Ebenezer Allan

Ebenezer “Indian” Allan (1752 New Jersey - April 13, 1813 Delaware Township, Ontario) was a frontier settler and trader in the Genesee Valley. A British Loyalist during the American Revolution,^[1] Allan went on to become the first white settler in Rochester, New York.^[1] Allan acquired the nickname “Indian” due to his close association with the Haudenosaunee during his most active years.^[1]

Allan was born in New Jersey in 1752.^[1]  Around 1780, he joined with Colonel John Butler as a British Loyalist in the American Revolution.^[1] Along with Haudenosaunee allies, Butler's Rangers attacked white American settlers in the Genesee Valley area.^[2] Allan was sent by the British to their Indian Department and became a spy for them in 1781. He took up residence with Mary Jemison, the famed “White Woman of the Genesee”^[1] in Mount Morris around this time.

With the end of the war, Allan was dismissed from the Indian Department. His focus shifted to helping broker a peace deal between the Haudenosaunee and the American settlers. This led to him being arrested by British officials in December 1783 and imprisoned in multiple locations still in British possession.^[1]

Upon his release in 1786, Allan briefly moved to a site on Oatka Creek 600 yards west of its mouth with the Genesee River.^[3] The 475 acre plot had been gifted to him by landowners Phelps and Gorham in gratitude for his services in the peace treaty.^[3] His farm was the first white settlement in what would become Wheatland, New York.^[2]

In spring of 1790, Allan sold his property to Peter Sheffer I for $2.50 per acre,^[3] and moved north to a site on the falls of the Genesee River. There on a small natural island he built a saw and grist mill.^[4] With his residence at the site, Allan became the first white settler of what would become Rochester, New York.^[1] The mills were intended by Phelps and Gorham as a place for the Haudenosaunee to grind their maize,^[4] but were not a successful business venture. The mill location did serve as a meeting area between cultures and a frontier outpost in an otherwise sparsely populated area.^[5] The established site went through a few owners before being purchased by a group led by future city namesake and founder Nathaniel Rochester.^[6]

Allan moved further west in 1794, settling on land near modern Windsor, Ontario.^[1] Allan got in trouble with government officials for his failure to build a promised church. Around 1805 he was imprisoned for an unknown offense in Turkey Point, Ontario.^[1]

Allan became an American sympathizer active in Ontario during the War of 1812.^[1] After brief imprisonment at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Allan died in Delaware Township on April 13, 1813.^[1]

Allan was a colorful and controversial figure in his own time, as his history mixed documented facts with frontier legend. Historical accounts describe him having a reputation for violence and instability.^[7] While contemporary Peter Sheffer Jr. described Allan as courteous and affable,^[2] later local historian Arch Merrill described him as “violent, audacious, lawless and sometimes cruel.”^[2] 20th Century researcher Morley B. Turpin credits much of the outrageous stories as being either fabrications by Allan's enemies or Allan's own bragging.^[2]

Historians indicate that he was a polygamist, having married first Kyen-da-nent or Sally, a sister of the Seneca chief Captain Bull in 1780.^[1] While living at the Oatka Creek site with Sally, he married a woman named Lucy Chapman.^[4] Lucy gave birth to a son named Seneca, the first white child born west of the Genesee River.^[4] He later married an additional woman, Mary (Milly) Gregory.^[1]