USA > New York > Niagara County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Niagara County, New York > Part 6
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"Centenary honors crowned Ga-nio-di- eugh, or the Cornplanter, a chief of the Sen- eca nation, who, for seventy-five years, held a conspicnous place in the history of his race as one of the bravest and most eloquent of its warriors. He is supposed to have been born about the year 1735; and he first appears on the page of history as the leader of a war party of the Senecas when that na- tion was in alliance with the French against the English. He was a participator in the bloody battle in which General Braddock was killed. He was a native of Conewau- gus, in the Genesee valley, and a half-breed. his father having been a white man from the Mohawk region. Cornplanter was a war chief of his tribe when the Revolution be- gan. Being in the full vigor of manhood, active and brave, he was one of the most distinguished of the dusky leaders who spread destruction over the white frontier settlements in New York and in the valley of Wyoming. In the bloody forays at
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Cherry Valley and Wyoming, Cornplanter was conspicuous; and during the invasion of the Seneca country by Sullivan, in 1779, and the fearful vengeance therefor inflicted by the Indians afterward, Cornplanter was a chief leader of his people. He was the most inveterate and active foe of the Ameri- cans during the whole war, but after the treaty of peace he became the fast friend of the United States. He was chiefly instru- mental in the pacification treaty at Fort Stanwix, in 1784, when Red Jacket opposed
· him with his wonderful eloquence. At the close of the treaty the brave chief said sig- nificantly, 'I thank the Great Spirit for this opportunity of smoking the pipe of friend- ship and love. May we plant our own vines, be the fathers of our children, and maintain them.' He was also conspicuous in treaties in Ohio, which gave offense to his nation. Hoping to exalt himself upon the ruins of Cornplanter, Red Jacket fostered the dis- content, and the life of the former was placed in jeopardy. He repaired to Phila- delphia and applied to President Washing- ton for counsel and relief. Cornplanter laid a most touching appeal for himself and his nation before the president. The reply was kind, but Washington could not go behind treaties. Relief, however, was promised, and Cornplanter went back a happier man. During the troubles with the Indians in the northwest, until Wayne's victory, in 1794, Cornplanter remained neutral ; and he was at the council held in the Seneca country to treat with Thomas Morris respecting por- tions of the territory afterward known as the Holland Land Purchase. During the years of repose which followed, Cornplanter was assiduous in endeavors to improve the moral character of his nation. He made great efforts to stay the progress of intem-
perance; and he was the first and most elo- quent of temperance lecturers in America. He readily assumed many of the habits and pursuits of the white men; and having failed to become chief sachem of his nation, through the intrigues of Red Jacket, he re- tired to a large tract of land on the Alle- gheny river which the legislature had pre- sented him. There the old chief lived on in quiet obscurity until he had passed his one hundredth year. He died March 7, 1836, with a confused notion of being happy in the Christian's heaven, or in the Elysian fields, pictures of which came down upon the tide of memory from his early youth."
"The renowned Seneca warrior and ora- tor, Sa-go-ye-wa-thee, the Red Jacket, was born about the year 1750, near the spot where the city of Buffalo now stands, that being the chief place of residence of the Seneca leaders. Tradition alone has pre- served a few facts concerning his youth. Ile was always remarkably swift-footed, and was often employed as a courier among his own people. He took part with the British and Tories during the Revolution, but was more noted for his power as an orator in arousing the Senecas to action, than as a leader upon the war-path. Brant, whom Red Jacket's ambition greatly annoyed, even charged him with cowardice during Sulli- van's campaign in the Seneca country, in 1779, and always spoke of Red Jacket with mingled feelings of hatred and contempt, as a traitor and dishonest man. The celebrated Seneca first appears in history in the record of Sullivan's campaign, and then in an un- favorable light. After that we have no trace of him until 1784, when he appeared at the great treaty at Fort Stanwix (now Rome), where, by certain concessions of territory by the Six Nations, they were
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brought under the protection of the United States. There the eloquence of Red Jacket beamed forth in great splendor; and there, too, the voice of the eloquent Cornplanter was heard. Red Jacket was prominent at a council held at the mouth of the Detroit river, in 1786. After that there were many disputes and heart-burnings between the white people and the Indians of western New York, concerning land titles, and Red Jacket was always the eloquent defender of the rights of his people. At all treaties and councils he was the chief orator. He frequently visited the seat of our national government, in behalf of his race, and was always treated with the utmost respect. Unlike Cornplanter, Red Jacket's paganism never yielded to the gentle influences of Christianity, and he was the most inveterate encmy to all missionary efforts among the Senecas. He had become a slave to strong drink, and he attributed the prevalence of the vice among his people to the mission- aries, who, he said, sold liquor to the Indians, and cheated them of property. On the breaking out of the war, in 1812, the Senecas, under the leadership of Red Jacket, declared themselves neutral, but they soon became allies of the United States, and engaged in hostilities on the Canadian fron- tier. Red Jacket was in the bloody battle at Chippewa, and behaved well, but he seems to have been constitutionally a coward, and was always far braver in coun- cil than in the field. Yet this cowardice in battle, though well known to the nation, did not lessen their affection for him, nor materially weaken his influence as head chief of the Senecas. Red Jacket had a large family of children, some of whom, like their mother, became professing Christians. Eleven of them died of that terrible disease,
the consumption, one after another, and Red Jacket felt this bereavement to be the chastisement of the Great Spirit for his habitual drunkenness. On being asked about his family, by a lady who once knew them, the chief said, sorrowfully : 'Red Jacket was once a great man, and in favor with the Great Spirit. He was a lofty pine among the smaller trees of the forest. But after years of glory he degraded himself by drinking the fire-water of the white man. The Great Spirit has looked upon him in anger, and his lightning has stripped the pine of its branches!' The influence of Christianity and civilization upon the Seneca nation disturbed the repose of Red Jacket during the latter part of his life. These influences, working with a general disgust produced by his excessive intemperance, alienated his people; and, in 1827, he was formally de- posed. It was a dreadful blow to the proud chief, and he went to Washington city to invoke the aid of the government in his behalf. He returned with good advice in his memory, obtained a grand council, and was restored to authority. But his days were almost numbered. He soon afterward became imbecile, and, in a journey to the Atlantic sea-board, he permitted himself to be exhibited in museums, for money ! At last the greatest of all Indian orators was called away. He died on the 20th of Jan- uary, 1830, at the age of about eighty years. Over his grave, Henry Placide, the come- dian, placed an inscribed slab of marble, in 1839."
Land Companies .- The province of New York when granted in 1664 to the Duke of York was part of the chartered territory of Massachusetts, and both provinces extended indefinitely westward. New York in 1781, and Massachusetts in 1785, relinquished all
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territorial claim west of the Niagara river to the general government. Massachusetts asserted claim to all of New York west of the present eastern boundary line of Onta- rio and Steuben counties. This disputed territory was about 19,000 square miles in area, and a final disposition was made of it in 1786 at Hartford, Connecticut, by commissioners from New York and Massa- chusetts. It was to become territory of New York, but Massachusetts was to have ownership of the soil subject to the Indian proprietorship. There was one exception of a strip a mile wide along the Niagara river, which land was to go immediately to New York. Two years after this conven- tion Massachusetts sold her land-a princely domain in area-in western New York to Oliver Phelps, Nathaniel Gorham, and others, for $1,000,000, payable in thrce years, in certain securities of Massachusetts worth 20 cents on the dollar. Phelps bought the Indian title to 26,000 acres, which included a twelve mile strip west of the Genessee river. For this he paid $5,000 down and a perpetual annuity of $500 per year.
Phelps and Gorham encountered opposi- tion from the famous "lessee companies," the New York & Genesec Land Company, conducted by John Livingston; and its branch, the Niagara-Genesee Company, managed by Col. John Butler. These companies, through Butler, leased most of the Phelps and Gorham purchase of the Indians for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, for which Butler was to pay down $20,000 and an annual rent of $2,000. The legislatures of New York and Massachu- setts declared the lease null and void, and the scheme of these companies to found a new State proved abortive, but in 1793
they succeeded in obtaining from the New York legislature, a grant of 100 square miles east of "the Phelps and Gorham Purchase."
Before Phelps and Gorham had paid over half of their contract price Massachusetts securities rose to 100 cents on the dollar, and they, unable to pay this increased secu- rity value, induced Massachusetts to release them from the contract and take back all of the land west of their Indian purchase. This agreement was effected on March 10, 1791, and two days later Robert Morris, "the distinguished financier of the Revo- lution," bought all of New York west of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase. Morris, on May 11, 1791, received five deeds from Massachusetts for his purchase. The first decd was for a twelve mile strip west of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase. The next three were for three sixteen mile strips, and the fifth was for what remained to the west of these strips and embraced the present territory of Niagara county. In 1797 Morris purchased the Indian title to this country, excepting eleven reservations, amounting to three hundred and thirty- eight square miles. One of these reserva- tions, the Tonawanda, embraced the extreme south-eastern part of Niagara county.
Morris soon became embarrassed finan- cially, and was compelled to sell off his New York lands. He sold all of his lands west of the east transit line, running north and south through the middle towns of what is now Orleans county, to the celebrated Hol- land Land Company. This transfer was made by Morris on December 24, 1792, to Herman Leroy and John Linklæn, and called for 1,500,000 acres west of the cast transit linc.
In 1797, when the Indian title had been
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extinguished, the Holland Land Company took active measures to have their lands surveyed and put into market for sale. The surveyor in charge of the work was Joseph Elliott, who exercised that great influence among the early settlers that Sir William Johnson did among the Indians. He was born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, in 1756; assisted his brother, Andrew Elliott, surveyor-general of the United States, in laying out Washington city ; run the boun- dary line between the State of Georgia and the Creek Indian lands; and spent the re- maining years of his active life in the service of the Holland Land Company.
"The division of the land began by the laying off of six-mile strips, reaching from Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario, called ranges, and numbered from east to west; and divid- ing them by east and west lines into regular townships, numbered from south to north. Each township was to be sub-divided into sixteen mile-and-a-half squares, called sec- tions, and each of these into twelve lots, three-fourths of a mile by one-fourth, con- taining one hundred and twenty aeres apiece. After twenty-four townships had been surveyed on this plan, the sub-division was judged unnecessarily minute, and was so much so as to be often ill adapted to the surface of the ground; thereafter the mile- and-a-half squares composing a township were each divided into four three-quarter- mile squares, of three hundred and sixty acres apiece, which were generally sold in one-hundred-and-twenty-acre lots."
The Holland Land Company first sold land at $2.75 per acre, and one-tenth to be paid down. Ohio lands were cheap, Canada offered farms at sixpence per acre, and low priced lands nearer the eastern centers of population in New York, caused slow sales
in the Holland purchase. The number of their sales from 1801 to 1809, inclusive, were :
1801, 40. 1804, 300. 1807, 607. 1802, 56. 1805, 415. 1808, 612.
1803, 230. 1806, 524. 1809, 1160.
Most of the accounts in print of the Hol- land Land Company are but a mass of unconnected matter, with important dates and facts omitted. A clear account of this great company and its transactions is an im- portant chapter in the history of New York, and affords a valuable field to some future historian who will take the time to delve in the archives of the State, the court records of western New York, and the papers of the company that are yet in existence.
From what matter is accessible, we ap- pend one or two additional facts concerning the company, and give a brief account of Robert Morris. We give the sketch of Mr. Morris especially, as all the writers concerning the Holland Purchase have given no account of him.
The Holland Land Company was com- posed of eleven merchants of the city of Amsterdam, who had acquired wealth by careful investments and fair profits. They had spare capital and sought to invest in the wild lands of western New York and Pennsylvania. Their investments were made from 1792 to 1800. " These Dutch merchants were far in advance of the pre- vailing sentiment in Europe, as to the success and permanency of the experiment of free government." The title of the Holland Purchase is traced from James II., William and Mary, and Charles II. to Rob- ert Morris, who sold 3,300,000 acres of land in western New York, to Wilhelm Wil- link, Nicholas Van Staphorst, Pieter Van Eeghen, Hendrick Vollenhoven and Rutger Schemmelpenninck. This was their largest
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purchase from Morris, and included a large portion of the land which had been in dis- pute between New York and Massachusetts for several years.
Robert Morris was very prominent in the Revolutionary war, and took a great interest in the development of western Pennsylvania and western New York.
" It is an often demonstrated truth that ' money is the sinew of war.' It was emi- nently so during the revolutionary struggle, when its strength and usefulness in the cause of freedom were controlled by Robert Morris, a wealthy and influential merchant of Philadelphia. He was born in Lancashire, England, in January, 1733. His father was a Liverpool merchant, extensively engaged in the American trade, who came to America in 1744, and settled on the eastern shore of Chesapeake bay. His son, Robert, with his grandmother, followed in 1746, and was placed in a school in Philadelphia, where an efficient teacher wasted his time and patience. In 1749 young Morris was placed in the counting-room of Charles Willing, of Philadelphia, and on the death of his employer, in 1754, he entered into a part- nership with that gentleman's son, which continued thirty-nine years. That firm soon became the most wealthy and extensive among the importers of Philadelphia, and consequently they were the heaviest losers by the non-importation agreements, which gave such a deadly blow at the infant com- merce of the colonies, after the passage of the Stamp Act. Yet they patriotically joined the league, and made the sacrifice for the good of the cause of right.
"In November, 1775, Mr. Morris was elected to a seat in the Continental Congress, where his exceeding great usefulness was soon discovered. Its appreciation was mani-
fested by placing him upon committees, having in charge the 'ways and means' for earrying on the war. In the spring of 1776 he was chosen, by Congress, a special com- missioner to negotiate bills of exchange, and to take other measures to procure money for government. At that time no man's credit, in America, for wealth and honor, stood higher than that of Robert Morris. He was again elected to Congress after the Declaration of Independence had been adopted, and being favorable to that meas- ure, he signed the document, with most of the others, on the second day of August following. Toward the elose of that year, when the half-naked, half-famished Ameri- can army were about to cease the struggle in despair, he evinced his faith in the success of the conflict, and his own warm patriot- ism, by loaning for the government, on his own responsibility, ten thousand dollars. It gave food and clothing to the gallant little band under Washington, who achieved the noble victory at Trenton, and a new and powerful impetus was thereby given to the Revolution.
" Mr. Morris was continually active in the great cause during the whole of the war. He fitted out many privateers. Some were lost, others were successful in bringing hin rich prizes; and at the return of peace he estimated that his losses and gains were about equal. In May, 1781, about the gloomiest period of the struggle, Mr. Morris submitted to Congress a plan for a national bank. It was approved, and the Bank of North America, with Robert Morris as its soul, was established, and became a very efficient fiscal agent. He was assisted by Gouverneur Morris ; and through the active agency, in financial matters, of these gentle- men, much of the success which resulted in
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the capture of Cornwallis, at Yorktown, must be attributed. During that year Mr. Morris accepted the office of financial agent (secretary of the treasury) of the United States. After the war he was twice a mem- ber of the Pennsylvania legislature, and he was one of the framers of the Federal Constitution. He was a senator in the first Congress convened under that instrument ; and Washington appointed him his first secretary of the treasury. Hc declined the office, and named Alexander Hamilton as more capable than himself to perform the duties. At the close of his senatorial term Mr. Morris retired from public life, not so rich in money by half as when he entered the arena. Soon the remainder of his large fortune was lost by speculations in wild land, in the western part of the State of New York, afterwards purchased by the Holland Land Company. On the 8th of May, 1806, Robert Morris, the great finan- cier of the Revolution, died, in comparative poverty, at the age of a little more than seventy-three years."
First Settlements .- It is not foreign to the history of Niagara county, and will add much to a right understanding of the great movement by which it was conquered and peopled by the white race, to glance back over the race-history of its English, Ger- man, Irish, Welsh, Scotch, and Scotch-Irish pioneers, who were principally from New England.
It is not inappropriate of this substantial section of country to make more intelligible the hastily sketched record of the English- speaking people, to notice, also, the part which they have played in modern history.
The empires of the ancient world were under the domination of a single idea, while the nations of modern times are composed
of diverse elements that hold each other in check and prevail together. Religious mo- tives have influenced the political move- ments of modern history which commenced with the barbarian ascendancy of the fierce north-land German races of Europe when they subverted the Roman empire and con- quered the sea-girt realm of Great Britain.
In the dawn of modern history arose the rival systems of Christianity and Moham- medanism, which immediately entered into a great struggle for the mastery of Europe. In the mighty contest which followed, the Crescent fell before the Cross, and the bar- barian conquerors of Rome, who had van- quished the hosts of the Prophet, finally embraced the Christian faith. In the after- ward struggle of the barbarians towards civilization, two great leaders loomed up in Charlemagne, the Frankish sovereign, and Alfred the Great, of England. The next period in barbarian history was that of Feudalism, a system growing out of the peculiar military institutions of the Teutonic race. In due time came the Crusades, which were followed by the rise of the Free Cities, wherein were born political liberty, and by the establishment of modern monarchy.
The overflow of the Germanic peoples upon the continent of Europe, while it stimulated the Latin nations into vigorous life, yet added nothing to the increase of German territory, nor contributed in the least to the spread of the German language. But " the day when the keels of the low Dutch sca-thieves first grated on the British coast was big with the doom of many na- tions. These sea-rovers who won England, to a great extent, displaced the native Britons, and England grew to differ pro- foundly from the German countries of the mainland." Celtic and Scandinavian ele-
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ments were introduced into the English blood, and the Norman conquest brought about " the transformation of the old Eng- lish tongue into the magnificent language which is now the common inheritance of so many widespread peoples."
After the alleged pre-Columbian discov- eries of portions of the North American continent, Spain was the first nation to dis- cover, to conquer, and to colonize any por- tion of this country, but England soon won from her the mastery of the sea, and the " sun of Spanish world-dominion set as quickly as it had risen." In the coloniza- tion of this country Spain had powerful rivals in England, France, and Holland.
In the English settlements and conquests of the Atlantic sea-board, southern coloniza- tion was commenced by the Cavalier at Jamestown; northern occupation dates to the landing of the Roundhead or Puritan on Plymouth Rock; and central settlement was inaugurated by Calvert, the Catholic, at St. Mary's, in behalf of religious toleration, and by Penn, the Quaker, at Philadelphia, in the interests of universal liberty.
The Puritan swept King Philip and his tribes from the face of the earth, and ex- tended New England to the Hudson. The Cavalier crushed Powhattan's thirty-tribe confederation, and carried westward his line of settlements in Virginia and the Carolinas to the Blue Ridge mountains; and Penn, by treaties, secured the peaceable possession of his province to the Susquehanna river.
From the information to be obtained it seems inipossible to record the name of the first pioneer of Niagara county, and instead of giving place to conflicting accounts, we compile and present the names of the fol- lowing pioneer settlers and the years in
which they settled on the territory of the county, from 1759 to 1807 :
1759. - John, William, and Philip Sted- man, who left in 1795.
1788. - Middaugh.
1799 .- McBride.
1800 .- Fred Woodman, William Gambol, Thomas Hustler, Henry Hough, Henry Mills, Joseph and John Howell, and Joshua and Thomas Slaton.
1801 .- Jesse and John Beach.
1802 .- Captain Lemuel Cook, Stephen Bugbee, and Andrew Brown.
1803 .- Varney Gaskill, William Smith, John and David Morrison ; Silas, Peter, Eph and Oliver Hopkins ; Jed Riggs, Isaac South- well, Daniel Brown, E. Doty, John Water- house, John Clemmens, and James Benedict.
1804. - Samuel Hopkins, John Freeman, John Wilson, Benjamin Hale, Varnum Treadwell, and Marvin Harwood.
1805 .- Isaac Swain, William Cogswell, J. Jones, Reuben Hurd, John Forsythe, Abel Barnum, Oliver Castle, Benjamin Bar- ton, and Charles Wilber.
1806. - Augustus Porter, James Evring- ham, Jesse Ware, William Miller, William Howell, Stephen Hopkins, Phil. Baldwin, Joshua Fairbanks, Joseph Howell, Erastus Parks, Isaac Colt, John Brewer, Jeptlia Dunn, Peter Ripon, John Brown, and William Chambers.
From 1806 to the war of 1812, quite a large number of settlers came into the county. After the close of that war the tide of emigration again set in, and in 1821, when the county was formed, it con- tained a very respectable population in point of numbers.
We come now to consider the war of 1812. Before doing this, however, let a
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