Note 179 — Chapter XXXII · PASSAGE OF THE OHIO CANAL AND LAKE ERIE TO THE FALLS OF NIAGARA, FROM THE 21ST TO THE 30TH OF JUNE

Grand Island, with a cultivable area of 17,381 acres, was in dispute between the United States and Canada until the boundary commission of 1819 decided that the main current of Niagara River lay west of the island. Previously, however (1815), New York had made the purchase from the Seneca, referred to by Maximilian; the price aggregated about $11,000. In 1819 squatters were driven off by order of the state, and in 1824 the island was surveyed and opened for purchase. A contemplated Jewish settlement, to be called Ararat, came to nought. The island was erected into a separate township of Erie County in 1852.

For a brief notice of the battle of Chippewa, see Evans's Tour, in our volume viii, p. 175, note 33.—Ed.