Buffalo, New York - Name Origin

Name Origin

In 1798, The Holland Land Company hired Theophile Cazenove of Philadelphia as its agent in the newly established hub for the area in nearby Batavia, NY. Cazenove then hired Joseph Ellicott, to survey the area and establish a village next to Buffalo Creek. Ellicott decided to utilize the spoke pattern for his new village, which he called "New Amsterdam", and centered it around Niagara Square. In 1800, residents of the small village decided they did not like the name "New Amsterdam" and decided it would be called "Buffalo". In 1808, the name was officially changed and the Village of Buffalo had 25 residents at the time.

The earliest name origin theory to appear in print (1825) relates a story about stolen horsemeat being passed off as bison flesh, with the site of the illicit picnic henceforth remembered as "Buffalo," but the author who conveyed this tale expressed his skepticism.

While much current popular opinion seems to be that the city of Buffalo could not be named after the animal so representative of North America because there were no buffalo in the area or in eastern North America in general, it seems probable from historical evidence of the large impression made by eastern buffalo on early eastern explorers that the city was in fact named after the animal, and that buffalo were widespread and well known in eastern North America, including the area of the current city of Buffalo. There is much evidence from historical accounts of early European explorers described in the 1889 book "The Extermination of the American Bison" by William T. Hornaday (superintendent of the former National Zoological Park) that bison were present along the shores of Lake Erie very near, if not within, the current location of the city of Buffalo, and that bison were found as far east as the eastern seaboard. Bison were familiar to and exclaimed about in writing by the earliest European explorers of most of the eastern seaboard and, later, noted in writing by explorers of most of the interiors of the present great lakes states east of the Mississippi as well as of most eastern seaboard states. In addition, Father Hennipin included an unmistakable drawing and description of a bison in a wooded setting from his 1698 book "A New Discovery of a Vast Country In America" (reproduced in "The Atlas Of North American Exploration - From The Norse Voyages to the Race for the Poles" by William H. Goetzmann & Glyndwar Williams, 1992) describing his travels through the current city of Buffalo area during which his party discovered Niagara Falls, located very near Buffalo.

The closest of the first French or English forts to the current location of the city of Buffalo (other than Fort Niagara) was the French Fort Le Boeuf, which was an inland fort located on a river flowing into Lake Erie in western Pennsylvania, east of Erie and near the current NY border. Fort Le Boeuf existed from 1753 to 1759 and was at the western boundary of the immense, virtually unsettleable (by Europeans) Iroquois country (very hostile and still unsubdued by Europeans) which included at its western end the current location of Buffalo. Many current cities and counties in the great lakes region take their names from former English or French frontier forts of this era in the great lakes region. Fort Le Boeuf can be translated to "Fort Buffalo" since it is believed that the name "buffalo" originated with the French fur trappers who called the American bison "boeufs", meaning ox or bullock. Since the names of geographical locations in these early times of settlement seem to frequently migrate to nearby areas or be otherwise spatially and temporally indistinct or general, in part due to uncertainties and inaccuracies in early maps and lack of settlement, it is not implausible that the city of Buffalo derived its name directly or indirectly from Fort Le Boeuf.

Buffalo River may have been named before the city of Buffalo, with the city of Buffalo deriving its name from that river, Buffalo Creek; as Buffalo Creek first appeared on a map in 1759–1760. ". Therefore, the first known written use of the word "Buffalo" in the area of the current city of Buffalo occurred at precisely the time in which Fort Le Boeuf ceased its six years of operations. The Buffalo River may therefore simply inherited the nearby fort's place-name on maps, with appropriate translation to English, desired because the usual translation of Le Boeuf to "ox" would have lost the desired unique American connotation possessed by the word "buffalo".

In any event, confusion about the existence of bison in the Buffalo area despite widespread initial descriptions of bison by the earliest explorers in most areas east of the Mississippi may have resulted because reference to bison in the area indeed seem to end before widespread European settlement and the establishment of the city of Buffalo, perhaps due to the advance of European weaponry to the eastern Indians before the advance of European settlements. However, by the time of the establishment of the city of Buffalo, bison (known then popularly as buffalo) had already been established as a spectacular and representative North American animal in the minds of people involved in renaming the city of Buffalo, and a history of naming nearby settlements and locations for the animal had been established even when those settlements were not connected in any way with any landmarks or events unique to the city of Buffalo.

It is therefore likely that Buffalo was directly or indirectly named after the common term for bison, even if the naming was purely historical in the sense that the city was named at a time the animal was probably extirpated in the city's locale, and although Fort Le Boeuf had ceased operation a generation earlier.

A currently popular account also holds that the name "Buffalo" is a corruption of the French phrase beau fleuve, "beautiful river," a phrase said to have been exclaimed by French explorers upon seeing the Niagara River. This speculation, however, is contradicted by primary sources. French explorers actually referred to Buffalo Creek in print as Rivière aux Chevaux, "Horse River."

However, without additional historical discoveries, it is unlikely that an indisputable historical thread can be established leading to the city of Buffalo's naming.