Paul and Elisabeth Busti’s 1805 Travels

“The 1805 Travels of Paul and Elisabeth Busti,” a program by John Everett Jones, will be presented at 7 p.m. on August 18 at the Chautauqua Municipal Building, 2 Academy St., Mayville.

Paul Busti

The program, free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Chautauqua County Historical Society and the Chautauqua Township Historical Society. 

Jones will describe a three-month journey in 1805 made by Busti, the Agent General for the Holland Land Company and a manager of the Pennsylvania Population Company, and his wife. The couple traveled from the Holland Land Company headquarters in Philadelphia to visit company land holdings in central and western New York.

Elizabeth Busti

In their journey, the Bustis took a side trip to Niagara Falls, a voyage aboard a schooner from Fort Erie to Presque Isle, and visited land holdings in the Erie triangle. They also took a weeklong trip by boat down French Creek and the Allegheny River to Pittsburgh to visit land holdings in western Pennsylvania before returning to Philadelphia.

Jones will also outline biographical details about Paul Busti (1749-1824) and Elisabeth Busti (1759-1822) and their lives in Amsterdam and Philadelphia. This year marks the bicentennial of her death in Philadelphia. 

Busti was the most significant Italian American of the first half of the 19th century. All properties in Chautauqua County were surveyed and marketed under his direction of the Holland Land Company.

Jones, a Chautauqua County native, is researching the early Swedish communities (1844-1865) in the Jamestown area, including Chautauqua and Warren counties. “The Buffalo Orphan Asylum and the Settlement of Swedes in Northwestern Pennsylvania and Western New York.” an article Jones co-wrote with Donald Sandy and Jennifer Liber Raines and published in the Swedish American Historical Quarterly in October 2016, received the Franklin Scott Prize from the Swedish American Historical Society. Jones received the Olsson visiting scholar award from the organization in 2017.  

Jones has also written an article about the early Danish community in Jamestown that will be published in The Bridge, a journal of the Danish American Heritage Society, and an article, “Rediscovering Paul Busti,” for publication in Italian Americana.  He consulted on an episode of “Finding Your Roots” in 2021.

Jones, the great-grandson of John Frederick Jones who gave CCHS lectures about Chautauqua Lake steamships and hotels in 1941 and 1942, is an architect. He lives near Philadelphia.