The success of some Genesee Country land agents was not matched by other large-scale speculators in wild New York lands. Among the long-range losers were Oliver Phelps, his partner Nathaniel Gorham and Philadelphia banker Robert Morris. Land speculation was a hazardous business. Absentee landlords were soon disenchanted when their expectations for quick profits from wholesaling large tracts to land-hungry investors proved wishful.

Resident-agent Capt. Charles Williamson recognized that to boost sluggish sales, he would have to sell modest parcels to individual farmers. To expedite such sales, Williamson enlisted sub-agents to establish offices in other regions of his territory and to set about making "improvements." But time ran out on the freewheeling Williamson, and he was replaced with a more conservative and practical promoter, Robert Troup.

One of Williamson's sub-agents, who Troup retained was 24-year-old Henry Towar. By 1794, he had built a gristmill, sawmill and clothiery (for carding and dressing spun wool) on the Canandaigua Lake outlet — and raised a log house for his land office. First known simply as Towar's Mills, the settlement was renamed Alloway, after Towar's birthplace in Alloa, a town near Edinburgh, Scotland. When Towar arrived in Alloway, unimproved land was selling for $2 an acre and money was scarce. Payments could be made in wheat delivered to the gristmill.

With help from his brothers and sons, Towar prospered in Alloway. He built a handsome house. His village, strategically located on the main road connecting Sodus Bay on Lake Ontario with Geneva on Seneca Lake, seemed destined for importance. But the Erie Canal, and later the railroad, bypassed Alloway, which subsided into a quiet rural hamlet.

Toward the end of his active career, Capt. Towar erected a smart little Greek Revival building for his land office. When its days as a land office ended, it served as a doctor's office, a butcher shop and a filling station. Today, it has reassumed its first purpose, and has been provided with the tools of Capt. Towar's trade — maps, charts, ledgers, a letter press, a safe and surveying instruments.