Prehistoric remains show evidence of indigenous occupation for thousands of years prior to European encounter.

Along the southern areas of the Great Lakes, the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy controlled territory from present-day New York into Pennsylvania and Ohio and south into Virginia.

In the mid-19th century, E.G. Squier conducted a survey of ancient Native American works for the Smithsonian Institution, publishing drawings, plans, and maps.

[3] Samuel de Champlain and other French explorers and missionaries visited the area of the present-day town in the 17th century.

After the French established a colony in New France (Quebec), their traders did business with numerous Iroquois villages, primarily those of the Onondaga and especially the Mohawk peoples.

Later these peoples primarily traded with Dutch and English colonists in present-day New York, from Albany west along the Mohawk River.

Thousands of migrants from New England flooded into upstate and western New York in the postwar years, and the area also attracted immigrants from the British Isles and France.

Settlers and developers had expected upstate New York to thrive due to trade with Canada, but this was severely interrupted by the war.

Following the war, major changes followed the construction and opening of the Erie Canal in 1824 through the Mohawk River Valley and it drew development westward.

It opened transportation and connection with the Midwest and Great Lakes communities, which could send their produce and commodities to New York City.

Towns of Jefferson County generally were bypassed by such western development, resulting in many of their young people migrating west to Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin from the mid-nineteenth century.

The industrial wealth generated by such manufacturing resulted in the city having one of the highest numbers of millionaires per capita in the early 20th century.

[1] The western boundary of Ellisburg is Lake Ontario, and the southern town line is the border of Oswego County.