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TOWN OF Ellicottville
Town of Ellicottville- 1820
The Town of Ellicottville was formed from Ischua, now Franklinville, on 13, 1820. Ashford
was taken off in 1824. It is located in the interior part of
Cattaraugus County. Its surface is a hilly
upland, broken by the deep and narrow ravines of the
streams. The principal stream is Great Valley Creek, running through the
center of the town. Ellicottville was incorporated on 1, 1837. It
is the original county seat of Cattaraugus
County, and in 1860, contained the county buildings, 4
churches, 3 newspapers, and an iron foundry. Its population was 695. It
was named after Joseph Ellicott, an agent for the Holland Land Company.
Plato and Ash Park are
post offices. The first settlements were made in 1815, by David Waldo,
of Oneida County, and Orin Pitcher from Massachusetts. The first
religious services was held at the house of William
Vinton, by the Rev. John Spencer, in 1818.The first
permanent settler was Grove Hurlburt, who built the first house in 1815,
on Lot 57. Other early settlers included: Rickartson
Burlingame and Ephraim Fitch, in 1816. The first child born was Orlando F Pitcher, in June 1816.
The first school was taught by Eunice Carpenter, at the
house of Orin Pitcher in 1817. Also in 1817, the first inn and store was
opened by Baker Leonard. A sawmill was built by Orin Pitcher, in 1821,
on the Great Valley Creek.
The Ellicottville 1940 High School Yearbook "Ellicon"
of Leland Eastman is available in a searchable text version as well as
the a PDF scan of the original book. Scanned and donated by
Danny Eastman. There are several of the students are
mentioned in a letter (included) from ten years later (1950) that lends
some insight into where several of the students were in thier
lives. Also we obtained a very few obituaries from students in
that yearbook and linked them to their names.
