Population.— Buffalo has grown steadily, now ranking among the foremost American cities. Her name first appeared in the Federal census of 1820, with a population of 2,095, with increases as follows : 1830, 8,668; 1840, 18,213; 1850, 42,261; 1860. 81,129; 1870, 117,714; 1880, 155,134; 1890, 255,664; 1900, 352,387; 1910, 423,715, and according to the State enumeration of 1915, 454,630. In addition there are numerous suburbs, within a dozen miles of the downtown section of the city, where workers in the city live. These include the Tonawandas, Tona wanda and North Tonawanda, both classed as cities; Kenmore, Williamsville, Lancaster, De pew, Hamburg and Orchard Park. The six last named are villages, and practically all of the trade is done in Buffalo. Lackawanna is an other city outside the Buffalo city limits and adjoining it on the south but like the other places mentioned, due to rapid transit facilities, most of the trade is done in Buffalo. Accord ing to the United States census of 1910, Buffalo was the lOth largest city in the country. Ten years before Buffalo was 1 lth. Buffalo has a foreign population of considerable proportions, but this is being assimilated under intelligent and sympathetic supervision. The following figures from the 1910 census show the number of native-born and foreign-born residents: foreign born, total, 118,444; native born of foreign parentage, 183,673; and native born, 121,598. Of the foreign-born population, the principal nationalities represented are Polish, German, Italian, Irish and Polish-German Jews.
History.— The site of Buffalo was origi nally a basswood forest, amid which an Indian tribe, the Kahkwas, between the Neutrals and the Eries, hunted and fished along the creek; it was exterminated by the Iroquois before 1651, and not a single Indian lived there again for more than a century and a quarter. In 1679 La Salle passed the spot in his 60-ton sloop the Griffin, the first sailing vessel ever on Lake Erie, built at Cayuga Creek below. In 1687 the Baron La Hontan recommended it to the French government as the proper site for a fort to command the fur trade down the Niagara, and marked a "fort suppose on his map; but no attention was paid to him. In 1764 Colonel Bradstreet built Fort Erie across the river on his Indian campaign. In 1780 the Senecas, driven from their old haunts by Sullivan's cam paign, settled along the creek inland; the next winter an English family captive among them heard them call the creek by a name they trans lated "Buffalo,"-- whether rightly or not is dis puted but probably enough the herds had sought the salt-licks to the east. Their narra tive was published in 1784, and in the treaty of Fort Stanwix that year between the English and the Iroquois, the name was used as familiar to the latter. The Indian settlement soon be came known as "the village on the Buffalo,' currently shortened to "Buffalo village," and presently to °Buffalo,* without any official sanction. The land had formed part of the grant of James I to the Plymouth Company in 1625, and that of Charles II to the Duke of York in 1664. The consequent dispute between
Massachusetts and New York was compromised in 1786, and ultimately the Holland Company of aliens became patentees in trust in 1792, and by legislative permission owners in fee in 1798. Meantime a few settlers had straggled in; a trader named Cornelius Winne in 17139; two families in 1794 and 1796; and in 1797, when there were half a dozen houses, the first white child was born, a girl. A number of others took up residence there by 1803. In that year. by the advice of their surveyor, Joseph Ellicott, the founder of Buffalo, who had assisted his brother Andrew in laying out the city of Wash ington, and was convinced that here was the site of another great city, the company had him plot a village, and in 1804 sold the first lots. He called it New Amsterdam, and named the streets after the members of the company, but the set tlers disregarded all his names and his oxbow line for Main street, where his own mansion was to be. In 1810 the town of Buffalo was incorporated, including several now separate townships. In 1811 the first newspaper, the Buf falo Gazette, was established. In 1813 Buffalo village was incorporated, and received a new charter in 1822. In the War of 1812, after the storming of Fort Niagara by the British in De camber, .a force of British and Indians under General Riall was detailed to destroy Black Rock and Buffalo; on the 29th captured the latter, and the next day burned all but seven or eight houses, coming back 1 January and burn ing all but three of the rest. The settlers re occupied their homes to some extent on the 6th, but it was not generally rebuilt till 1815; on 10 April 1814 General Scott put it under mili tary rule. In 1818 the first steamer, was launched. For many years, however, supremacy was balanced between it and Black Rock down the river, now the north ern part of the city, where at that time was the ferry across the Niagara to the Canada side; but in 1825, after a fierce struggle, the former secured the terminal of the Ene Canal, and in five years its 2,412 inhabitants had grown to over 8,000, and its future was assured. Long after, however, able capitalists invested heavily in Dunkirk, 48 miles south, in faith that it and not Buffalo was the coming lake port. In 1832, it became a .city, and the next year it annexed Black Rock. Buffalo has given two Presidents to the United States, Millard Fillmore and Grover Cleveland, the latter its mayor in 1882. From 1 May to 1 Nov. 1901, the Pan-American Exposition was held here, and on 6 September President McKinley was shot while attending it.
Consult publications of the Buffalo Histori cal Society; Smith,