Cohocton Valley
Historic New York
Seneca Indians inhabited this area until 1779 when their towns and cornfields were destroyed by the Sullivan-Clinton expedition, forcing a migration to Niagara.
After the Revolution these lands were included in the Pulteney Purchase of one million acres acquired by a group of English speculators. Their agent Charles Williamson in 1793 founded Bath, which was planned as a trading center connected by water with the Susquehanna River and Baltimore, A frontier metropolis with mills, hotels, a newspaper, theatre and racetrack, it was overbuilt at a cost of one million dollars. Settlement did not keep pace with these improvements and in 1802 Williamson withdrew.
In the nineteenth century the tide of transportation moved north and westward. Wayland was a principal stage-coach stop on the Elmira-Buffalo Turnpike. Dansville near the headwaters of the valley was linked by canal to the Genesee River flowing northward.
Dansville became a health resort in 1858 with a sanitarium known for its food fads and water cure. In 1881, Clara Baron, a patient at the sanitarium, founded the American Red Cross. The defunct sanitarium was reopened in 1929, with emphasis on physical culture.
Marker can be reached from South Main Street (New York Route 415) 0.4 miles south of Mill Street, on the left when traveling south.
Courtesy hmdb.org
