USA > New York > Steuben County > A history of Steuben County, New York, and its people, Vol. I > Part 11
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THE RED MAN'S CROWNING CURSE.
"But the crowning eurse, and the source of nearly all other evils that beset them, and nearly all that embarrassed our relations and intercourse with their race, was the use of spirituous liquors. In the absence of them, the advent of our raee to this continent would have been a blessing to them, instead of what it has proved to be-the cause of their ruin and gradual extermination. No- where in a long career of discovery have Europeans found natives of the soil with as many noble attributes of humanity-moral and physical elements which, if they could not have been blended with ours, could have maintained a separate existence, and been fos- tered by a proximity of civilization and the arts. Everywhere, when first approached by our race, they welcomed it, and made demonstrations of friendship and peace. Whatever of savage char- acter they may have possessed so far as our raee was concerned, it was dormant till aroused to action hy assaults or treachery of in- truders upon their soil, whom they had met as friends.
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"This was the beginning of trouble. The cupidity of our race perpetuated it by the introduction of 'fire water," which, vitiating their appetites, cost them their native independence of character, made them dependents upon the trader and the agents of rival gov- ernments, mixed them up with factions and contending aspirants for dominion, and from time to time impelled them to fields of blood and slaughter, or to the stealthy assault with the tomahawk and scalping knife.
"From the hour that Hudson lured the Indians 'on board his vessel on the river that bears his name and gave them the first taste of spirituous liquors, the whole history of British intercourse with them is marked by the use of this accursed agent as a princi- pal means of success. The early French traders upon the St. Law- rence and all that region commenced the traffic not until they had ascertained that they could in no other way compete with the Eng- lish traders than by using the same means. The early Jesuit mis- sionaries checked them in their evil work, but the English trader was left unrestrained, even encouraged by English colonial author- ity. It was with his keg of rum that the Englishman could alone succeed, and with a morbid, sordid perseverance he plied it in trade as well as in diplomacy.
"At a later period, when the storm of the Revolution was gath- ering, the aspect of the quarrel between England and the colonies was not suited to their tastes or inclinations, and they resolved upon standing aloof-the Senecas, at least. Invited to Oswego by the English refugees from the Mohawk, they were promised that the 'fire water' of England's king should be 'as free to them as the waters of Lake Ontario.' Their intentions were changed, and their tomahawks and scalping knives were turned against the border set- tler. A series of events ensued, the review of which creates a shud- der and, a wonder that the offenses were so easily forgiven; that we had not taken their country, after subduing them with our arms, instead of treating for it. But well and humanely did the Father of his Country consider how they had been wiled to the unfortunate choice of friends which they made. English rum was not only dealt out at Oswego, but at Niagara, where it paid for many a reeking scalp, and helped to arouse the fiercest passions of the Indian allies and send them back upon their bloody track.
"When peace came, and our state found them deserted by their late British employers, with nothing to show for the sanguine aid they had given them but appetites vitiated by the English rum- cask, and a moral and physical degeneracy, the progress of which could not have been arrested; and lingering yet among them in all their principal localities was the English or Tory trader, prolonging his destructive traffic. It was American New York legislation that made the first statutes against the traffic in spirituous liquors among the Indians."
FAIR LAND OPEN TO SETTLEMENT.
The soldiers of the Revolution, after their discharge and re- lease from military service, were mostly without means, aims or objects for subsequent occupations. The country of their home was impovished for want of attention and cultivation. Families were scattered and the ties of home and kinship were destroyed or impaired. Seven years of war had greatly changed the ties, char-
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acter and pecuniary conditions of all the people. A new life, with new aims, with many reunited families, new homes and new occu- pations, must be found.
The fertile regions located between Seneca lake and the Gene- see river on the east and west, and from Lake Ontario on the north and the Pennsylvania line on the south, had especially and vividly attracted the attention of the soldiers and officers of Sullivan's army, and of numerous traders, travelers and camp-followers of that expedition. Remarkable stories were related of the beauty, fertility and attractions of the valleys and hillsides, so precipitately aban- doned by the fugitive Indian, so that within a decade after the close of the war many emigrants from the New England states, eastern New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had found in this marvelons country permanent homes.
Years before the Continental army had penetrated this, these unknown and remote homes of the Indian, this whole country had been made cruelly familiar to the eyes of many hundreds of white prisoners, brought hither by that horde of savage prowlers, who for nearly a half of a century-before (embracing that period of fear and unrest along the border, from before the French war until the close of the Revolution) had lost no opportunity of harassing the frontier settlements, for plunder, prisoners and scalps. These raids were carried on mainly by the Senecas and allied tribes, who brought to the beautiful, yet repulsive, fastnesses the fruits of these cruel ventures ; the prisoners were detained as artisans or laborers, or for the payment by friends of fixed bounties. When permanent peace released all of the captives they were prepared to impart useful in- formation and knowledge respecting the country to the advancing host of pioneers, the vanguard of civilization.
New England and Pennsylvania did most toward supplying emigrants for this region. The wealthy men of Pennsylvania and Connecticut were first to risk means in the inviting lands that peace had made accessible to investment and enterprise. These people from Connecticut and Pennsylvania did not wholly meet and affili- ate as friends and neighbors in this new country; the rancors, ha- treds and enmities born of the Pennamite war were neither for- gotten nor forgiven. But of more importance to all of these new homeseekers was the question of the title to the land; the vital and always-present and unsettled proposition of jurisdiction, involving the history of England's grants, and their validity had to be finally and rightfully settled and laid at rest. This will be the subject of the following chapter.
CHAPTER IV.
LAND TITLES IN STEUBEN COUNTY.
ENGLISH CHARTERS AND GRANTS-MASSACHUSETTS-NEW YORK CONVENTION-PHELPS AND GORHAM PURCHASE-PATRIARCH OF THE GENESEE COUNTRY-OLD AND NEW PREEMPTION LINES -FIRST TOWNSHIPS AND RANGES-FIRST LAND SALES-MIR. PHELPS AND HIS SAD END NATHANIEL GORHAM-"PUR- - CHASES" SOLD TO ROBERT MORRIS ET AL .- COMPLICATIONS OF LAND TITLES-MORRIS DIES IN DEBTORS' PRISON-TITLE TO THE PULTENEY ESTATE.
When the Spanish discoveries by Christopher Columbus in the then so-called western world became known, a swarm of adventur- ous navigators, under the flags and authority of every maritime nation, were soon engaged in voyages of discovery. When the re- sults were made known to their respective sovereigns, charters or grants were made and issued to favored individuals, without refer- ence to prior discoveries or claims, charters or grants often over- lapping each other and couched in the most extravagant and com- prehensive terms-and upon that authority colonies and states with their subdivisions were founded and land conveyed.
ENGLISH CHARTERS AND GRANTS.
In the year 1620 the king of England granted to the Plymouth Company a tract of country now known as the state of Massachu- setts, extending from forty degrees to forty-four degrees fifteen min- utes, north latitude, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. A charter granted by Charles I., in 1628, was vacated by the courts of England in 1684. A second charter for the same territory was granted by William and Mary, in 1691. Charles I., in 1663, granted to the Duke of York and Albany the province of. New York and the present state of New Jersey. This tract, granted by the last named charter, extended from a line twenty miles east of the Hud- son river, westwardly to the South sea, eastwardly to the Atlantic ocean, and to the south line of the French colony of Canada. The east line of the state of New York is the charter line last named on the east.
By these uncertainties of boundaries and descriptions, each of the colonies Jaid claim to ownership and jurisdiction, as well as the preemption right to a tract of land large enough to form several states. Each of these provinces loudly denied the validity of the
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royal grants, so far as they affected the territory of their alleged boundaries. However, the state of New York, in 1781, and Mas- sachusetts, in 1785, ceded to the United States all their right of jurisdiction, or ownership, to all the territory lying west of a meridian line run due south from the westerly bend or head of Lake Ontario to the Ohio river. By this transaction the nominal amount in controversy was greatly diminished, yet it still left some twenty thousand square miles of territory in dispute.
MASSACHUSETTS-NEW YORK CONVENTION.
This conflict of claims and controversy was finally and forever settled by a convention or treaty by commissioners appointed by Massachusetts and New York, held at Hartford, Connecticut, on December 16; 1786. According to the stipulation made by this con- vention, and afterward ratified by cach of the states, Massachusetts ceded to the state of New York all her claim to the government, sovereignty, and jurisdiction of, in and to all the territory lying west of the present east line of the state of New York; and New York ceded to Massachusetts the preemption right, or fee, of the land subject to, the right and title of the Indians to all that part of the state of New York lying west of a line, beginning at a point in the north line of the state of Pennsylvania, eighty-two miles west of the point where the property line established by the treaty at Fort Stanwix in 1768, between the colony of New York and the Six Nations of Indians, intersects the forty-second degree of north latitude and the Delaware river, which is now the northeast corner of the state of Pennsylvania. This line was run, fixed and estab- lished by Simon Metcalf, the next year (1769), and running from thence, eighty-two miles due north through Seneca lake, to the boundary line, between the United States and the king of Great Britain, in Lake Ontario; thence westerly and sontherly along the said boundary line to a meridian which will pass one mile due east from the northern termination of the strait or waters between Lake Ontario and: Lake Erie-Niagara river; thence along the said me- ridian to the south shore of Lake Ontario; thence on the eastern side of said strait (Niagara river) by a line always parallel to the said strait (river) to Lake Erie; thence due west to the said bound- ary line between the United States and the king of Great Britain; thence along the said boundary line, westerly, until it meets with the line of cession from the state of New York to the United States ; thence along the said line of cession (if prolonged southerly) until it meets the aforesaid forty-second parallel of north latitude; and from thence east in said parallel of latitude to the said place of beginning. The land so ceded, the preemption right to which be- came the property of the state of Massachusetts, amounted to about six millions of acres.
PHELPS AND GORHAM PURCHASE.
Soon after the close of the Revolution this part of the state of New York had earnestly attracted the attention of adventurers of all nationalities- land-grabbers, settlers and promoters; similar to the conditions now prevailing on the Pacific coast of the United States and Canada. Immediately following the acquisition and establishment of the preemption right of Massachusetts, a company was formed in that state consisting of Oliver Phelps, Nathaniel
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Gorham and their associates, chiefly residents of Berkshire county, Massachusetts, who made a proposition to the legislature of that state, in April, 1788, for the purchase of all of the lands embraced in the Massachusetts cession. This was accepted, the stipulated consideration being three hundred thousand pounds in consolidated securities of that commonwealth, or two thousand pounds in specie and two hundred and ninety thousand pounds of said securities ; and in pursuance thereof was sold and conveyed all of the right of preemption to and in said territory to Phelps and Gorham, repre- senting said purchasers, and by whom the company of purchasers was known, and they were thereby authorized to extinguish by pur- chase the claims of the native Indians to the soil in said territory. Thereafter preliminary steps were taken to hold a treaty with the Indians-the Senecas-in whose territory and domain these lands were situated. Mr. Phelps lost no time in hastening to Kanadesaga, now Geneva, where Mr. Livingston, erstwhile one of the lessees be- fore named, had promised his aid in convening a council of the Indians at that place. This expected council was not held, owing to the failure of the Indians to convene. He then and there learned that the Indians had been assembled at Buffalo creek, by the Niagara Lessee Company, for the holding of a treaty; to this place Mr. Phelps hastened by the old Indian trail from Albany to Niagara. The Indians, influenced - by Red Jacket, Cornplanter and other sachems, refused to part with their interests in this territory. After a negotiation of two days and two nights in arranging preliminaries and boundaries, and through the aid of the Niagara Lessee Com- pany, Phelps and Gorham, for and in consideration of five thou- sand dollars specie and an annuity of five hundred dollars forever, acquired the title of the native Indians to a part of the lands. The preemption to this tract was ceded by the state of New York to the commonwealth of Massachusetts and was known as Phelps and Gor- ham's Purchase, more particularly hereinafter described. The Rev. Samuel Kirkland, who was authorized by the state of Massachusetts to superintend and approve of the said purchase of Phelps and Gor- ham from the Indians, on the part of that state, was present and superintended and approved of that sale. This was on July 8 and 10, 1788. By a provision in the treaty, between Massachusetts and New York, the former was always to be represented at any treaty with the Indians for the sale of this land. There was present at this treaty among others, Benjamin Franklin, General (the Mar- quis de) La Fayette, and also a young British officer, from Fort Niagara, by invitation; an artist of merit, who sketched and after- wards painted the scene with so much fidelity that several of the distinguished persons there present can still be recognized. It is preserved in the Canadian Museum and Academy of Fine. Arts, Montreal.
The territory of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase is bounded and described as follows: On the north by Lake Ontario; on the south by the aforesaid north boundary line of the state of Penn- sylvania, the forty-second parallel of north latitude; on the east by the preemption line; on the west, at a point in the said north boundary line of the state of Pennsylvania, from which a line drawn due north shall pass through a point of land made by the conflu- enee of the Canaseraga creek with the Genesee river, upon which
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stands a large elin tree; thence down the Genesee river to a point two miles north of Canawaugus village; thence due west twelve miles; thence northerly and always parallel with the Genesee river to Lake Ontario.
The commonwealth of Massachusetts on the twenty-first day of November, 1788, confirmed this treaty with the Indians, and granted to Phelps and Gorham the land embraced in said treaty within these boundaries, containing by estimate two million six hundred thousand aeres of land.
The western line of this purchase is now defined and fixed as follows: Beginning at the southwest corner of the town of Inde- pendence, Allegany county, New York, being the westerly boundary line of the towns of Independence, Alfred, Almond and Burns, in Allegany county, aforesaid, and of Ossian, West-Sparta and Grove- land, in Livingston county, New York; continuing northerly to the junction of Canaseraga creek with the Genesee river, about a mile easterly (the place where the Lackawanna Railroad tracks are crossed by the tracks of the Rochester Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad, near the site of Little Beardstown) ; thence down the Genesee river, two miles north of the ancient village of Canawaugus; thence west twelve miles; thence northerly and parallel with said river to Lake Ontario. The eastern termination of the embank- ment carrying the track of the Shawmut Railroad over the tracks of the Erie Railroad, near the residence of Mr. Frank Windsor, in the said town of Burns, is on the west boundary line of said purchase.
Phelps and Gorham were unable to extinguish and acquire the Indian title to the western portion of the land; that west of the Genesee river of the mouth of the Canaseraga creek, and the lines north and south thereof, as stipulated in their contract with Mas- sachusetts surrendered and re-conveyed to that state, that part of said territory to which the Indian title remained; in consideration of which that commonwealth relinquished two-thirds of the con- tract price. In 1796 Massachusetts sold the land so reconveyed and surrendered it to Robert Morris, the great financier of the Americans in the Revolutionary war, who extinguished the Indian title thereto. Mr. Morris sold some of this land and mortgaged the remainder, excepting a strip twelve miles wide extending from the west line of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase on the east to a line twelve miles west and parallel thereto and bounded on the south by Pennsyl- vania and north by Lake Ontario. The Pennsylvania line was ac- curately measured by Joseph Ellicott, surveyor, from the southeast corner of said purchase-the eighty-second milestone in said Penn- sylvania line, at the intersection of the before-mentioned preemp- tion line; thence west in this state boundary line to the southwest corner of said purchase, and thence twelve miles in said state line. There a suitable monument was erected and astronomical observa- tions were taken to guard against accidental variations. The meas- urements were found to be accurate. Thence the line was run by the theodolite due north to -Lake Ontario. This line was the east line of the property of the Holland Company and the west line of the excepted Morris Reserve. The Holland Land Company acquired full title to said mortgaged land by the foreclosure of said mortgage and sale thereunder to the mortgagee.
The consolidated securities of the commonwealth of Massa-
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chusetts, which Phelps and Gorham were to pay for the purchase of said territory, were obligations in bonds and other securities issued by the state of Massachusetts to assist in defraying her quota or share of the expenses for the War for Independence. After the close of the war, during the Confederation period and at and before the adoption and ratification of the Federal Constitution, these se- curities, like the Continental money, were of little value in ordi- nary financial transactions, at home or abroad. At home they were of little or no value; abroad, the United States existed only on paper. Neither its securities nor those of its members or component parts were negotiable unless secured by the guaranty of their pay- ment of some well known and responsible merchant or banker.
At the time of the sale of this territory by Massachusetts to Phelps and Gorham, in the year 1787, these securities were so great- ly depreciated in value that they were selling at not to exceed one- fifth or twenty per cent of their face value. By the time the sale by the Indians to Phelps and Gorham had been approved by the general court of Massachusetts, and because of the adoption and ratification of the Constitution of the United States, by a majority of the states composing the Union, a greater feeling of confidence and security obtained throughout all the states; also because of the requirements of Phelps and Gorham of so considerable an amount of these securities to meet their engagements for the purchase of Genesee lands, they rapidly appreciated in value, were "cornered" by avaricious speculators, were held at their par and face value, and in some instances commanded a premium.
PATRIARCH OF THE GENESEE COUNTRY.
In the spring of 1788 Mr. Phelps left his home in Granville, Massachusetts, to visit the tract he and his associates had purchased. It is told that the hazard of the undertaking was deemed so great and dangerous that his family and friends, with the minister of the church, assembled to witness his departure to the "far distant coun- try," and wept over him as one whose return from a wilderness in- habited by savages could scarcely be hoped for. Although his resi- dence in all the earliest years of settlement was in Massachusetts, he spent most of his time in Canandaigua, where he opened an office for the sale of the land of Phelps and Gorham, of which he was the principal owner and chief manager. He was the active and liberal patron and helper in all of the public enterprises of the region he had opened for settlement. He may appropriately be called, he may without question be styled, the patriarch of the Genesee country. Of ardent temperament, active, competent and am- bitious in all that related to the Purchase, the pioneers found in him a friend in truth, in all the name implies. When disease, bad luck, privations, or Indian alarms created fear and despondency, he had words of cheer and encouragement, with a promise of a brighter day and better times coming. He was useful and valued, to an ex- tent, that no one can realize, or understand, who has not seen how much one man with a positive character, having the confidence of his fellows, can do to help smooth out the wrinkles and make pleas- ant the rugged paths and deprivations of a wilderness life. By the purchase of shares, revisions and other means, in a few years after the settlement was under way he was said to be one of the most
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successful and wealthy of all the pioneers and founders of the new settlements of that day. In 1795 he was rated as worth in the neighborhood of a million dollars.
OLD AND NEW PREEMPTION LINES.
The first survey undertaken of the Phelps and Gorham Pur- chase was the establishment of the "Old Preemption Line"-its east- ern boundary. The state of New York ceded to Massachusetts all the territory within her boundaries west of a line to be drawn due north and south; north from the eighty-second milestone in the boundary line between New York and Pennsylvania, through Seneca lake to the boundary line between the United States and Canada. Of course, it was mere conjecture where the line would fall at the foot of Seneca lake. Certain parties were interested to have this line fall as far west of Geneva as was possible, so as to leave a con- siderable traet of land between the Military Tract and' the lands ceded to Massachusetts by New York; disclosing the fact that the men of one hundred and twenty years ago were fully as alert and unscrupulous and dishonest as they are to-day ; as now manifested by the struggle of the Federal government to protect the publie do- main from the rapacity and greed of the modern "land sharks" and "timber pirates." Seth Reed and Peter Ryekman, both of whom had been Indian traders, applied to the state of New York for a remuneration for services rendered in some previous negotiation with the eastern portion of the Six Nations, and proposed to take a patent for a traet, the boundaries of which should begin at a tree on the bank of Seneca lake and run along the bank of the lake to the south until they should have sixteen thousand aeres between the lake and the east bounds of the lands added to Massachusetts. Their request was acceded to and a patent issued. Thus situated, they proposed to Phelps and Gorham to join them in running the preemption line, each party furnishing a surveyor. The line was run, which is known as the "Old Preemption Line." Phelps and Gorham were much disappointed in the result. They suspected error or fraud, but made no movement for a resurvey before they sold to the English Association. Their suspicions were first aroused by an offer from a prominent member of the Lessee. Company for "all the lands they owned east of the line that had been run." They were so well assured of the fact that in their deed to Mr. Morris they specified a tract in a gore between the line then run and the west bounds of the counties of Montgomery and Tioga; those coun- ties then embracing all of the Military Tract. The counties of On- tario and Steuben had not then been organized. Being fully con- vineed of the inaccuracy of the first survey, in his subsequent sale of the land in question Mr. Morris agreed to run it anew. This new survey was made under the superintendenee of Major Adam Hoops, who employed Andrew Ellicott and Augustus Porter to perform the labor. In locating and establishing this line, the theodolite was first used in the United States. A corps of ax-men were employed and a vista thirty feet wide opened before the new instrument, until the line had reached the head of Seneca lake; then night signals were employed to run down and over the lake. Frequent astronomical observations were made to guard against accidental variations. So much pains were taken to insure correctness that this survey was
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