Angelica Schuyler Church - Return To America

Return To America

John and Angelica Church finally returned to the U.S. in 1797, to be reunited with her family in New York. In lieu of capital, the young country repaid loan from John Barker Church with 100,000 acres of land in Western New York. To take possession of the land, his son Philip traveled to the area of what is today Allegany and Genesee counties, near the Pennsylvania border. Philip Church selected the specific acreage, along the Genesee River, with his surveyor Moses Van Campen. The planned village was laid out with the plots and design to be reminisent of Paris, France . In the center of the circular drive is the village park. Philip named his planned village Angelica, after his mother. Philip left to marry Anna Matilda Stewart, daughter of General Walter Stewart in Philadelphia. For their honeymoon, they traveled to first by boat, then raft as far west as Bath, NY, then on horseback to the banks of the Genesee River. Soon they constructed a small house, soon to be whitewashed and known as the "white house". Later, they had their mansion built . It still stands on the banks of the Genesee River near Angelica, NY; it is occupied by its owners. FROM THE ARCHIVES BY JOHN MINARD, HISTORIAN: History of Angelica, New York, A Centennial Memorial History of Allegany County, New York John S. Minard, Esq. Historian Mrs. Georgia Drew Andrews, Editor. W. A. Fergusson & Co., Alfred, N. Y. 1896

"The town was formed by an act of the Legislature, passed Feb. 25, 1805, and described as "being in width twelve miles," just that of the Morris Reserve, and in length "from south to north extending thirty-four miles from the Pennsylvania line," taking in about two-thirds of the towns of Granger and Grove. It was taken from Leicester, and when erected was a part of Genesee county. (The village had been founded three or four years before, and named by Capt. Philip Church for his mother, Angelica, the eldest daughter of Gen. Philip Schuyler."

In 1804, built a country house, christened Belvidere, in upstate New York.