The Village of Clifton was laid out in streets and building lots starting in 1832 by land owner Capt. Ogden Creighton. He gave his future settlement the name “Clifton.” The name was derived from the town of the same name in England.

Capt. Creighton was a British Army officer who purchased the property from the Phillip Bender family, who had acquired it in 1782 as part of a United Empire Loyalist land grant. This land today encompasses a major portion of the primary tourist core in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Capt. Creighton did little more with his subdivisions than conducting some preliminary surveying before he left Niagara Falls four years later. In 1837 he went to York (now Toronto) to fight in the rebellion, and it was here that he died.