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THOMPSON'S COAST PILOT, 163 Winne, the trader, and Middaugh, a Dutchman, with his family, lived at Buffalo.' The only road between Buffalo and Avon, in the year, 1797, was an Indian trail, and the only house on this trail was one, about one and one-half miles east of the present village of Le Roy, occupied by a Mr. Wilder. As late as 1812 the roads were next to impassable, and to obtain supplies from Albany, trade was carried on by a circuitous route, 'through the Niagara River to Schlosser, thence by portage to Lewiston, thence by water to Oswego and up the Oswego River, through the Oneida Lake and Wood Creek, and across a short portage to the Mohawk River, thence by 'that river and around the portage of Little Falls to Schenectady, and thence over the arid pine plains to Albany.' The late Judge Townsend and George Coit, Eisq., came to Buffalo as traders, in 1811, by this route, bringing about twenty tons of merchandise from Al- bany, at a cost of fifty dollars a ton. At this time there were less than one hundred dwellings here, and the population did not exceed five hundred. The mouth of Buffalo Creek was then obstructed by a sand-bar, frequently preventing the entrance of small vessels, and even frail Indian bark canoes were frequently shut out, and footmen walked across its mouth on dry land. Vessels then received and dis- charged | their cargoes at Bird Island wharf, near Black Rock. To remedy the obstructions in the creek by the sand-bar at its outlet into the lake, it was proposed, in the year 1811, to run a pier into the lake, but nothing of moment was done till the spring of 1820, when a subscription was raised, by the then villagers of Buffalo, amounting to $1,361. The late Hon. Samuel Wilkson was the originator and projector of this movement, and temporary improve- ments were made which carried away the obstructing sand-bar. In 1822 the village, in its corporate capacity, paid John T. Lacy for building a mud-scow for working in the harbor, $534. 'The first corporate notice of the harbor was made in the latter year. Buffalo was incorporated as a village in April, 1813, and as a city on the 20th of April, 1832. 2 | " Melish says: 'The population by the last census was 865, and it was computed in 1811 at 500, and is rapidly increasing.' In 1825, the population was 2,142 ; in 1830, 8,668; in 1835, 15,661; in 1840, 18,213 ; in 1845, 29,973 ; in 1850, 42,261; in 1860, 81,-