USA > Pennsylvania > Bradford County > Athens > A history of old Tioga Point and early Athens, Pennsylvania > Part 85
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It was a misfortune to thousands in that country, that the Connecticut title did not prevail. It was a misfortune to the heirs of Mathewson that they were not left in possession of the lands on Tioga Point until 1810 : but as Judge Huston says in his charge to the jury respecting this same land in Mathewson vs. Satter- lee, of which a certified copy is here, "you will consider whether the loss of that "land was not a misfortune common to such titles, and inevitable until the Com- "promising Law; a misfortune, but not the fault of any person."
Whether this misfortune be deemed to consist in the loss of the land itself, or in the deprivation of an equal proportion of the State's bounty, in neither case, in no manner, can Charles Carroll or Henry Welles be held either blameable or responsible. They not only recovered less than their own, but made liberal gifts beside. If the Legislature be inclined to admit that any wrong has been done, they cannot but yield that it has been done, not by Charles Carroll or Henry Welles, BUT BY THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, whose laws dictated and adjudged it. If the Legislature make any such admission, it is one of vast amount ; not confined to the Mathewsons alone, but inclusive of the whole Connecticut title, and branding more than forty years of the legislative, judicial, and executive his- tory of Pennsylvania. If the Legislature are as conscious of having wronged the Connecticut settlers as their proceeding of last session appears to admit, they can begin remuneration; but it must be with the Commonwealth's property, and not with the property of others.
There are views that show far different treatment to be due from the Com- monwealth to the heirs of George Welles. The government that sells land and receives payment, becomes bound to provide laws and executive force to invest the purchaser with possession. A failure to do so is a failure on the contract ; and the government so failing, in justice becomes responsible for the value of the property.
Richard Caton, Ashbel Welles and George Welles, through Josiah Lock- hart, were purchasers, under Pennsylvania, of Lottery Warrant No. 1. They found the Commonwealth confessedly unable to put them in possession of the premises she had sold them; and were compelled to buy possession from an in- truding power, holding under another state. These parties never received one foot of land from the Commonwealth for their sixteen thousand dollars. All they got possession of they bought of the Connecticut intruders, about four hundred acres at nine thousand dollars, bringing it to thirty eight dollars and fifty cents per acre, eight and twenty years ago. By this, principally, was George Welles ruined, and his widow and his fatherless children left entirely destitute, and dependent on the eldest son. By just principles, analogous to such as are admitted by all gov- ernments, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania now owes the widow and heirs of George Welles for their one third of Lottery No. 1, principal and interest.
This Committee have probably noticed, that the Act of 1799 has a clause which excludes all lands held by united titles from the operation of the Act. This was intended to prevent such Connecticut settlers as might have bought un- der the state from holding by the one title, and recovering compensation for the other ; and is in itself conclusive evidence that the act was meant to quiet occu- pants, and not to acknowledge title in Connecticut. The reasoning of this provi- sion could have no just application to the cases in which Pennsylvania patentees had been obliged to buy the Connecticut title, for the sake of getting that posses- sion which the state was in duty bound to give them : therefore is it not presum- able that Henry Welles might have procured the passage of the Act of 1810,
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without that provision, and thus Carroll and Welles have been enabled to hold by certificate the lands covered by their Connecticut deeds, and have obtained compensation for their Pennsylvania title to the same lands? This would have been clearly equitable ; but the journals show that no such thing was attempted. The bill was reported by him with the prohibitory clause contained, and passed so; by which it appears, that Henry Welles, the interested Henry Welles, who bent all his legislative advantages to profit, did not even attempt to make use of this legislative opportunity to secure a just remedy for the indisputable rights of his own father !
OFFERS TO SUBMIT THE COMPLAINTS TO A JURY.
Before closing a defence which, in this extraordinary procedure, must stand Charles Carroll, Richard Caton, Joseph Hopkinson and Henry Welles in substitu- tion of their constitutional rights of public trial, before judge and jury, under rules of evidence, and general laws, with counsel to advocate,-and which is there- fore more full than otherwise need be-let the Committee advert to certain indi- cations in the journal of last session, volume 1. It has been seen that the allega- tions set forth by the petitioner, and on which his claim rests, are two :
1. That the parties in interest were fraudulently dispossessed.
2. That they were precluded from recovering under the act of 1810 by the proviso.
By the journal of March 31, 1825, pages 684 and 687, two several amend- ments appear to have been offered to Bill No. 471 then before the House, each containing the same proposition : the first rejected, yeas 33, nays 37; all the active friends of the bill voting in the negative. The second was in improved shape, and is as follows :
"A motion was made by Mr. Meredith and Mr. Ritner, to amend the same by "striking therefrom these words, 'the judges of the court of Common Pleas of the "county of Bradford,' and inserting in lieu thereof these words: 'That the court "of Common Pleas of the county of Luzerne, shall upon petition of the heirs and "devisees of Elisha Mathewson, deceased, and upon thirty days notice thereof to "Henry Welles of the county of Bradford, cause an issue to be framed for the "purpose of trying whether the said heirs and devisees were put out of the pos- "session of certain lands in the township of Ulster and county of Bradford (now "held by the said Henry Welles and others, and claimed by the said heirs and de- "visees, as Connecticut claimants,) by the fraud of the said Henry Welles; in "which issue the said heirs and devisees shall be plaintiff and the said Henry "Welles shall be defendant ; and if upon trial thereof, the jury shall find that the "said heirs and devisees were put out of possession by fraud as aforesaid, and if "the Court shall approve of the verdict, then in that case the judges of the Supreme "Court sitting for the Northern District, shall-" etc.
This repeated offer to meet the allegation of fraud on fair trial before court and jury, was rejected by a vote of 37 to 37 ; all the active partisans of the bill vot- ing in the negative! There must have been some very plausible reasons rendered, or the many conscientious persons who joined the negative could not have been slurred over this open abandonment of their most important ground. A moment's reflection must have convinced every right intentioned man, that if the two zealous advocates of the bill had believed that there was truth in the allegation, they would have hastened it to a fair trial before court and jury.
As to the second allegation, that the petitioners were excluded by the proviso : it appears on journals, page 692, that a motion was made by Mr. Ritner and Mr. McCreery to amend by the following addition : "Provided however, that notwith- "standing the repeal of the said 7th section of the Act aforesaid, it shall be the duty "of the said Commissioners to decide upon the same principles, and none other, "than if the Compensation Act of the 4th day of April 1799, and its supplements, "had been extended to the townships of Bedford and Ulster." Rejected; yeas 33, nays 38. Friends of the bill in the negative again.
Here, then, the advocates of the bill abandoned the second allegation also : admitting that the proviso was declarative, its existence in the letter of no effect, and that the petitioners could not have recovered under the pre-existing system.
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APPENDIX B
Notwithstanding this complete retrocession of the two several grounds on which the claim professed to stand, the bill passed by a majority of six.
When that vote passed the House, the whole subject lay before it IN THE BROADEST DAY. Well warned, therefore, that such [action] may be repeated, it becomes this respondent's duty, not only in protection of his own individual in- terest, but further and higher still, in preservation of the character of this Com- monwealth, to arrest the process of so deep a shame, by every means within his power. This duty has been fulfilled to exhaustion, and here must terminate.
It is now seven years this prosecution has been pursued with unremitting energy. If such bill passes, no man who votes for it will be proud of its reception at the hands of the Judiciary. Small county partyism cannot reach it there. The journals of this House may be loaded with falsehoods that confute themselves, like those that have preceded : they tarnish history only, and blacken the dishon- ored monuments upon which they are graven down.
APPENDIX B.
CONSTANT MATHEWSON'S REPLY TO HENRY WELLES' DEFENCE, AS PUBLISHED IN THE "BRADFORD SETTLER."*
MR. BULL :- I noticed in your paper of the 28 of Sept. (a few days preceed- ing the Election), a voluminous and elaborate defence of Gen. Henry Welles, by the nearest friend and dear Brother, Charles F. Welles, Esq.
As my name was then before the public as a candidate for the Legislature, and this defence is deeply fraught with malignity in its spirit, and falsehood in its letter, bearing on its face an intention to defeat my election, being well aware that the concern between General Welles and myself was entirely distinct from that of the election, and that the merits of my claim was as well understood by the public as was the integrity of Charles F. Welles as a Newspaper scribbler-I had con- cluded in my own mind to suffer this wonderful production to pass unnoticed. But on a second perusal of this tissue of misrepresentation, and on the reflection that the author's character may not be as well understood abroad as it is in the im- mediate circle of his acquaintance, and as his scrawl was calculated and intended to operate not only against my Election, but against a fair investigation of my controversy with his Brother, I conceive it my duty to make a few remarks in reply. I shall not undertake to follow him through all the meanders of his capri- cious whims, I will not trouble the public by noticing his peevish fretting at the enmity of the people against his brother, or his anger at the Committee of the House of Representatives that reported in my favor in the Session of 1824-5, I will pass over his billingsgate style in charging that Hon. Committee with reporting a tissue of falsehoods, &c. and confine myself to the detection of a few of the very many misrepresentations that he has undertaken to palm off on the public as facts.
The friend of Henry has endeavoured to excite the sympathies of the people by a representation of the immense sums of money paid by George and Ashbel Welles and Richard Caton in the acquirement of the title and possession of the Lands on Tioga Point, he avers that the partners paid $16000 to Josiah Lockhart for the Pennsylvania title and $9000 to those Connecticut claimants of whom they purchased amounting to $25000, a pretty sum of money to be sure. Now Charles F. Welles, Esq. I cannot conceive how this mighty sum of money if paid to others can effect the claim of my father's family to the lands that justly belong to them; but this asseveration of yours that they did thus pay and it caused your father's bankruptcy is either true or false; if true, they paid an illjudged price for the Penn- sylvania title with a view of speculating on the hard toils of the poor yankees and
* Defence as here mentioned was only the substance of paper prepared by C. F. Welles, published as noted on pages 470, 471, ante.
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CONSTANT MATHEWSON'S LETTER
more for the possessions than they were worth; and if false it must naturally be concluded that the whole of your defence of your Brother is of the same tenor. Presuming as I do that there is some mistake in your statement, I beg leave Esq. Charles F. to ask you a question or two.
Sir, after your father, your Uncle Ashbel, and Richard Caton had made their purchase of Mr. Lockhart and paid $4,000 and after the whole tract was assigned over in 1800 to Mr. Carroll, (Mr. Lockhart having no Mortgage on the premises,) did not the Welleses and Caton become bankrupt; whereby Lockhart was pre- vented (he or his heirs) from ever receiving one cent more than the $4,000 for the whole tract of 1030 acres. I think you would be compelled to answer this query in the affirmative, if so then this statement in the scale of truth is found to possess exactly three-fourths by alloy, and I really consider that such adulterated truths are very little better than spurious coin and ought not to be suffered to pass current.
In respect to the $9,000, which you say you paid to the Connecticut settlers by the partners, as it appears to me a greater sum than the settlers ever realized from them ; suffer me to enquire, whether a very considerable portion of the $9,000 was not expended in wharfing the Susquehanna River, or in other words in the establishment of what was denominated Welles' folly (see p. 361, ante).
I do not consider your representation of the partners purchasing the right of all the settlers below the village of Tioga Point, except what belonged to Elisha Mathewson and a seven acre lot of Abraham Decker of any consequence; I only notice it to show your proneness to misrepresentation ; For it was a fact that there was a forty acre lot belonging to the late Col. Elisha Satterlee, and a ten acre lot of Joseph Tyler which are now in possession of Gen. Henry Welles and held by his favourite section of the compromising law of 1810, which were never purchased of the original claimants by the partners, and I presume by no one since. The friend of Gen. Welles states that I aver that the suit of Ejectment instituted in favour of Charles Carroll against my Mother was brought by Henry Welles with- out the authority of Mr. Carroll; I do not deny this averment; I have stated that he has acted under an assumed agency without any authority from Mr. Carroll. But Esq. Charles F. declares that the letters of Messrs. Carroll, Caton and Hop- kinson, respecting this concern, set their word in opposition to my word and the report founded on it that this suit was brought without the intervention of Henry Welles and thereby insinuating that my word and the report of the Committee are false. "Without the intervention of Henry Welles" !- Henry Welles did in person declare before the Committee that after making arrangements with Mr. Carroll for a part of the land in controversy, that he called on Mr. Hopkinson in Phila- delphia, took out the writ against my Mother in the name of Mr. Carroll, procured himself a deputation, that he served the process himself for the economical pur- pose of saving cost. Is this an intervention or is it not? When this concern was before the Legislature in 1824-5 Mr. Roberts the advocate of Henry Welles read to the Committee of the whole on the investigation of his substitute a letter from Mr. Hopkinson stating that he never knew Henry Welles in this concern only as the agent of Mr. Carroll ; and the same Mr. Roberts while investigating the subject of the bill on the floor of the House read a letter from Mr. Carroll stating that he never knew He'y Welles as an agent in this concern; Yes, Mr. Carroll, (this first of living men), has solemnly declared that he never knew Henry Welles as his Agent ; consequently he did not authorize him to commence the suit (See note end), that Gen. Welles did commence the suit is proved by his own declaration. I think therefore that my character or that of the Hon. Committee in point of verac- ity is in no great danger of sustaining a very heavy shock by the base Calumny of Charles F. Welles.
This friend of the General states that my Father in his life time was offered by Caton and Welles four or five hundred pounds for his lots and that my father refused to sell; if this is true it would appear that they viewed my father's rights
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APPENDIX B
something more than a mere nonentity as Charles F. Esq. represents it; but when I consider the source of the declaration I am inclined to believe that they never made my father any such offer; for he avers that after my Father's death my Mother declared that she never would sell, and defied the owners to bring suit. This broad assertion of his is of no further consequence than to shew his ingenious faculty at fibbing; I am fully authorized to state that it is totally without founda- tion in truth.
The General's friend has made a long commentary on the subject of the lots possessed by my father being held under the survey of Athens township made sub- sequent to the Decree of Trenton. The township of Old Ulster was granted to Buck, Gore, (Mathewson), Smith and others, in 1775; it was surveyed but not allotted, in consequence of the proprietors being generally called into the service of their country in the war of the Revolution; at the close of their toils in war they or their heirs or assigns turned their attention to their located township of Old Ulster for the acquirement of a livelihood in peaceful life. But as the north line of the state was then run, they found a gore of land between their township and the state line on the north of about two and one-half miles in breadth, and another gore of a similar breadth, on the south between Old Ulster and Cloverick townships; they were, therefore, induced to associate with others and obtain a further grant from the Susquehanna company to include two townships; in May 1786. Since the decree of Trenton they surveyed, and plotted out the townships of Athens, and New Ulster, each comprehending about one half of the township of Old Ulster ; "Tis true that my Father's lots were located in Athens, but in that part of Athens which was formerly Old Ulster; so that notwithstanding the high drawn figure of Charles F. Welles it is clearly to be understood that in justice the heirs of my father had and still have as equitable a right to the benefit of the law of 1810 as any other individual proprietor in Old Ulster Township; even a right as equitable as Gen. Henry Welles himself had to the lot he purchased in the year 1808 of Stephen Badlock of about forty-four acres. It may not be amiss to re- count some of the General's ingenious management in this concern for the in- formation of the public and to show his tender mercy for the funds of the com- monwealth.
I have before me a certificate of Mr. Stephen Badlock, which proves that Gen. Welles called on him at his residence in Spencer in the State of New York in February, 1808; and informed Mr. Badlock that he had the Pennsylvania title to a forty-four acre lot (lying a little above the village of Tioga Point and within the bounds of the Carroll tract) which was then owned and in possession of said Badlock by virtue of the Connecticut title, but the General assured Badlock that he could hold the lot by virtue of the Pennsylvania title which he then had; the General however, generously offered him one hundred dollars in neat cattle and whiskey for his title and possession. Mr. Badlock states that he being unwilling to lose his land with his labour on it, accepted the proposal and gave him a deed conveying all his title dated February 5th, 1808. Now if Gen. Welles owned the Pennsylvania title to this lot as he positively asserted to Mr. Badlock, he must have been excluded from any benefit of his Conn. title by virtue of the 7th section of the compromising law of 1810. But in the sequel I find that the proviso in that law is well calculated to draw money into the pockets of himself and associates holding the Penn. title on the Lockhart tract, not only to the distruction of his neighbors but out of the treasury of the commonwealth : For it can be shown by legal records that while the commissioners under the act of 1810, were adjusting the respective titles to the land in Old Ulster that the Gen. appears before them, not as a Penn. owner to the Badlock lot, but as a Conn. claimant by virtue of his deed from Badlock, and the land was certified to him at $2.40 per acre amounting to $105.60 which sum he had to pay into the Treasury of the state ; but as his asso- ciate Mr. Caton was not content to receive this sum, he prosecuted the common- wealth, Gen. Welles, the owner of the Penn. title as he himself declared to Mr. Badlock was one of his principal witnesses, and the general's particular friend
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appraiser. And by this management as does appear on record it awarded that Richard Caton should receive from the Treasury twenty-five dollars per acre amounting to eleven hundred dollars for this same Badlock lot ; deduct the $105.60 paid by Welles from the $1100 received by Caton we find a balance of $994.40-a handsome speculation this to be made out of a forty-four acre lot which was ob- tained of the poor Conn. claimant for the paltry sum of $100 in whiskey and beef for his house and fifteen acres clearing. Whether this $994.40 was pocketed by Mr. Caton or the Gen. or whether they divided the spoil, I do not know, of this I leave the publick to judge.
Another comment of Charles F. Welles may require some explanation ; he states that his brother Henry took a seat in the House of Representatives in the Ses. of 1809-10, and was elected as far as respected the interest of his neighbouring constituents, the Connecticut settlers in possession, for the very purpose of carry- ing into effect their petition for an extension of the compromising law to the townships of Bedford, Ulster and Athens; those that felt this interest voted for him because he was a Penn'a owner, and therefore more likely to have effect in the Legislature. He says it is worthy of remark that at the time of Henry Welles' election in 1809, only about fifteen months after the ejectment of Elizabeth Math- ewson, when all the true circumstances were fresh in memory, that no word of accusation was ever spoken against him in that campaign either by the Mathew- sons or any other person thro' out all his repeated elections &c. I ask, did they dream of his cunning proviso? After C. F. Welles has recounted the wonderful energies of his Brother in overcoming the torrent of opposition to the measure, he tells us his brother bore down all opposition and succeeded in carrying the law into effect, and he is careful to notice to the world that not even the settlers in possession would ever enjoy the benefit of that law had it not been for the mighty exertions of his brother Henry. I presume that no living person appreciates the brilliancy of Gen. Welles' talents higher than I do; for it is my real, candid opinion that if he were divested of very many of the foibles to which mankind are subject more especially his sly arts, that he would be a useful and respectable citizen. The general's friend has, however, in my humble opinion, misrepresented the senti- ment of the election of 1809. I deny that he was elected in consequence of his peculiar situation and capacity to carry into effect the petition of the people for an extension of the compromising law. I will briefly state the facts as they oc- curred; in the session of 1808 the petition of the people for an extension of the compromising law to the townships of Bedford, Ulster and Athens was presented to the House by Col. Sam'l Satterlee, then the representative of the people from this District. It was referred to a Committee, of whom Mr. Satterlee was chair- man, who made a favourable report detailing in full the situation of the people and their claims and the justice and necessity of extending to them this law of compromise agreeably to their petitions, (see Journal H. R. for 1808-9.) to this re- port was attached a Resolution for the appointment of a Committee to bring in a bill embracing the object prayed for.
While this report was under consideration, a motion was made to postpone it to the consideration of the next Legislature, as neither Mr. Satterlee or any other friend to the measure were apprised of any particular design, this motion was not rigidly opposed, and the motion for postponement carried, and it has since been discovered that this motion emanated from the influence of Mr. Palmer of the Senate to whom Gen'rl Welles wrote to guard the rights of the Pennsylvania claimant in possession. Is it likely that the Connecticut claimants in possession, for the express purpose of gaining their rights, elected Gen. Welles, this peculiar guardian of the rights of Pennsylvania claimants? No, it was not the cause of his election ; he procured his election by his own sycophantic solicitations. I am au- thorized to say that previous to the election of 1809, he in the most pressing man- ner solicited Mr. Satterlee to decline as a candidate, and use his influence in his favor, professing perpetual political friendship thereafter in case of compliance, and I conceive it was the declination of Mr. Satterlee and his zealous influence
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