USA > New York > Livingston County > History of Livingston County, New York, from its earliest traditions to the present together with early town sketches > Part 101
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Dated at Philadelphia the 16th day of February, 1793.
(Copy.) Signed ) Robt. Morris, Oliver Phelps, Nath. Gorham.
Chas. Williamson,
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
APPENDIX NO. X.
THOMAS MORRIS'S NARRATIVE.
The Country called the Genesee Country, was originally claimed both by the States of New York and Massachusetts. Commissioners having been appointed, in 1786, by both these States, to settle their claims, as well to the jurisdiction as to the right of soil, on the sixteenth of December, in that year, the latter was ceded to Massachusetts and the former to New York.
Il 1787 or '88, Messrs. Gorham and Phelps purchased from the State of Ma -- a- chusetts, the pre-emptive right to the territory that had been thus ceded to her.
I am possessed of no evidence showing the amount of con-ideration money paid or contracted to be paid, for this territory ; but my rceollection is, that it was seventy thousand pounds.
Subsequent to this purchase, Messrs. Gorham and Phelp- prevailed on the Legislature of Massachusetts to take back the four million- of acres, West of the Genesee river, and to reduce the amount of their purchase money to thirty-one thousand pounds.
On the eighth of July, 17SS, Messrs. Gorham and Phelps extinguished the native right to these lands. The amount paid to the Indians, including pre-ents, for the lands thus sold by them, appears, from the accompanying Account Current, to have been a principal of four thousand, three hundred, and nine pound- and an annuity of five hundred dollars.
On the eighteenth of November, 1790, my father, the late Robert Morris, of Philadelphia, bought of Mes-rs. Gorham and Phelps, twelve hundred thousand acres of the lands to which the native title had been extinguished. I have no Document showing the amount paid for this purchase ; but my recollection is, that it was seventy thousand pounds.
In the year 1791, my father sold, through his Agent, William Temple Franklin, a grandson of Doctor Franklin, to Sir William Pulteney and Governor Hornby, the lands he had bought from Messrs. Gorham and Phelps. I have no Document showing the amount of consideration money paid by these gentlemen; but my recollection is, that it was seventy thousand pounds sterling. The property pur- chased was conveyed to Captain Charles Williamson, who was appointed by the purchasers, their Agent and Attorney to manage the same.
You will perceive, from my father's letters and his Instructions to Colonel Samuel Ogden, that, when he sent that gentleman to Boston, as his Agent, in January, 1791, to purchase from the Government of Massachusetts, the four millions of acres which they had received back from Messrs. Gorham and Phelps, he con- templated that those gentlemen would be concerned with him to the extent of one-half, and that they had the option of becoming so; but they having declined being concerned, on the terms asked by the State, my father became the sole purchaser. Whether the title derived from the State was, in the first instance, vested in Mr. Ogden and by him transferred to my father, or whether the convey- ance was direct from the State to my father, I do not know. The Records in the Secretary of State's office, where all these Deeds are recorded, will show how this
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is. The number of acres contained in this purchase was computed to be four millions of acres ; and, though I have no papers -howing the amount paid for them, my recollection is, that it was one hundred thousand pounds, Massachusetts money.
Some of the speeches and papers accompanying this statement show that, in the year 1790, a Treaty was held by Colonel Pickering with the Six Nations, at Tioga.
It appears, from a speech of Cornplanter's to General Washington and the Presi- dent's answer to it, that in the month of December of the same year, a conference had been had between some of the Seneca Chiefs in Philadelphia and General Washington. At this conference, as you will observe from Complanter's speech, lie complained of having been imposed npon by Mr. Oliver Phelps, whom he charged with not having paid to the Senecas the full amount that he had agreed to give for the lands purchased from them. From this charge, you will also perceive that Mr. Deane, who was the Interpreter at the Treaty when that purchase was made, in his Deposition, entirely exonerates Mr. Phelps. In the same Speech Mr. Jolın Livingston is charged with having practiced a deception on them, in procur- ing a "Lease" of their country.
In giving an account of this latter transaction, I must observe that I am not possessed of any Document whatever in relation to it ; and that the Lease in ques- tion and the proceedings of the Legislature annulling it, and the energetic manner in which Governor George Clinton dispossessed those who had settled on a part of the "Military Tract," under Titles derived from Mr. Livingston, had all taken . place a short time before I became an inhabitant of this State. My statement, therefore, is derived from the representations that were current and undisputed, shortly after these events took place, and from what I have frequently heard the late Judge Benson, then a distinguished member of our State Legislature, and who took an active part in annulling Mr. Livingston's "Lease, " say on this subject.
Prior to the adoption of the present Constitution of the United States, the Con- stitution of this State forhade a purchase from Indians, of Lands within the juris- diction of this State, without the sanction of the Legislature.
Mr. Jolin Livingston, of Oak Hill, Columbia county, in order to evade this provision in the Constitution, procured from the Six Nations a "Lease" for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, and for a consideration of twenty thousand, and an annual payment of two thousand, dollars of all the country comprising the "Military Tract," and extending from the Pennsylvania Line to Lakes Ontario and Erie, and inchiding even Presquisle, in Ohio.
The Legislature having met shortly after the obtaining of this enormous Grant, they passed a Law anunlling it, declaring it to be an evasion of the Constitution, and that such a "Lease" was in fact a "purchase."
As many persons had taken possession and settled under Livingston's Title, on parts of this land, situated in the present Counties of Caynga and Onondaga, and had evinced a disposition to hold the same by force and in defiance of the Laws of the State. Governor George Clinton ordered William Colbraith, then Sheriff of the Connty of Herkimer, in which those lands were then situated, to dispossess those intruders and to burn their dwelling -. To'enable the Sheriff more effectually to
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
execute these orders, the Governor ordered out a military force. These people were expelled from their possessions, their houses burnt, and one of their ring- leaders, by the name of Seely, was brought to New York, in irons, for trial on a charge of High Treason.
This object having been effected, the State, sometime thereafter, made a pur- chase from the Indians, of the country called the "Military Tract." and extend- ing to the borders of the lands that had been ceded to Massachusetts. This is what General Washington alluded to in his Speech, in 1790, when he said that, upon inquiry from the Governor of New York, John Livingston had no legal right to treat with the Indians; and that his acts were null and void.
I am not certain, but my impression is that Mes-rs. Gorham and Phelps, prior to their purchase from the Indians, either apprehending that Livingston'> trans- actions with them might increase his difficulties in obtaining the native title or otherwise interfere with his purchase, gave to Mr. Livingston and his associates the Townships known as the Lessee Townships, being, I believe, four in number, thereby quieting their claim.
Foiled in their attempt, by the energy displayed by the Legislature and the Governor, the next effort of Mr. Livingston and his associates was to form a V'ewe State out of the country West of Seneca Lake and extending from the Pennsyl- vania Line to Lakes Ontario and Erie. Their object, in their endeavors to effect this project, was to get rid of that part of the Constitution of New York which had annulled their "Lease" to the lands West of the Genesee river. Accordingly, a meeting had been called by these people, to assemble at the town of Geneva, on the tenth of November, 1793, to take the necessary steps to carry their scheme into effect. To crush. in the bud, this disorganizing attempt, the Resolutions, a copy of which you will find in a letter of mine to my father, dated the tenth of November, 1793, were passed. They produced the desired effect ; and Livingston's scheme was abandoned.
In 1791, a Treaty was held by Colonel Pickering with the Six Nations, for the purpose, as the Indians term it, of "brightening the chain of friendship" and preventing their making common cause with the hostile Tribes with whom the United States were then at War. The place fixed on for the holding of this Treaty was, in the first instance, the Painted Post; but it was afterwards changed to New Town, about sixteen miles East of the Post.
You will perceive, from my father's letter to Colonel Gordon, commanding a British Regiment then garri-oning Fort Niagara, and from another letter to Colonel Pickering, that a younger brother of mine aud myself left Philadelphia, in the month of June, 1791, to attend this Treaty. Our route was first to Wilkesbarre, and thence along the West branch of the Susquehanna, by what was then called "Sullivan's path"-being that which had been taken by that General and his Army, when invading the Indian country during the Revolutionary War.
The Newtown Treaty lasted several weeks. I attended it the whole time; and lament that I have not more of the Indian Speeches made on that occasion; and particularly those of Red Jacket.
The principal speakers during that Treaty, were Red Jacket and the Farmer's
APPENDIX
Brother. Red Jacket was, I suppose, at that time, about thirty or thirty-five years of age, of middle height, well formed, with an intelligent countenance and a fine eye ; and was a fine-looking man. He was the most graceful public speaker I have ever known. His manner was, at the same time, both dignified and easy. He was fluent, and, at times, witty and sarcastic. He was quick and ready at reply. He pitted himself against Colonel Pickering, whom he sometimes foiled in argument. The Colonel would occasionally become irritated, and lose his temper. Then Red Jacket would be delighted, and show great dexterity in taking advantage of any unguarded assertion of the Colonel's. He felt a conscious pride in the conviction that Nature had done more for him than for the Colonel.
A year or two after this Treaty, when Colonel Pickering, from Postmaster- general, became Secretary at War, I informed Red Jacket of his promotion. "Ah!" said he, "we began our public career about the same time. He knew how to read and write." (meaning he was educated) "I did not, and he has got ahead of me; but if I had known how to read and write, I would have been ahead of lıim."
Whatever influence Red Jacket possessed among the Indians was derived from his talents. They had no confidence in his integrity ; and a greater drunkard than himself was not to be found among the Six Nations. He was also, at this time, reputed to be a coward; and it was said of him, that, ou some occasion during the Revolutionary War, when he had stimulated his Tribe to attack the enemy and had engaged to co-operate with them, hie contrived not only to keep out of harm's way, but, during their absence, was employed in the less dangerous but more profitable employment of killing some of their cows to supply his own family with meat; in consequence of which, he became known by the nickname of "Cow-killer."
On one occasion, when Brant, Cornplanter and Red Jacket had been dining with me at Canandaigua, I observed, sometime after dinner, when the bottle had circulated pretty freely, much merriment between Brant and Cornplanter and evident mortification in the looks of Red Jacket. I did not at the time know the cause of this, but Brant subsequently explained to me that he and Cornplanter had been amusing themselves at Red Jacket's expense, by telling a story about "some other Indian," to whom they imputed the very conduct practiced by Red Jacket, when he killed his neighbors' cows. I am told, however, that during the last War with Great Britain, he redeemed liis reputation for bravery ; and that, on several occasions, he evinced decided courage.
It may not be amiss to mention here an anecdote that was told, and which was generally believed to be correct, as to the means resorted to by Red Jacket to become a Sachem. The Sachemship is derived from birth, and the descent is in the female line, because, they say, the offspring of the mother is always known to be legitimate. The War Chiefs only are selected from bravery and merit.
Red Jacket, thougli of obscure birth, was determined to become a Sachem. To effect his purpose, he announced to the Indians that the Great Spirit had made known to him, in a dream, that their Nation would never prosper until they made of him a Sachem. For some time, very little attention was paid to this
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
pretended revelation ; but the dreamer artfully availed himself of every calamity that befell the Nation-such as an unusual sickly season, the small-pox spreading among them, etc .- and attributed all the mi-fortunes of the Nation to their not complying with the will of the Great Spirit. He is said to have persevered in this course until he was made a Sachem.
The Farmer's Brother was a tall, powerful man, much older than Red Jacket, perfectly honest, and possessing, and deserving to possess, the confidence of the Nation. He was dignified and fluent in his public speaking; and, although not gifted with the brillianey of Red Jacket, he possessed good common sense, and was esteemed, both by the white people and the Indians.
It may not be improper liere to describe a religious, or rather a superstitious, ceremony, which I had been invited to, and did join in, during this Treaty. It being full moon, the ceremony was in honor of that luminary. There were pre-ent, probably, fifteen hundred Indians. We were all seated on the ground, forming a large circle, excepting at that part of it where a fire was burning ; and not far from which was a pillar or post, representing the stake to which prisoners are tied when tortured, after having been taken in battle. A very old Cayuga Chief, much distinguished for his bravery, and called the "Fish Carrier," rose and addressed the moon in a speech of about a halt hour in length, occasionally throwing in the fire a handful of tobacco as an offering. After this speech, we all stretched ourselves full length on the ground, the head of one touching the feet of another, and at one end of the circle, commenced the utterance of a guttural sound, which was repeated, one after the other, by every person present. Then followed the War Dance, performed by young Warriors, naked to the waist-band, with bodies painted with streaks of red, down their backs, representing streams of blood. Occasionally, one of the dancers would strike the post representing the tortured prisoner, and into whose body he was supposed to thrust the end of a burning stick of wood. He would then brag of the number of scalps he had taken from those of his Tribe or Nation.
After the rum drank during this ceremony had began to produce its effect. an Oneida Warrior struck the post, and imprudently began to boast of the number of Indian scalps he had taken during the War of the Revolution, when the Oneidas, alone, had sided with the Americans, and the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas and Chippewas with the British. This boast excited the anger of the others ; knives were drawn ; and there would have been bloody work, had not old Fish Carrier, who was venerated both on account of his age and his bravery, interposed. He arose, and, addressing himself to the young Warriors, told them that when any of them had attained his age, and had taken as many scalps as he had, it would be time for them to boast of what they had done ; but until then, it better became them to be silent. He then struck the po-t, and kicked it over, and caused the fire to be put out ; and they dispersed peaceably.
It was at this ceremony that I received the Indian name by which I was always thereafter called by them. That name was Ote-siaunee, which was translated to be "Always Ready." Red Jacket told me that it had been his name when a young man ; but, that when he became a Sachem, he was called, Sagiawata.
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APPENDIX
At this Treaty also, I became intimate with Peter Otsiguette wlio, when a boy, was taken to France by the Marquis de La Fayette. He remained with the Marquis seven years. He received, while with him, a very finished education. Having received the early part of my own education in France, and being well acquainted with the French language, I would frequently retire with Peter into the woods, and hear him recite some of the finest pieces of French poetry, from the Tragedies of Corneille and Racine. Peter was an Oneida Indian. He had not been many months restored to his Nation ; and vet he would drink raw rum out of a brass kettle ; take as much delight in yelling and whooping, as any Indian ; and in fact became as vile a drunkard as the worst of them.
Having left Newtown at the termination of the Treaty, my brother and myself proceeded to Catharine's town at the head of the Seneca Lake, where there were two or three log cabins. From there we continued our journey to Geneva, where there was a log tavern kept by a man by the name of Jennings and where also resided, in log honses, one or two Indian traders and a few drunken white loafers.
From Geneva we proceeded to Canandaigua, where the settlement, though small was of a very different character from that of Geneva. There were at that time in Canandaigua, only a few log houses, but they were inhabited by persons of worth, of intelligence, and of industrious and sober liabits. Very few of those persons are now alive, and I believe that they consist only of the children of the late Captain Israel Chapin, Judge Atwater, Mrs. Sanburn and Mr. Barlow.
Among those now deceased, but then alive, were General Israel Chapin and wife, his son, Captain Israel Chapin and his wife, Nathanial Gorham, Colonel Othniel Taylor, Mr. Sanburn, John Clark, Jasper Parrish, Jndah Colt, Major Mellish ; and there may have been three or four others whose names I do not remember. Mr. Oliver Phelps, though occasionally there on business, was not a resident of the place, liis domicil being at Suffield, in Connecticut. The respectability, sobriety, and industry of the first inhabitants of this place, have had a happy influence on its prosperity ever since.
After a con-iderable lialt at Canandaigua, we proceeded on our journey to Niagara, through the Town of Bloomfield, where the late General Amos Hall and a few other settlers had located themselves; and from thence to the borders of the Genesee river, where a man by the name of Berry kept a tavern. Judge Timothy Ho-iner, then first Judge of the County, resided at a short distance ; and James and William Wadsworth lived at Geneseo, then called Big tree, at a distance of eiglit or nine miles from Berry's.
There was at that time, and for several years thereafter, only an Indian path leading to Niagara, and not a habitation of any kind from the Genesee river to the Fort at that place.
We met at Niagara with a very kind reception from Colonel Gordon, who sent two of liis officers to accompany us to the Falls, and who also gave u- a letter to the commanding officer at Fort Erie, directing him to cross us and our horses to the opposite shore, in the boats belonging to his garrison.
On our return to Canandaigua, we continued our journey to Whitesborough, through the "Military Tract, " and from thence, through Albany, to New York and Philadelphia.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
The excursion that has been spoken of wa- undertaken by me partly from a desire to witness an Indian Treaty and see the Falls of Niagara, and partly with a desire to see a country in which my father had at that time so extensive an in- tere-t ; and with a determination to settle in it, in the event of my liking it. I was pleased with it, and made up my mind to establish myself in Canandaigua, as soon as I should have attained the age of twenty-one and have obtained my admission at the Bar-having studied Law in New York.
Accordingly, in the early part of March, 1792, I left New York for Canandaigua. I was induced to fix on that as a place of my residence, from the character and respectability of the families already established there. In the course of that year, I commenced the building of a frame house, filled in with brick, and which was finished in the early part of the year 1793. That house still subsists; and even in that handsome town, where there are so many beautiful buildings, it is not considered as an eye-sore. When it was erected, it and one built by Mr. Oliver Phelps, about the same time, were the only two frame houses West of Whitesborough.
Shortly after iny having reached Canandaigua, Captain William-on, who during the war of the Revolution, commanded a Company in the British Army, and who was captured on his passage to America and paroled in Boston, as a prisoner- of-war, came out as the Agent of the late Sir William Pulteney and Governor Hornby. In Captain Williamson were combined activity, energy, liberality, aud indeed every quality requisite to advance the prosperous settlement of the wilder- ness in which his agency was situated. To his energy and the liberal expend- iture of the large funds at his command, that country owed, in a great measure, its rapid settlement. He laid out the town of Bath, at the head of the Conhocton river, and took up his residence with his family there.
L'ufortunately for Captain Williamson, Sir William Pulteney had contracted in London, with a German by the name of Bertzee, to bring with him, from Ger- many, a number of families, and to settle with them on his Genesee lands. It was contemplated by Sir William, that the men brought over would be farmers, instead of which, they were vagabonds of the worst description, collected together out of the streets of Hamburg and other cities, and totally unused to any rural occupation. Their number might have been seventy or eighty and they became not only a source of great expense, but also of great annoyance to Mr. Williamson. They arrived, as you will perceive from two of my letters to my father, in 1793. One of these letters is dated in February, and the other on the tenth of November in that year. This last letter encloses the Resolutions passed in relation to John Livingston and his associates; and it is only in the Postscript to it, that you will find any allusion to these Germans.
Mr. Williamson had caused a road to be laid out from the West brauch of the Susquehanna to Bath; and, on the arrival of these Germans, he thought that they might be profitably employed, on their way to the Genesee, in cutting ont this road. They were totally unused to the chopping with axes, and insisted on cut- ting down trees with cross-cut saws -- two of them sawing at the same time on the same tree. While thus employed, several accidents happened by trees, when
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APPENDIX
sawed through, falling and badly wounding, and in -ome instances killing, the men thins employed.
They were so awkward, and made such slow progress with the road, that Cap- tain Williamson soon found it necessary to detach them from it. He accordingly sent them to Williamsburg, near the Genesee river ; and, having previously pur- cliased for the use of these men, a large field of wheat, on the Flats, adjoining that river, they were directed to harvest it. But this, and all other labor, they refused to perform-insisting on being ted and maintained in idleness.
They became so troublesome and unmanageable, that Mr. Johnston, Captain Williamson's Agent at Williamsburg, who had them in charge, sent to Canan- daigna, to beg me to come to his assistance. As I then spoke a little German, and was supposed to have some influence in the country, I went out and expos- tulated with Bertzee ; but to no effect.
The day after my arrival, they expected Captain Williamson, and had deter- mined to hang him on a tree they had selected for that purpose. Mr. Williamson did not arrive as they had expected ; and, disappointed at his non-appearance, they assembled round Mr. Johnston's house, and threatened violence. I appeared among them to dissuade them from this course of proceeding : they rushed upon me, but I soon escaped from them without injury.
In the meantime Bertzee became alarmed, and explained to them the impro- priety of their attack on me. As they had committed an assault, however, it was thought best that these lawless men should be taught that they were amenable to the Laws. Accordingly, they, or many of their number, were apprehended and brought to Canandaigua, where, not being able to give security, they were confined to jail. They were tried, convicted, and small fines were imposed 011 them. To enable them to pay those fines, they were obliged to consent to their being separated and hired out to farmers in different parts of the country ; and finally, with their leader, Bertzee, they removed to Upper Canada, where I be - lieve he made some contract with the Government for them.
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