Cassadaga was settled by European Americans in 1848 at the headwaters of the technically navigable Cassadaga Creek. Practically, the upper few miles of it are not navigable in the 21st century, due to numerous shallows and beaver activity along its course. Many of the settlers had migrated from New England and eastern New York after the American Revolutionary War. They gradually migrated westward as this territory was opened up for settlement after the Seneca people and other Iroquois League tribes had been forced out of the state after the war.
