Buffalo might still be the city it is today, but there might not be Coit and Townsend streets on its East Side. And historians like Christopher N. Brown say the pair who negotiated the purchase on Dec. 11, 1816, guaranteed their place in history by betting on a Buffalo terminus for the canal during the height of a raging competition against Black Rock.

“It was on the cusp of construction of the Erie Canal in 1817,” said Brown, president of the Allentown Association, “and they were trying to get Buffalo as the terminus in competition with Peter Porter in Black Rock. A lot of money was at stake.”

Coit and Townsend made the right calculation, he said. They joined investors Oliver Forward and future Mayor Sam Wilkeson, namesake of the new Wilkeson Point on the Outer Harbor. They also bet on Buffalo by building a harbor even before the route was decided.

The visionaries profited – along with a burgeoning Buffalo.

“That’s fortunate for us all,” Brown said. “Buffalo would not be what it is if not for the Erie Canal. It would be a small town like Lewiston or Youngstown.”