Cassadaga

History

Cassadaga is a Seneca name meaning "water under the rocks", descriptive of the natural springs of the area flowing from glacial moraines. In dry weather, many of the local streams would "disappear", and the spring-fed water runs wholly within the gravelly bottoms of the stream beds draining from the surrounding hills. Cassadaga was settled by European Americans in 1848 at the headwaters of the technically navigable Cassadaga Creek. Practically, the upper few miles of it are not navigable in the 21st century, due to numerous shallows and beaver activity along its course. Many of the settlers had migrated from New England and eastern New York after the American Revolutionary War. They gradually migrated westward as this territory was opened up for settlement after the Seneca people and other Iroquois League tribes had been forced out of the state after the war. The village was formally incorporated in 1921. Early settlers harvested the abundant and large trees (some exceeding in diameter) as a primary source of income. They shipped them downstream to markets via log rafts and flatboats on the creek as timber, charcoal and pearl ash, the latter two products in demand in the early Industrial Age. The Dunkirk, Allegheny Valley and Pittsburgh Railroad, which laid track from Dunkirk, New York, and eventually to Warren, Pennsylvania, was constructed on the west side of the Cassadaga Lakes in the spring of 1871. It also ran through the then adjoining hamlet of Burnhams, which was later annexed by the village. The railroad contributed greatly to the economy of the area, both as a source of population growth and visitors to the lakes and rolling hills for recreation, and for transportation of the forest and farm products of the area to urban centers. Workers harvested ice…

Geography

Cassadaga is located on the northwestern edge of the Allegheny Plateau in western New York at 42°20'29" north, 79°18'56" west (42.341343, -79.315653) at an elevation of approximately above sea level. The village is located at the south end of Lower Cassadaga Lake, Lily Dale being located on the east shore of Upper Cassadaga Lake, with a narrow "Middle Lake" connecting them. The mainly spring-fed lakes drain into Cassadaga Creek, running south and connecting to Conewango Creek, the Allegheny River, the Ohio River, and the Mississippi River flowing to the Gulf of Mexico, despite getting their start just south and east of Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes, which drain via the Saint Lawrence River east to the Atlantic Ocean. The watershed divide is located less than north of the village. According to the United States Census Bureau, Cassadaga has a total area of , of which is land and , or 20.59%, is water. The soils are glacial in nature, ranging from deep gravel loams in the valleys to heavy clays on the hill tops. Springs are fairly common, though somewhat high in mineral content (calcium, sulphur and iron, depending greatly on location). New York State Route 60, the principal north-south route through Chautauqua County, runs through the village and intersects with U.S. Route 20, to the north at Fredonia, the New York State Thruway (Interstate 90) to the north at Dunkirk, and Interstate 86 to the south at Jamestown.

Race & ethnicity