Vandervoort, William.jpg

William Vandervoote located in 1825, occupying a log house, the only one that then existed. He had in view the transaction of mercantile business, and the purchase of staves and oak timber for the Boston market. The first public house, called the Niagara, was completed by him in 1828, and burnt in 1844. Mr. Vandervoote subsequently purchased of the Holland Company seventeen hundred acres of land, and sold to the Prussians the tract including the largest part of their possessions, on the Tonawanda creek and in its vicinity. He was a partner in a store established by the Boston Company, then floating in the full tide of prosperity, on Grand Island. He established the first bank in the place in 1836. His mother and his sister Sarah located with him, the latter of whom occupied a brick residence erected by her brother, the first of the kind in the place.

He was the son of Michael Vandervoort, and the descendant of an early Dutch settler who arrived in the colony of New Amsterdam about the year 1640.