Settled in 1788, Lima first became known as Charlestown when the town was created in 1789, then took the name Lima in 1808. Early settlers came after seeing the Genesee Country during the Sullivan campaign against the Iroquois, and the town’s location along the State or Great Genesee Road brought a steady stream of westbound pioneers while also attracting people to remain and work its fertile land. During the 19th century, Lima’s rich farmland gave farmers and merchants the wealth to build substantial farmsteads and large village homes, and its selection in 1832 as the site of Genesee Wesleyan Seminary and later Genesee College drew scholars and families whose broader experience influenced the high style of many buildings. Because Lima lacked a railroad until the 1890s, growth slowed after 1870 when Genesee College disbanded and moved to Syracuse, leaving much of the village preserved in a 19th-century appearance until growth resumed in the mid-20th century. Genesee Street emerged when College Hall opened in 1851, and many houses on its east side date from that time, while many homes on Rochester Street were built before 1850 and remodeled in the 1860s and 1870s in the Italianate style. The Presbyterian Church, founded in 1795, occupies a 1873 Gothic/Romanesque Revival building that replaced a Federal meeting house built in 1816. West Main Street includes notable historic homes such as Hillcrest and the village’s only cobblestone house, East Main Street became one of the town’s most desirable residential areas, and St. Rose Catholic Church was designed in 1870 by Rochester architect A.J. Warner. Lima’s village also includes buildings such as the Tennie Burton Museum, originally built about 1837 and modernized in 1863 in the Italianate style; an 1885 Queen Anne house built by farmer William L. Vary for $18,000 at age 25; a Greek Revival house built about 1857 for banker and farmer Daniel Stanley; Hillcrest, built in 1838 in the Federal style for retired dry goods merchant Erastus Clark; a rare Gothic Revival house built about 1852 by William Harmon, builder of College Hall; and a California Craftsman Style bungalow built about 1916 for Jay Short of the Lima Electric Light and Railroad Company.