Template:Wp-Angelica (town), New York-History

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The area was first settled around 1802 at Angelica village. The town of Angelica was formed in 1805 from the town of Leicester in Livingston County, before Allegany County was formed. Angelica is the oldest town in Allegany County. The town hall is housed in the Old Allegany County Courthouse, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. Belvidere was also listed in 1972, and the Moses Van Campen House was listed in 2004.[1]


John Barker Church was a British-born merchant who made a fortune supplying the American and French armies during the Revolutionary war and helped fund the war. He married Angelica Schuyler Church, the eldest daughter of General Philip Schuyler. Angelica Church's sister Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton was married to Alexander Hamilton. In 1797, the young United States paid back its war debt to Church in the form of 100,000 acres of land in Western New York. John and Angelica Church's son Philip Schuyler Church travelled to what is now Allegheny and Genesee Counties to take possession of the land, with his surveyor Moses Van Campen. A planned village was laid out with the plots and design to be reminiscent of Paris, France (a circular drive in the center, streets coming to that drive to form a star, and five churches situated around the circle). In the center of the circular drive is the village park. Philip named his planned village Angelica, after his mother.

The historian John S. Minard wrote of the town's establishment in Allegany County and Its People (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.[2]"
Philip left to marry Anna Matilda Stewart, daughter of General Walter Stewart in Philadelphia. For their honeymoon, they traveled first by boat, then by raft as far west as Bath, New York, then on horseback to the banks of the Genesee River. They constructed a small house, soon to be whitewashed and known as the "white house". In 1804, they had their mansion built (known as "Belvidere"). It still stands on the banks of the Genesee near Angelica, New York.
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