Newfane and Olcott

By Avis A. Townsend

Newfane and Olcott are adjoining communities in western New York where residents relish the past and look toward a prosperous future. Some say they can hear the music of the big bands playing along the shoreline of Lake Ontario from the foundation of the long-demolished Olcott Beach Hotel. Others swear they can see the ghost of Malinda standing by the upstairs window of the beautiful Van Horn Mansion, guarding the grounds where her body was lost for one hundred fifty years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781439632246

Avis A. Townsend

For Medina, author Avis A. Townsend has combined early photographs and fascinating stories to recall all the charm that Medina had and still has today. Active in historical organizations, she has lived all her life in western New York and has written novels and books about the area, including three others in the Images of America series: Newfane and Olcott, Wilson, and Albion.

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Courier-Express

INTRODUCTION

In the late 1800s, Olcott Beach was the place to be. Thousands flocked to the area each summer, including Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, whose 1899 speech at an annual picnic is said to have put Olcott on the map.

Olcott is a hamlet of Newfane, located in the western part of New York state, and is bounded by Lake Ontario to the north and Route 104 to the south. It is part of the Seaway Trail, 30 miles northeast of Niagara Falls. In between Newfane’s boundaries are other hamlets and villages, including Wrights Corners, Appleton, and Burt.

Until 1800, the area was inhabited by Native Americans and a smattering of transients. They hunted and fished the area in great numbers. The region was part of the Native American Confederation of Five Nations. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 brought in white settlers, and the Holland Land Company bought three million acres of western New York land from a Philadelphia entrepreneur named Robert Morris. Tracts of land were divided and sold to the highest bidder. The only established land route was a well-worn Native American trail. In 1808, the Holland Land Company improved travel by creating more roadways so Conestoga wagons filled with settlers could pass through.

One settler was Burgoyne Kemp, who made his home on the shoreline of Lake Ontario and called the area Kempville. As land quickly sold along the lakeshore, settlers were forced to take inland plots and worked their way south along the many creeks that snaked their way from the lake. One of these people was James Van Horn, born in New Jersey in 1770. When he was 37, he purchased 673 acres south of the lake from the Holland Land Company and moved there with his wife, Elizabeth. Unfortunately, Elizabeth died shortly after settling in; almost immediately James married his second wife, the former Abigail Carpenter.

Abigail was very religious and enjoyed attending church services, which she traveled to on horseback. To help his wife find her way through the dense woodlands, James cut notches in hundreds of trees throughout the many pine groves in the area, to create a type of road map Abigail could follow as she rode from community to community to attend her various religious meetings.

Abigail named their plot of ground New Fane. In those days, fane meant church or temple, and Abigail wanted her property to be blessed by God. As the years passed, New Fane would become Newfane. At one time, folks thought the community had been named for Newfane, Vermont, because of all the settlers who had come from that area, but years later they discovered the true origin of the town’s name. However, it is said that Abigail was born in Newfane, Vermont, so both theories are probably true.

In 1808, James and Abigail had their first child, James Van Horn Jr. In 1809, James Van Horn Sr. built a log cabin and, in 1810, a gristmill along the banks of Eighteen Mile Creek. The creek was given its name because it is 18 miles from the mouth of the Niagara River. Unfortunately, the War of 1812 erupted, and the British captured Lake Ontario and ordered all businesses, homes, and shops burned. The Van Horn mill and all its flour were destroyed, but soldiers allowed the cabin to remain.

In 1817, James tried again. He rebuilt the gristmill, added a sawmill, and began work on a brick house—a mansion—that would take six years to complete. In that year, 1823, Burt Van Horn was born.

In 1824, James held the first town meeting in the mansion, and Newfane became an official township. James Wisner became the first town supervisor. James Van Horn Sr. was the third man to serve in that post (from 1829 to 1831 ), and he eventually became a member of the New York State General Assembly.

Meanwhile, the community of Kempville was slowly growing as well. People living along the shores of the lake and the many creeks and streams in the area were able to catch many varieties of fish, and gardens grew easily with the availability of water. How Kempville came to be known as Olcott is debatable. One theory says a man named Thomas Olcott began buying up much of the property there also and, sometime after 1820, had the hamlet named after himself. Post office records claim the name was changed on May 10, 1837. Another theory says that a man named Theodore Olcott, responsible for securing two piers in 1877, was the reason for the name change. But if that were so, why would the name have been changed in 1837? Also, records indicate that Thomas Olcott did exist.

Word rapidly spread that Olcott was a pleasant summer resort, and by