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FILLMORE, Millard. ALS on the name of the city of

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Buffalo: 30 June 1862. 5 pp., folded sheet with an additional single sheet tipped to the outer gutter (250 x 200 mm). Condition: usual folds. Fillmore here writes the historican and archivist of the State of New York concerning the origins of the naming of Buffalo, citing the appearance of "Buffaloe Creek" on a 1761 manuscript military map by British engineer George Demler. O'Callaghan had sent Fillmore that map, in addition to a printed one by Andrew Ellicott, for Fillmore's research. With this letter, Fillmore returned the maps to the archivist and provides his analysis: "... But conceding that the map was drawn as early as 1761-2, the question still recurs, was the name Buffaloe Creek inscribed upon it at that time? It must be admitted that the statement of Ellicott's measurement of the Falls has been added to since 1789, and if the name Buffalo Creek was inscribed upon it in 1761-2, it is probably the oldest record of any kind on which it can be found. The word Creek as applied to a small river, is peculiarly an Americanism, and I suppose Demler was an Englishman, and if he named it, he would have called it Buffalo River. But it may be said that he inscribed the name which Americans applied to it; but at that time no Americans were here, or had been here, to give it a name. But it is also to be noticed that we find on this map, the Tonawanda Creek laid down, but not named ; but the name of Buffaloe Creek is in beautiful manuscript, while all the other names are in printed characters. Another thing seems probable, that either this name was copied from the Treaty of 1784, or else the name in that treaty was copied from the map; for they are both spelled alike, and both misspelled. They are both spelled Buffaloe, and Buffalo, a mistake and coincidence not likely to occur when two men were writing independently of each other. I do not find that any Lexicographer ever spelled the word with a final e..." The analysis of the map continues with an examination of the handwriting used to add the phrase "Buffaloe Creek", the watermark on the paper, etc. Published in the Millard Fillmore Papers (within Publications of the Buffalo Historical Society, vol. XI, pp. 423-425).

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