Pleasantville is a village in the town of Mount Pleasant, in Westchester County, New York. The village population was 7,019 at the 2010 census. Pleasantville is home to a campus of Pace University and to the Jacob Burns Film Center. It was the original home of Reader's Digest, which still uses a Pleasantville postal address. Most of Pleasantville is served by the Pleasantville Union Free School District, with small parts of northern Pleasantville served by the Chappaqua Central School District. The village is also home to Pleasantville High School.HistoryThe settlement of Pleasantville dates back to an Iroquois tribe, who raised corn there and established trading routes crossing through the present-day village before the arrival of Europeans. French Huguenot Isaac See settled here as an agent for Dutch landowner Frederick Philipse in 1695, beginning the modern history of Pleasantville.By the time of the American Revolution, the population of the growing settlement comprised English, Dutch, and Quakers, most of whom were tenant farmers. During the Revolution, this area was part of the Neutral Ground, where there were conflicting loyalties among the settlers. British spy Major John André passed through present-Pleasantville carrying information from Benedict Arnold at Fort Clinton to the British in New York City. André lost his bearings near the present-day corner of Bedford Road and Choate Lane and was captured. The capture of André is often cited as a key factor in the ultimate victory of the American forces.
