Ebenezer "Indian" Allan Land Contract and Ledger

Ebenezer "Indian" Allan was one of the first white settlers in the Genesee Valley. Little is known of his early life; his birth date is not recorded but he probably hailed from New Jersey. During the Revolutionary War, he joined Colonel John Butler's Rangers, an irregular unit that carved a path of death and destruction through patriot settlements from the Susquehanna to the Genesee Valleys. Seeing the outcome of the war impending, he turned himself into a peacemaker, helping to make peace between the Continental Congress and the Haudenosaunee. After the war, he set up a home near modern Mount Morris; a Native woman called "Sally" was his common law wife, with whom he had two daughters (Chloe and Mary). In 1789, he moved the family to a 474-acre farmstead in today's Scottsville. There he also married his second wife, Lucy Chapman.

In 1788, as part of the negotiations with the Seneca over the Phelps & Gorham purchase, Oliver Phelps had promised to build a gristmill for the benefit of the Seneca. In doing so, be obtained additional land west of the Genesee River. Phelps hired Allan to bring the mill to fruition in 1789, giving him a 100-acre tract near the Falls of the Genesee in present-day downtown Rochester on which to build. Allan built both a saw mill and grist mill there. There, too, Lucy bore him a son named Seneca, the first white child born west of the Genesee. Allan would operate the mills for but 2 years, selling them to Benjamin Barton in 1791. He then returned to Mount Morris. Allan had made out well with his investments, as demonstrated by his sending his daughters to school in Trenton, New Jersey and his son to Philadelphia. However, Allan grew tired of the Genesee Valley and, in 1794, moved on to Upper Canada. He was promised a 3000-acre grant by Lord Simcoe, and planned to build a settlement. Unfortunately, the deed never came. Ultimately, he went bankrupt and died in poverty in 1816, aged approximately 72 years.