USA > New York > Tioga County > Historical gazetter of Tioga County, New York, 1785-1888. Pt. 1 > Part 2
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The effect of this transfer was to exclude white settlers from this region of country, and to extend over it, for another full century, the long dismal night of aboriginal barbarism. Very little is known of the Indian history. of Tioga county during this period. On the Susquehanna, which skirts or intersects its southern tier of townships, and at that time served as a great highway for Indian travel, was the only known Indian town and planting grounds within the county limits,-Owegy, or Owego :
* Morgan, in the League of the Iroquois, a high authority, places this county within the territority of the Cayugas and Onondagas. Next eastward of the latter were the Tusca- roras, a tribe expelled from South Carolina in 1712, and received by the Iroquois, who thence became the Six Nations. The Onondagas gave the Tuscaroras a part of their country.
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while the interior was a primeval wild of stately forest, and reserved as hunting grounds, where the ingenious beaver built his dam thwart purling stream, and the bear, wolf and panther, the timid elk and deer, roamed freely at will. In the nature of the case, its history, what there was of it, could deal only in exploits of the hunter, the march and counter-march of savage hordes, and in deeds of carnage and cruelty, which, if known, would be only too painful to recite.
Tioga Point, occupied by Delawares, was a famous stopping- place for the Indians when on their expeditions; from it radiated their well-beaten trails, east, west, north and south, to the remot. est tribes and localities.' The occupation of the Point by the Delawares, dated from 1742. There lived and ruled their king, Tiedescung, a shrewd and influential chief, who in 1755, during the French war, incited his Indians to bloody raids upon the English settlements. After two years he made peace, when he removed his seat to Wyoming. The same year other bands of hostiles, formed about Tioga, fell upon the frontier settlements of Orange and Ulster counties. In 1763, war was renewed by a fearful massacre, committed by the Delawares at Wyoming. Early the next year, Sir William Johnson, Indian agent on the Mohawk, sent two hundred Oneidas and Tuscaroras to chastise them, and who, on February 26th, surprised a large party on their way to attack our settlements, led by a son of King Tiedes- cung, the noted Captain Bull, whose hatred of the whites was intense, and had led him to do them great injury. Bull and forty of his men were taken prisoners. Thereupon the Dela- wares fled from the Susquehanna and its vicinity, escaping up the Chemung to the country of the Genesees, a sub-tribe of the Senecas, by whom they had been encouraged to take up the hatchet. Another party sent out by Johnson, followed in the wake of the fugitives, and destroyed the villages Coshocton and Canisteo. They also burnt three towns and four villages on and near the Susquehanna river, with quantities of corn. Peace again followed.
But the first notes of the Revolution was a signal for the upris- ing of the Six Nations, whose tribes, save only the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, espoused the British cause. In the spring of 1777, a large body of these, numbering about seven hundred warriors, assembled in camp near Owego,# ready to strike a blow at the
* At this date Owego was a large Indian village of about twenty houses. It was burnt August 19. 1779, with its fields of standing corn, by order of General Clinton, on his way
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unprotected settlements, on the advance of an expected British force up the Hudson; but upon the approach of St. Leger from the north, these Indians went to his assistance, which was fol- lowed by a repulse at Oriskany, and at Fort Schuyler, by an inglorious flight. These hostile tribes now found it safe to retreat westward to the Seneca country and the British post at Niagara. From this quarter came all the aggressive movements of the Indians against our frontier settlements during that war. It was by way of the Chemung and Susquehanna that the infamous John Butler, with his Indians and Tories (embarking on floats and rafts at Tioga Point), proceeded in 1778 to the fearful massacre at Wyoming. The noted chief, Joseph Brant, to whom many of the horrors of that period are justly attributed, ยท did not participate in the Wyoming tragedy, being then on an expedition to burn Springfield at the head of Otsego lake ; but he took part, the same season, in the ruthless massacre at Cherry Valley. In the interim since the affair at Wyoming, Colonel Hartley, of the Continental forces, ascended the Susquehanna, as tar as Tioga Point, where he burnt the Indian village of about twenty houses, having also destroyed Queen Esther's castle, which stood a little below, on the west side of the Susquehanna, and was the seat of that noted squaw chieftain.
By the same route, the Chemung and Susquehanna, the Indians and rangers, under Brant and Butler, proceeded in 1779, to the bloody battle of Minisink. Brant met and joined this expedition as he was returning from the ravage of Fantin-kill, in Ulster county. The speedy retribution visited upon these murderous bands, by General Sullivan's forces, the same year, when they were signally defeated at Newtown, and their country devas- tated, is too well known to require any further notice here. It was a blow from which the Indians never recovered, though petty depredations, by small parties from Niagara, who passed this way to reach the white settlements, were kept up till the close of the war. The very next year Brant came through here, with some sixty of his warriors, destined for Schoharie. Cross- ing the Susquehanna at Tioga Point, on rafts, he detached eleven Indians on the trail to Minisink, to secure prisoners or scalps, which latter, at Niagara, would bring them eight dollars apiecc.
down the river to join Sullivan. The Indians had deserted it on his approach. " This is the Indian town that Sergeant Hunter was carried to, who was taken 10th November last [1773] below Cherry Valley, on this same river, as he was returning with his Scout." Sullivan's Indian Expedition, p. 202.
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Brant, when within thirty miles of the fort at Schoharie, sur- prised a party who had gone out under Captain Alex. Harper, to scout, and also to make maple sugar. Three of these were killed in the first onslaught, and the rest taken prisoners ; their lives being spared only through the finesse of Captain Harper, who was personally known to Brant. With his captives Brant returned to Tioga Point and had gone a little way up the Che- mung, when the whooping of his Indians was suddenly answered by the startling death yell! It proceeded from some of the party who had gone to Minisink. They had succeeded in tak- ing five white men, and had brought them as far as the east side of the Susquehanna, opposite Tioga Point, when, during the night, the anxious prisoners managed to loosen their bands, and to dispatch nine of the sleeping Indians, with their own toma- hawks. The other two, one of whom was badly wounded, fled, crossed the river, and were resting near Chemung, when Brant's party came up. On hearing what had happened, the infuriated Indians were for killing their prisoners at once ; when strangely enough, the unhurt survivor of the Minisink party, who was a chief, and had known the prisoners at Schoharie, interposed and saved their lives. They were then taken on to Niagara.
With the close of the war, in 1783, which put an end, not only to these atrocities, but to Indian dominion in this fair region, and opened it to civilization, we must conclude this summary of its aboriginal history.
Much has been said laudatory of the Iroquois; writers have been fascinated with the genius of their confederacy, the wis- dom and eloquence of their counsellors, and the extent of their dominion. But let calm reason prevail. They are worthy of as much admiration as an Alexander, or a Napoleon, ambitious, rapacious conquerors, who waded through seas of blood to the acquisition of spoils, territory, power and glory. An occasional instance of justice or humanity will not suffice to hide from view the savage butcheries which mainly fill up the Indian annals. That, as human, they were not devoid of generous instincts, none will deny, and a consideration of their better characteristics, curious customs and home life, might have relieved in some degree the dark picture here presented ; but as the Indian tribes differed but little in these respects, it has been deemed unneces- sary to repeat, in this brief essay, details already familiar.to most readers.
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CHAPTER II.
THE BOSTON PURCHASE *- COXE'S MANOR-TOWNSHIP OF HAMBDEN FORMED-GOSPEL TRACTS-NEW TOWN ERECTED IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY -WATKINS AND FLINT PURCHASE.
N YO MAN of the present generation had a better opportunity to study the history of this region than the late Judge Charles P. Avery, of Owego, and no man was better quali- fied to write it. In 1853 he published a series of articles, under the general title of The Susquehanna Valley, in the St. Nicholas, a liter- ary magazine published monthly at Owego. So few copies of this magazine are now known to exist, and so few of our readers can have access to them, that for their benefit we quote a few para- graphs from the number for December, 1853, pages 297-303.
"Soon after the close of the revolutionary war, Massachusetts claimed, under her original charter from the crown, a large body of land lying within the limits of the State of New York. In the final disposition of this claim, by award of arbitrators in 1786, that state became the owner, subject, of course to the Indian title, of several millions of acres lying in the western part of our state, and also 230,400 acres upon the Susquehanna river, lying between the Chenango river and the Owego creek, then called a river. and embracing in extent, very nearly the westerly half of the county of Broome, and the easterly half of the county of Tioga, as the boundaries of these two counties now are.
" That claim of Massachusetts forms a link, not an unimportant one, in the chain of interesting events which mark the early his- tory of our state. By reason of its general interest a brief space may therefore be devoted profitably to a statement of the grounds upon which it was based ; and inasmuch as its history will serve to elucidate some important facts directly connected with the pioneer opening of this portion of the Susquehanna valley, a cur- sory examination of its historical features seems peculiarly adapted to our 'Gleanings.'
" In the year 1606 a grant of land lying chiefly within the pres- ent limits of the United States was made by James I., king of England. It comprised in width upon the Atlantic sea-board, all the land between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees, north lati- tude, and extending in a belt of that width, westerly from sea to
* Prepared by D. Williams Patterson, genealogist, of Newark Valley, whose extensive researches into the history of the settlement and growth of this section have brought him a knowledge of the subject equalled by that of none other.
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sea. It was known as the Plymouth Grant, for the reason that it was made to persons many of whom lived in Plymouth, England.
" The Crown gave to the great Plymouth council, as it was called, which was incorporated in the year 1620, the right to transfer any portions of this land, comprised within those degrees of latitude, in such parcels or quantities as the council might deem best. Accordingly, in the year 1628, the Massachusetts Bay grant was made in due form, the boundaries of which were the Merrimac on the north, the Charles river on the south, 'and in that width running west from the Atlantic ocean to the South sea on the west part.' This was confirmed as a charter by Charles I., in the year 1629.
"Next in order came the Connecticut grant of 1630, which was like the preceding one, part and parcel of the Plymouth grant, and, like it, its easterly and westerly limits were 'the two seas.' This was renewed and confirmed by Charles II., in 1662, with the usual charter to establish a government, make laws, etc. The southeast corner of the State of New York, lving within the north and south lines of this grant was never claimed to have been included within it ; for that portion of our state at the time it was originally made by the Plymouth council, as well as at the time when it was confirmed, was possessed and owned by the Dutch.
" It may be mentioned in this connection, that the grant made afterward, (in 1681), by Charles II. to William Penn, of the terri- tory included within the limits of Pennsylvania conflicted with this previously granted and confirmed Connecticut charter, out of which conflicting claims that long train of troublesome and bloody affairs eminated at Wyoming, known as the Yankee and Pennamite feud, commencing before and resumed after the revolutionary war, between the settlers holding under those respective titles.
" Our New York charter dates in 1664, having been given by Charles II. to his brother the Duke of York and Albany, in honor of whom, after the surrender of the island of Manhattan by the Dutch, to the English, the city of New York. before that called New Amsterdam, took its present name. Soon afterward, upon the reduction of Fort Orange, where Albany is now situated, that place received its present name, also in honor of the Duke.
" At the close of the revolutionary struggle Massachusetts for- mally interposed her claim, under her royal charter of 1628. which was dated, as will be observed, prior to the one confirmed to the Duke of York, and insisted upon her legal right to a belt of land lying in the state of New York, comprised within the northern and southern bounds of her original grant, extending across the State of New York, and, by its terms from ' sea to sea.'
" The state of New York resisted the claim, but both parties were too patriotic to make it the cause of civil strife. The blood of their sons had scarcely yet grown cold which had been profus-
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ely shed upon a common altar. They peaceably petitioned con- gress for the appointment of commissioners to examine the res- pective claims and make a final arbitrament which, it was agreed. should be binding upon both.
" Ten commissioners" were appointed, pursuant to the petition. in whom the parties in difference had the utmost confidence, for they were men of established integrity, and known ability, and the two states appeared before them, by their agents and counsel. at Hartford, in November, 1786. Their award was, in substance. that New York should cede to Massachusets the right of pre- emption of the soil from the native Indians, and all other estate. except government, sovereignty, and jurisdiction, to a large body of land lying in the western part of our state, containing more than three millions of acres, and also to 230,400 acres Iving, as before stated, upon the Susquehanna, and particularly described in the award as follows: 'To be located to the northward of and adjoining to the lands granted respectively to Daniel Coxe and Robert Lettice Hooper, and their respective associates, and between the rivers Owego, and Chenango.'
"Confining our attention to the body of land embraced within these two streams, as more intimately connected with the general object of this series of articles, it is seen that, over it, the award secured to New York exclusive jurisdictional rights, incident to sovereignty, while it gave to Massachusetts the right of negotia- tion with, and purchase from our Indian predecessors-the origi- nal lords of the soil.
" It was also provided by the award that Massachusetts should have the right to hold treaties with the Indians on the lands, and with such armed force, as might be deemed necessary for the more effectual holding of any treaty or conference ; also that a copy of the proceedings of every treaty and of every grant from Massachusetts to any individual should be recorded in the office of the Secretary of the State of New York, within six months after such treaty or grant.
" The Indians having been always viewed and treated as an independent power, although living within our borders, and, after the revolutionary war, as helpless as tenants at sufferance. still no. negotiation or agreement with them, as a nation, would have been deemed valid, unless approved by the President and Senate of the United States-the treaty making power. Their approval was an indispensable pre-requisite, and, as a power, delegated by the states under the National Constitution. paramount to all claims on the part of the states of Massachusetts or New York. under their colonial charters or otherwise.
" The body of land lying between the Owego creek and the Chenango river, being the 230,400 acres awarded to Massachus.
** * They were John Lowell, James Sullivan, Theophilus Parsons, Rufus King, Junk . Duane, Robert R. Livingston, Robert Vates, John Haring, Melanchon Smith, and Egbert Benson."
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etts and since known and designated as the Boston Purchase or Ten Townships, was granted by that state to Samuel Brown, of Stockbridge, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, and his associates. Nearly all of the grantees resided at the time of the purchase in that county, and many of them in that town. The title was con- veyed by resolution of the legislature of that state, and approved by the Governor, November 7, 1787. Among other things it states the purchase price to have been 3,333 Spanish milled dol- lars, payable in two years and subject to a deduction of the sum necessarily paid by the grantees to the natives in extinguishment. of their claim. It recites also that Samuel Brown and three other grantees, viz .: Elijah Brown, Orringh Stoddard, and Joseph Raymond, on behalf of the company had purchased, on the 22d day of June preceding, the right of the natives, and fully extinguished their claims.
"Another fact is gleaned from this documentary evidence of historical interest to those now living upon the McMaster Half- Township, on which the village and a portion of the town of Owego is situated. The resolution recites that James McMaster was found in possession of a part of the tract, by the four gentle- men above named, at the time of their negotiation and treaty with the Indians, and that to quiet his claims Samuel Brown had entered into a contract to convey to him that half-township, the bounds of which, as set forth in the legislative resolve, will be hereafter given. It is scarcely necessary to say that it was part and parcel of the body of land to which the Massachusetts pur- chasers were then seeking to get the title. McMaster, by the help of Amos Draper, an enterprising trader and a man of great influence with the natives, had already ingratiated himself to such an extent with them that he was found at this time, as it appears, in actual possession, and unless conciliated by Brown and his friends, those two gentlemen, by their already great and increas- ing influence might at the least embarrass, if they did not inter- pose an effectual barrier to the consummation of any treaty with or cession of land from the Indians. Their claims to a portion of the land were certainly equitable on the score of priority, and feeling this they were not backward in using the superior advant- age which their familiar footing with the natives gave them. The other party, it is true, could offer more gold, and the strong arm of government was on their side, but Indian fidelity was equal to the test, and the covenant-chain with McMaster and Draper was kept bright.
" A fact substantiating this good faith on the part of the natives and tallying well with the provision in favor of McMaster in the legislative resolve has been handed down by tradition. Having received it from two independent sources, the writer thinks it authentic and of sufficient interest to be repeated. The account is that four gentlemen, acting on behalf of the Massa. chusetts purchasers, met the Indians in council at the mouth of the O-le-out, near Unadilla, where, for reasons not satisfactorily
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known, nothing final took place. They next met them at Nanti- coke, at which place negotiations were started with them from day to day, but were as often broken off, and sometimes abruptly concluded. This occurred for several days in succession, until the fact became known that the want of success was attributable to the opposition of McMaster and Draper, who had brought to bear their powerful influence with the natives and who, but for an ultimate compliance with their terms by Brown and others, would thus have effectually prevented an extinguishment at this time of the Indian title. Another council was called at a place a short distance above Binghamton, the Massachusetts purchas- ers hoping by the removal to escape the embarrassment experi- enced at Nanticoke, which was more immediately within the sphere of the influence of their rivals; but the new council was opened with no better prospect of success, until a compromise of the conflicting interests was effected by a contract entered into by Samuel Brown, for himself, and on behalf of his associ- ates, with McMaster, which provided that in case the authorities of Massachusetts should make a grant of the land in question to their company, there should be assured to James McMaster eighteen square miles of land, now known as the McMaster Half-Township, on which Owego stands, to be bounded as fol- lows: 'South by the north line of a patent made to Daniel R. Coxe and associates ; west on Owego river [now Owego creek] to - extend up said river [creek] from said line six miles and east- ward from said river [creek] three miles; the east line to be straight, and to be so run as to make the above mentioned quantity of land, and to be as nearly parallel as may be to the general course of said river [creek].'
" After the execution of this contract, negotiations were renewed under more favorable auspices. A treaty was con- cluded and a formal cession of the 230,400 acres was then made. and the Indian title extinguished; James Dean superintending throughout the whole of the negotiation as the representative and agent of Massachusetts.
" Evidence of the treaty having been duly adduced, that state formally granted to Brown and his associates that body of land. with the exception of the McMaster Half-Township, which was conveyed to Brown alone, in order that he might perform his contract with James McMaster more conveniently, and convey the title directly to him in pursuance of its terms. This was accordingly done, and the latter has been since known as the patentee of that half-township, although he received his title from Samuel Brown, to whom the letters patent were directly issued, and who was, in strictness, the sole original patentee of that, as he and his associates were of the whole body of land since known as the Boston Purchase, or Ten Townships."
The first step toward the division of the lands held in common by the sixty proprietors, was the survey of three townships on
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the south part of the tract-the Chenango on the east, in which the lots were numbered as high as 222; the Nanticoke township next, in which were 181 lots; and the Owego township on the west.
In the Chenango township were two men already in possession, who were not members of the company, and who did not partici- pate in the drawing. An amicable arrangement was made with them by which each had a good farm. These were Joshua Whit- ney, who had lot No. 37, containing about four hundred acres, at the southeast corner of the tract next to the Chenango river, and Thomas Reichardt, (commonly pronounced Record, now angli- cised into Richards) who had lot No. 207, containing about two hundred acres, lying partly on the south side of the Susquehanna river. The west line of the Chenango township crossed the Sus- quehanna river, just west of Stoddard's Island. The Nanticoke township extended west from that line to within about seven and .a half miles of the west line of the Ten Townships, and ninteen of its lots are now included in the town of Owego.
After the townships of Chenango and Nanticoke were surveyed into lots, the sixty associates partitioned the land among them- selves, and the legislature of the state of New York by an act passed 3d March, 1789, confirmed to the associates, in severalty, the land as they had divided it. The list as given in that act, is, perhaps, the only complete list extant of the original sixty asso- ciates. The following alphabetical list has a number prefixed to each name to indicate its place in the original list :
8. Ashley Moses,
5. Bement Asa,
6. Bement Asa, Jr.,
25. Bingham Anna,
7. Bishop Elkanah,
36. Bishop Nathanial,
9 Blin Elisha,
53. Bradley Asahel,
52. Bradley Elisha,
54. Bradley Josiah,
45. Brown Beulah,
2. Brown Elijah,
35. Brown John,
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