[1]: p.46 The village was located on the west side of the Genesee River, "about a mile above the ford",[2]: p.59 on the eastern edge of the Town of Caledonia.
The name (translated as "Cattaraugus" in other Iroquoian languages) means "stinking waters" because of the sulphur.
[4]: p.166 Canawaugus was one of the 11 reservations retained by the Seneca tribe in the Treaty of Big Tree in 1797.
[5] The Seneca Nation of Indians claims that the 1826 sale was never legal because it would have required a treaty be ratified by the United States Senate, and that the Canawaugus reservation was never disestablished.
[5] The Ogden Land Company would later purchase the Senecas' remaining lands in the Second Treaty of Buffalo Creek in 1838, before returning the Allegany, Cattaraugus and Oil Spring reservations in the Third Treaty of Buffalo Creek in 1842.