To The Reader’s Forum:

The Buffalo Grill sits abandoned and condemned on the corner of Buffalo and East Second Streets. Close on the Buffalo Street side is one of Jamestown’s historical markers.

The Buffalo Grill was built in 1826 by Darius and John Dexter as a stage coach stop on the Buffalo to Pittsburgh route. This is the oldest building in Jamestown.

The Dexter brothers were among the earliest settlers in Chautauqua County. They came to the hamlet east of Jamestown in 1816. They owned and operated the tavern, a store, an ashery, a mill, and a quarry while they lived there. The tavern is the only remaining physical reminder of these once extensive properties.

John Dexter had arrived in Chautauqua County in the early 1800’s and first settled in the Mayville area. After a few years the brothers moved east of Jamestown to a neighborhood first known as Slippery Rock then Cass Mills. It soon became known as Dexterville. Dexterville was incorporated into the then village of Jamestown April 22, 1873.

John Dexter was an assistant justice, county clerk from 1815 to 1828, and county Republican Party (ancestor ironically to today’s Democratic Party) secretary in 1812. He enlisted in the state militia and became the unit’s quartermaster. He also served as town clerk and county census clerk. He donated land and money for schools.

In 1836 the Dexter Brothers moved to Wisconsin Territory.

John Dexter was an ancestor of the wife of William Jennings Bryan. She grew up in Dexterville. During Bryan’s 1896 presidential campaign, the candidate and his wife visited the old Dexterville Tavern.

The tavern was originally a three room frame building, forty feet by sixty feet on a local stone foundation. It had a front porch nineteen feet long. The building was extensively remodeled in 1933 and again in 1942 and 43. The foundation and framing were repaired, a second story was added, the porch enclosed and a new porch built.

I know of no effort to save the building or even save some information about it: take photos interior and exterior, remove items to preserve at the Fenton History Center, examine the early construction and timber hewing patterns, make an inventory of tree species used in the construction. The foundation stones should also be examined to document early stone cutting techniques and the composition of locally made mortar should be determined.

Norman P. Carlson

Busti