The Pratt and Buckingham Octagon House

The Pratt and Buckingham Octagon House is a historic octagon house in Fredonia, Chautauqua County, New York that was built in ca. 1865. It is a private home at 99 Chestnut Street; the rear of the property is on Canadaway Creek.

The octagon house is situated on a promontory about 25 feet above and 75 feet westerly from a natural ford on Canadaway Creek. The promontory is located at the junction of the upper and lower portage trails that ran along the westerly side of the creek during Native American times. The lands in this region were occupied by the Erie people until the mid-seventeenth century, then by the Seneca people until the end of the eighteenth century. Following the Treaty of Big Tree in 1797, the lands were transferred to the Holland Land Company, which subdivided them for sale as farms. Canadaway Creek's name was derived from the Native American name pronounced "Ga-Na-Da Wa O," which was translated as "running through the hemlocks." The Seneca settlement of Ga Na Da Wa O extended from Lake Erie southerly to Laona, New York, and the later village of Fredonia and city of Dunkirk, New York were known as the settlement of Canadaway from 1809 to 1817.

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