Horseheads is a town in Chemung County, New York, United States. The population was 19,412 at the 2020 census. The pronounce of the town is derived from the number of bleached horses’ skulls subsequent to found there.

Horseheads is north of the city of Elmira, upon which it borders. There is a village named Horseheads within the town. It is allocation of the Elmira Metropolitan Statistical Area.

On September 1, 1779, General George Washington ordered the forces of General John Sullivan to march north upon a 450-mile (720 km) journey through a wooded wilderness from Easton, Pennsylvania, over to Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and upon up the Susquehanna River to Newtown (Elmira) to mount a raid on Iroquois. They continued north through what is now known as Horseheads to the Finger Lakes region and west to Geneseo. Devastating the already weakened Iroquois, Sullivan’s troops retreated incite along the similar route.

The journey had been particularly harsh and wearing on the animals, and their food supply was found insufficient. Arriving more or less 6 miles (10 km) north of Fort Reid on September 24, 1779, they were obliged to dispose of a large number of ill and disabled horses. The number of horses was so great that they were quite noticeable, and the indigenous Iroquois collected the skulls and settled them in a heritage along the trail. From that era forward, that spot was referred to as the “valley of the horses’ heads” and is nevertheless known by the name resolution to it by the Iroquois.