Orchard Park |
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Address
4295 South Buffalo Street
Orchard Park, NY 14127
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Phone
(716) 662-6410 |
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In June 1804, two Danby, Vermont residents, Ezekiel Smith, and Quaker Amos Colvin contracted for the purchase of large tracts of lands located in the same southwest quadrant as the Kinney family. In October of 1804, Quaker David Eddy arrived from Danby, and "reserved" a substantial amount of property for $2.25/acre. This land encompassed roughly 600 acres and included much of present Orchard Park village. David set some of this land aside for his parents, Quaker Jacob and Susannah (Sprague) Eddy, and the rest for himself, wife Hannah (Arnold), and other members of related families. The entire Eddy family played a key role in the early stages of settlement.
In 1804, area surveyor, Joseph Ellicott informed the Holland Land Company, that a road leading from Lake Erie to the Township had been completed. It was to be called the Middle Road, and was later incorporated in Big Tree Road. This would prove to have a large impact on settlement.
In 1804 Obadiah Baker and his wife Anna (Wheeler) arrived from Danby and within a few months sanctioned Quaker Meetings at their home. By 1811 there were over twenty Quaker families, and by 1814 upwards of 25 Quaker families in the community. In December 1811, a half-acre property "with a log house standing thereon" was purchased by Society of Friends "for the sole purpose of building a meeting house thereon". It served as the meeting house until the early 1820s when they built the picturesque meeting house we know today. From all accounts, the original "log house" was the first church structure of any denomination in all of present Erie County.
The area we now know as Orchard Park Township was originally part of the Township of Hamburgh; the area we know as the environs of the Four Corners of Orchard Park Village became known at an early day as Potter's Corner due to the homesteading of the prolific Quaker Potter family. A decision was made in 1850 to separate Hamburgh's east half from its west half, the new eastern Township to be named Ellicott. This designation lasted for a little more than a year, and was then changed to East Hamburgh. The name Potter's Corners gradually was replaced by Orchard Park, informally, around 1882 when it was noted that the community resembled a park of orchards. The community had been known as Orchard Park for many years before it officially was incorporated in to a village in 1921. Finally, the entire township of East Hamburg became known as Orchard Park Township in 1934, the final "h" of Hamburgh having been lost around the time of World War I.
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