Landmarks of Oswego County, New York, Part 3

Author: Churchill, John Charles, 1821-1905; Smith, H. P. (Henry Perry), 1839-1925; Child, W. Stanley
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1410

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LANDMARKS OF OSWEGO COUNTY.

Other sections of this act were designed to aid grantees in establish- ing title and to otherwise aid in carrying out the design.

When the war closed in 1783, the New York Legislature undertook to discharge this obligation, and also granted further gratuities in lands on its own account. This was accomplished by a resolution granting lands in addition to the before-mentioned bounties, in the following pro- portions : To a major-general, 5,500 acres ; to a brigadier-general, 4,250 acres ; to a colonel, 2,500 acres; to a lieutenant- colonel, 2,250 acres ; to a major, 2,000 acres ; to a captain and a regimental surgeon, each, 1,200 acres ; to each chaplain, 2,000 acres; to every subaltern and sur- geon's mate, 1,000 acres; to every non-commissioned officer and private, 500 acres.

Another resolution contained the following provisions :

That the lands so to be granted as bounty from the United States, and as gratuity from the State, shall be laid out in townships of six miles square; and each township shall be divided into 156 lots of 150 acres each, two lots whereof shall be reserved for the use of a minister of the gospel, and two lots for the use of a school or schools; that each person above described shall be entitled to as many such lots as his bounty and gratuity will admit of; that one-half the lots each person shall be entitled to shall be improved at the rate of five acres for each one hundred acres, within five years after the grant, if the grantee shall retain the possession of such lots ; and that the said bounty and gratuity lands be located in the district of this State reserved for the use of the troops by an Act entitled, " An Act to prevent grants or locations of the lands therein mentioned, passed the 25th day of July, 1782."

On the IIth of May, 1784, an act was passed by the Legislature ap- pointing commissioners to have charge of the granting of the bounty lands. The commission consisted of the governor, lieutenant-governor, speaker of the Assembly, secretary of state, attorney-general, treasurer and auditor. This act, after sections referring to boundaries of tracts already entered, gives the boundaries of certain State reservations, two of which are important to this history, since they are the origin of the State reservations of one square mile on either side of the mouth of the river, now in Oswego city. It reads as follows :

Two certain tracts of land adjoining Lake Ontario where the Onondaga river falls into said lake, running from the mouth of the said river and on both sides thereof as the same runs one mile, then extending northerly and southerly one mile with a line perpendicular to the general course of the river within the said mile, thence westerly with the said general course to Lake Ontario, thence northerly and southerly to the place of beginning,

THE MILITARY TRACT.

When this act was passed the shore of Lake Ontario at Oswego was understood to run north and south; and the river (then commonly known as Onondaga River) to enter the lake running nearly due west.

The original acts granting these lands were afterwards modified and amended until finally it was ordered by an act passed February 28, 1789 (12th Sess., Chap. 44.)

That the Commissioners of the Land Office shall be, and they are hereby authorized to direct the Surveyor-General to lay out as many townships in tracts of land set apart for such purpose, as will contain land sufficient to satisfy the claims of all such persons who are or shall be entitled to grants of land by certain concurrent resolutions, . . which townships shall respectively contain 60,000 acres of land, and be laid out as nearly in squares as local circumstances will permit, and be numbered from one pro- gressively to the last inclusive ; and the Commissioners of the Land Office shall likewise designate every township by such names as they shall deem proper.

The same act ordered the surveyor-general to make a map of these townships, dividing each into one hundred lots of 600 acres each, and number them from one upwards. The same act ordered :

All persons to whom land shall be granted by virtue of this act, and who are entitled thereto by any act or resolution of Congress, shall make an assignment of his, or her, proportion of claim of bounty and gratutiy lands under any act or acts of Congress, to the Surveyor-General, for the use of the people of this State.

It was also provided that for all lands thus assigned, an equal number of acres should be given by the State, and so far as possible in one patent, " provided the same does not exceed one quarter of the quan- tity of a township."

The last described grants were to be settled within seven years, or the lands would revert to the State. A tax was laid by legislative act of April 6, 1790, upon fifty acres in one corner of each 600 acre lot, of 48 shillings as compensation for the survey, which tax was to be paid in two years, or the fifty acres would revert to the State and be sold at public auction. The proceeds of the sale were to be devoted to the payment of the expenses of the survey and sale, and any surplus was to be expended "in laying out and making roads in the said tract." These parcels of fifty acres in the corner of each lot have ever since been known in the Military Tract as the "Survey Fifty," or "Survey Fifty Acres."

In carrying out his instructions the surveyor-general surveyed the tract under consideration, the outlines of which are shown on the map

LANDMARKS OF OSWEGO COUNTY.

herewith presented. It is interesting to note the description of the boundaries that accompany this old map in the Documentary History of New York, vol. II, p. 1186: " It is bounded west by the counties of Ontario, and Steuben in the Genesee country; on the north by Lake Ontario about ten miles to Fort Oswego ; thence on the east by Oswego River; thence on the north by Onondaga River and part of Oneida Lake; on the east by Oneida and Chenango counties ; and on the South by Tioga county ; and is in length sixty miles and fifty-five miles in breadth."

The boundary taken from Macauley's History of New York (1829), reads as follows :

These lands are bounded on the east by the country of the Oneidas; north by Lake Ontario; on the west by a line drawn from the mouth of Great Sodus Bay through the most westerly inclination of the Seneca Lake; and on the south by a line drawn through the most southerly inclination of the Seneca Lake, to the country of the Oneidas, 1,800,000 acres. It comprises, generally speaking, the counties of Onondaga, Cortland, Cayuga, Tompkins and Seneca, and the east half, or nearly so, of the county of Wayne, and that part of Oswego county west of Oswego River.

The boundary as laid down in the law we have already quoted.

By an act of February 28, 1789, six lots in each township were re- served, "one for promoting the gospel and a public school or schools, one other for promoting literature in this State, and the remaining four lots to satisfy the surplus share of commissioned officers not corre- sponding with the division of 600 acres, and to compensate such per- sons as may by chance draw lot or lots the greater part of which may be covered with water."

It was provided also " that whenever it appeared that persons apply- ing for bounty or gratuity lands, had received from Congress the bounty promised by that body, or in case they failed to relinquish their claim to such land, then the commissioners were to reserve for the use of the people of the State, 100 acres in each lot to which such persons were entitled ; designating particularly in which part of said lot such reserved part was situated." This action gave rise to the "State's Hundred," so frequently heard in connection with the Military Tract.

At a meeting of the Land Commissioners held at the secretary's office in New York city on Saturday, July 3, 1790, there were present : "His Excellency, George Clinton, esq., Governor; Lewis A. Scott, esq.,

THE MILITARY TRACT.

W-

-F

REFERENCES,

- Genesee River.

-Canawisque River.

F - Alleghany River.

G-Canowongo River.

L-Cattaraugus Creek.

M-Lake Ontario.

-Lake Erie.

O-Streights of Niagara.

P-Seneca Lake.

Q-Crooked Lake.

-Canandarqua Lake,

S-Chataughqua Lake.

T-Seneca River.

U-Oswego River.

-Onondaga River.

W -Cayuga Lake.

X-Owasco Lake.

Y-Skaneatlis Lake.

-Salt Lake.

AA-Oneida Lake.

BB-Wood Creek.

CC-Mohawk River.

-Susquehanna River.

I-Genesee County.

2-Ontario County.

3-Steuben County.

- Military Tract.

B - Tioga River.

C-Conhocton River.

D-Canisteo River.

H-Mud Creek.

-Tonawanda Creek.

K-Buffalo Creek.

Secretary ; Gerard Bancker, csq., Treasurer ; Peter T. Curtenius, esq , Auditor."

The secretary laid before the board maps of twenty-five townships made by the surveyor-general, Simeon De Witt. These townships were as follows, and numbered from one upward in the order given : Lysan- der, Hannibal, Cato, Brutus, Camillus, Cicero, Manlius, Aurelius, Mar- cellus, Pompey, Romulus, Scipio, Sempronius, Tully, Fabius, Ovid,

LANDMARKS OF OSWEGO COUNTY.

Milton, Locke, Homer, Solon, Hector, Ulysses, Dryden, Virgil, and Cincinnatus. To these were afterward added the town of Junius (Seneca county), to compensate those who drew lots subsequently found to belong to the " Boston Ten Towns."

On January 1, 1791, the commissioners began to determine claims and ballot for individual shares in this great tract. Ninety- four persons drew lots in each of the townships, and the reservations before alluded to were made. The adjustment of these individual claims was a source of almost infinite perplexty to the commissioners, as well as to the real owners. On account of the many frauds committed respecting the land titles, acts were passed in 1794,1 requiring all deeds and conveyances executed prior to that time, to be deposited with the county clerk of Albany county, and such as were not so deposited were to be consid- ered fraudulent. But the trouble did not end here, and the courts over- flowed with business relating to these claims. Soldiers coming in to take possession of their lots often found them occupied by pugnacious squatters, and discouraging and costly litigation followed. Finally the inhabitants of the tract became so wearied and exasperated with the continued contentions that, in 1797, they united in a petition to the Legislature for a law under which the whole matter could be equitably adjusted. An act was accordingly passed in that year, appointing Robert Yates, James Kent and Vincent Matthews, a board of commis- · sioners, with power to settle all disputes respecting the land titles. After laborious investigation, the vexatious differences were adjusted with reasonable satisfaction to all concerned.

Only a comparatively limited number of the grantees ever settled on their lands in the Military Tract, and the lots became a rich mine for active and often unscrupulous speculators.

From these three large tracts of land, thus briefly described, have been derived all the later divisions and titles.

1 Laws 17th Sess., Chap. 1, passed Jany: 8, 1794. Laws 17th Sess., Chap. 44, passed March 27, 1794.

THE IROQUOIS.

CHAPTER II.

Original Occupants of New York State-The Nations of the Iroquois-The Iroquois Confederacy-Indian Characteristics and Habits -- Their Hospitality -- Relation of the Iroquois to the Territory of Oswego County.

The first white man who penetrated the wilderness that once covered what is now the State of New York, found it inhabited and dominated by nations of that remarkable race of copper- colored people which we call Indians-in reality the native Americans. The question whence they originated is shrouded in mystery, and so it must remain. Un- numbered ages hence their disappearance from the earth may be envel- oped in the deep oblivion that now hides their origin.

The detailed history of this race cannot be followed in this volume, nor is it desirable that it should be; for it is written on the glowing records of the past by many gifted pens. As to the right or wrong of their conquest and their possible ultimate extinction by the white man, wise men differ. At the foundation of the question is the fact that in the world's history, civilization advances at whatever cost to the uncivil- ized ; the ignorant go down before the educated; the weak before the strong ; might, if not always right, triumphs.

The Iroquois Indians, as they were called by the French, and known as the Five Nations (and subsequently as the Six Nations) by the En- glish, were established across the State of New York, beginning with the Mohawks on the east, and with the Oneidas (with whom the Tusca- roras were subsequently practically amalgamated), the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas next, in the order here given.

As before intimated, nothing is known of their history previous to the settlement of the country by white men. According to their traditions, they once occupied a region north of the St. Lawrence River, where they were weak in numbers and subject to the Algonquins and other tribes, who occupied the country still further north and west. Having been vanquished in a war with their enemies, they fled from that country

LANDMARKS OF OSWEGO COUNTY

and came by the way of the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario to the Oswego River through which they entered what is now Central New York. As nearly as can be learned from their traditions, they lived together for a period near Seneca River. As they increased in numbers they sought new territory. A portion went to the Mohawk valley and became the Mohawk nation. They were termed, " Ga-ne-a go e- no," or "People who possessed the flint." Another portion migrated to the east and lived for a period, but later divided into two bands, one of which occupied the region at the easterly extremity of Oneida Lake, and the other settled in the Onondaga valley. The former were known as the " O. na yote-ka-o-no," or " Granite people " (Onei - das). The latter as "O-nun-da ga-o-no," or " People of the Hills" (Onondagas). The remainder separated ; a portion settled on the eastern bank of Cayuga Lake. They were termed " Gwe-ra gweh- o-no," or "People of the Mucky Land " (Cayugas). The other portion spread westward to the Genesee River and made their central village at the head of Canandaigua Lake. They were called " Nun - da-wa-o- no" (Senecas), or " Great Hill people." This appears to be the substance of their traditions regarding their migrations to the territory occupied by them when discovered by white men.

There were other traditionary legends among them of a fanciful or poetic character. The recollection of their common origin and a wise prevision of what would conduce to their common welfare, led to the establishment among them of the Confederation, or League, which in- sured harmony and prosperity to all, and rendered them a dominant power and a terror to surrounding nations, and in later times challenged the admiration of civilized statesmen. When this Confederacy was es- tablished is not known; but it has been surmised that it was early in the sixteenth century, while some students fix the date at 1635. It was probably long anterior to that date. The league was not simply an offensive and defensive alliance of the nations, liable to dissolution. It resembled in many respects the union of the United States When the Confederacy was organized fifty offices were created and names given to each. They were distributed among the nations unequally; the Mohawks had nine; the Oneidas nine; the Onondagas fourteen ; the Cayugas ten, and Senecas eight. Although these offices were heredi-

THE IROQUOIS.

tary, no one could become a ruler or sachem until he was raised to that dignity by a council of the sachems of the Confederacy, and when so raised, he dropped his own name and assumed that of the sachemship. To some of these sachemships was attached greater dignity than to others ; yet this was purely honorary, and each sachem had an equal voice in the affairs of the, Confederacy. The sachems, who, when in council, constituted the legislative body of the league, were also the the rulers in their respective nations.

Each nation of the Confederacy was wholly independent of every other in all matters of purely local character, and each sachem was the peer of every other in council, except so far as ability made one the superior of his fellows. Such was the law of descent among the Iroquois that a sachemship could never pass from the tribe and family to which it was originally assigned.

An inferior class of officers came into existence during the later years of the Confederacy, and after intercourse with white men began. These were elective and their number not limited. At first their functions .were circumscribed and local ; but their influence was gradually in- creased until in some respects they became equal to the sachems. The powers of both were of a purely civil character.

Chiefs and sachems, as such, had no military chieftainship, or leader- ship in war, though many of their war commanders were elected chiefs, as a reward for valor. A sachem, or a chief, went on the war path as a common warrior. Their war methods were peculiar and difficult of comprehension and description. They had two military chieftaincies, the function of which was to supervise and direct warlike affairs when two or more nations were engaged; but these chieftains were not, by virtue of their office, commanders in the field. Any individual might organize a war party and engage in hostilities against any nation with whom they were not positively in alliance. The two war chieftaincies, like the sachemship, were hereditary, and were assigned to the Seneca nation.

In their war operations the policy of the Iroquois seems always to have been, not the extermination of their foes, but their subjugation and adoption. It is said that the Kaquas and the Eries were offered the alternative of extinction or adoption. The result of this policy was

LANDMARKS OF OSWEGO COUNTY.

the continued extension of their power and influence, until about the year 1700, when they dominated a large part of the territory of the United States.

Besides the national divisions of the Iroquois, a tribal division ex- isted, each nation being divided into eight tribes, named Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Turtle, Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk. This division into tribes and the relation of members of the various tribes to each other, regu- lated many of the institutions of the Confederacy.

All property rights and titles descended in the female line, instead of the male. The son of a sachem, therefore, could neither succeed his father as a sachem, nor inherit from him his medal or his tomahawk. Their principal sources of enjoyment were the chase, the war path, and the council fire. Very little sacredness attached to the marriage rela- tion, and unchastity among the females was more the rule than the ex- ception.1 Their religious ideas were not clearly defined, though they worshiped a Great Spirit and believed in immortality. Efforts to Christ- ianize them by the Jesuits and by later missionaries have not succeeded to any great degree.2

The Onondagas were the great central nation, and there in Onondaga valley, where a pathetic remnant of the once lordly Confederacy still dwells, the council fire was ever kept bright. At the beginning of the Revolutionary war the council could not agree to make war against the States, and each nation was left free to act upon its own responsibility.

The foregoing necessarily very brief review of this subject must suf-

1 Among the Iroquois and kindred nations " experimental marriages " were common, but were usually of short duration. Parkman, in his comprehensive work on the Jesuits, says : " The seal of the compact was merely the acceptance of a gift of wampum, made by the suitor to the object of his desire or his whim. These gifts were never returned on the dissolution of the connection ; and as an attractive and enterprising damsel might, and often did, make twenty such marriages before her final establishment, she thus collected a wealth of wampum with which to adorn her- self for the village dances. This provisional matrimony was no bar to a license, boundless, and, apparantly, universal, unattended with loss of reputation on either side." Van der Donck assigns as a reason for frequent separation the excessive unchastity and lasciviousness of both men and women.

2 The clergy at Manhattan succeeded in teaching one young savage the prayers so that he could repeat the responses in church, and also to read and write well. He was then furnished with a Bible and was sent to evangelize the heathen ; but he pawned the book for brandy, became a thor- ough beast, and did more harm than good .- [O'Callaghan's New Netherland, vol. II, p. 319.

Rev. Samuel Kirkland's testimony was similar in character to the foregoing.

Rev. Thoroughgood Moor arrived in New York in 1704, and proceeded thence to Albany as missionary to the Mohawks. "Owing to the influence of the fur-traders, his efforts to convert the heathen were entirely without fruit, and he returned to New York,"-[Doc. Hist. vol. III, p. 115,

THE IROQUOIS

fice for these pages ; for further details of the Iroquois and their deeds, the reader is referred to the writings of Parkman, Loskiel, Colden, Greenhalgh, Heckwelder, Schoolcraft, and others, which are to be found in many libraries.

While in a general way the State of New York and the general gov- ernment have been magnanimous in dealing with the now fallen nations, who once roamed as conquerors over this broad land, there is still much to be regretted in the details of their treatment. Even to this day our Indian affairs in the Far West seem to be conducted more for the bene- fit and gratification of a few heartless agents, than to mete out justice to the natives. Ever hospitable and kind to the white pioneer,1 freely sharing his home and the best he could procure for his entertainment, it seems at this distance and to the sympathetic mind, a hard condition that made it necessary to war upon the Indian and drive him from his country. He could do no less than fight for his home with such weapons and temperament as his Creator had given him.

Pages have been written picturing the horrors that awaited the immi- grants from the Old World ; tales have been told of the atrocity with which the families of the early settlers were slaughtered and their homes burned according to the barbaric code; and these stories have been handed down to posterity until, may be, we have become accustomed to look upon them as the only truthful history of the red men in connection with the settlements in Central New York, and to accept without reservation the dictum that the Indian was not only a savage from first to last, under all circumstances, but from the outset an implacable, remorseless, and blood thirsty enemy to the white pion- eers. This is, we believe, in its broad sense not true. The thought- ful student of the circumstances of the Indians when first visited by the pioneers of civilization, must reach the conclusion that at that time, and afterward until they had been provoked into belligerency, they were essentially friendly to their unknown visitors. This may be amply confirmed. Had they been otherwise-had they fallen upon the first immigrants, as they did on many later occasions-it would have

1 Colden writes: "The hospitality of these Indians (the Five Nations) is no less remarkable than their other virtues ; as soon as any stranger comes they are sure to offer him victuals. If there be several in company, and come from afar, one of their best houses is cleaned and given up for their entertainment."

LANDMARKS OF OSWEGO COUNTY.

required a great civilized army to effect a foothold on these shores, in- stead of its being done by mere handfuls of helpless men and women. When a country has been long possessed even by civilized white people, and usurpers seek to wrest it from them, it is a custom held almost sacred for the possessors to fight to their last drop of blood for their hearthstones. Should we expect less from savages? The white man came to the Indian with professions of friendship on his tongue, but too often with a gun in one hand and a rum bottle in the other. The Indian proved an apt pupil and took kindly to both. The result might have been foreseen.

A paragraph must briefly explain the relation, as far as it is known, of the Iroquois Indians to the territory of Oswego county. While it is clear that this particular region constituted an important part of their hunting grounds, and that its noble river, as well as its many smaller streams, often bore upon their currents fleets of Indian canoes, it cannot be authoritatively stated that it was looked upon as the exclusive domain of either nation Morgan, in his "League of the Iroquois," claims that no less than three of the Iroquois tribes were owners of the territory now forming Oswego county, and that their boundaries were clearly defined. "The line between the Cayugas and the Onon- dagas began on the shore of Lake Ontario, a little west of the mouth of the Oswego, and ran nearly due south to the Susquehanna, leaving part of the present towns of Oswego and Hannibal in the territory of the Cayugas." The line between the Onondagas and the Oneidas, accord- ing to the same authority, ran north and south through " Deep Spring," in the present town of Manlius, Onondaga county ; north of that point it bore westward so as to include the whole circuit of Oneida Lake in the Oneida's territory, then returning eastward to the longitude of Deep Spring, in the present town of Constantia, and thence running north through Watertown to the St. Lawrence, giving to the Oneidas in Oswego county the present town of Redfield, and the eastern part of the towns of Boylston, Orwell, Williamstown, Amboy, and Constantia. The remainder of the county was, of course, assigned to the Onondagas. In all of their journeys northward to reach the great lake, the Onondagas, proudest of the Five Nations, and the Oneidas and the Cayugas, pad- dled their canoes down the streams forming the Oswego River, and in

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Landmarks of Oswego County, New York, Part 3

Author: Churchill, John Charles, 1821-1905; Smith, H. P. (Henry Perry), 1839-1925; Child, W. Stanley Publication date: 1895 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason Number of Pages: 1410

Author: Churchill, John Charles, 1821-1905; Smith, H. P. (Henry Perry), 1839-1925; Child, W. Stanley
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1410