By some accounts, the town is named after Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. However, the 1810 US Census for the town shows the town's name as Lisburn, which is a city located in Northern Ireland adjacent to the capital of Belfast. Belfast was the birthplace of Alexander Macomb, the prosperous New York City merchant of Loyalist sympathies. Earlier in 1791, he purchased much of Northern New York along the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario, which the state had released for public sale after cession of the land by the Iroquois. With partners, Macomb sold the land for development.