Island actor to portray the man who surveyed Western New York

By Alice Gerard

Western New York has the Ellicott Square Building, Ellicottville and Ellicott Creek. Despite that, very few people know much about Joseph Ellicott.

He was a land surveyor and a salesman for the Holland Land Co. in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was instrumental in the construction of the Erie Canal.

Island resident Dennis Upton, through his one-man show, is trying to draw more attention to Joseph Ellicott (1760-1826) and his life’s work. Dressed in early 19th century clothing, Upton will appear at the Grand Island Golden Age Center at 1 p.m. Nov. 10, as part of the University Express series.

Upton, a retired teacher, has been portraying Ellicott since early 2020, when he did a seven-minute portrayal at the Hull House in Lancaster.

“(Hull House was) having a day where they would have seven people doing about a seven-minute version of a character, the story of a character, in character, and people would rotate around. I did that for them for two years. Then, it seemed to me like there was a lot more to the life of Joseph Ellicott than you could share in a seven-minute timeline. So, I developed the 35-minute presentation, done as Joseph Ellicott in the year 1824,” Upton said.

“So, you see that is so much more than a seven-minute talk at the Hull House, which is where it began. When I present, there’s no PowerPoint, there’s no microphone. I’m just talking as Ellicott about my life. Remember, I need you to tell my story. Sometimes, that’s what I call the talk so, when you leave, you know a lot about Joseph Ellicott.

“I chose 1824 for a good reason. Joseph Ellicott surveyed all of Western New York, starting in 1798, for the Holland Land Co. But, in 1821, he was asked by the Holland Land Co. to retire, turn in his remission as they said, because he was having some issues, perhaps mental issues, struggling with what was going on in the world. He didn’t get along well with people beforehand and, evidently, it got worse.

“In 1824, his family decided they would send him to New York City to the Bloomingdale Asylum for treatment of people with (mental) disorders.”

The Holland Land Co. was a large and dominant business in the early 19th century, Upton said.

“The Holland Land Co. was Wall Street,” he said. “The banks of houses, as they called them. Houses of Holland were the Wall Street of the world. They funded the French Revolution. They funded most of the American Revolution. In return, they bought up great chucks. Millions and millions of acres of land in many states, not just in Western New York. Ellicott was asked to work on this portion of Western New York, the portion where we live, so that’s the most interest to me.”

Ellicott, who was one of nine children, learned land surveying from his brother, Andrew.

“Andrew was considered the top surveyor in the country,” Upton explained. “He laid out Washington, D.C. He taught Lewis and Clarke how to do surveying before they took off for the northwest territory. He helped find the western boundary for Pennsylvania and New York state. The western boundary of Pennsylvania is called the ‘Ellicott line,’ in honor of his brother, Andrew Ellicott.

“In 1804, when Joseph Ellicott laid out the City of Buffalo, which was called New Amsterdam, by the way, he laid it out with radiating streets. Surveying is mostly, as I like to say, parallels and perpendiculars, unless you follow a river. You’re basically following lines of latitude and longitude. For someone like Ellicott, who I assume, really thrived under organization, this was radical because this was like the spokes of a wheel going out. This was very different at the time. That was 1804. Then New Amsterdam became Buffalo Creek, which became Buffalo. So, we always think that Buffalo has radiating streets.”

Ellicott named the streets of Buffalo, many of which were renamed. The only original names that remain are Seneca, Swan, Chippewa, Huron, Eagle and Delaware.

Among other things, Ellicott was involved in the decision to create the Erie Canal.

“In 1817, Ellicott was appointed to a Canal Commission that helped plan the canal and bring it through New York state, instead of through Lake Ontario,” Upton said. “I think Ellicott was one of the most instrumental people in having the canal come through Western New York, rather than through Lake Ontario. He served on that commission from 1817-19. Then he got off. He had so much going on in trying to sell the land. He was called a resident agent for Western New York. He would sell the land to the people. Many of the people were the veterans from the Revolutionary War moving to the frontier because there were 52 non-Indigenous people in this area around 1795.”

Upton said he was able to collect a great deal of information about Ellicott because he kept “extensive journals.” He said that those journals are kept are the Buffalo History Museum, SUNY Fredonia and at the Central Library in downtown Buffalo.

Ellicott, who never married, lived in a house in Batavia, a town which he founded in 1802.

“Batavia was also from a place in Holland called Batavia (now called the Betuwe district), which means ‘fertile land’ or ‘fertile growing area.’ His house had 25 rooms in it,” Upton said.

Ellicott was buried in an historic cemetery in Batavia two years after he passed away in the Bloomingdale Asylum in New York City in 1926. He was originally buried in a Quaker cemetery in New York, but his family had him reinterred in the Batavia cemetery.

For more information, check out Upton’s website at josephellicott.com.