fall Island on the Raquette River. The next hundred years saw growth and prosperity in the Village, with sandstone, lumber and paper industries, two colleges and an active downtown business district.

In 1979, Market Street in Potsdam, N.Y. from Main Street to Depot Street was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. These two blocks are the original Village business districts, dating from the 1820s to the 1930s. The buildings illustrate a variety of 19th and 20th century architecture, and the development of the use of Potsdam sandstone in construction.

Below is a short list of historic buildings in Potsdam:

Civic Center, 2 Park Street, Potsdam, NY
c. 1876-1933

Snell Hall, 1 Park Street, Potsdam, NY
c. 1918

Alpha Upsilon, 29 Elm Street, Potsdam, NY (LOST )
c. 1832

Delta Upsilon, 30 Elm Street, Potsdam, NY
c.1890s Queen Anne, Built by the Sanford family with a sandstone foundation.

18 Elm Street, Potsdam, NY (LOST 2010)
c. 1890s Queen Anne. Frame and sandstone house built by teacher and banker F.L. Dewey and had
distinctive onion turrets.
http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20080420/NEWS05/604063184

Pert House, 16 Elm Street, Potsdam, NY
c.1865 Italianate, built of brick by farmer and businessman George Pert. this house features Gothic Revival scroll-work and a sandstone foundation.

Call House / Potsdam Town Club / Elks Club, 10 Elm Street, Potsdam, NY
c. 1822 Federal style, the first house in the village to be built of Potsdam Sandstone. Built by surveyor John Call. The front of the house is built in the slab and binder method with a flat surface while the additions in the back were added in the 1880s with a rusticated surface called rough ashler. The porch dates to the 1890s.

Watkins / G.W. and F.T. E. Sisson House,14 Leroy Street, Potsdam, NY
c. 1865 Neo Georgian, Henry Watkins came to Potsdam in the 1860s as a teacher. He became interested in the local lumber and sawmill business. He built this two story Italianate home with round and segmented arch brick window hoods, side bay and heavy classical entry portico with fanlight in the front gable.

In 1903 the house was purchased by George Wing Sisson, who added the classical portico. Upon his death his son Fransis T. E. Sisson became owner of the house. The interior has 16 foot ceilings with extensive black walnut woodwork with the exception of the dining room which has cherry wood work. Two fine stairways lead to the second floor and there are three wood burning fireplaces.

David Clarkson House / General Merritt House, 30 Leroy Street, Potsdam, NY
c. 1836 Greek Revival, One of the most elegant of the early slab and binder sandstone houses. This was the center of the Clarkson farm. that stretched from Market Street to Elm Street and north to the Village Border. Purchased by General Edwin A. Merritt in the 1860s It became an apartment house in 1937 with an addition to the rear.