USA > New York > The old New York frontier : its wars with Indians and Tories, its missionary schools, pioneers, and land titles, 1614-1800 > Part 7
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PENN AND SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON
him the lake of Richfield derived the name which for many years it bore.
Most interesting of all these early grants is the one made to William Johnson in 1751. Desiring to secure possession of the Susquehanna lands ex- tending from the mouth of the Charlotte to the Pennsylvania line, he, like others, found it necessary first to purchase them from the Indians. In May, 1751, he petitioned for the lands after having cor- respondence with Gouldsborough Banyar, as to the form of petition. He applied for a tract extending one mile back from the river on each side and esti- mated to embrace 100,000 acres.
In the same year a warrant was issued to Johnson and others-the petition had come from "William Johnson and Co."-to lay out these lands as far as the Pennsylvania line, a line which then had not been definitely fixed, and this gave rise to anxiety in Pennsylvania. In this year was held the Albany council at which Jonathan Edwards learned of the desire of the English to send missionaries into the valley. Johnson's interest in these lands and Haw- ley's coming to Oghwaga have close connection. That Johnson purchased the lands from the Ind- ians is shown in a letter he addressed to "the King's most excellent Majesty in Council," in 1766, saying the Six Nations had given him " by deed a tract of land on the Susquehanna river within the said Province," for which he "had paid them a large sum of money."
Johnson was the earliest white man who by pur- chase acquired title to lands in the upper valley west of the Charlotte. He had first risen to office in 1745, when he was made a Justice of the Peace. Four years later he was appointed Sole Superintend-
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ent of Indian Affairs, and prepared at once to concil- iate the red men Along with wampum belts he sent them a request to attend the council of 1751. Clad in their own dress, he partook of their pastimes, put on their paint and feathers, and was adopted by the Mohawks as a chief. All previous councils were far outdone, and Johnson's success perhaps marked a turning-point in the conflict with France. The council met on the same hill where now rises the imposing edifice reared by the Empire State for its Capitol, and here, under Johnson's influence, was held that other and greater council, the Congress of 1754.
In his time Johnson became owner of a vast estate, acquired by methods of which modern notions of right and wrong perhaps would not wholly approve, but which in the eighteenth century were com- mon to men in office in America. Dr. Timothy Dwight says this wealth was due to "a succession of ingenious and industrious devices," and a story il- lustrative of them has been so widely printed as to be generally believed :
Old King Hendrick of the Mohawks was at his house at the time Sir William received two or three rich suits of military clothes. The old King, a short time afterward, came to Sir William and said: "I dream." "Well, what did you dream?" " I dream you gave me one suit of clothes." " Well, I suppose you must have it," and ac- cordingly he gave him one. Some time after, Sir William met Hendrick and said : "I dreamed last night." "Did you ? what did you dream ?" " I dreamed you gave me a tract of land," describing it. After a pause Hen- drick said : " I suppose you must have it," and then rais- ing his finger significantly, added, "You must not dream again."
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PENN AND SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON
Besides Dwight, others have accepted this story, among them Campbell (who credits it to Dwight), Schoolcraft, and Simms, who gave Henry F. Yates as his authority. Stone, in very positive terms, pro- nounced the story untrue, and his statement in- spires confidence. Johnson has not been the only victim of the anecdote. In language almost identi- cal it may be found in a biography of the younger Conrad Weiser, where Weiser takes Johnson's place as the hero. Weiser's biographer is as positive as Johnson's in his denial of its truth.
A tradition exists in the Susquehanna Valley that the land referred to in the story was not in the Mo- hawk Valley, but in the Susquehanna, at the mouth of Otego Creek, and it is well known that some of the early deeds now on record at Cooperstown use the words " being a parcel of Sir William John- son's dreamland tract." Johnson's own statement that he had paid "a large sum of money " for his Susquehanna tract, the warrant issued to him in 1751 and Stone's positive denial must, however, be remembered. As for the early Otsego deeds, they could have done little more than continue a tradition which, at the time the earliest deeds at Cooperstown were drawn, was forty years old. King Hendrick, moreover, was of the Mohawks and that nation is not known to have claimed any lands as far west as Otego Creek. Some importance must also be given to a letter written by Johnson to the Lords of Trade in 1764, in which he says :
The friendship which several of the Indian nations professed for me induced them at different periods many years ago to give me deeds of several large tracts, signed in public meetings of the whole, for which as they always ex-
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pect a return I at times paid them large sums, more than they received from many strangers, and might have pro- cured patents for such tracts and settled or disposed of them to great advantage a long time since, but for my un- willingness to be engaged in lands from the nature of my employment.
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II
The Fort Stanwix Deed, and Patents that Followed It
1768-1770
L AST of the great acts of Sir William John- son's life was the negotiation of the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768. By the terms of this treaty a vast territory south and east of the Ohio, Susquehanna, and Unadilla rivers was first opened to settlement. After Pontiac's War, discontent had arisen among the Indians from many causes. For one thing, they disliked the white man's inordinate " thirst for land," and a council was called, not only to renew the ancient covenant chain between the Indians and the English, but to establish a scientific frontier.
In preparation for this council some twenty large batteaux laden with presents best suited to propitiate the Indians had been conveyed to Fort Stanwix .* From his agent at Albany Sir William ordered sixty barrels of flour, fifty barrels of pork, six bar- rels of rice, and seventy barrels of other provisions. When the Congress opened, 3,200 Indians were present, " each of whom," wrote Johnson, " con- sumes daily more than two ordinary men amongst
*The site of Fort Stanwix is now Rome, Oneida County. D. E. Wager says it was "the largest and strongest fort ever erected in the Province of New York, except Crown Point and Ticonderoga."
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us, and would be extremely dissatisfied if stinted when convened for business." After Sir William had told them the King was resolved to terminate the grievances from which they suffered for want of a boundary, and that the King had ordered presents proportionate to the nature and extent of the inter- ests involved, the Indians retired, and for several days were in private council.
The full report of these proceedings shows the sagacity and firmness with which Sir William carried his points. When, finally, the deed was executed, it conveyed to the English a vast territory out of which States have since been made. On that deed rests the title by purchase from the Indians, not only to large parts of New York but of Kentucky, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The deed bears date of November 5, 1768. Among those who wit- nessed its execution were Benjamin Franklin and William Franklin, his natural son, at that time Gov- ernor of New Jersey. It transferred the land with " all the hereditaments and appurtenances to the same belonging, or appurtaining, in the fullest and most ample manner," and all right, title, or interest, "either in law or equity of each and every one of us " unto " our said Sovereign Lord King George III., his heirs and successors to and for his and their own proper use and behoof forever."
The actual sum paid in money for this imperial territory was about $50,600. The money came to the Indians at a time when they needed it. The corn-crop for that year in great measure had failed. Richard Smith, who was at Oghwaga in the follow- ing summer, says " they lived through the winter and spring on the money received at the treaty from the sale of their lands." He reported them as
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THE FORT STANWIX DEED
" continually passing up to the settlements to buy provisions and sometimes showed us money in their bosoms."
From a point on the Allegany River several miles above Pittsburg, this historic line of property ran in a northeasterly direction to the head of Towanda Creek, proceeding down that stream to the Susque- hanna. Thence it went northward along the river to Tioga Point, eastward to Owego,* and from this place crossed the country to the Delaware, reaching it at a point a few miles below Hancock. From here it went up the Delaware to a point "opposite to where Tianaderha falls into the Susquehanna," which point is now Deposit. Thence the line went directly across the hills to the Unadilla, and up that stream " to the west branch, to the head there- of." The Indians declared that the deed had been executed " to prevent those intrusions and encroach- ments of which we have so long and loudly com- plained and to put a stop to many fraudulent ad- vantages which have been so often taken of us in land affairs." The Indians made certain reserva- tions that " lands occupied by the Mohawks around their villages, as well as by any other nation affected by this our cession, may effectually remain to them and their posterity." Out of this grew prolonged trouble. It had very marked influence in pro- ducing the discontent from which were precipitated the Border Wars of the Revolution.
In the year following the treaty, a Government surveyor was sent into the country to run the line of division. His name was Simon Metcalf. He began at Deposit, and proceeded north to the Sus-
* Ahwaga in the Onondaga dialect, and meaning where the valley widens. Written also Owegy.
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quehanna. During the negotiations a committee of four Indians, named Tyarwruanto, Ganaquieson, Tyeransen, and Tagawarn had advised Johnson that the line should run from Oriskany " to the Tiana- derha," and down that stream to the Susquehanna ; thence "in a straight line to the hills and so to the Delaware branch and down the same to Owegy." That line from the mouth of the Unadilla to Deposit (then called Cookose) remains to this day the west- ern boundary of Delaware County.
Sir William, among other difficulties in negotiating this treaty, encountered opposition from mission- aries. He says they " did all in their power to pre- vent the Oneidas (whose property part of the Sus- quehanna is) from agreeing to any line that might be deemed reasonable." They had publicly de- clared to several gentlemen that they " had taken infinite pains with the Indians to obstruct the line and would continue so to do." He added that the New Englanders " had had missionaries for some time amongst the Oneidas and Oghwagas and I was not ignorant that their old pretension to the Susquehanna lands was their real, though religion was their assumed, object."
Johnson's correspondence with the British Minis- ter, Lord Hillsborough, discloses some of the pecul- iar circumstances in which Johnson negotiated this treaty. The King, George III., was indisposed to pay so large a sum as $50,000. He thought the demands of the savages " very unreasonable," and was unwilling that the mother country should have "any part or expence of a measure calculated for the local interests of particular colonies." Johnson, however, had been obliged to proceed on his own responsibility before the letter, containing the King's
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1
LOOKING UP THE UNADILLA AT ITS CONFLUENCE WITH THE SUSQUEHANNA ( Being part of the Fort Stanwix Treaty Line of 1768. )
THE FORT STANWIX DEED
views, arrived. He wrote to the Minister that the sum paid " was the most moderate that could have been offered for so valuable and extensive a cession." He afterward proposed a method by which the Crown could be reimbursed for its outlay. It was that all grants of land be subject to a tax of $50 for each thousand acres. A million acres thus would yield the sum of $ 50,000.
The original purpose of the Crown had been to continue the line " northward from Owego." After the treaty, Johnson explained that he had found it "extremely difficult to get the line so far to the westward from its vicinity to their own towns, and indeed the whole of the line as it approached them cost me more pains and trouble than can be con- ceived." In this statement we see reasons for the peculiar course of the line as it ran from Owego to the Delaware, and thence to the Unadilla River, instead of going "northward from Owego." Johnson's course finally received the royal sanction, on De- cember 9, 1769, when Hillsborough wrote that it was the King's pleasure "that you should declare the royal ratification of the treaty of Fort Stanwix in such manner as has been usual on the like occasions."
No sooner had this treaty been negotiated than the business of getting patents began to thrive. In 1769 was issued the John Butler patent, lying north of the Butternut Creek and reaching westward to the Unadilla River. John Butler was a deputy un- der Johnson, and afterward became notorious as the Tory Colonel who followed Guy Johnson to Canada, and then returned with his son Walter to write his history in the blood of many innocent persons. In the same year George Croghan got his patent running west from Otsego Lake. These
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lands were given to Croghan through an understand- ing with the Indians, who desired thus to compen- sate him for lands he had purchased of them in Pennsylvania, and which, by the terms of the treaty, he would now lose. Croghan got 100,000 acres in October, 1768, the patent being issued in the fol- lowing year. He also received 18,000 acres near Cherry Valley, which eventually passed to his daugh- ter, the wife of Augustine Prevost. Other lands Croghan sold to Joseph Wharton.
Croghan took steps to settle the tract on the lake. In the course of his enterprise he mortgaged the lands, and eventually lost them through fore- closure. William Cooper, in the interest of the mortgagees, after the Revolution, went to the lake to view the lands, and soon became a settler and the founder of Cooperstown. There in the wilderness his son, the future novelist, grew up from infancy and gained that knowledge of frontier life and Indian character of which he has given the truest and most lasting pictures in our literature. Had Croghan succeeded in his enterprise the world prob- ably never would have heard of "Leather Stocking."
From the same year dates the Morris patent, a part of which lies in the town of Unadilla. It was granted to Staats Long Morris, General Jacob Mor- ris's uncle, and a brother of Lewis Morris, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Staats Long Morris was then an officer in the British army, and had served in India against the French at the siege of Pondicherry. Before settling this patent he had married the Dowager Duchess of Gordon. In 1797 he became Governor of Quebec.
In 1770 were issued the patents on the Unadilla River known as Peter Middleton's and Clotworthy
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THE FORT STANWIX DEED
Upton's, the Otego patent issued to Charles Reade, Thomas Wharton, and others, the one in the Char- lotte Valley issued to Johnson, and the numerous patents on the south side of the Susquehanna issued to Augustine Prevost, John Harper, William Wal- ton, Laurence Kortright, and others. In issuing the Otego patent, the Crown reserved "all white or other sorts of pine trees fit for masts of the growth of twenty four inches' diameter and upwards at ten inches from the earth for masts, for the royal navy of us, our heirs and successors." It was re- quired that one family should settle on each 1,000 acres within three years, and cultivate three acres for every fifty acres capable of cultivation. Should the trees fit for masts be cut without license, the titles were to be forfeited. In this patent were 69,000 acres.
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III
The Patent Called Wallace's
1770
B Y the terms of the Fort Stanwix deed, that portion of Sir William Johnson's Susque- hanna domain which lay west of the mouth of the Unadilla had passed again into the hands of the Indians. To the remainder, being lands between the mouth of the Unadilla and the mouth of the Charlotte, a new patent in 1770 was granted to Alexander Wallace and many associates. An ac- count of this patent may be given in detail to illus- trate the circumstances in which so many patents on this frontier were in that period obtained.
In the year of the Fort Stanwix deed two well- known merchants of New York were Hugh Wallace and a younger brother Alexander, both natives of Ireland. Hugh had been in the country as early as 1753, but Alexander came several years later. Each had married a daughter of Cornelius Low, and thus was connected with some of the most dis- tinguished families in the New York colony. The name of Low ranked among the best names in the aristocracy of that seaport town whose population was then under 20,000. For several years the brothers were prominently engaged in the Irish trade, their ships making voyages to Cork and Dublin. Hugh was the second president of the Chamber of Commerce. In 1769, the year following the deed, Hugh was chosen a member of the Provin- cial Council and continued to hold the office until
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THE PATENT CALLED WALLACE'S
1776. It was an office of distinction, but no salary, and one of the chief advantages derived from holding it was that it enabled the holder to secure for him- self, his family, and his friends, large grants of land.
The Wallace patent comprised 28,000 acres, and in order to comply with the regulation limiting hold- ings, it was issued to twenty-eight persons, each to hold a twenty-eighth part .* Many of these men were prominent citizens of New York in the eigh- teenth century. Some were merchants like the Wal- laces themselves ; others were journalists, and others physicians. A sketch of the lives of several of them will show how they were intimately acquainted, if not associated, with a merchant and councillor like Hugh Wallace and a prominent official like Goulds- borough Banyar.
Mr. Low had grown up in the office of Hay- man Levy, an eminent trader, who taught John Jacob Astor the fur business, and before that had started Mr. Low in business by selling him a hogs- head of rum with which to trade with Indians. Mr. Low, in his time, became a great local magnate, and the firm of Low & Wallace, of 216 Water Street, was widely known. Mr. Low became owner of extensive lands in Jefferson and Lewis counties, including the sites of Adams and Watertown, and after him was named Lowville. He was a mem- ber of the convention which adopted the Constitu- tion of the United States.
* These persons were Alexander Wallace, John Kennedy, John Shaw, John Hamilton, Hamilton Young, Robert Ross Waddell, Robert Alexander, Smith Ramadge, Anthony Van Dam, Theodore Marston, David Mathews, Charles Ramadge, John Miller, William Park, John Moore, James Stewart, Nicholas Low, Francis Stephens, John Fair- holme, William Stepple, William Newton, Hugh Gaine, John Rice, James Leadbetter, Charles Morse, Peter Middleton, James Rivington, and Robert McAlpin.
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Mr. Waddell also was a merchant, the junior partner in the large house of George Cunningham & Co., and its New York manager. Their business was Irish. After the war Mr. Waddell went into business on his own account. He was one of the founders of the St. Patrick Society and its secretary for nineteen years. He died in 1818. John Shaw was another New York merchant, and did business in Water Street.
Two of the patentees, Rivington and Gaine, were journalists. Rivington was born in London in 1724, came to New York in 1761, and died there in 1802. His place of business was in Wall Street. He began the publication of the New York Gazet- teer newspaper, and was such an ardent Tory in the Revolution that seventy-five horsemen, led by Cap- tain Isaac Sears, went down from Connecticut, entered his office, destroyed his press, and made bullets of his type. Later on he turned Whig, and in 1781 acted as a spy for Washington. Ashbel Green described him as " the greatest sycophant imaginable ; very lit- tle under the influences of any principle but self interest, yet of the most courteous manners to all with whom he had intercourse."
Gaine was a native of Ireland and published a New York paper called the Mercury. He was at first a Whig and afterward became a Royalist. On petition he was allowed to remain in New York after the war, and conducted thenceforth a book-store. He died possessed of a large estate.
Peter Middleton was one of the most eminent physicians of his time in this country, and a gradu- ate of the University of Edinburgh. He helped to make the first dissections ever undertaken in Amer- ica, was among the founders of a medical school
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THE PATENT CALLED WALLACE'S
afterward absorbed by Columbia College, and a vestryman of Trinity Church from 1792 until 1808. Another interesting name is that of David Mathews. He was Mayor of New York in 1776, and was ar- rested and imprisoned accused of participation in the plot to assassinate Washington.
A survey of the Wallace patent was made in 1770 by Alexander Colden. In the same year surveys were made all through this part of the State, includ- ing the Edmeston patent and the Peter Middleton and Upton patents, by Robert Picken. A second survey of the Wallace patent was made in 1774 by William Cockburn and John Wagram, and accord- ing to this many of the early sales to smaller pro- prietors were made even as late as the sale by Peter Betts of lands in Unadilla village to Stephen Benton in 1804. Not only were many surveys made in 1770, but many patents dated from that year. The white man was prompt enough to avail himself of his opportunities, and the royal Governor was quite ready to encourage the business because of the large fees. These fees and what we nowadays know as "influence " appear to have been about all that was then necessary to secure a vast and fertile do- main in the New York wilderness.
Hugh and Alexander Wallace were Tories of an uncompromising type, Hugh naturally from the office which he held. In August, 1776, they were apprehended by orders from Washington, because they had declined to take the oath of allegiance to Congress. Hugh was sent into Connecticut in care of Governor Trumbull, and Alexander to a place on the Hudson River. Alexander petitioned the Congress, saying his " private papers on the pre- servation of which the well being of his family prin-
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cipally depends, are buried in the earth on Long Island in a place unknown to any but your peti- tioner and now in prison in New York, and will soon perish unless redeemed from their present state." His wife and eight small children on Long Island were " utterly destitute of that necessary as- sistance which so numerous a family must unavoid- ably want." They were obliged to quit the house that they had occupied, as the owner wanted it for himself, and thus the family would be without a home unless Wallace could return. Both he and Hugh were finally allowed to proceed to Long Island on parole, under an agreement not to take up arms against the colony. Here they remained while the war proceeded, and dispensed a generous hospitality.
Three years later the New York Legislature passed an act by which a large number of persons were at- tainted of treason, their estates were to be confis- cated and they proscribed. If found on State soil they were to be seized and punished with death, " without the benefit of clergy," their crime being " an adherence to the enemies of the State." Hugh and Alexander Wallace were among the unfortunate persons thus named. Another was Sir John John- son, son and heir of Sir William.
Except in the Susquehanna patent the name of Alexander Wallace is not encountered in Susque- hanna history. He and his brother having been attainted of treason, the lands, had they been theirs, would have been confiscated, as was done with the Johnson lands in the Charlotte Valley, which had been left by Sir William to his brother and sister, and titles to which for the settlers afterward came directly from the State. But the Wallaces by this
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THE PATENT CALLED WALLACE'S
time had ceased to have any title to these lands. Protected as they were by the British in New York, they appear to have continued their partnership until the war closed. When the British evacuated New York in November, 1783, Hugh went with them, and probably Alexander. Hugh died in Waterford in 1788.
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