Grand Island has been home to the Attawandaron Nation and an acquisition of both French and English colonial pursuits.

In 1945, Grand Island was part of a plan to make a new World Peace Capital on the international border between Southern Ontario, Canada, and Western New York.

The plan proposed placing the United Nations headquarters on adjacent Navy Island (Ontario), which was considered an ideal location because it lay on the boundary between two peaceful countries.

An artist's rendering of the World Peace Capital showed the property with bridges spanning both countries (between Grand Island in the United States and the Canadian mainland).

The town of Grand Island is in the northwestern corner of Erie County, and on the Canada–US border, although there is no river crossing to Canada.

It is northwest of Buffalo, south of Niagara Falls, and is traversed by Interstate 190 and New York State Route 324.

The treaty was signed by Governor Daniel D. Tompkins, Peter B. Porter, Chief Red Jacket, Falling Boards, Twenty Canoes, Sharp Shins, Man Killer, and others.

In 1824, in a precursor to modern Zionism, journalist and Utopian Mordecai Manuel Noah tried to found a "Jewish homeland on Grand Island."

MacArthur Award-winning cartoonist Ben Katchor fictionalized Noah's scheme for Grand Island in his graphic novel The Jew of New York.

The Senecas argued the 1815 transaction with New York State violated the Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790, which prohibited Native American lands from being sold without the federal government's consent.

The Senecas then sought review of this decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which was denied on June 5, 2006.