Penet Square is an integral part of the history of the Town of Orleans. In 1788 an Oneida Indian treaty ceded a tract ten miles square to Peter Penet "for services rendered". Penet gave his name to the land, but soon sold it, and it passed through many purchasers before it came into the hands of John La Farge sometime between 1817 and 1823. Litigation clouded settlers' titles to their farms until 1830. Penet Square, as it is called, lay wholly within the original Town of Orleans, but when the Town of Clayton was formed, the new town included two fifths of Penet Square.

Orleans is located in the northernmost range of towns, with a neck of land giving it access to the St Lawrence River, and cutting Wellesley Island in two pieces giving Orleans a Canadian border, made more important by the international Thousand Islands Bridge.