I only know about the existence of villages in NY state because my brother lives in one and had to explain to me what constitutes a village vs. a town–I still don’t really get it! - which is why I said the term may have a more specific definition. So yeah, it may not be a commonly used or understood term even in the NE. In any case, I’m sure it’s used differently here than in the UK, like many things.
There are so many options. If you’re looking for a free and open source wiki-style setup, a couple I haven’t seen mentioned in the thread yet are Zim Desktop Wiki and Feather wiki (hmm looks like their web certificate is expired at the moment)