Avon's Mineral Springs

Long before European settlers arrived, Seneca people had discovered the sulfur springs along the Genesee River flats here and recognized their unusual character. In seventeen eighty-nine, Gilbert and Maria Berry built a log tavern at the crossing, and their rope ferry made this a natural stop on the road west. The settlement's first name was Hartford, but by eighteen oh eight it had been renamed Avon, to avoid confusion with another Hartford in New York.

Throughout the nineteenth century, Avon became a fashionable spa destination. New Yorkers and Philadelphians traveled by coach, then by rail when the line arrived in eighteen fifty-three, to take the mineral waters and recover their health at resort hotels that lined the main street. The springs that first drew the Seneca drew three more generations of visitors before the spa era faded and Avon settled into the quiet agricultural village it remains today.