FREDONIA  , a

village of Chautauqua county, New York, U.S.A., about 45 M . S.W. of Buffalo, and 3 M. from Lake Erie . Pop . (1900) 4127; (1905, state census) 5148; (1910 census) 5285 . Fredonia is served by the Dunkirk, Allegheny Valley & Pittsburg railway, which connects at Dunkirk, 3 m. to the N., with the Erie, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the New York, Chicago & St Louis, and the Pennsylvania railways; and by electric railway to Erie, Buffalo and Dunkirk . It is the seat of a State Normal School . The Darwin R . Barker public library contained 9700 volumes in 1908 . Fredonia is situated in the grape-growing region of western New York, is an important shipping point fc, grapes, and has large grape-vine and general nurseries . The making of wine and of unfermented grape-juice are important industries of the village . Among other manufactures are canned goods, coal dealers' supplies, and patent medicines . The first settlement here was made in 1804, and the place was called Canandaway until 1817, when the present name was adopted .

The village was incorporated in 1829 . Fredonia was one of the first places in the

United States, if not the first, to make use of natural gas for public purposes . Within the village limits, near a creek, whose waters showed the presence of gas, a well was sunk in 1821, and the supply of gas thus tapped was sufficient to light the streets of the village . Another well was sunk within thevillage limits in 1858 . About 1905 natural gas was again obtained by deep drilling near Fredonia and came into general use for heat, light and power . In the Fredonia Baptist church on the 14th of December 1873 a Woman's Temperance Union was organized, and from this is sometimes dated the beginning of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union movement .