Castorland Company

The Castorland Company was organized in Paris, France in 1792 as the Compagnie de New York to colonize French aristocrats and others dissatisfied with conditions following the French Revolution. Land in Lewis County, New York, part of the Macomb's Purchase, was bought from William Constable. Settlers arrived in 1796; within four years the colony had failed. The transplanted French people, unfitted for the vigorous open life and hard work of the Frontier, preferred more civilized communities.

Source: Dictionary of American History by James Truslow Adams, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940