USA > New York > Dutchess County > Pine Plains > History of Little Nine Partners of North East precinct, and Pine Plains, New York, Duchess county, Vol. I > Part 2
USA > New York > Dutchess County > North East > History of Little Nine Partners of North East precinct, and Pine Plains, New York, Duchess county, Vol. I > Part 2
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GEORGE CLARKE.
I do hereby certify the aforegoing to be a true copy of the original Record compared herewith by me.
LEWIS A. SCOTT, Secretary.
STATE OF NEW YORK,
Office of the Secretary of State. SS.
I have compared the preceding copy of Letters Patent with the record thereof in this office in Book Number Seven of Patents at page 295, &c., and I do hereby certify the same to be a correct transcript therefrom and of the whole thereof.
Witness my hand and the seal of office of the Secretary of State at the city of Albany the 2d day of March, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three.
[L. S.]
ANSON S. WOOD, Deputy Secretary of State.
This patent was confirmed September 25th, 1708.
Sampson Broughton was the son of Sampson Shelton Broughton, who was appointed Attorney General of New York in 1700, under Bellomont, successor to James Graham. He left England April 26, 1701, and arrived in New York July 24 the same year, and deceased in Feb. 1705. His son, the patentee, was appointed his successor June 18, 1705, but Governor Cornbury refused to allow him to act, alleging he was not qualified, whereupon Broughton went to England and obtain'd the following recommend from her Majesty's Attorney General, Edward Northey :
" Mr. Sampson Shelton Broughton, the father of the present Mr. Broughton, I knew many years, he was a barrister of long standing m the Middle Temple, and his son was bred there under him, and was called to the Bar at the time his father went to New York, and went thither with him. He not having practiced in England before he went to New York, I am not able to give any account of what proficiency he had then made in the study of the law, but that being seven years since, by the accoun the and others have given me of his application to his Studies in New York, and the knowledge he has gained of the People, laws and methods there,
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HISTORY OF PINE PLAINS.
it seems probable to me that he will be able to serve Her Majesty there, in the place in which She was pleased by her Letters to direct him to be placed."
June 24, 1708.
EDWARD NORTHEY.
But this availed nothing in his favor, for John Raynor succeeded to the office.
Rip Van Dam was of Dutch lineage, his ancestor emigrating to America as early as 1653. He was bred a sailor, it is said, and about 1690 was interested pecuniarily m a ship yard on the North River, in the rear of Trinity Church yard. Some of his vessels, under some pretext. were seized and condemned by Governor Nanfan, which caused Van Dam to be his enemy, and he threw his influence and effort into the Anti-Leisler party. On the arrival of Governor Cornbury, Van Dam being then a merchant, he was sworn a member of the Council in 1702, by orders from England, and continned an active member until the death of Governor John Montgomery, in 1731, of which event he advised the Lords of Trade in London as follows :
NEW YORK, 1, July, 1731.
"I thought it my duty with all speed to acquaint your Lordships with the death of our late Governor John Montgomerie, Esq., who departed this life last night, and that until further orders from his Majestie, the Government of this Colony is devolved upon me as the first of His Majestie's Council here." *
RIP VAN DAM.
He was thus acting Governor until William Cosby, from England, under appointment by the king, arrived in New York, in September, 1732. Soon after Van Dam became disaffected, and the next year in December he exhibited a complaint of maladministration against Governor Cosby, headed by thirty-six articles in which the Governor is fearlessly criticised and charged with official corruption and injustice.
To this the members of the Council-George Clark, Francis Harrison, Archibald Kennedy, James DeLancy. Philip Cortlandt, Henry Lane and Daniel Horsmanden-replied, and to some extent refuted the charges.
"We have been very often at a loss how to believe that a man of his years could forge so many and so notorions scandalls," they say in their reply, "but we are to inform your Grace that the resentment, malice and revenge of some of the wickedest men are thrown into his assistance, " and * * "we in most humble manner beseech your Grace that the said Rip Van Dam may be no longer continued in the List of His Majesty's Councill here."
This was counter replied to by Mr. Van Dam, and the whole proceed- ings published in a pamphlet. and widely circulated. Van Dam had assistants in Lewis Morris and James Alexander, the former under petition of suspension from the office of Chief Justice and the latter
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LITTLE NINE PARTNER GRANT.
from the Council, by Governor Cosby, and herein lies a bit of interesting history concerning two of these Little Nine Partners.
While waiting to hear from the Lords in London concerning the removal of Van Dam, Morris and Alexander, Governor Cosby was taken ill, and two days later he suspended Van Dam. On the tenth of March, 1735, after an illness of fifteen weeks, Governor Cosby died, when Van Dam wrote to " President Clarke" as follows:
"I was informed this morning that last night His Excellency, our Governor, died, whereupon I just now waited upon his widow, to inform her that upon the decease of the late Governor Montgomerie the adminis- tration of the government of this province did devolve upon me as eldest Councillor, and requested her that as I was obhged to suppose that His Majesty's Commission and Instructions to her deceased husband were in her possession or power, that she would favor me with a sight of them that she would deliver the said commission and instructions and the Seal of the Province to me to whom I conceive they do of right belong. * * However I am informed that last night the Commission, Instruction and Seal of this Province were put in your hands," and "I pray that you * would favor me with the sight of the Commission and instructions. *
To this Mr. Clarke replied: "In answer to your letter just now delivered to me by yourself, I do myself the honor to say that Governor Cosby having suspended you, a copy of which suspension you were served with in November last, and I having been yesterday regularly sworn by His Majesty's Councill into the administration of the Government, I con- ceive the custody of His Majesty's Commission and Instructions to the said Governor, and of the Great Seal of the Province belongs to me, and I shall keep them as it is my duty to do, till His Majesty's pleasure be known to whom only I am accountable."
Clarke thus being Governor was officially placed in opposition to Rip Van Dam, James Alexander and Lewis Morris. Alexander was a member of the Councils of New York and New Jersey. Morris was Chief Justice of New York, and member of the Council of New Jersey. Morris and Alexander were the leading men, and Van Dam and others did their bidding, greatly to the annoyance of Governor Clark. "They threatened insurrection and hanged me," he writes "under a feigned name in a ficti- tious piece of history about a month ago in one of their printed papers." "Rip Van Dam is a tool in their hands," writes Governor Clark, "he is very old and that small share of natural understanding which he had formerly, is greatly impaired. He is looked upon as the head of the faction, only as he had once the administration of the Government as President."
This was the time (1736) and the faction which controlled the New York Weekly Journal, printed by the celebrated John Peter Zenger, which was prosecuted and publicly burned, and Zenger imprisoned. Lewis Morris, Jr. is charged by Governor Clark as "the author of the seditious papers," and
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HISTORY OF PINE PLAINS
James Alexander, William Smith and Rip Van Dam were his associates. Against them all Governor Clark was successful. "I pity Van Dam," he writes, "and heartily wish he could be distinguished from the rest, for he is really incapable of judging for himself, and has been wholly guided by Alexander, Smith, Morris and his son, He is already severely punished in his purse, for Morris, Alexander and Smith have undone him. He is an object of His Majesty's mercy and I truly wish he had it." It is a notice- able fact that these two owners in common in the Little Nine Partners- Van Dam and Clark-should thus appear in our Colonial History, and actors in that exciting and memorable trial of John Peter Zenger, wherein was first enunciated the principle of liberty of the press.
After living to a very advanced age, Mr. Van Dam died in the city of New York, on the 10th of June, 1749. In early life he married Sarah Van Der Speigle, by whom he had two sons, Rip and Isaac, and three daugli- ters, Elizabeth, the wife of Jacob Kiersted, Mary, who married Nicholas Parcel, and Catalyntic, who married Walter Thong, whose daughter Mary married Robert Livingston, the third proprietor of the manor of Livings- ton. Rip Van Dam, the eldest son, died during his father's life time. leaving a large family. Isaac was a merchant, deceased December 10, 1749, surviving his father only a few months.
Thomas Wenham was a warden of Trinity Church in 1697, a vestry- man in 1699, and a prominent merchant in New York for many years. He was a member of the Council and a leader in that body, and seldom absent. In the trials of Bayard and Hutchins he and Rip Van Dam plead for the release of the prisoners and especially for Alderman John Hutchins, and is often and favorably mentioned in the Colonial annals. He deceased in December, 1709.
Roger Mompesson was a "Barrister at Law," and appointed Judge of the Court of Admiralty of New York, April 1, 1703, under the seal of the High Court of Admiralty of England, he being there at that time. He arrived in Philadelphia in the summer of that year, and upon the death of Dr. Bridges in July, 1704, Chief Justice of New York, Governor Cornbury constituted Mr. Mompesson his successor, which appointment was con- firmed by the Lords in London in these words: "As to Mr. Mompesson being Chief Justice in the room of Dr. Bridges deceased, we do not doubt but that he will answer the character you gave him, and the expectation you have that he will discharge his duty."
On the second of October following, Governor Cornbury appointed him Chief Justice of the Province of New Jersey, and in February, 1705, he became a member of the New York Council. In the spring of 1711, not being in harmony with the Jersey people, he "desired to be excused serving longer in the station of Chief Justice" in that Province, and David Jamison, formerly Secretary of the Province of New York, and one of the patentees in the "Great Nine Partners," was appointed his successor.
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LITTLE NINE PARTNER GRANT
At the time of this resignation he was said to be in "such necessitous circumstances that it wants a virtne more than human to guard against the temptation of corruption." This was said by Governor Hunter, who further writes: "He is a person of ability and great knowledge in ye Laws." These were compliments of the highest order. His "necessitons circumstances " were the result of small salaries, and these always coming but never came, according to English policy then with her New York colonists. He petioned in 1709 for his pay up to that time, he not having received a penny, amounting to four hundred and twenty five pounds, ten shillings, which petition the Lords in London received July 7, 1709, and read the twenty-seventh of the same month. No pay came for two years, when in September, 1711, he went to England, returned soon after to America, and deceased in March, 1715, "In spotless ermine clad."
Lewis Morris was appointed Chief Justice as his successor, and George Clark to fill his vacancy in the Council.
Judge Mompesson wrote a paper in 1709 entitled: " Maladministration of Affairs in New York," treating upon "Grants, The Revenue, Courts of Common Law, The Governor's granting warrants in his own name, and Huy and Cry," which Governor Hunter forwarded to England in May, 1715. It is a strictly judicial paper, and shows learning and ability. While in England previous to coming to America, he was a member of two parliaments and becoming involved by engagements to pay his father's debts, he was reduced to poverty and accepted the Admiralty judgeship of New York as a step to greater possibilities. He married Martha, daughter of William Pinhorne, of New Jersey, and left one surviving son, Pinhorne Mompesson.
Peter Fanconier, a Frenchman, was a naval officer, residing at Now York in Cornbury's time, by whom, in 1705, he was recommended as collector of customs. He received the appointment, and in the discharge of his duties he was charged with a little crookedness, in unlawfully retaining money that should have gone into the treasury. In regard to his land grabbing, Judge Robert Mompesson, in 1709, writing on the malad- ministration of New York, writes: "Grants have been made of all the lands that could be discovered, some of them in very large tracts, and in all that are good and valuable, Mr. Fanconier and Mr. Bridges, and sometimes both, are patentees."
He was a member of the French Reformed Protestant church, December 21, 1724.
Augustine Graham was the son of James Graham. the Attorney General, and in the ancestral line of the Grahams of Pine Plains. He died in 1718. Some of our local histories put his son James as a Patentee in the Little Nine Partners. This is an error, he was not a patentee.
Richard Sackett has already been alluded to in the Wassaic grant. Ee was employed by Governor Hunter in 1711 to superintend the Palatines in the manufacture of tar, turpentine and resin at "the Camp," on the
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HISTORY OF PINE PLAINS
east side of the Hudson, and it is probably through the acquaintance there formed, and his influence, that the families of Rauh, Winegar, Kline, Nase, and other Palatme families settled in the Oblong. Mr. Sackett died at the Steel Works near Wassaic in 1746. ( Reed's Hist. Amenia.)
Robert Lurting was a merchant in New York, a warden in Trinity Church in 1697, a vestryman in 1699 and "Vendue Master" in the city, by which office he reaped official trouble in some alleged unlawful sale of goods.
George Clark. There were but eight patentees in the Upper or Little Nine Partners grant, George Clark making the ninth by purchase, as "the said Patentees did afterwards convey unto George Clark, Esq., his heirs and assigns, one undivided ninth part of the said Tract of land and Premises, by means whereof each of the said Patentees became seized, possessed of, and entitled unto, only one full and undivided ninth part or share of and in the said whole tract of land."
He was secretary of this Province when this patent was granted, and was furthermore a relative of Governor Cornbury, thus from prudential motives he did not wish his name to appear in the patent, and the fact of there being only eight in the original patent, is presumptive evidence of an agreement which was fulfilled by his subsequent purchase.
George Clark was an Englishman, studied law in England, was appointed secretary of the Province of New York, came to America, and was sworn into that office, July 30, 1703, when Cornbury was Governor. He married Ann Hyde-an heiress of the elder branch of the house of Hyde in the County of Palatine of Chester, by which marriage he became a relative of Lord Cornbury and with the Royal House of Stuart. She is represented as a woman of fine accomplishments.
Mr. Clark was secretary under Governor Hunter in 1715-became a member of the Council, and on the death of Governor Cosby in 1735-as heretofore noticed-he by seniority of Councilship became Governor, which office he filled until succeeded by George Clinton in 1743.
"He was an adherent to prerogative and had integrity and a vigorous mind. His speeches do credit to him as a scholar, and his arguments required the combined talents of the assembly to weaken or destroy."
In January, 1744, Governor Clinton wrote to the Duke of New Castle, "that Lieut. Governor Clark has told me he proposes going from hence in the spring with his family, and has strongly pressed me to trouble Your Grace in behalf of his son, Hyde Clark, who is a Lieutenant in my company here, that you would be pleased to give consent to his being removed from hence into General Oglethorp's Regiment."
He sailed for England with an accumulated estate, estimated at the time at one hundred thousand pounds, was taken prisoner on his passage by the French, was soon after released, and idemnified by Parlament for his losses. He soon after bought a handsome estate in Cheshire, where he died about 1759. He had four daughters and two sons born in America,
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LITTLE NINE PARTNER GRANT.
gave his property to his two sons, George and Edward (Edward Hyde Clark). George was many years secretary of the Province, resigned in 1772, died at Hyde 1776, a bachelor.
Edward was in the army, commanded a company of Albany provin- cials at the taking of Havanna under Lord Albemarle, and for his services was made a major on the field. Later he went to Jamaica, retired from the service, returned to America in 1772, went to England where he deceased in 1774. He left one son, George Hyde Clark, whose eldest son George inherited the estates in New York. He also had two sons George Hyde and Edward Hyde, who, August 5. 1811, declared their intention of becoming citizens of the United States. The present George Clark, well known to our townsmen, is, we believe, the sixth in line of descent from Governor George Clark. Of all the patentees or proprietors in the Little Nine Partner tract, the Clark interest is the only one that remains in the family name. All the other original interests have been subdivided and passed into other hands.
Richard Sackett was an active partner in this firm, and had a better knowledge of the lands than any other member of the company. Only two years previous he had obtained his grant for the Wassaic tract of 7,500 acres, to gain which he went to Woodbury, Conn., to get a deed or title from the Indian Proprietors as a preliminary step. In this deed it is described as a tract " near a place called Wishshiag ( Wassaic) beginning at a place called by ye Indians Querapoquett of the furthermost corner of s'd land, and then running northerly to a place called Wishshiag, and so on about a mile northwest of the Allum Rocks, then easterly to an high mountain called Weeputting, (an Indian word from Weepe or Weebe, a tooth, and ing a terminal signifying place of, hence, the place of tooth mountain. It is called in that locality "Peaked Mountain."-I. H.) and from thence to ye South East corner of a place called Wammunting, all in tract of land be it more or less. Bearing date in Woodbury the fifth of November 1703. Wusumpe, Tamquash. Yon-sing-pom-kin-feet, Occum- bus, Wyawaw, Yonghaus, a squaw in behalf of her sons. " These signatures are represented by their respective "mark."
This tract was surveyed by Augustine Graham, Surveyor General of the Province of New York, who gave this certificate of the survey :
"Beginning at a place called Querapoquett at a white oak tree marked with three notches and a cross, and the letter S, and thence runs North Easterly by the Mountains Six miles to a White Oak tree marked by the Indians standing on the east side of Wesaick Brook, and thence running east, twenty degrees northerly, to the top of a mountain 25 chains, and thence South East to a Mountain called Weeputing, thence South West- erly by the ridge of Mountain to a Pine Tree, and thence North West to the place where began, being bounded on the North and South by marked trees, on the East and West by the Mountains, containing 7,500 acres. Great part of the said land is Mountains Rocky, Part Bushy Plains producing Little timber, and part of the said land is fertile lying in small patches along the river side. Performed the 18th of April, 1704.
AUGUSTINE GRAHAM, Surveyor Gen'l."
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HISTORY OF PINE PLAINS
A map accompanies the survey, giving the boundaries, and an Indian wigwam a short distance easterly from the site of the "Steel Works."
The patent to Sackett for this tract was issued Nov. 2, 1704, in which the boundaries are the same as in Graham's certificate of survey. The object of this reference to the Richard Sackett grant will be appreciated further on.
JAMES GRAHAM, MARQUIS OF MONTROSE.
Executed in Edinburgh, Scotland, May 21st, 1630. Great grandfather of Augustine Graham, a patentee in the Little Nine Partner Grant. (See Lineage.)
Augustine Graham was a patentee in the Great Nine Partner Patent (1697) and a patentee in the Little Nines (1706) two years later than the patent to Sackett, but at the date of his survey of the Sackett tract he had no interest in the Great Nine Partner Patent. "June 11, 1701 Augustine Graham one of the patentees of the Nine Partners by Indenture of this date conveys to Edward Antell all his right and interest in the said patent being one third." Antell married his niece, Annie Morris, daughter of Governor Lewis Morris.
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LITTLE NINE PARTNER GRANT.
Sackett's experience and ability were of great value to this firm, and made him a partner from necessity in order to secure the lands between him and the Connecticut river.
The Little Nine Partner patent enclosed his tract on the west, north and east. Its boundary commences on Sackett's northwest corner, which is about a half mile south of Wassaic in Amenia, thence "South Easterly by his (Sackett's) north bounds " to " Wimpoting " (Little Nine's) " Wee- putting " (Sackett's). This is about a mile southeasterly from Cline's Cor- ner-South Amenia-and is the northeast corner of the Richard Sackett grant of 1704. Thence the boundaries of the two tracts are the same line. Sackett's says " southwesterly," Little Nines say "Southerly to ye South East Corner of ye said Sackett's land." which is "by the ridge of Moun- tains " about six miles from Weepeeting. The Little Nines then go easterly to the colony line of Connecticut, then north to the lands of John Spraag & Co., then westerly to the Livingston Takhanick lands.
"John Spraag & Co."-Lucas Santon, John Spraag, Derrick Wessels and Cornelius Van Dyck-"March 25, 1685, purchased of Panaskenack, Indian owner, being empowered by his brother Tatankemitt (who is now out a hunting) lands on the west side of ye creek Westenhook (Housatonic) bounding south on a flat called Tashammick, belonging to Nishatawa, An- anpake and Ottonawa." John Spraag was a resident of New York City and a member of the Council under Governor Dongan in 1684, and in the spring of 1687 was the bearer of despatches to England refuting certain official charges against the governor by Lucas Santon, one of the firm of John Spraag & Co. On the 17th of February, 1683, Santon was appointed collector and receiver of customs at New York by King James, which office he held until the fourth of November, 1687, when his appointment was "revoked, Determined and made void."
March 6, 1705, one year later than the grant to Richard Sackett, and the year previous to the grant to the Little Nines, Peter Schuyler, Derrick Wessels, John Abeel, John Janse Bleeker, Ebenezer Willson, Peter Fau- conier, Doctor Daniel Cox, Thomas Wenham and Henry Smith, obtained a grant for lands in the Housatonic valley, which is known as the "Westenhook Patent," Its southern boundary is at or near Canaan Falls, and its northern boundary north of Great Barrington. It included the lands of John Spraag & Co., as its southern portion, which is made the north bounds of the Little Nine Partner Patent at this locality. Thomas Wenham and Peter Fauconier were patentees in both the Westenhook and Little Nine Patents, and it is quite apparent that Richard Sackett was "took in" as a "partner" for his services, as otherwise he might have been a troublesome hornet.
The boundary of the Little Nines, by a further notice runs from the "South Bounds of Lands Purchased by Jno. Spraag & Co., at Owassi- tannuck " to the south bounds of the Manor of Livingston and along the same unto "ye land Purchased and Patented to Coll. Peter Schuyler over
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HISTORY OF PINE PLAINS
against Magdaline Island." Peter Schuyler, also, was a patentee in the Westenhook Patent. The line then runs to the southeast corner of "the Pattent of Coll. Beekman," (Rhinebeck Patent) and thence easterly to ye said Sackett's South West Corner and thence to ye place where begun."
Richard Sackett's southwest corner as surveyed by Augustine Graham, April 18, 1704, was "at a place called Querapoquett," which I locate at or near the pass in the mountain about two and a half or three miles south- westerly from Dover Plains.
The grant to the Great Nine Partners Patent of 1697 had in its description for the south bounds, "an east and west Line to the Division Line between the province of New York and the colony of Connecticut," which was then undefined. This east and west line was very nearly the present south boundaries of Hyde Park, Pleasant Valley, Washington and that part of Amenia west of the Oblong. The north line commenced at the head of Fish Creek and ran east "by a parallel line to the south Bounds east and west Reaching the aforesaid Division Line." The head of Fish Creek is "Cold Spring "-Spring Lake-about four miles east of Rhinebeck Village. Near this is the north-west corner of the Great Nines and the south-west of the Little Nines. The south-west corner of the Richard Sackett tract is three or four miles south of the south line of the Great Nines. A line from the south-west corner of the Little Nines to the south-west corner of the Sackett tract, cuts the Great Nines diagonally from corner to corner, very nearly in two equal parts. The Sackett grant was recognized in the Little Nine grab. The west line of Oblong runs diagonally through it, entering the north bound near the north-west corner. This makes a small portion of it at that place on the west to the south line of Amenia. come into the Great Nines on Lots 28 and 29, according to the survey. It is a reasonable inference that Richard Sackett and Augustine Graham were the formulators of the boundaries of the Little Nine Partner Patent.
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