Joseph Ellicott, a land agent for the Holland Land Company, began surveying western New York in 1798. In 1806 John Cummings purchased the first lot in the town of Hamburg from the Holland Land Company and built a grist mill on Eighteenmile Creek. In 1811 Daniel and Richard Smith built a grist mill on Eighteenmile Creek, and the early settlement known as Smith's Corners developed, later called the village of Hamburg. After the British burned Buffalo in 1813, refugees sought shelter in the Center House, a new inn on the corner of Lake and Main Street. By 1820 Thomas White ran a tannery and general store near Main and Buffalo Streets, and the community was called White's Corners. The First Baptist Church was built on the south side of Main Street at Center Street in 1836, and Hamburg's brick schoolhouse was built at 65 Main Street in 1849. Village businesses grew to include Kronenberg's Shop, many taverns, a brewery, a saw mill, a tannery, and the Hamburgh Planing Mill. Kopp's Hotel opened in 1857 and later added an opera house. From 1861 to 1864 Hamburg men joined the 116th Regiment of the New York State Volunteers, and Union Street was named during this time. The village of Hamburgh was incorporated in 1874 with George M. Pierce as the first president, and in 1877 the spelling of the village was changed to Hamburg. In 1878 the old village cemetery, now Memorial Park, was closed and graves were moved to the new Prospect Lawn Cemetery. Fire destroyed a section of the business district in 1883, and soon afterward two- and three-story brick buildings replaced the old wooden structures. In 1884 Hamburg veterans organized a Grand Army of the Republic post, and the monument in Memorial Park honors Hamburg's soldiers. The first telephone came to the village in 1886, and the Hamburg Water and Electric Light Company was established in 1889 under the leadership of Thomas L. Bunting. In 1897 the Nineteenth Century Club established the Hamburg Free Library with Amanda Michael Dorland as the first librarian. In 1900 and 1901 two trolley lines, the Sunshine Line and the Allen Line, linked Hamburg to Buffalo. Main and Buffalo Streets were paved with brick and opened in 1904, the Bank of Hamburgh was constructed in 1907, and Hotel Hamburg was built on the site of the old B.M. Fish Dry Goods Store after it burned in 1917.