USA > New York > Erie County > Sardinia > History of the original town of Concord : being the present towns of Concord, Collins, N. Collins, and Sardinia, Erie County, New York > Part 3
USA > New York > Erie County > Collins > History of the original town of Concord : being the present towns of Concord, Collins, N. Collins, and Sardinia, Erie County, New York > Part 3
USA > New York > Erie County > Concord > History of the original town of Concord : being the present towns of Concord, Collins, N. Collins, and Sardinia, Erie County, New York > Part 3
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Soon the life-bought victory of Wolfe gave Quebec to the triumphant Britons. Still the French clung to their colonies with desperate but failing grasp, and it was not till September, 1760, that the Marquis de Vaudreuil, the Governor-General of Canada, surrendered Montreal, and with it Detroit, Venango, and all the other within his jurisdiction. This surrender was ratified by the treaty of peace between England and France in February, 1763, which ceded Canada to the former power and thus ended the long contest.
·
17
PONTIAC'S CONSPIRACY.
CHAPTER IV.
ENGLISH DOMINION.
Pontiac's League-The Senecas Hostile-The Devil's Hole-Battle Near Buf- falo-Treaty at Niagara-Bradstreet's Expedition-Israel Putnam-Lake Commerce-Wreck of the Beaver-Tryon County.
The celebrated Indian Chief Pontiac, united several western tribes against the British soon after their advent. In May, 1763, the league surprised nine out of twelve English forts and massacred their garrisons. Detroit, Pittsburgh and Niagara alone escaped surprise and each successfully resisted a siege. There is no positive evidence, but there is little doubt that the Senecas were involved in Pontiac's league and were active in their attack on Niagara.
In the September following occurred the awful tragedy of the Devil's Hole, when a band of Senecas, of whom Honaye- wus, afterwards celebrated as Farmers Brothers, was one and Cornplanter probably another, ambushed a train of English army wagons, with an escort of soldiers, the whole numbering ninety-six men, three and a half miles below the Falls, and massacred every man except four.
A few weeks later, on the 19th of October, 1763, there occurred the first hostile conflict in Erie county, of which there is any record, in which white men took part. It occurred probably at or near Black Rock. Six hundred British soldiers, under one Major Wilkins, were on their way in boats to rein- force their comrades in Detroit. A hundred and sixty of them, who were a half mile astern of the others, were suddenly fired on by a band of Senecas in a thicket on the shore. So close was their aim that thirteen men were killed or wounded at the first fire. Fifty soldiers landed and attacked the Indians. Three more soldiers were killed and twelve badly wounded. It does not appear that the Indians suffered near as heavily as the English.
In the Summer of 1764, General Bradstreet, with twelve hun- dred British and Americans came by water to Fort Niagara,
18
INDIAN COUNCIL AT FORT NIAGARA.
accompanied by the indefatigable Sir William Johnson. A grand council of friendly Indians was held at the fort, among whom Sir William exercised his customary skill, and satisfactory treaties were made. But the Senecas held aloof, and were said to be meditating a renewal of the war. At length General Bradstreet ordered their immediate attendance, under penalty of the destruction of their settlements. They came, ratified the treaty and thenceforward adhered to it pretty faithfully, notwithstand- ing the peremptory manner in which it was obtained. In the meantime a fort had been erected on the site of Fort Erie, the first ever built there.
In August, Bradstreet's army increased to nearly three thou- sand men, came up the river and proceeded up the south side of the lake, for the purpose of bringing the western Indians to terms, a task which was successfully accomplished without blood- shed. (The journey was made in open boats rigged with sails.) Now there was peace for awhile. The British coming up the Niagara usually landed at Fort Erie, where a post was all the while maintained, and going thence in open boats to Detroit, Mackinaw and other western forts.
The commerce of the upper lakes consisted of supplies for the military posts, goods to trade with the Indians and furs received in return. The trade was carried on mostly in open boats, pro- pelled by oars, with the occasional aid of a temporary sail. There were, however, at least two or three English trading ves- sels on Lake Erie before the Revolution. One, called the Beaver, is known to have been lost in a storm, and is believed by the best authorities to have been wrecked near the mouth of Eigteen-Mile creek, and to have furnished the relics found in that vicinity by early settlers.
All the western part of the Colony of New York was nomin- ally a part of Albany county up to 1772. In that year a new county was formed embracing all that part of the colony west of the Delaware river, and of a line running northeastward from the head of that stream through the present County of Scho- harie, thence northward along the east line of Montgomery, Fulton and Hamilton counties, and continuing in a straight line to Canada. It was named Tryon in honor of William Tryon, then the Royal Governor of New York. Guy Johnson, Sir
19
DEATH OF SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON.
William's nephew and son-in-law, was the earliest "first Judge" of the Common Pleas, with the afterward celebrated John But- ler as one of his associates. Sir William Johnson, an able mili- tary commander and Indian agent long in the employ of the British government, died suddenly, at Johnstown, near the Mohawk in 1774. Much of his influence over the Six Nations descended to his son, Sir John Johnson, and his nephew, Col. Guy Johnson. The latter became his successor in the office of Superintendent of Indian Affairs.
20
TREATY BETWEEN THE INDIANS AND BRITISH.
CHAPTER V.
THE REVOLUTION.
Four Iroquois Tribes Hostile -- The Oswego Treaty-Scalps-Brant-Guien- gwahtoh -Wyoming - Cherry Valley - Sullivan's Expedition-Senecas Settle in Erie County-Gilbert Family-Peace.
In 1775, the Revolution began. The new Superintendent made good his influence over all of the Six Nations except the Oneidas and Tuscaroras. John Butler established himself at Fort Niagara and organized a· regiment of Tories, known as Butler's Rangers, and he and the Johnsons used all their influ- ence to induce the Indians to attack the Americans. The Sen- ecas held aloof for a while, but the prospect of both blood and pay was too much for them to withstand, and in 1777 they, in common with Cayugas, Onondagas and Mohawks, made a treaty with the British at Oswego, agreeing to serve the King through- out the war.
Fort Niagara became, as it had been during the French war the key of all this region, and to it the Iroquois constantly looked for support and guidance. Their raids kept the whole frontier for hundreds of miles in a state of terror, and were attended by the usual horrors of savage warfare.
Among the celebrated Iroquois Chiefs in the Revolution was Theyendenega (or Joseph Brant), a Mohawk, and Guiengwah- toh and Honayewus (or Farmer's Brother), Cornplanter, and Governor Blacksnake, of the Senecas.
The slaughter and devastation in the Wyoming valley, in Pennsylvania, and the massacre at Cherry Valley, in the State of New York, and other events of a similar kind on a smaller scale, induced Congress and General Washington to send an army against the Six Nations in the Summer of 1779. General Sullivan, the commander, marched up the Susquehana to Tioga Point, where he was joined by a brigade under Gen. James Clinton (father of DeWitt Clinton), and then with a force of about 4,000 men, moved up the Chemung to near the site of Elmira. There Colonel Butler, with a small body of Indians
21
THE SENECAS IN ERIE COUNTY.
and Tories, variously estimated at from six hundred to fifteen hundred men, had thrown up intrenchments, and a battle was fought. Butler was defeated, retired with considerable loss, and made no further resistance. Sullivan advanced and destroyed all the Seneca villages on the Genesee and about Geneva, burn- ing wigwams and cabins, cutting down orchards, cutting up growing corn and utterly devastating the country.
The Senecas fled in great dismay to fort Niagara. The Onondaga village had in the meantime been destroyed by another force, but it is plain that the Senecas were the ones who were chiefly feared, and against whom the vengeance of the Americans was chiefly directed. After thoroughly laying waste their country, the Americans returned to the cast.
The Senecas had not only cornfields, but gardens, orchards and sometimes comfortable houses. They were the most pow- erful and warlike of all the Six Nations, but their spirits were much broken by this disaster. It was with difficulty that the British authorities procured sufficient rations to sustain the Indians through the severe Winter of 1779-80, at Niagara.
As Spring approached the English made carnest efforts to reduce the expense, by persuading the Indians to make new settlements and plant crops.
In the Spring of 1780, a considerable body of Senecas came up from Fort Niagara and established themselves on Buffalo Creek, about four miles above'its mouth. This as far as known was the first permanent settlement of the Senecas in Erie county. They had probably had huts here to use while hunt- ing and fishing, but no regular villages. In fact, this settle- ment of the Senecas in the Spring of 1780, was probably the first permanent occupation of the county since the destruction of the Neuter Nation, a hundred and thirty-five years before. The same Spring another band located themselves at the mouth of the Cattaraugus.
The Indians who settled on Buffalo creek brought with them several members of a Quaker family by the name of Gilbert who had been captured a few months previous on the borders of Pennsylvania. After the war, this family published a narra- tive of their captivity, which gives valuable information regard- ing this period of our history.
22
SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS.
Immediately on the arrival of the Indians the squaws began to clear the land and prepare it for corn, while the men built some log huts and then went out hunting. In the beginning of the Winter of 1780-81, two British officers, Captain Powell and Lieutenant Johnston, came to the settlement on Buffalo creek and remained until toward Spring. They were probably sent by the British authorities at Fort Niagara to aid in putting the new settlement on a solid foundation. They made strenuous efforts to obtain the release of Rebecca and Benjamin, two of the younger members of the Gilbert family, but the Indians were unwilling to give them up. This Lieutenant Johnston afterward located at Buffalo, and was known to the early settlers as Capt. William Johnston. It must have been about this time that Johnston took unto himself a Seneca wife, for his son, John Johnston, was a young man when Buffalo was laid out, in 1803. Captain Powell had married Jane Moore, a girl who, with her mother and others of the family, had been captured at Cherry Valley.
Captain (afterwards Colonel) Powell is frequently and honor- ably mentioned in several accounts as doing everything in his power to ameliorate the condition of the captives among the Indians. Through his influence and exertions, several of the Gilbert family were released from captivity and sent to Mon- treal. In the Spring of 1781, Captain Powell was sent to dis- tribute provisions, hoes and other implements among the Indians. At the distribution, the Chiefs of every band came for shares, each having as many sticks as there were persons in his band, in order to insure a fair division. In October, 1781, Cornwallis surrendered, and thenceforth there were no more active hostilities.
Rebecca Gilbert and Benjamin Gilbert, jr., were released the next year. This appears to have been managed by Colonel Butler, who, to give him his due, always seemed willing to befriend the captives, though constantly sending out his sav- ages to make new ones. Not until the arrangements were all made did the Indians inform Rebecca of her approaching freedom. With joyful heart she prepared for the journey, making bread and doing other needful work for her captors.
23
PEACE FORMALLY DECLARED.
Then by canoe and on foot she and her brother were taken to Fort Niagara, and, after a conference, the last two of the ill-fated Gilbert family were released from captivity in June, 1782.
In the fall of 1783, peace was formally declared between Great Britain and the revolted colonies henceforth to be acknowledged by all men as the United States of America.
24
PHELPS AND GORHAM PURCHASE.
CHAPTER VI.
The Treaty of Fort Stanwix, 1784-Phelps and Gorham's Purchase in 1788- Council at Buffalo Creek in 1788-Phelps' Large Mill Site on the Genesee River-Robert Morris-The Holland Land Company-Treaty of 1826- Treaty of 1842-Buffalos and Buffalo Creek.
In October, 1784, a treaty was made at Fort Stanwix (Rome) between three Commissioners of the United States and the Sachems of the Six Nations.
The eastern boundary of the Indian lands does not seem to have been in dispute, but the United States wanted to extin- guish whatever claim the Six Nation: might have to the west- ern territory, and also to keep open the right of way around the Falls of Niagara, which Sir William Johnston had obtained for the British.
In 1788, Massachusetts sold all her land in New York, about six million acres, to Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham act- ing on behalf of themselves and others, for one million dollars, in three equal annnal payments, the purchasers being at liberty to pay in certain stocks of that State, then worth about twenty cents on the dollar; the purchase was subject to the rights of the Indians.
Phelps procured the calling of a council at Buffalo Creek, which met July 5, 1788. Phelps had secured the influence of Butler, Brant, and other influential persons, and the proceed- ings were very harmonious. The east line of this purchase ran from Pennsylvania due north to Lake Ontario and crossing ·Seneca lake; the west line ran from Avon south, along the Genesee river to the mouth of Canaseraga creek, thence due south to the Pennsylvania line. This was " Phelps and Gorham purchase." It included about two million six hundred thousand acres, for which they paid five thousand dollars in hand, and five hundred dollars annually for ever ; this was about equal to half a cent an acre. During the negotiations, Phelps suggested that he wanted to build some mills at the falls of the Genesee (now Rochester), which would be very convenient for Indians as well as whites; and he wished the Indians to give him a mill site
1
25
HOLLAND PURCHASE.
and the necessary amount of land to go with it. The red men thought mills would be a good thing, and their white brother should have a mill-site-how much land did he want for this purpose? Phelps replied that he thought a strip about twelve miles wide, extending from Avon to the mouth of the river, twenty-eight miles, would be about right. The Indians thought that a pretty large mill-site, but they gave him the land. The mill-site contained about two hundred thousand acres.
The adoption of the Federal constitution had caused a great rise in Massachusetts stocks, so that Phelps and Gorham were unable to make the payments they had agreed on and Massa- chusetts released them from their contract as to all the land except that to which they had extinguished the Indian title, to wit, "Phelps and Gorham Purchase ;" of that the State gave them a deed in full.
Massachusetts then sold the released lands in five tracts to Robert Morris, the merchant prince of Philadelphia, and the celebrated financier of the revolution. ' The easternmost of these tracts Mr. Morris sold out in small parcels. The remain- ing four constituted the " Holland Purchase." Mr. Morris sold it by conveyances made in 1792 and 1793, to several Ameri- cans, who held it. in trust for a number of Hollanders, who, being aliens, could not hold it in their own name at that time. These Hollanders were known as the Holland company after- wards. In September, 1797, a council was held at Geneseo, at which Robert Morris bought of the Indians the whole of the remaining Seneca lands in New York, except eleven reserva- tions of various sizes.
At a council held in August, 1826, the Senecas ceded to the Ogden company thirty-three thousand six hundred and thirty- seven acres of the Buffalo Creek reservation, thirty-three thousand four hundred and nine acres of the Tonawanda reser- vation, five thousand one hundred and twenty of the Catta- augus reservation, besides one thousand five hundred acres in the Genesee valley.
From the Buffalo Creek reservation, a strip a mile and a half wide was sold off on the north side commencing at a point one and one half miles east of where the Cayuga creek crossed the reservation line in the town of Chautauqua, thence to the
26
THE CATTARAUGUS RESERVATION.
east end of the reservation, also a strip three mile's wide across the east end. And finally a strip a mile wide extending the whole length of the south side of the reservation called the " Mile Strip."
Of the Cattaragus reservation, there was ceded in Erie county a strip six miles long and a mile wide from the north side called the "Mile Strip," and a mile square called the " Mile Block," south of the east end of that strip. Both are in the present town of Brant.
In the year 1838, the Ogden company made strong efforts to obtain possession of all the Indian lands in Western New York. A treaty was made and sanctioned by the President and ratified by the Senate to accomplish that object. The Indians were to receive nearly two million acres of land in Kansas, and a considerable amount of money in exchange for their reservation. But the facts brought to light in regards to the means used to obtain the signatures of some of the chiefs caused so much popular feeling, and the determination of the Indians was so strong not to go west, that the company did not try to remove them.
In May, 1842, a new agreement was made by which the Ogden company allowed the Senecas to retain the Cattaraugus and Allegany reservations and the Indians gave up the Buffalo creek and Tonawanda tracts on condition of receiving their proportionate value. This was satisfactory to the Buffalo Creek Indians, but not to those on the Tonawanda reservation. Arbitrators duly chosen decided that the proportionate value of the Indian title to those two reservations was seventy-five thousand dollars, and that of the improvements on them fifty- nine thousand dollars. They also awarded the portion of the fifty-nine thousand dollars due to each Indian on the Buffalo creek reservation, but could not do it on the Tonawanda one, because the inhabitants of the latter refused to let them come on the reservation to make an appraisal. After some two years one of the claimants undertook to expel one of the Tonawanda Indians by force, whereupon he sued him and recovered judg- ments, the court deciding that the proper steps had not been taken to justify the claimant's action.
Finally to end the controversy the United States Govern-
27
BUFFALO CREEK.
ment bought the claim of the Ogden Company to the Tona- wanda Reservation and gave it to the Indians residing there. They now hold it by the same title by which white men own their lands, except that the fee is in the whole tribe and not in any individual members.
Meanwhile the Buffalo Indians quietly received the money alloted to them and after a year or two allowed them for prep- aration, they in 1843-4 abandoned their reservation. Most of them joined their brethren on the Cattaraugus reserva- tion, some went to that on the Allegany, and a few removed to lands allotted them in Kansas.
The treaty of Fort Stanwix was the first public document containing the name of Buffalo creek, as applied to the stream which empties into the foot of Lake Erie. The narrative of the Gilbert family, published just after the war, was the first appearance of the name in writing or printing.
The question has been often debated, whether the original Indian name was " Buffalo" creek. This almost of necessity involves the further question, whether the buffalo ever ranged on its banks; for it is to be presumed that Indians would not in the first place have adopted that name, unless such had been the case.
Numerous early travelers and later hunters, mention the existence of buffalo in the vicinity, or not far away. A strong instance is the account of the Missionaries Chaumonot and Brebœuf, which declares that the Neuter Nation, who occu- pied the County of Erie, and a portion of Canada across the Niagara river were in the habit of hunting the buffalo, together with other animals.
Mr. Ketchum in his history of "Buffalo and the Senecas," says that all the oldest Senecas in 1820, declared that buffalo bones had been found within their recollection, at the salt licks near Sulphur Springs. The same authorities produce evidence that white men had killed buffaloes within the last one hundred and twenty years, not only in Ohio, but Western Pennsylvania. Albert Gallatin who was a surveyor in Western Virginia in 1784, declared in a paper published by the American Ethno- logical Society, that they were at that time abundant in the Kenhawa valley, and that he had for eight months lived
28
THE NEUTER NATION.
principally on their flesh. This is positive proof and the Kenhawa valley is only three hundred miles from here and only one hun- dred miles further west, and is as well wooded a country as this.
The narrative of the Gilbert family is very strong evidence that from the first the Senecas applied the name of Buffalo to the stream in question. Although the book was not published until after the war, yet the knowledge then given to the public was acquired in 1780, '81 and '82. At least six of the family were among the Senecas on Buffalo. creek. Some of them were captives for over two years, and must have acquired con- siderable knowledge of the language. It is utterly out of the question that they could all have been mistaken as to the name of the stream on which they lived, which must have been con- stantly referred to by all the Senecas in talking about their peo- ple domiciled there, as well as by the scores of British officers and soldiers with whom the Gilberts came in contact.
If then the Neuter Nation hunted buffalos across in Canada in 1640, if they were killed by the whites in Ohio and Penn- sylvania within the last century, if Albert Gallatin found them abundant on the Kenhawa in 1784, if the old Senecas of 1820 declared they had found their bones at the salt licks, and if the Indians called the stream on which they settled in 1780, Buffalo creek, there can be no reasonable doubt that they knew what they were about, and did so because that name came down from former times when the monarch of the western prairie strayed over the plains of the county of Eric.
29
EARLY LAND GRANTS.
CHAPTER VII.
LAND TITLES.
King James' Grant-Grant of Charles [ .- Conflicting Claims-Phelps and Gorham's Purchase-Sale to Robert Morris.
James the First, King of Great Britain, in the year 1620, granted to the Plymouth company a tract of country called New England. This tract extended through several degrees of latitude north and south, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, east and west.
Charles the First, in 1663, granted to the Duke of York and Albany the province of New York, including the present State of New Jersey. The tract thus granted extended from a line twenty miles east of the Hudson river westward indefinitely.
By these grants, each of the colonies (afterward states) laid claim to the jurisdiction as well as to the pre-emption right of the same land, including a portion of the State of New York, and a tract farther west sufficiently large to form several states.
The State of New York, however, in 1781, and Massachu- setts in 1785, ceded to the United States all their rights, both of jurisdiction and of proprietorship, to all the territory lying west of the meridian line running south from the westerly end of Lake Ontario. This left about twenty thousand square miles of territory in dispute, but this controversy was finally settled by a convention of commissioners appointed by Massachusetts and New York, held at Hartford, Conn., on the 16th day of December, 1786.
According to the stipulation entered into by the convention Massachusetts ceded to the State of New York all her claim to the government, sovereignty and jurisdiction of all the terri- tory lying west of the present cast line of the State of New York, and New York ceded to Massachusetts the pre-emption right or fee of the land, subject to the title of the Indians, of all that part of the State of New York lying west of a line beginning at a point in the north line of Pennsylvania, eighty- two miles west of the northeast corner of said state, and
30
LAND PURCHASES.
running from there due north through Seneca lake to Lake Ontario; excepting and reserving to the State of New York a strip of land east of and adjoining the eastern bank of Niagara river, one mile wide, and extending its whole length (called the state mile strip). The land, the pre-emption right of which was thus ceded, amounted to about six millions of acres.
In April, 1788, Massachusetts contracted to sell to Nathaniel Gorham and Oliver Phelps, of said state (who were acting for themselves and their associates), their pre-emption right to all the lands in Western New York, amounting to about six million acres, for the sum of one million dollars, to be paid in three annual installments, for which a kind of scrip Massa- chusetts had issued, called consolidated securities, was to be received, which was then in the market much below par.
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