History of Cattaraugus County, New York, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers, Part 5

Author: Franklin Ellis and Eugene Arns Nash
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The tract to which the Indian claim had thus been ex- tinguished by Phelps and Gorham was fully conveyed and forever quit-claimed to them by the State of Massachusetts, on the 21st of November, 1788, and their title to it thus made absolute and complete.

It has already been mentioned that, at the time when Phelps and Gorham's contract was made with the State of Massachusetts, the " consolidated securities," with which they expected to make their payments, were purchasable in the market at four shillings in the pound, or twenty per cent. of their face ; this fact having a most important bearing upon their plans and calculations. But the adoption of the Federal Constitution, soon after, encouraged the anticipation that the indebtedness of the several States, growing out of the war of the Revolution, would be assumed by the general govern- ment; which belief caused a sudden and rapid appreciation of State securities, including the " consolidated" of Massa- chusetts, the payment of which was, in fact, assumed by Congress, causing their market value to rise from twenty per cent., as at the time of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, to par, and even to a considerable premium. The result of this was that the proprietors, who had previously made large sales based on this species of payment, found them- selves unable to dispose of any considerable amount of their land after about the middle of the year 1789, or to collect the amounts falling due from settlers who had previously purchased from them.

In consequence of this state of affairs they failed to meet their payments to Massachusetts in 1789 and 1790, and thereupon that State commenced suit against them and their sureties upon the contract. Being thus driven to extremities, they negotiated with Robert Morris, of Phila- delphia, and, on the 8th of November, 1790, conveyed to him, for the consideration of eightpence per acre, one mil- lion two hundred and four thousand acres,* being all the

unsold portion-except two townships, which they reserved -of the two million two hundred and twenty-five thousand acres which they had purchased from the Iroquois. They had already sold about fifty townships to settlers, and they hoped by the avails of these, and of the sale to Morris, to be able to make their immediate payments to Massachusetts, and so save the remaining portion of their original purchase.

In this, however, they were disappointed, and, being still unable to fulfill the terms of their contract with Massa- chusetts, they were finally compelled to accede to a com- promise, which was concluded March 10, 1781, by the terms of which Massachusetts relinquished two-thirds of the original contract price, in consideration of the surren- der, by Phelps and Gorham, of their claim to all lands in the State of New York to which the aboriginal title then remained unextinguished. Thus Massachusetts resumed all the right of pre-emption which she had formerly pos- sessed within this State, west of the " Mill-Seat Tract," the Genesee River, and the meridian line drawn from the mouth of Canaseraga Creek due south to the boundary line of Pennsylvania.

MORRIS RESERVE.

Two months after the surrender of their contract by Phelps and Gorham, all the lands which they had relin- quished to Massachusetts were sold by that State to Robert Morris, and were conveyed to him (May 11, 1791) by five different deeds, as follows: 1. Deed including all the land in New York lying west of the Phelps and Gorham Pur- chase and the Mill-Seat Tract, and east of a meridian line beginning at a point in the north line of Pennsylvania, twelve miles west of the southwest corner of the Phelps and Gorham Tract, and running thence due north to Lake Ontario ; 2. Deed including a strip of land sixteen miles in width, lying west of and adjoining the last-named tract, and extending from Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario; 3. Deed embracing a second strip of sixteen miles in width, adjoining the last-named tract on the west, and extending from the Pennsylvania line northward to Lake Ontario; 4. Deed embracing a third strip of sixteen miles in width, adjoining the last-named tract on the west, and extending from the Pennsylvania line across the State of New York to its northern boundary ; and, 5. Deed including all the land owned by the State of Massachusetts within the State of New York, lying west of the tract last described. One undivided sixtieth part of all the land included in these five deeds was reserved by Massachusetts, to meet the possible claim of John Butler, who had contracted with Phelps and Gorham for the purchase of such an interest before the surrender of their interest. This claim of Butler, however, had already been purchased by Morris, who thus secured title to the whole.

The tract conveyed by the deed first mentioned con- tained, by estimation, about five hundred thousand acres, and became known as " Morris' Reserve" from the fact that it was not included in his subsequent sale to the Hol- land proprietors, but was sold by him in a number of parcels or tracts, varying in size from forty thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand acres. Among these sales were the following, viz. : to Le Roy, Bayard, and McEvers,

* Mr. Morris soon after sold these lands to Sir William Pultney, an Englishman, who disposed of them in large or small quantities to settlers, through his resident agent, Capt. Charles Williamson.

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HISTORY OF CATTARAUGUS COUNTY, NEW YORK.

a triangular tract of about eighty-seven thousand acres, lying against the northwest line of the Mill-Seat Tract, and bounded north by Lake Ontario; to Watson, Cragie, and Greenleaf, a strip of six miles in width, adjoining the triangular tract on the west, and extending from Lake Ontario south a sufficient distance to include one hundred thousand acres. This was afterwards sold to the State of Connecticut and Sir William Pulteney in equal shares, and became known as the " Connecticut Tract." Adjoining this on the south was the " Cragie Tract" of fifty thousand acres, sold by Mr. Morris to Andrew Cragie. The " Ogden Tract," sold by Mr. Morris to Samuel Ogden, contained fifty thousand acres, and joined the Cragie Tract on the south. Another tract of fifty thousand acres was sold to Gerrit Cotringer, lying directly south of and adjoining the Ogden Tract, and being of the same length and width. A tract bounded east by the Genesee River, north by the Mill-Seat Tract (to which it was equal in width), and running south a sufficient distance to include forty thousand acres, was sold by Mr. Morris to Wilhem Willink and Jan Willink, and became known as the " Forty-Thousand-Acre Tract." " Church's Tract" consisted of one hundred thousand acres sold by Morris to John B. Church, it being a strip six miles in width from east to west, extending north from the Pennsylvania line nearly to the Cotringer Tract, and lying on the west line of Morris' Reserve. Adjoining the Church and Cotringer Tracts on the east was a tract six miles wide, containing one hundred and fifty thousand acres, purchased from Mr. Morris by Samuel Sterrett; and between the Sterrett Tract and the Forty-Thousand-Acre Tract came the Mount Morris Tract, part of the Gardeau Reservation, and the territory which was afterwards generally known as " Morris' Honorary Creditors' Tract."

When making the sales of the above-mentioned parcels of land, Mr. Morris in each case entered into an agreement to procure the extinguishment of the Indian title, as at that time the Iroquois still held their original claim to all territory lying west of the tracts which they had sold to Phelps and Gorham by the treaty of 1788.

THE HOLLAND PURCHASE.

The remainder of Morris' Purchase of May 11, 1791, -that is to say, the territory embraced in the deeds of that date, above mentioned, as numbers two to five inclusive,- was sold by Mr. Morris to the agents of certain Dutch capitalists, and was conveyed by him by four separate deeds, covering tracts which, for the sake of clearness and con- venience, we will designate numerically as follows:

First tract, conveyed by deed dated December 24, 1792, to Herman Le Roy and John Linklaen, containing one million five hundred thousand acres adjoining the west boundaries of the State.

Second tract, conveyed by deed dated Feb. 27, 1793, to Herman Le Roy, John Linklaen, and Gerrit Boon, con- taining about one million acres, adjoining the west boundary of Morris' Reserve.

Third tract, conveyed by deed dated July 20, 1793, to Herman Le Roy, John Linklaen, and Gerrit Boon, con- taining about eight hundred thousand acres, adjoining the tract last named, on the west.

Fourth tract, conveyed by deed dated July 20, 1793, to Herman Le Roy, William Bayard, and Matthew Clarkson, containing by estimation three hundred thousand acres, supposed to be embraced in the territory between the first and third tracts.

These four tracts (of which the portions falling within the limits of Cattaraugus County will be separately and more fully described hereafter) were from that time known collectively as THE HOLLAND PURCHASE; covering all the 'lands within the State of New York west of Morris' Re- serve, excepting the "one-mile strip" on the bank of Niagara River, which had been reserved to this State in the Commissioners' settlement of 1786, and also excepting the islands in the same river.

These lands, which had been purchased with funds fur- nished by the Holland capitalists before mentioned, were conveyed as recited above to their agents, the several gran- tees, for the reason that the principals, being aliens, were unable to hold real property in the State of New York under its then existing laws. It was therefore at first pro- posed and intended that the lands embraced in the entire purchase should be held by Le Roy, Linklaen, Boon, and Clarkson as trustees, for the benefit of the alien proprietors. But as, upon more mature consideration, it seemed not im- probable that under the common law of Great Britain (which decided such cases in the absence of statutory pro- visions) some flaw might be found in a title so held, the Legislature was asked to pass a law enabling it to be vested in the principals. The prayer of the petition was granted . by the passage of the following acts, viz. :

" An act for the relief of Wilhem Willink, Nicholaas Van Staphorst, Christiaan Van Eeghen, Hendrick Vollen- hoven, Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, and Pieter Stad- nitski, being aliens," passed April 11, 1796.

An act supplementary to the above, passed Feb. 24, 1797, and "an act to enable aliens to purchase and hold real estate within this State, under certain restrictions therein mentioned," passed April 2, 1798 .* These acts removed the disability referred to, and legalized the holding of the titles by the alien owners.

At the time of the passage of these acts, the title to the first, second, and third tracts above named was vested in Herman Le Roy, John Linklaen, and Gerrit Boon (a trans- fer of the first tract to these three having been made June 1, 1795), and that of the fourth tract in Herman Le Roy, William Bayard, and Matthew Clarkson. On the 9th of July, 1798, these persons conveyed the four tracts compris- ing the entire Holland Purchase to the proprietors' attorney, Paul Busti, who, on the following day, conveyed the sev- eral tracts as follows, viz. : the first, second, and third tracts to Herman Le Roy, William Bayard, James McEvers, John Linklaen, and Gerrit Boon, " in trust, for the benefit of Wilhem Willink and others, citizens of the United Netherlands," and with covenant to convey the same ac- cording to their directions and appointments; and the fourth tract to Herman Le Roy, William Bayard, and

# " An act declaratory of the construction and intent of the act entitled 'an act to enable aliens to purchase and hold real estate within this State, under certain restrictions therein mentioned,' and to amend the same," was passed March 5, 1819.

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HISTORY OF CATTARAUGUS COUNTY, NEW YORK.

Matthew Clarkson, in trust, for Wilhem Willink and Jan Willink, with covenant to convey according to their direc- tion and appointment. On the 31st of December, 1798, the first, second, and third tracts were conveyed by the above-named trustees to Wilhem Willink, Nicholas Van Staphorst, Pieter Van Eeghen, Hendrick Vollenhoven, and Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, as joint tenants; and one month later (Jan. 31, 1799) the fourth tract was similarly conveyed to Wilhem Willink, Jan Willink, Wilhem Wil- link, Jr., and Jan Willink, Jr., as joint tenants; these sev- eral grantees representing the " Holland Land Company."* Their title was confirmed to them by deeds from Thomas L. Ogden, executed in February, 1801, and covering the four tracts of the purchase; these several releases from Ogden being for the purpose of reinstating the title from the effects of sheriffs' sales, made by virtue of judgments against Robert Morris.t

At the time when his interest in these tracts was sold by Mr. Morris to the agents of the Holland Company, the aboriginal title to all of them was still existing and undis- turbed ; but the sale of each tract was accompanied by an agreement on the part of Mr. Morris (as in the cases of his sales of the several tracts in the Reserve) to procure the extinguishment of that title (with the assistance of the company) as soon as it should become practicable to do so. In pursuance of this agreement he obtained a convention of the Seneca chiefs, held in the year 1797, at Big Tree,t now the site of the village of Geneseo. This council, at which were present Jeremiah Wadsworth, United States Commissioner, William Shepard, Commissioner on the part of the State of Massachusetts, Thomas Morris and Charles Williamson, agents of Robert Morris, and Joseph Ellicott, John Linklaen, and William Bayard for the Holland Com-

* There were six original members of the Holland Company addi- tional to those mentioned above, viz. : Jacob Van Staphorst, Nicholas Hubbard, Christiaan Van Eeghen, Isaac Ten Cate, Christina Coster (widow), and Jan Stadnitski.

It is saddening to know that penury and actual want ever came to ROBERT MORRIS, & man to whom the Government of the United States owed its existence.

At a time when all was disaster in the affairs of the young nation, when the men of the patriot army were unclothed, starving, and mutinous (as well they might be), the resources of his princely estate and of his almost boundless credit (both in this country and on the Continent of Europe) were placed at the disposal of Congress, with scarcely a probability of repayment, and thus the dispersion of the army was prevented.

When the great commander-in-chief projected the movement of his forces to Yorktown, but was prevented by lack of means, Robert Morris said, " Put your army in motion and depend on me!" And the surrender of Cornwallis was the result.

The armament and supplies of the ship that sunk under John Paul Jones, when he stepped a victor on board the vanquished "Serapis," were paid for from the purse of Robert Morris. Yet he lived to taste the bitterness of extreme poverty, and in a letter written to a business acquaintance, Dec. 11, 1800, he was compelled to admit, " I have not a cent to spare from the means of subsistence." It cannot be denied that in his case, at least, the Republic was ungrateful. He died at Morrisania, Nov. 6, 1806.

Mrs. Morris was the recipient from the Holland Company of an annuity of $1500, paid as an equivalent for her release of dower in the lands purchased by the company from her husband.

# The place was so named from an immense elm-tree standing on the river-bank near the village, and well known by the Indians throughout all the Iroquois confederacy.

pany, with the chief Cornplanter and Henry Aaron Hills as interpreters, resulted in a treaty, concluded Sept. 15, 1797, by which the Indians sold their title to the entire Holland Purchase, as well as to the lands included in the Morris Reserve (except certain comparatively small reservations which are elsewhere mentioned), for the sum of $100,000, which was to be invested in stock of the Bank of the United States, and held in the name of the President of the United States, for the use and benefit of their nation. This release by the Indians perfected the company's title, and removed the last obstacle to the occupation and settlement of their lands.

The Holland proprietors, besides their purchase in West- ern New York, owned large tracts in the State of Penn- sylvania, and the superintendence of all these interests was placed in the hands of Theophilus Cazenove as their Agent General ; his residence and the headquarters of the com- pany being located in the city of Philadelphia. In antici- pation of an early extinguishment of the Indian title to the lands included in the great purchase, Mr. Cazenove had in July, 1797, employed Joseph Ellicott, as the company's chief surveyor,§ to commence laying out the tract, so soon as the title should be made perfect and possession obtained ; and meanwhile to attend the treaty then in prospect, with Messrs. Bayard and Linklaen, in the interest of the com- pany. His attendance at that treaty, which we have be- fore mentioned, was the commencement of his long period of service (nearly a quarter of a century) upon the Holland Company's domain in Western New York.

Upon the conclusion of the treaty with the Senecas, the chief surveyor lost no time in beginning the traverse of the north and northwest boundaries of the purchase, to enable

¿ The reputation of Joseph Ellicott as a surveyor and civil engi- neer stood very high even at that early time. He was the brother of Andrew Ellicott, United States Surveyor-General, and had been employed with him, both in running the corrected pre-emption line in 1788, and in establishing the west boundary of the State of New York, in 1789. He also assisted the surveyor-general in laying out the city of Washington, and in 1791 was appointed by Timothy Pickering, then Secretary of War, to run the boundary line between the State of Georgia and the Creek Indians. He had just completed this last-named work, when he was employed by Mr. Cazenove to survey the Holland Company's extensive tracts in Pennsylvania ; after which he was engaged for a short time in Maryland, from whence he came to the service of the company upon their New York purchase. For about ten years, or until the surveys upon the pur- chase were nearly completed, he remained on active duty in the field. He then left the woods and settled down in the discharge of the duties of local agent. "He was a man of great industry, careful and systematic in all his business, and required of all under his control a prompt and faithful discharge of their various duties. His educa- tion was strictly a practical one. He was a good mathematician, a scientific surveyor, a careful and able financier. The voluminous correspondence he left behind him with the general agency at Phila- delphia, with the prominent men of this State of his period, in refer- ence to the business of the company, political measures, works of in- ternal improvement, and public policy generally, indicate a good degree of talents as a writer and enlarged and statesmanlike views. His memory is not only identified with the surveys and settlement of this region, but with the crowning achievement, which consummated local prosperity, the origin and prosecution of the Erie Canal."

Mr. Ellicott retired from the agency of the company in October, 1821, on account of general ill health and a predisposition to insanity, which dread malady occasioned his death (by suicide), in the sum- mer of 1826, at Bellevue Hospital, New York.

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HISTORY OF CATTARAUGUS COUNTY, NEW YORK.

him to make an approximately correct estimate of the quan- tity of land which it embraced. In this service he was accompanied by Augustus Porter (afterwards Judge Porter, of Niagara), as surveyor in the interest of Mr. Morris, and as soon as the necessary preparations could be made they commenced operations in the northeast corner of the tract, upon Lake Ontario; thence traversing the south shore of the lake westward to the mouth of Niagara River; thence up the right bank of the river and along the eastern and southeastern shore of Lake Erie to the meridian forming the western boundary of the State, which Mr. Ellicott had assisted his brother, the surveyor-general, to run in 1789. All this work was completed by the party under Messrs. Ellicott and Porter, within two months from the conclusion of the treaty at Big Tree.

Before leaving Western New York Mr. Ellicott contracted with Thomas Morris for two hundred and seventy barrels of flour, one hundred barrels of pork, and fifteen barrels of beef, to be delivered at or near the mouth of Genesee River, early in the spring of 1798, as a supply for the strong force of surveyors and assistants which was to be placed and kept upon the survey during the ensuing sum- mer. So practical were the workings of his mind that his list of requirements for the season's work embraced the smallest articles necessary, and nothing, however insignifi- cant, was overlooked. The estimated cost of the outfit was $7213.67, exclusive of " wine, spirits, loaf sugar, etc., for headquarters." Having made these arrangements, and engaged Mr. Porter to procure horses and men and to see to the transportation of the stores from the place of de- livery to the points where they would be required for the use of the surveying-parties, Mr. Ellicott returned to Phila- delphia for the winter. 17.

Early in the following spring, Adam Hoops, J (maler DE Major Hoops, the founder of Olean), was dispatched to the purchase as an advance agent, to perfect the preparations for opening the surveying campaign, and soon after Mr. Ellicott was himself upon the ground. The principal sur- veyors under him were Augustus Porter, Benjamin Ellicott, George Burgess, Richard M. Stoddard, John Thompson, David Ellicott, James Dewey, Aaron Oakford, Jr., Seth Pease, James Smedley, George Eggleston, and William Shepard. Alexander Autrechy and - Haudecaur, two Frenchmen, claiming to be scientific engineers, were also employed for a short time in taking levels and other similar work in the vicinity of Niagara Falls.

The first work to be done in the survey was, of course, the correct establishment of the eastern boundary of the purchase; and this the chief surveyor,* assisted by Benja- min Ellicott and one other surveyor, with the necessary choppers and chain-men, performed in a manner worthy his high professional reputation. The commencement was made at the southwest corner of the Phelps and Gorham tract, from which point an accurate measurement was made due west upon the Pennsylvania line, for the distance of twelve miles, at the end of which Mr. Ellicott caused to

be erected a substantial stone monument, to mark the south- west corner of Morris' Reserve, and the southeast corner of the Holland Purchase. From this monument it was neces- sary to run a line due north to Lake Ontario, in accordance with the description of boundary contained in the deed of the one-million-acre tract conveyed by Mr. Morris to Le Roy, Linklaen, and Boon.

To run such a meridian with accuracy, by the use of the ordinary surveyor's compass, was, as Mr. Ellicott knew, wholly impracticable; but he had foreseen this difficulty, and to obviate it he had provided himself with a " transit" instrument, such as is now commonly employed for similar work ; but as they were then almost unknown, and certainly never used in America, this particular instrument had been manufactured especially for this service, under the direction of Mr. Ellicott, by his brother Benjamin, in Philadelphia.

The ordinary compass was required to precede the transit for the purpose of directing the axe-men in clearing an unobstructed vista for the last-named instrument; and an astronomical observation was taken to establish the true meridian, north from the corner monument, to be pursued and extended by the use of the transit, and verified from time to time by new observations.

As the party proceeded northward, they soon found that the line they were running conflicted seriously with those previously run by Mr. Morris' surveyors in laying off the tracts which he had sold from his reserve, running consider- ably to the eastward of their western boundaries, although theoretically those boundaries should be identical with Elli- cott's meridian. The explanation of this discrepancy lay in the fact that the several tracts of the reserve had been located from a base on Lake Ontario, while the Holland Company's meridian was run from the south ; and besides this, the first-mentioned surveys had been made with the ordinary compass, and without due regard to accuracy. Thus it came that the transit meridian, although agreeing very nearly with the previously-surveyed west line of the Church Tract, was found to cut a strip of about two miles in breadth from the west side of the Ogden, the Cragie, and the Cotringer Tracts; but as the conveyances of these from Mr. Morris to the several grantees were all of later date than that of the Holland purchase, Mr. Ellicott disregarded the clashing of boundaries, and proceeded, without deviation, to establish his meridian.

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History of Cattaraugus County, New York, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers, Part 5

Author: Franklin Ellis and Eugene Arns Nash Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: Franklin Ellis and Eugene Arns Nash
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: