Geneseo Village

Livingston County, New York

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Geneseo Village Hall is located at 119 Main Street, Geneseo NY 14454.
Phone: 585‑243‑1177.

Neighborhoods

Beginnings [1]

The village was founded in 1790 by brothers William and James Wadsworth, members of the family that would dominate and determine much of Geneseo's development throughout the nineteenth century. During the 1790s and early decades of the nineteenth century the Wadsworths established a prosperous agricultural community based on enlightened principles of soil conservation, selective stock breeding and scientific agricultural methods. The Wadsworth brothers donated land for the village green, around which the young community's commercial development occurred. The earliest residential growth occurred along Main Street, Geneseo's first thoroughfare, where the village's earliest and wealthiest citizens erected fashionable dwellings on spacious lots. Of these early residences, The Homestead and Hartford House are individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Geneseo prospered throughout the second quarter of the nineteenth century as the village emerged as a market town in the center of the Genesee Valley wheat region. During the 1830s and 1840s the region's wheat was world famous for its high quality.

  1. Elizabeth K. Ralph, Historic Preservation Field Services, New York State, Main Street Historic District, Geneseo NY, nomination document, 1977, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.

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