USA > Pennsylvania > Bradford County > History of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 10
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SUSQUEHANNA COMPANY'S TOWNSHIPS, BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNA.
41
HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
price was fixed at £30 per hundred acres, and warrants were allowed to contain 1000 acres with ten per cent. over- plus, besides the usual allowance. Col. Pickering, Samuel Hodgdon, Tench Cox, Duncan Ingraham, Andrew Craige, and Myers Fisher entered into an association for the pur- pose of purchasing 63,000 acres under this act, a con- siderable part of which was located in Bradford County. Nevertheless the price of land was placed so high that but few speculators ventured to invest in the hilly and heavily- timbered lands of northern Pennsylvania. Under the press- ure of certain land-jobbers who were holding important offices in the commonwealth, like John Nichols, Robert Morris, and William Bingham, an act was passed, April 3, 1792, in which the price of the vacant lands was reduced to fifty shillings per 100 acres or 63 cents per acre. Specu- lation ran wild. Applications for warrants poured into the land-office by tens of thousands. The law, while it appeared to favor persons of small means and prevent the wealthy from acquiring large portions of the public domain, was so drawn that by means of fictitious applications and poll deeds,-that is, mere assignments of the application with- out the formalities of acknowledgment,-any party conld possess himself of an unlimited quantity of the unappro- priated lands. Within a year or two nearly all the lands in the county had been applied for; Nicholson, Morris, Bingham, James D. Le Ray, Henry Drinker, John Vaughan, Pickering, and Hodgdon being the principal holders .*
# The following is a list of the Susquehanna company's townships, giving the date of the grant and the name of the grantor : Armenia, Feb. 23, 1795, to Reuben Fowler.
Alba, Feb. 24, 1795, to Daniel Brown, Jr.
Alhany, Feb. 28, 1795, to Sebastian Visseher.
Allensburg, March 12, 1785, to Jehn B. Allen. Athens, May 9, 1786, to Prinec Alden, Elisha Satterlee, and others. Augusta, June 18, 1794, to Aaron Sherwood. Bath, April 10, 1795, to John Spalding.
Bachelor's Adventure, Dec. 6, 1794, to Elisha Tracy and Joseph Kingsbury.
Burlington, June 5, 1794, to Nathaniel Allen.
Bloomingdale, March 10, 1795, to David Paine and W.m. Young. Bristol, Feb. 27, 1795, to Mason Fiteh Alden.
Cabot, Dee. 25, 1794, to Elisha Hyde and Capt. Elisha Traey, re- granted.
Claverack, June 4, 1778, to Jeremiah Hogeboom.
Columbia, Mareh 15, 1795, to Elisha Satterlee and others.
Durkee, Jan. 17, 1795, to Joho Spalding.
Enfield, Sept. 5, 1794, to Sheldon Graham.
Ensurance, April 10, 1795, to John Spaulding.
Fairfield, June 9, 1794, to Chester Bingham. Franklin.
. Fullersville, March 1, 1795, to Capt. Stephen Fuller. Graham, March 4, 1795, to Sheldon Graham.
Halestown, Oct. 27, 1798, to George Hale.
Jay, April 10, 1795, to John Spalding.
Jaddsburg, Aug. 13, 1793, to Maj. Wm. Judd and others. Kingstreat.
Leffertstown, Feh. 28, 1795, to Leffert Lefferts.
Litchfield, Jan. 17, 1795, to James Irwin, Thomas Parks, and others.
Lovisa, April 1, 1795, to John Tneker.
Martel (Delaware company), Oct. 14, 1795, to Elisha Hyder.
Minden (Delaware company), April 25, 1796, to Elisha Hyde and Elisha Tracy.
Murraysfield, March 15, 1795, to Noah Murray.
New Barrington, Jan. 17, 1795, to James Irwin.
New Haven, Ang. 5, 1795, to Peter Hogehoom and others.
New Milford, Feb. 28, 1795, to Abel Brownson. 6
In the meanwhile the committee of the Susquehanna company were not idle. Rights were thrown upon the market and sold for almost any price. Townships were granted upon more liberal terms. Renewed efforts were made to bring on settlers, the validity of the Susquehanna company's claim was stoutly argued, companies were formed for the purchase of townships. Speculation in the Con- necticut title was intense, the company's office at Athens was thronged with eager applicants, while their surveyors were daily employed in locating and surveying rights. By the close of the year 1796 nearly every foot of land was held by both Susquehanna company rights and Pennsyl- vania warrants.
Both parties were now arrayed in earnest, defiant oppo- sition. Since the repeal of the confirming law the settlers had been left very much to themselves, but now, at the in- stigation of the wealthy and influential land-holders, the State entered into the controversy. A general policy had been agreed upon. It was determined to carry into effect the principles of the confirming law by efficient legislation. Within the seventeen townships, Pennsylvania claimants were to be compensated, and the old settlers confirmed in their possessions, while " the companies and half-share men were to be cut up by the roots." Under these two heads the subsequent legislation on this subject is to be classed.
The legal principles upon which this legislation was based, as they were from time to time expounded by the courts, were the following :
(1) The deeree of Trenton did not transfer jurisdiction from Con- neetieut to Pennsylvania, but affirmed the right had always heen in the latter State, and therefore the sovereignty assumed by Connecti- eut was a usurpation maintained for the time hy foree.
(2) That the pre-emption, or right of purchase, had always been in Pennsylvania; therefore all purehases were void which were not made in conformity to her laws.
(3) That the laws of Pennsylvania existing at the time must be applied to every transaction relating to lands within the charter bounds of the State.
(4) In the years 1720 and 1729, the legislature had by specific en- aetments made it unlawful for any person, except the proprietors or their agents, to purchase of the Indians any part of the lands within the province ; therefore the pretended purchase by the Susquehanna company was a erime aod null. (Commonwealth ca. Franklin and others, 4 Dallas, 255.)
(5) The aets favoring the Connecticut people proceeded on the ground of settlement, not of the validity of auy elaim of the settlers or of the company. It was not on the ground of any grant from Con- necticut under the alleged extent of her charter, nor under any title derived from the Susquehanna company on their alleged purchase of the Indians. It was a moral obligation to those who had settled on these lands under an idea of right, and when the situation of things
Oblong, April 6, 1795, to Jonathan Hibhard. Seeleysborough, Dee. 25, 1794, to Bezeleel Seeley.
Smithfield, Sept. 23, 1795, to David Smith and others.
Springhill, May 21, 1796, to Noah Pratt.
Springfield, Oct. 22, 1777, to James Wells, Jeremiah Ross, and others.
Standing Stone, 1774, to David Smith. Ulster.
Spring Hill, Jan. 17, 1795, to Robert W. Nash and others.
Walsingham, Dee. 20, 1795, to Samuel Gordon.
Watertown, Sept. 5, 1794, to Daniel Brown.
Windsor, Feb. 28, 1795, to John Spalding.
Orange, Ang. 12, 1795, to Isaac Cash and Silas Jackson. White Haven, May 22, 1786, to Joseph Elliott and others.
42
HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
and the nature of the case furnished a ground for mistake; so that they were not to he considered in the light of voluntary trespassers, more especially as Indian hostilities were combated by those very settlers at their outposts, where many of them fell, and at whose peril and by whose sufferings the interior of the State had been so much defended. (Enslin vs. Bowman, 6 Binney, 462.)
In the elaborate opinion of Judge Breckenridge, in the case of Carkhuff vs. Anderson, reported in 2 Binney, 4, he says, "I do not view them (the Connecticut settlers within the seventeen townships) in the light of trespassers with a full knowledge of their want of title. At all events the bulk of them do not seem to have been apprised of their want of title, and I make a great distinction between tres- passers knowing, or having good reason to know, their de- feet of title, and such as may reasonably be supposed to be ignorant of what they are about. Before the decree of Trenton, the most intelligent and best informed might have been led to believe that the part of the country in question was settled under a good title from the State of Connecti- cut. It was not so clear a case as not to admit of a differ- ence of construction. By the decree of Trenton it was ascertained that this allegation of title was without founda- tion. But in favor of those who had settled under the idea of a good title, with the expectation of enjoying the land they were improving, at great risk aud much loss from the common enemy during the Revolutionary war, there is a claim which ought not to be wholly disregarded. I do not call it a right, but a claim on the ground of moral obliga- tion. ... I hold it to be a principle of humanity, and even of moral integrity, that whenever au individual has entered upon unimproved land, taking the history of the settlement of our country into view, he ought not to be dispossessed, provided he is able and willing to pay for the land in an un- improved state, with a reasonable allowance to the demand- ant for his trouble, loss of time, and expense in pursuing his right."
By an act passed April 4, 1799, commonly called the Compensation Law, commissioners were appointed to ascer- tain the quality, quantity, and situation of lands in the sev- enteen townships held by Pennsylvania claimants before the Trenton decree, to divide the lands into four classes, and affix the value to each class. To lands of the first class a sum not exceeding five dollars per acre ; the second class, three dollars; the third class, one dollar and fifty cents ; and to the fourth class, twenty-five cents per acre, for which cer- tificates were given, on the release of the title to the State, receivable as specie at the land-office; no certificates were to issue until forty thousand acres were thus released, and till Connecticut claimants to that amount under their hands and scals agreed to abide by the decision of the commis- sioners. All disputes between Pennsylvania claimants were to be decided in the usual way, by the board of property, from which an appeal could be taken to the courts.
Lands of the Connecticut claimants against which no adverse Pennsylvania title appeared, or where such title had been released, occupied by actual settlers at or before the time of the Trenton decree, which lots were particularly assigned to the said settlers prior to the said decree, agrce- ably to the regulations then in force among them, were also to be divided into four classes ; the price of the first class to be two dollars per acre, of the second class one dollar and
twenty cents, of the third class fifty cents, of the fourth class eight and one-third cents per acre, payable in eight equal annual installments. The lots were to be resurveyed, certificates issued, on which patents would be granted to the Connecticut claimants, after the usual patent and sur- veying fees were paid.
Unexpected difficulties, growing out of the refusal or neglect of the Pennsylvania claimants to execute their re- leases, rendered the law inoperative. To meet this difficulty a supplement was passed, April 6, 1802, which directed the commissioners to survey, value, and certify the whole of each tract claimed by a Connecticut claimant, whether re- leased or not by the Pennsylvania claimant, who should not recover the same as against the Connecticut claimant, but should have liberty to bring suit against the Common wealth, at which trial the court and jury, provided he established title, should have power to award just compensation. It was also provided that every Connecticut claimant applying for a certificate must first deliver up to the commissioners all title-papers, which were to be transmitted to the secre- tary of the commonwealth.
The provisions of this act differed from the confirming law in that it was limited iu its operations to the seventeen townships, while the other included all rights acquired before the Trenton decree; it also paid the Pennsylvania claimant in cash instead of in land. Thomas Cooper, Gen. Steele, and Mr. Wilson were the commissioners. Their duties were difficult and delicate. The Pennsylvania land- holders were opposed to the law because it took away their lands without rendering what they thought a just com- pensation, while many were mortified and chagrined to see the lands, for which they had so long contested, taken from them and given to their adversaries. The half-share men opposed the law because it ignored the claims of the companies, and left them without the pale of its beneficent provisions ; but the great mass of the old settlers saw here a way of ending a contest of which they were weary, and cheerfully took title under the State, while the energy, tact, and liberal construction of the law manifested by Judge Cooper won the confidence and esteem of all parties.
Perhaps no better account of the work of this commis- sion, the operations of the law, and the feelings of the people towards it, can be given, than is furnished by the letters of Judge Cooper to the governor. Under date of March 8, 1802, he says, " The proceedings of the legislature from that time (the Trenton decree) to the present have, unfortunately, been so indecisive as to inspire neither con- fidence nor terror. No regular plan, either of conciliation or of force, has been steadily pursued, and the ease presents as many difficulties at this moment as at any former period." After giving a synopsis of the legislation on this question, he adds, " Previous to the commission of last summer seven distinct commissions have acted ineffectually in the settle- ment of the controversy. The present is the third under the law of 1799. When Gen. Steele, Mr. Wilson, and myself proceeded last summer to Wilkes-Barre, we found no inclination among the Connecticut claimants in the town- ships to take the benefit of the law under which we were to act, and there seemed no expectation that any future com- mission would surmount the obstacles which had deterred
43
HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
the former. Hitherto no Connecticut claim had been ex- amined, or any survey made of a Connecticut lot, under the law of 1799. Those who were willing to merge their Con- necticut in a Pennsylvania title, and to accept of the latter, whether by gift or purchase, were deterred from proceeding by the repeal of the confirming law, under which many of them had applied and submitted their titles to no effect. He recommends the following amendments :
"1. The introduction of pitehes.
"2. The extension of the privilege of release to Pennsylvania claimants whose titles originated since the deerce of Trenton ; and "3. The taking the property not released, and referring the Penn- sylvania owner to a jury."
The second and third recommendations were subsequently adopted, the last the following April.
Under date of Oct. 20, 1802, he writes, " Every Con- necticut claim of every Connecticut claimant, under the law of 1790 and the supplements thereto, has been examined and decided upon, except in cases of townships rejected and appeals from my jurisdiction.
" The townships of Bedford and Ulster were not able to make out a title to my satisfaction under the Susquehanna company and the law of 1799. I rejected, therefore, every application within those townships. The case of Ulster I was very sorry for, as the applicants there deserve far more for their submission to the law of 1799 than those of any other township. Ulster is the very focus of opposition, and the applicants have met with much rancor and ridicule from their opponents. In Ulster live Franklin, the Satterlees, the Spaldings, the Binghams, and all the decided and lead- ing characters among the half-share men. In that town- ship, and there alone, will opposition arise, if at all. Of all the persons who have applied for the benefit of the act of 1799 (about 950) the proportion of nine-tenths, as near as I can now conjecture, have exhibited their titles. . . . I have found a very general and great anxiety amongst the Connecticut claimants throughout all the townships, who by mistake, misconception, ignorance, or accident have been de- prived or defeated of the benefits of the law of 1799, to sub- mit cheerfully to the conditions offered by the legislature."
Under date of Nov. 15, 1802, after giving the facts upon which his estimates are founded, he adds, " I cannot be far wrong when I state the utmost force of the ' wild Yankees,' as they are called, at 200 men ; these are for the most part poor and ignorant, but industrious settlers, thinly scattered over a wild country, misled and ruled by about a half a dozen leaders living chiefly in the township of Ulster, viz. : . Franklin, Satterlee, Spalding, Bingham, Flowers, and Kings- bury, John Jenkins, of Exeter, and Ezekiel Hyde, of Wil- lingborough. In fact, all the active opposition is confined to three or four miles above and below Tioga Point, and about a dozen miles east and west of it." After speaking of the number and attachment of the old settlers to the State, and of the divisions among the half-share men, and the defection of some of the leaders to the half-share inter- ests, he concludes : " I indeed know of no other way of making the county of Luzerne useful to the State but by encouraging New England settlers under Pennsylvania titles. The Philadelphia land-holders, who are infatuated as to the value of their lands, may induce the legislature to
make the country a desert and keep it so; but less time, less trouble, less expense will make it a garden. Yet if measures of conciliation do not produce the effect within a twelvemonth, better it is the country should be a desert than a hot-bed of lawless opposition and insurrection. But I sadly begrudge such an exertion for the sake of the Phil- adelphia speculators. They have little claim upon the State, for independent of the speculating transactions of 1792 and 1793, out of upwards of 750 lottery orders under applications of 1769 laid in this county, not more than 104 are patented and paid for."
Another source of annoyance rose in the land-officc. Some cases of contested Connecticut claims were appealed to the board of property. In regard to one such case arising in our own county Judge Cooper writes a decided and indignant letter to Governor M'Kean. The heirs of Wm. Stewart had contested the claim of Justus Gaylord to his lots in Wyalusing before the commissioners who had decided against Stewart, whereupon a cavcat was filed against issuing a patent on the certificate and the parties cited to appear before the board of property. The judge says, "If the secretary of the land-office has a right to drag one clain before the board of property to defend the certificate we have given him, and this on the application of the party whose claim the commissioners have rejected, then might the whole county be cited before the board at Lancaster, and all that the commissioners have done be rendered use- less and perhaps undone. Surely, if there be any meaning in the law of 1799, the commissioners were exclusively vested with the power of deciding on the conflicting claims of Connecticut settlers." He advises Mr. Gaylord to show the letter to Andrew Ellicott (the secretary of the land- office), refuse to defend against the caveat, demand a pat- ent, and if refused apply for a mandamus, and concludes : " If I hear of any more instances of such wanton, such un- authorized oppression, I shall feel it my bounden duty to excite the people of this county to lay the case before the next legislature and ask for the removal of an officer so dangerous and inconsiderate."
A number of other acts were passed by the legislature to meet certain emergencies and render the general law more effective. The most important of these was the act of April 9, 1807, which provided that Pennsylvania claimants in the fifteen townships under titles prior to March 28, 1807, may release their claims in the same manner as those holding under old warrants, and Connecticut claimants within those townships are not required to have occupied their lands prior to the decree of Trenton, but are to receive certificates if, under the rules and regulations of the Sus- quehanna company at any time, they were entitled to them. By an act passed March 19, 1810, the townships of Bed- ford and Ulster, which were rejected by the commissioners of 1799, were included in the provisions of the compromise, but no certificate was to issue for lands upon which the Pennsylvania claimant resides. This had been the practice before, but now it was affirmed by statute.
Thus after years of bitter conflict, of much fruitless legis- lation, of oppression which blackens the pages of Pennsyl- vania history, the claims of the old settlers were recognized, they were quieted in their possessions which had cost them
44
HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
so much, and held titles for their lands which every court in the commonwealth was bound to protect.
But there was another class, the wild Yankees, half- share men, new-comers, many of them holding their lands on condition of " manning their rights," who were induced to come on for the purpose of defending the claims of the Susquehanna company, who have been described by Judge Cooper, and whose number he estimates at about 200, towards whom a very different policy was pursued,-a policy of force, not of conciliation, of coercion instead of com- promise,-a policy, as Judge Shippen expressed it, designed " to eut up the Susquehanna company by the roots."
On the 18th of February, 1795, a large and enthusiastic meeting of the Susquehanna proprietors, reported in the minutes of the meeting to have been more than twelve hundred in number, was held at Athens, at which it was resolved to take vigorous measures to prosecute the claim of the company ; " to prevent any ill-disposed persons, with- out due anthority, unlawfully intruding upon, surveying, or attempting to seize and settle any of the aforesaid lands ; afford a just protection to the property of the real owners and such settlers as enter on the same land peaceably, in due course of law, and under real proprietors thereof, being fully determined, in a constitutional and legal manner only, to maintain and defend the title and claim which the aforesaid company have to the aforesaid lands ; and also to recover such parts thereof as are possessed in opposition thereto."
The Pennsylvania land-holders were not slow to take up the gauntlet thus defiantly thrown down by the company. They were now at the height of their power, and the legis- lature was meekly subservient to their wishes. On the 11th of April the intrusion law was passed, inflicting heavy fines and imprisonment upon any convicted of taking pos- session of, entering, intruding, or settling "on any lands within the limits of the counties of Northampton, North- umberland, or Luzerne, by virtue or under color of any conveyance of half-share right, or any other pretended title not derived from the authority of this commonwealth, or of the late Proprietaries of Pennsylvania before the Revo- lution," making it a crime to combine or conspire to convey, possess, or settle any such lands under any half-share right, but excepting the land within the seventeen townships.
The half-share men were not to be diverted from their resolution by threats of civil punishment nor military force. They had compelled Pennsylvania to recognize the claims of the old settlers after a conflict of thirty years, and they would keep up the opposition for thirty years more if she did not sooner deal justly with them. So determined was this opposition that Pennsylvania surveyors were violently driven from their work, and Pennsylvania settlers were compelled to abandon their claims.
To meet the organized movements of the Susquehanna company, those holding Pennsylvania titles formed an asso- ciation, which was called the Pennsylvania land-holders' association. At a meeting held in Philadelphia, January 10, 1801, they sent a memorial to the legislature praying for more efficient measures to be put in force against the in- truders, as the half-share men were called. On the 16th of February the supplement to the intrusion law was passed, making the penalty for settling or selling under the Con-
necticut title still more severe, enacting that every person coming upon the territory must file a declaration stating of what country he was last a resident, and under what title he held his lands; also providing for the appointment of an agent by the governor, who should make diligent inquiry into all offenses committed under the act, and report for prosecution to the attorney-general the names of all offend- ers, and of witnesses to prove their offense, and also providing for calling out the military force of the common- wealth in case the agent apprehended danger or resistance. The half-share men, especially in the northern part of the county, were unsparing in their denunciation of the law, which they called the " Fire and Brimstone Law," of the legislature, and of the land-holders in whose interest and at whose instigation it had been passed. About this time was formed what was known as the " Wild Yankee League," in which, after recounting the wrongs which Pennsylvania had heaped upon the settlers, they resolved to protect each other and bid defiance to the law and the Pennsylvania authorities.
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