Ischua (/ˈɪʃweɪ/ ISH-way) is a town in Cattaraugus County, New York, United States.

S. Pitcher, Simon C. Mallory and A. L. Barnard, Assessors; and Morgan I. Titus, F. Carpenter, C.C.

Quarries of good building stone existed within the borders of the town to aid the early settlers in construction.

The town had its own post office, in the early days known as West Hinsdale, then Rice, and finally Ischua (ZIP code 14746) until the early 1990s, when the ZIP code was abandoned and postal services merged with Hinsdale's.

The soil is chiefly clay, with a thin surface of mold and some gravelly loam.

On May 6, 1836, an act was passed in the New York Legislature authorizing the construction of the Genesee Valley Canal.

According to New York State archives, the reservoir supplying the summit level impounded 68,000,000 cubic feet of water.

Routing the canal through the Ischua-Hinsdale area enabled merchants to transport commerce from Rochester to Pittsburgh.

The contract for the culverts on the Ischua feeder, as well as on lock sections 98 through 101, in Maplehurst, was awarded to Joseph T. Lyman and Dauphin Murray on October 11, 1839.

The Ischua Dam creating the Farwell reservoir for the Genesee Valley Canal was completed in 1856.

For many decades there was an A-framed house that stood next to it, the town tore it down in 2015, disrupting the historic canal site with heavy equipment and causing destruction to the remains of the Dam's earthen structure.

21.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.