Born of the Canal: How the Erie Canal Created Albion

A Wilderness Before the Canal

Before the Erie Canal reached western New York, the land that would become Albion was a remote, swampy stretch of the Holland Purchase with scarcely a handful of settlers. William McAllister became the first permanent settler in 1811, clearing land and erecting a log cabin where the county clerk's office now stands. ¹ His wife died there in 1812 — the first death of a white person in the village or town — and her funeral was attended only by her husband and three men, "who then comprised almost the entire population of the town." ²

The settlement grew slowly. In 1815, Jesse Bumpus took up land on the west side of Main Street, and in 1812 Elijah Darrow purchased 200 acres nearby. ¹ But the hamlet remained insignificant. The nearby village of Gaines, situated at the junction of the Ridge Road and Oak Orchard Road, was the dominant settlement in the region during this era of teaming and stage coaches. ¹

The Canal Changes Everything

The Erie Canal's construction, authorized in 1817 and completed in 1825, transformed this backwater into a boomtown. The canal was 363 miles long and cost $7,143,780.86 to build. ³ On October 26, 1825, a flotilla of five boats left Buffalo carrying state officers and prominent men, with cannon stationed along the entire route and fired in succession as the boats passed. "Enthusiastic crowds of people, among them many who had from the first condemned the project as impracticable, met the fleet at the various villages, Lockport, Medina, Albion, Holley and Brockport, in a general celebration of the great event." ³

Nehemiah Ingersoll, an entrepreneur from Dutchess County, had purchased 100 acres of land fronting on Main Street from William Bradner. ¹ He laid out village lots along Main Street and the canal, employed Orange Risden to survey the plat, and opened streets for sale to new settlers. He built the first warehouse in town, located about fifteen rods east of Main Street on the canal. ² Ingersoll would prove to be Albion's most consequential early figure — not only developing its commercial core but securing its political future.

The County Seat Gambit

When Orleans County was carved from Genesee County on November 12, 1824, the question of where to place the county seat became contentious. ³ Gaines, as the most prosperous village, expected the honor. Commissioners from Onondaga, Ontario, and Cortland counties were appointed to make an impartial determination. ³

The Albion men, led by Ingersoll and Philetus Bumpus, resorted to cunning strategy. Knowing the commissioners would arrive during the dry season when Sandy Creek would be too low to power the saw mills, they dammed the creek days in advance, hauled logs around the mill yard to create the appearance of bustling industry, and wined and dined the visitors generously. When the commissioners toured the village, they were driven past the saw mill "then in full operation, with men and teams among the lumber, with a good supply of water from the ponds thus made for this occasion." ³ The ruse worked. The commissioners selected Albion as the county seat.

"The canal, however, may be said to have decided the questions then agitated. Enterprising men saw the advantages offered by their village over those of the older town, and they eagerly availed themselves of valuable opportunities by selecting locations here." ¹

Newport Becomes Albion

The settlement had originally been called Newport, and its first newspaper, the Newport Patriot, was issued by Franklin Cowdry in 1823. ³ But there was already a Newport post office in Oneida County, causing endless confusion with the mail. When the village was formally incorporated in 1828, the inhabitants seized the opportunity to change the name. ¹ They chose "Albion," the ancient poetic name for England, derived either from a Greek word meaning "white" or from the Gaelic for "rocky mountains." ¹

By its neighbors in Gaines, the settlement had long been known by a less flattering name: Mudport, on account of the dreadful condition of its streets in wet weather. ¹ Over what is now Main Street, a causeway of logs had to be laid for basic travel, and even later the road was made passable only with corduroy — logs laid crosswise over the swamp. ¹

Prosperity Arrives

The canal's completion triggered an economic transformation that Judge Arad Thomas described in vivid terms:

"To no part of the State of New York has the Erie Canal proved of more benefit than to Orleans county. Although the soil was fertile and productive... yet its inland location, and the great difficulty of transporting produce to market, rendered it of little value at home." ³

"As soon as the canal became navigable, Holley, Albion, Knowlesville, and Medina, villages on its banks, were built up... Wheat was worth four times as much as the price for which it had been previously selling. Prosperity came in on every hand; the mud dried up, and the mosquitos, and the ague, and the fever, and the bears left the country." ³

The new courthouse and jail were finished in 1828, and Ingersoll donated the very grounds on which they stood. ¹ Warehouses sprang up along the south bank of the canal, stores became numerous, and a brisk trade in whitewood lumber developed — good boards sold for $5 per thousand feet on the canal bank. ² The village that had been dismissed as Mudport was now one of the principal points between Rochester and Niagara Falls, with an assured importance it has maintained ever since. ¹