The Great Lakes Seaway Trail runs through the town along New York State Route 3 and includes a monument to its founder, William E. Tyson.

This area had long been occupied by the Onondaga people, a nation of the Iroquois Confederacy, a Native American coalition of tribes who controlled most of upstate and western New York around the Great Lakes by the 15th century.

Because most nations of the confederacy had allied with the British in the American Revolutionary War, after the defeat of Britain the United States forced the Iroquois to cede most of their land in New York under the terms of the peace treaty.

New York made available for sale millions of acres of the former Iroquois lands at very low prices in an effort to stimulate settlement and agricultural development of its western and upstate territories.

Speculators based in New York City bought huge portions of land and sold them later for development.

In 1801 Benjamin Wright surveyed and divided the town into lots,[5] but settlers did not begin to arrive until 1802.

New York State Route 178 is an east-west highway, which intersects NY-3 at Aspinwall Corners.