USA > Vermont > The history of Vermont, from its discovery to its admission into the Union in 1791. By Hiland Hall > Part 51
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4. The government of New York never having made any settlements to the eastward of a twenty mile line from the Hudson, it was quite import- ant for the author of this manifesto to produce if possible some evidence of an early claim to territory beyond such line. This he attempted to do by referring to sundry grants made by that government of lands alleged to be situated, not indeed upon Connecticut river nor any where near it - but towards it, and a little beyond a twenty mile line. The force of this evidence must depend wholly upon the intent of the governors of the province in making the grants. In order to have any weight whatever it must appear that the grants were made with the knowledge that the lands were beyond such line, and with the understanding that the terri- tory covered by them was within the province. If the grants were issued under misapprehension or without the knowledge of the granting officer of their eastern extent, they would of course have no tendency to prove the point which the author sought to establish. In order to judge of the weight which ought to be given to this evidence it seems necessary to have some understanding of the general character of the early New York patents.
Perhaps this may be sufficiently shown by quoting the language of Surveyor General Colden, found in a report made to Gov. Cosby in 1732, upon the state of the lands in the province. He speaks of these grants as follows:
"There being no previous survey to the grants, their boundaries are generally expressed with much uncertainty, by the Indian names of brooks, rivulets, hills, ponds, falls of water, etc., which were and still are unknown to Christians. * * * This has given room to some to ex- plain and enlarge their grants according to their own inclinations by putting the names mentioned in their grants to what place or part of the country they please, of which I can give some particular instances where the claims of some have increased many miles, in a few years, and this they commonly do by taking some Indians in a public manner to show them places as they name to them, and it is too well known that an Indian will show any place by any name you please for the small reward of a blanket, or a bottle of rum." Doc. IIist. N. Y., vol. 1, p. 383.
The grants which are named in Mr. Duane's State of the Right, as cov- ering lands in the disputed territory are the following, viz: 1. The Manor of Rensselaerswick, granted in 1685. 2. Westenhook in 1705. 3. Hoosick in 1688. 4. Wallumscoick in 1739 ; and 5. The patent to Godfrey Dellius in 1696.
An examination of each of which will form the subject of the residue of the present paper.
The only one of these five grants in which the descriptive words give any intimation that any part of the land might be situated eastward of a twenty mile line from the Hudson is that of the manor of Rensselaerswick, and the language of that was considered so equivocal that it was for some
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time understood as reaching only twelve miles from that river. The past. ent bears date Nov. 4, 1685, and grants and confirms a tract of land " he. ginning at Barent's Island in Hudson river and extending northward on both sides of said river muito a place called the Kahoos or the Great Falls of said river, and extending itself east and west all along from each side of said river backward into the woods twenty-four English miles." The early construction of these words appears to have been that the whole extent of the patent was twenty-four miles across the river, twelve miles each side of it. It is spoken of in ancient documents as being a tract twenty-four miles square, with Albany in the center.
The patent of Rensselaerswick was not, however, an original English grant, but was made by Gov. Dougan in confirmation of previous Dutch grants, and in pursuance of one of the articles of the capitulation of the country by Gov. Stuyvesant to the English, of September 6, 1664, which declares " that all people shall continue free denizens, and shall eujoy their lands, houses, goods, wheresoever they are within this country, and dispose of them as they please." The grants of which this is a confirma- tion, were made to Killian Van Rensselaer, in 1630 and 1637 prior to the boundary treaty of Hartford, which fixed upon a line less than twenty miles from the Hudson as the eastern boundary of New Netherland, when the Dutch pretensions had scarcely any limit to the eastward. This is fully stated in the New York State of the Right, which we are now considering, as follows: "The Rensselaer family are not indebted to the government of New York for their estate ; they continue to enjoy it by an act of justice, and uot of favor. It was originally a Dutch colony of itself, granted to their ancestors by the Dutch West India company, who held it as a part of New Netherland, under the States General." The confirmation of the Dutch title in accord- ance with ancient description, can hardly be considered as setting up a very strong claim for the province to reach eastward to Connecticut river, especially as the governor's inclination to criticise particularly the extent of the grant into an unknown wilderness, may be supposed to have been somewhat blunted by the receipt of two hundred pounds, which he afterwards admitted was advanced him by Mr. Van Rensselaer at the time of making it.1
It seems that no settlements were ever at any time made under New York upon this manor or indeed upon any other grant east of a twenty mile line upon the borders of Massachusetts, for Gov. Tryon in writing to Lord Dartmouth July 1, 1773, says : " There are four tracts of land affected by the partition [the settlement of the Massachusetts line], the manor of Rensselaerwick granted in 1655. the manor of Livingston in 1686, the patent of Hoosick in 1688, and the patent of Westenhook in 1708, and I do not learn there are any possessions under either of them to the eastward of the line agreed upon by the commissioners." Col. IIist. N. Y., vol. 8, p. 381.
2. The patent of Westenhook is stated in the New York manifesto to have been granted " on the 6th of March, 1705, and that its castern bounds are about 30 miles from Hudson's river."
Broth. N. Y., 762, 202, 2ST. Col. Hist. N. Y., vol. 3, p. 412, and vol. 4. p. 893. Col- den's letter to Board of Trade, Oct. 11. 1761, in .V. Y. Historical Society archives.
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This is a grant belonging very clearly to the class of those described in the representation of Surveyor General Colden from which an extract has been given, the location and extent of which is subject to great uncertainty and very conveniently liable to expansion. The position it occupies and the distances to which it reaches depend upon a very long, indefinite and confused description, from which it appears to extend along sundry " creeks," over several " plains " and to and from several "rifts or water- falls," etc., etc., all of them with long and seemingly unpronounceable Indian names. No mention is made of Hudson's river and it could probably be located in the manner mentioned by Mr. Colden in almost any place in the province which the proprietors should choose. In 1775 a petition of persons claiming to be proprietors of Westenhook was presented to Gov. Tryon who forwarded it to the English board of trade as evidence of a claim of the petitioners to certain lands which had been asked for by some reduced officers. The lords of trade in a representation to a committee of the privy council, thus speak of this patent :
"The other claim to which we beg leave to refer your lordships is founded upon a grant to certain inhabitants of New York in the year 1705, com- monly called the West hook patent, the circumstances of which grant will more fully appear to your lordships from the annexed copy of a peti- tion presented to Gov. Tryon by the proprietors of that patent and by him delivered to us. But we beg leave to observe to your lordships that upon the fullest consideration of this claim, and of every thing which has been offered to us in support of it, we cannot think it ought to have any weight in this consideration, there being no evidence whatever that the lands supposed to be conveyed thereby were ever taken up at any time or indeed that they ever could have been taken up, as the description of the limits in the grant itself, has no reference whatever to any places or point of determination at present known or to be found within the district in question." Col. Hist. N. Y., vol. 8, p. 576.
Such an unintelligible description cannot surely be considered as assert- ing any claim whatever to territory reaching to Connecticut river !
3. The patent of Hoosick bore date June 2, 1688, and was issued to three persons without any specification of quantity and was described as follows :
" All that tract of land with its appurtenances situate, lying and being above Albany, upon both sides of a certain creek called Hoosick, begin- ning at the bounds of Schackoock, and from thence extending to the said creek to a certain fall called Quequick, and from the said fall upwards along the creek to a certain place called Nachawickquack, being in breadtli on each side of said creek two English miles, that is to say two English miles on one side of the creek, and two English miles on the other side of said creek, the whole breadth being four English miles and is in length from the bounds of Schackoock to the said place called Nachawickquack."
The beginning of the tract was probably about six miles from the Hud- son, and it is evident from the description that Gov. Dongan in New York city could not have made the grant with any view of extending the province more than twenty miles from that river, for he could not know that it would reach half that distance, and it therefore has no tendency to prove a claim of jurisdiction over any part of the disputed territory.
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EARLY HISTORY OF VERMONT.
The Hoosick river rises in Berkshire county, Mass., and running in a north-westerly direction, crosses a corner of Vermont in the town of Pownal, and pursues its course for a considerable distance, nearly parallel to the twenty mile line, and then turning almost at right angles reaches the Hudson from the north-east. From the starting point near Schaghticoke, the tract four miles in width must extend not less than twenty miles up the river in length before reaching such line. The terminus of the tract, " a certain water fall called Nachawickquack," might doubtless have been located, in the mode pointed out by Surveyor General Colden, wherever the claimants pleased. It was however, never reached by any survey, and its position remains unascertained and unknown to this day.
4. The patent of Wallumscoick, dated the 15th of June, 1739, was a grant to six persons, and purports to have been made upon a survey and to con- tain twelve thousand acres, " beginning at a certain marked tree, which is 147 chains distant from the dwelling house of Garrett Cornelius V'n Ness, measured on a line running south 75° east from the south-east corner of the said house to the said tree, and running from the said marked tree, north 13° 30' west 90 chains and 40 links, thence 40° 15' east, 220 chains, then north 77° east, 90 chains, then south 31° 40' east, 604 chains, then south 65° west, 92 chains, then north 44° 30' west, 150 chains, then north 75° west, 129 chains, then north 20° west, 146 chains, then south 60° west, 173 chains, then north 4° west, 76 chains, to the place where this tract of land first began, containing 12,000 acres, and the usual allowance for high- ways."
There is nothing about the grant indicating that it extended more than twenty miles to the eastward of the Hudson, and it could not therefore have been designed to claim jurisdiction beyond that distance. It did however begin some three or four miles to the westward of a twenty mile line, and following the windings of the creek, a branch of the Hoosick, which has since borne the name of the patent, reached about the same distance to the eastward of it, into the town of Bennington.
But apparently the most formidable ancient claim of jurisdiction over the disputed territory brought forward in Mr. Duane's State of the Right, was that of a patent to one Godfrey Dellius.
This patent, as appears from the New York records, bears date Septem- ber 3, 1696, and purports to have been issued " by his excellency Benjamin Fletcher, his majesty's governor and commander-in-chief of the province of New York and the territories depending thereon in America," and to grant "to our loving subject the Rev. Godfrey Dellius, minister of the gospel at our city of Albany," some eight or ten hundred thousand acres . of land lying on the east side of Hudson's river - " he yielding, rendering and paying therefor yearly and every year unto us, our heirs and succes- sors, on the first day of our blessed Virgin Mary at our city of New York the annual rent of one raccoon skin, in lieu and stead of all other rents, services, duties and demands whatsoever." This grant together with another still more extraordinary of lands on the Mohawk river made by the same governor to the same reverend gentleman, were three years afterwards, in 1699, set aside and annulled by aet of the New York assem- bly, approved by the crown, as having been obtained and issued by fraud,
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and the reverend Mr. Dellius, by the same act was declared to be sus- pended from further exercising his ministerial functions.
The following is the statement of the claim made in the New York document under consideration.
"So long ago as 1796, a grant passed the great seal of this colony to Godfrey Dellius for a tract extending from the north bounds of Saratoga (which lies both sides of Hudson's river, about thirty miles north of the city of Albany) to the Rock Rosian, a station indisputable, and which is well known to lie on Lake Champlain and above twenty miles to the northward of Crown Point. This tract extends twelve miles east from Hudson's river and the same distance east from Wood creek, and the waters to the northward ; and it is worth a remark that such was its value and importance at that early day that the legislature conceived the grant to be too great a favor for one subject,and passed a law in 1699, repealing it as extravagant."
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This account of the Dellius grant, by which it is declared to include a tract of land in Vermont twelve miles in width, lying on the east side of Lake Champlain, and extending some fifty miles in length from Fair and West Haven on the south to Charlotte on the north, has hitherto been regarded as historical truth. It has been referred to as such in historical works and on a map of Lake Champlain and the bordering territory pub- lished in the first volume of the Documentary History of New York in 1849, its supposed northern boundary in Vermont has been designated and dignified by a special red line. The reader will no doubt be surprised to learn that upon no rational construction of the language of the grant, can it possibly be made to include a single acre of Vermont territory. The importance which has been given to this grant by the advocates of the New York title demands that it should be fully examined.
The patent which is found on the Albany Records, vol. 7, p. 53, de- scribes the land in the following words : " A certain tract of land lying upon the east side of Hudson's ricer between the northernmost bounds of Sara- toga and the Rock Retsio, containing about seventy miles in length and goes backwards into the woods from Hudson's river, twelve miles until it comes into Wood creek, and so far as it goes be it twelve miles more or less from Hudson's river on the east side, and from said creek by a line twelve miles distant from said river." Precisely the same description is found in the act annulling the grant in Van Schaick's Statutes, p. 32, except that the name of the rock is printed Rosian instead of Retsio.
It is impossible by any intelligible reading of this description to carry any part of the tract to the eastward of the waters of Lake Champlain. Unless its language is violently distorted from its natural meaning the land it describes is bounded all the way on the west by Hudson's river, all the way on the east by a twelve mile line from the Hudson, except that Wood creek, " so far as it goes" forms a part of the cast line, whether it be more or less than twelve miles from that river. The only objection that could be urged to this construction would seem to be, that if the tract followed the course of Hudson's river, even to its source, it might not reach as far north as the latitude of Rock Rosian, and at all events its east line of twelve miles from that river would be a very long distance to the west, or southwestward of that rock, which rock, according to Mr. Duane, "is a
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EARLY HISTORY OF VERMONT.
station indisputable and well known to be on Lake Champlain about twenty miles to the northward of Crown Point." That such would be the position of the land in reference to Rock Rosian, now known as Split Rock, if it were now surveyed by the actual course of the river, in con- formity to our construction, is not denied, and yet it by no means follows that we should reject either the rock, or the river as substantial parts of the description. The language of the grant is to be construed in accordance with the intent of the parties and in reference to their geographical know- ledge and belief at the time it was made.
It should be borne in mind that the northern branch of Hudson's river was understood for nearly a century after the grant to Dellius, to take its rise nearly as far north as latitude 45 degrees, and to run in a southerly direction about parallel to Lake Champlain. It is so laid down in the early maps. In 1750, half a century after the Dellius grant, John Henry Lydius, an intelligent Indian trader, gave his affidavit before the mayor of Albany in which he stated that "he had always heard that the pur- chase made by Godfrey Dellius in the year 1696, was commonly esteemed to extend to the Rock Regio." * " and the deponent further says that he well knows the northern branch of Hudson's river extends at least twenty leagues further north than Crown Point." This affidavit was taken at the request of Gov. Clinton and transmitted by him to the board of trade in London. (Col. Ilist. N. Y., vol. 6, p. 561, 569, 577.) As late as 1768, Gov. Moore writes to Lord Hillsborough that the rivers Hud- son and Connecticut had never been traced to their sources. Gov. Tryon in 1774, in a report to the English board of trade says, "Connecticut river extends beyond and Hudson's river takes its rise a little to the south- ward of the forty-fifth degree of latitude. (Ibid. vol. 8, p. 107, 436.) We must suppose then that Hudson's river at the time of the grant was under- stood to reach considerably further north than the Rock Retsio, otherwise written Rosian or Regio.
In the description of the tract, the Hudson river is beyond question a controlling boundary and can not be dispensed with, without making the language altogether unintelligible. If any other part of the description cannot be literally followed, it must give way to that part which is indis- pensible. But there is no need of discarding any portion of it. It is not necessary to the description that the Rock Retsio should be a point with which the tract should come in actual contact. It will be sufficient if it be considered as a well known mark situated as far north as the land should be allowed to extend along the Hudson. Thus full effect will be given to every word of the description, and there will be little trouble in ascertaining its meaning.
The other points mentioned in the Dellius grant were pretty well known. The " northernmost bounds of Saratoga " were the Battenkill, which falls into the Hudson from the east, Saratoga which had been previously patented, extending across and east of the Hudson six miles along said kill. Wood creek takes its rise between the south end of Lake Champlain and the Hudson, and running north easterly some fifteen or twenty miles falls into that lake at Whitehall. It was the carly route from Albany to Canada, and is now that of the northern New York canal. If any one with these explanations will read over the description in the patent, he will
ROCK ROSIAN
OR
SPLIT ROCK
CHAMPLAIN
US HUDSON'S RIVER AS ANCIENTLY BELIEVED. TICONDEROGA. - LAKE GEORGE WHITEHALL.
-GRANT.
CROWN PT.
LAKE
WOOD CREEK
The shaded part represents the Dellius Grant in two parcels, as erroneously claimed by Mr. Duanc.
BATEN KILL
SARATOGA. The Dellius Grant of 1696, bounded West by the Hudson, North and South by dotted Lines, and East by dotted lines and Wood Creek.
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EARLY HISTORY OF VERMONT.
have no difficulty in understanding what was meant by it. It grants to Dellius a tract of land extending from the Battenkill on the south as far to the northward as the Rock Retsio is situated, bounded all the way of its length on the west by Hudson's river, and extending castward into the woods twelve miles from that river, except that for a few miles of its length its eastern boundary is Wood creek, " be it twelve miles more or less from said river."
No step can be taken towards sliding the west boundary of this grant over to the eastern shore of Lake Champlain without wresting the language of the grant from its clear and obvious meaning, and any attempt to do it would show the perfect absurdity of such a construction. The eastern line of the tract, beginning at its southern boundary runs parallel to Hud- son's river at a distance of twelve miles from it for some fifteen miles or more " until it comes unto Wood creek." Of this there can be no dispute. According to the natural construction of the language, the eastern boundary of the tract continues along Wood creek " so far as it goes." But accor- ding to Mr. Duane the eastern boundary stops at Wood creek, and the creek then takes the place of Hudson's river and becomes at once the west- ern boundary, and the eastern boundary is consequently shoved twelve miles further to the castward. This it will be perceived divides the domain of Mr. Dellius into two separate and distinct parcels, the north east corner of the southern parcel merely touching the south west corner of the northern at a single point. The absurdity of this construction may be clearly seen by the subjoined plan, the dark ground representing the tract or tracts according to Mr. Duane, and the dotted lines in connexion with the Hudson river showing the form of the grant as really intended to be made.
Dr. Fitch in his interesting and valuable history of Washington county, published in the Transactions of the New York Agricultural Society for 1848, speaks of tlie Dellius grant as covering " about half the land in Washing- ton county, and a still larger quantity in the present state of Vermont." He then gives correctly the descriptive words of the grant, but appears in great doubt about its measuring. He is not satisfied with Mr. Duane's explanation of it, apparently for the reason that he extends the tract far to the northward of Wood creek, along the waters of Lake Champlain, whereas no mention is made of the lake as one of its boundaries. This is certainly a very formidable objection, one that it is difficult to overcome. . In order to get rid of it Dr. Fitch asserts that Crown Point " was commonly regarded by the French as the head of the lake and the mouth of Wood . creek,'? and adds that "this document, though extremely vague, appears to contemplate this topic in the same light." He thus extends the Wood creek boundary of the track as far north as Crown Point. But this stops twenty miles short of " Rock Retsio," and the same difficulty still remains. This he overcomes by conjecturing that Mr. Duane's well-known " in- disputable station " may not after all have been Split Rock, but some undiscovered rock near Crown Point, at the mouth of his imaginary Wood creek. This conjectural location of the tract it will at once be perceived, leads into at least two insurmountable difficulties. First, it transfers Wood creek from the eastern to the western boundary of the tract, leaving it, as in Mr. Duane's description, in two distinct parcels ;
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EARLY HISTORY OF VERMONT.
and secondly, by extending Wood creek to the northern limit of the tract, the important closing words of the description are ignored and rejected as unmeaning, viz: the words "and from said creek by a line twelve miles distant from said [Hudson's} river." If Dr. Fitch, instead of endea- voring to make the description conform to the idea that a large portion of the tract was in Vermont, had merely sought to ascertain from its language where it was really intended to be located, he would probably have found no difficulty in perceiving that Hudson river formed its whole western boundary, and that Wood creek " so far as it goes," in connexion with a twelve mile line from that river, constituted its eastern. That the Rock Retsio, sometimes written Rosian, Rodgio, Rogeo and Rogio, was "the Great Rock " afterwards known as Split Rock, situated some twenty miles to the northward of Crown Point, there is no manner of doubt. (See Co- lonial History of N. Y., vol. 3, p. 802, vol. 4, p. 748, vol. 6, p. 569.)
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