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Phelps and Gorham Purchase

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Map of Phelps and Gorham Purchase 1802–1806

The Phelps and Gorham Purchase was the purchase in 1788 of 6,000,000 acres (24,000 km2) of land in what is now western New York State from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for $1,000,000, and the pre-emptive right to the title on the land from the Native Americans for $5000. A syndicate formed by Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham bought pre-emptive rights to 6,000,000-acre (24,000 km2) in New York, west of Seneca Lake between Lake Ontario and the Pennsylvania border, from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Phelps and Gorham then attempted to obtain clear title from the Indians for the entire parcel, but were only able to get the title to the lands east of the Genesee River. Within a year, monetary values rose and in combination with poor sales, the syndicate was unable to make the second of three payments for the land west of the Genesse River, forcing them to default on exercising the remainder of the purchase agreement. They were also forced to sell at a discount much of the land they had already bought title to but had not yet re-sold to U.S. Senator and financier Robert Morris. In some references to the purchase, the Phelps and Gorham Purchase refers only to the 2,250,000 acres (9,100 km2) on which Phelps and Gorham were able to extinguish the Indian's aboriginal title.

Origins and background

Main article: Sullivan Expedition
James Clinton and John Sullivan, leaders of the Sullivan Expedition.

The land south of Lake Ontario had been historically occupied by the original Native American people including Mohawk, Oneida, Onandaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations. Prior to the arrival of the English in the region, it had originally colonized by the French with the founding of Quebec in 1608. When Samuel de Champlain explored the St. Lawrence River, he claimed the region included Western New York, which formed a portion of French Canada and remained so until 1759.[1]

During the American Revolutionary War, colonists sympathetic to the rebels suffered tremendously under the attacks of Indians loyal to the Tory cause.[2] Many of the Iroguois tribes in western New York, including the the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk and Tuscarora, disliked the colonists encroaching into their territory, which roughly comprised the Allegheny, Genesee, Upper Susquehanna and Chemung River basins. The Iroquois nations allied themselves with the British and repeatedly raided American settlements and villages in Western New York and along the Susquehanna.[2]


The colonists were angry and hungry for retaliation. In response, on July 31, 1779, Gen. George Washington ordered Gen. James Clinton and Gen. John Sullivan to march from Wyoming, near present-day Wilkes-Barre, to the Finger Lakes area of New York. The campaign mobilized 6200 Colonial troops, about 25% of the entire rebel army.[3] Their orders were to "destroy all Indian villages and crops belonging to the six nations, to engage the Indian and Tory marauders under Brandt and Butler whenever possible, and to drive them so far west that future raids would be impossible."[2] Sullivan led his army on an expedition with the goal of subduing the Indians in the region. Although they did not kill many Native Americans, they devastated the Cayuga and Iroquois homelands, destroying 40 villages, including major Cayuga villages such as Cayuga Castle and Chonodote (Peachtown), including their surrounding fields; destroying at least 160,000 bushels of corn along “with a vast quantity of vegetables of every kind"[3] in the area from Albany to Niagara. They denied both the Indians and the British food needed to sustain their war effort and forced the formerly self-sufficient Indians to gather at and rely upon the British at Fort Niagara for sustenance. They were soon decimated by famine and disease, which took thousands of their lives, and they were never again a factor in the war. The expedition did wonders for the Continental Army’s previously low morale.[2]

Sullivan's army took a southerly route to western New York through northeast Pennsylvania which required them to cut a new road through lightly inhabited areas of the Pocono Mountains (known today as "Sullivan's Trail"). When the troops returned, they told very favorable stories of the land.[2]

After the war ended, the Iroquois chiefs had been assured in the 1784 Fort Stanwix treaty that their lands would remain theirs unless the Indians made new cessions in regular councils duly convened and conducted according to tribal custom.[4]

Treaty of Hartford

Following the American Revolution, there remained a confusing collection of contradictory royal charters from James VI and I|James I]], Charles I, and Charles II, mixed with a succession of treaties with the Dutch and with the Indians, which made the legal situation intractable.[5] Western New York was eligible for settlement as soon as New York and Massachusetts reached a compromise settling their competing claims for the region. This occurred in December 1786 with the signing of the Treaty of Hartford. The treaty stated that New York would have sovereignty over the land, but Massachusetts would have the pre-emptive right to obtain aboriginal title from the native Americans. After the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1787, the federal government ratified their compact.[6] In April 1788, Phelps and Gorham bought the pre-emptive rights from Massachusetts, but this didn't get them the land. They only obtained exclusive right to negotiate with the Native Americans and obtain clear title to the land. For this pre-emptive right, they paid Massachusetts $1,000,000 (equivalent to about $35,000,000,000 today) or 16 and 2/3 cents an acre ($41.18/km²).


By an act of the Massachusetts Legislature approved April 1, 1788,[7] it was provided that "this Commonwealth doth hereby agree, to grant, sell & convey to Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham, for a purchase price of $1,000,000, payable in three equal annual installments all the Right, Title & Demand, which the said Commonwealth has in & to the said 'Western Territory' ceded to it by the Treaty of Hartford."[7] But first Phelps and Gorham had to go up against competing companys and get the Native Americans to give up title to the land.

Council at Buffalo Creek

One of the competitors for the obtaining title to the land was the New York Genesee Land Company led by John Livingston. He gathered several of the chiefs together at Geneva and had negotiated a 999 year lease to all the Indian lands of Western New York. He agreed to to a down payment of $20,000 and an annual payment of $200 for their heirs for 999 years. But his agreement had no standing in either Massachusetts or New York courts.[4] Colonel John Butler, Samuel Street, and other Tory friends of the Indians formed the Niagara Genesee Land Company and attempted to persuade the Indians to grant them a lease. Some proposed an independent state be created.[4] Phelps forged a syndicate by involving many of his competitors. Phelps and Gorham retained 82 shares for themselves, and sold 15 shares to the Niagara Genesee Land Company and another 23 shares were divided among 21 persons.[8]

On July 8, 1788, Phelps met with the five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, including the Mohawk, Oneida, Onandaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations, at Buffalo Creek. His goal was to execute a deed or treaty and obtain title to a portion of their land.[9] The Oneida were split by internal divisions over whether they should give up their title.[10]

Missionary influence

Phelps was aided by Samuel Kirkland, a Presbyterian minister and missionary among the Oneida. Kirkland had been appointed by the state of Massachusetts to oversee the transaction. Kirkland had previously taken part in six prior illegal land treaties conducted by individual states with the Indians, in violation of federal authority over Indian affairs. Kirkland encouraged the Indians to sell their land to the whites in part because he was convinced that they "would never become farmers unless forced to by the loss of land for hunting." Kirkland took part in the land sales, receiving 6,000-acre (24 km2) around present day Utica from New York State and from the Oneida people. Kirkland was also determined to build the Hamilton-Oneida Academy and needed financial support from the wealthy land speculators.[10] In November 1790, Iroquois Indians, including Cornplanter, accused Phelps, Kirkland, and the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant of altering deeds to favor Phelps.[10]

Land ownership

The Indians considered themselves to be the owners of the land, but Phelps persuaded the Chiefs that since they had been allies to the defeated British during the Revolutionary War, and since the British had given up the lands in the 1783 peace treaty, the tribes could only expect to retain whatever lands the United States would allow them to keep.[4] Phelps and Gorham wanted to buy 2,600,000-acre (11,000 km2), but the Indians refused to sell the rights to any land west of the Genesee River. Phelps suggested that the Indians could take advantage of a grist mill to grind their maize which would relieve the women of the grinding work. The Indians asked how much land was needed for a grist mill, and Phelps suggested a section of land west of the Genesee River running south from Lake Ontario approximately 24 miles (39 km) and extending west from the river 12 miles (19 km), about 288 square miles (750 km2), from "the westernmost bend of the Genesee," with this western boundary paralleling the course of the Genesee.

Within this area on the west bank, Phelps and Gorham gave 100 acres (0.40 km2; 0.16 sq mi) at the high falls of the Genesee River to Ebenezer "Indian" Allen on the condition that he build the grist mill and sawmill. The grist mill was distant from potential customers—only about 25 families lived on the west bank at the time—and there were no available system of roads to reach its location from the few nearby farms on the west bank of the river, and it never prospered.[11] Allen's tract became the nucleus of modern Rochester, New York. The section of land on the west bank of the Genesee River became known as The Mill Yard Tract.[12]

Purchase agreement

Phelps and his company paid the Indians $5,000 cash and promised an annual annuity of $500 to their heirs forever.[8] The agreement gave them title to 2,250,000 acres (9,100 km2), included approximately the eastern third of the territory ceded to Massachusetts by the Treaty of Hartford, from the Genesee River in the west to the Preemption Line in the east, which was the boundary that had been set between the lands awarded to Massachusetts and those awarded to New York State by the Treaty of Hartford. Boundaries established by Phelp's agreement were reaffirmed between the United States and the Six Nations by Article 3 of the Treaty of Canandaigua in 1794.[13] The scrip's low value substantially reduced Massachusetts' proceeds from the sale.[14]

Survey difficulties

The tract was bounded on the north by Lake Ontario, on the south by the Pennsylvania border, and on the east by the Preemption Line. The western line was anchored in the south at the 82nd milestone on the New York State-Pennsylvania border and ran due north on a meridian to Lake Ontario. Phelps believed that the property line would run through Seneca Lake to the west of the former Indian settlement at what is now present-day Geneva, which he planned to make the headquarters and location of the land sales office. Phelps hired Col. Hugh Maxwell, a man with an impeccable reputation, to perform the survey.

Maxwell ran the western border north from the Pennsylvania border to the confluence of Canaseraga creek and the Genesee River. and ran a line following the river's course until two miles north of Canawagus village, and then ran due west 12 miles (19 km). Maxwell apparently assumed that the Genesee River ran due north and ran a line north 12 miles (19 km) distant from the westernmost bend, due north to the shore of Lake Ontario. He divided the land into ranges 6 miles (9.7 km) wide from north to south.[5] Maxwell apparently made a serious error as he established the line from Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario, ignoring the variance between magnetic north and true north. Maxwell's work is known as "The First Survey."[15]

Settlers arrive

Phelps opened one of the first land sales offices in the U.S. in Suffield[16] and another in Canandaigua. During the next two years they sold 500,000-acre (2,000 km2) at a higher price to a number of buyers. People arrived from New England, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and from across the Atlantic in England and Scotland. Settlers also included soldiers who had fought under General Sullivan.[15]

When the syndicate was unable to complete its purchase and forced to sell the land in late 1791 to Robert Morris, the survey was repeated and many errors were discovered. Surveyors discovered that the river actually flowed to the northeast and re-drew the pre-emption line in a northeasternly direction from the west end of the southern boundary to include the town of Geneva. An equivalent amount of land on the west, created an 87,000 acre (352 km²), The Triangle Tract, was returned to the Indians. This later survey became known as the "Second Survey". When Massachusetts sold those lands west of the Genesse River that Phelps and Gorham had not extinguished Indian title to, it included the Triangle Tract which became part of the Morris Reserve.

Financial difficulites

Map shows location of the Triangle Tract, the Morris Reserve, the Mill Yard Tract, and the Preemption Line

Land purchased from the Indians was often bought for speculation rather than immediate settlement and was usually quickly resold. For example, Oliver Phelps sold township 3, range 2, to Prince Bryant of Pennsylvania on 5 September 1789. Prince Bryant sold the land a month later to Elijah Babcock, who in turn sold various parcels to Roger Clark, Samuel Tooker, David Holmes, and William Babcock.[5] The syndicate was able to sell about half of its holdings.

Syndicate defaults

However, within the year, the price of the consolidated securities used to buy the land rose, effectively quadrupling their debt[5] and substantially inflating the cost to the syndicate to purchase title from the Indians for the remaining 1,000,000-acre (4,000 km2).[8] Fewer emigrants bought land than expected, reducing the income expected by the syndicate. Two of the three bonds financing the purchase were canceled, but even the remaining reduced amount of the third bond was too great for the syndicate. In August 1790, the reverses forced Phelps to sell his Suffield home and his interest in the Hartford National Bank and Trust Co.

Morris buys land

On November 18, 1790, the syndicate sold the land east of the Genesse River that they had not yet re-sold to Robert Morris. In early 1791, the syndicate was unable to make the second payment on the preemptive right to the lands west of the Genesee River, comprising some 3,750,000 acres (15,200 km2), and the land reverted back to Massachusetts on March 10, 1791. On March 12, Massachusetts agreed to sell these rights to Robert Morris for $333,333.33. The land was conveyed to Morris in five deeds on May 11, 1791. Morris was a signatory of the Declaration of Independence and a financier of the American Revolution, and at the time was the richest man in America. Morris sold most of these lands in December 1792 and in February and July 1793 to the Holland Land Company in a transaction known as the Holland Purchase.

Morris resold the land in less than a year to three Englishmen, Sir William Pulteney, William Hornby, and Patrick Colquhoun, at more than double the price he had paid. At the time non-citizens could not legally hold title to land, so the buyers sent Charles Williamson from Scotland, and he was naturalized to hold the land in trust for the owners.[5] In 1792, Morris's London agent William Temple Franklin sold 12,000,000 acres (49,000 km2; 19,000 sq mi) to the Pulteney Associates, led by Sir William Pulteney. The Pulteney Purchase, or the Genesee Tract, as it was also known, comprised all of the present counties of Ontario, Steuben and Yates, as well as portions of Allegany, Livingston, Monroe, Schuyler and Wayne counties. After Sir William Pulteney's death in 1805, it was known as the Pulteney Estate.

Morris kept 500,000 acres (2,000 km2) in a 12-mile (19 km)-wide strip along the east side of the lands acquired from Massachusetts, from the Pennsylvania border to Lake Ontario, known as the Morris Reserve. At the north end of the Morris Reserve, an 87,000-acre (350 km2) triangular-shaped tract ("the Triangle Tract") was sold by Morris to Herman Leroy, William Bayard, and John McEvers, while a 100,000-acre (400 km2) tract due west of the Triangle Tract was sold to the State of Connecticut. In September 1797 Morris extinguished the remaining aboriginal title for all the lands west of the Genesee at the Treaty of Big Tree held at Geneseo, New York.

See also

References

  1. ^ Turner, Orsamus (1852). History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps & Gorham's Purchase, and Morris' Reserve. Rochester, New York: William Alling.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Gen. Sullivan's 1779 Campaign Against the Iroqouis". The Daily and Sunday Review. 2001. Retrieved 31 December 2012.
  3. ^ a b Spiegelman, Bob. "Sullican / Clinton Campaign". Retrieved 31 December 2012.
  4. ^ a b c d McKelvey, Blake (January 1939). "Rochester History" (PDF). Rochester Library. Retrieved 28 December 2012.
  5. ^ a b c d e Henry, Marian S. (February 25, 2000). "The Phelps-Gorham Purchase". Retrieved 31 December 2012.
  6. ^ Seneca Nation, 162 U.S. at 285
  7. ^ a b Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court. Boston: Adams & Nourse. 1893. p. 900=901.
  8. ^ a b c Milliken, Charles F. (1911). A History of Ontario County, New York and Its People Vol. 1. Lewis Historical Publishing Co. p. 15. Retrieved 2008-01-25. Cite error: The named reference "milliken" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  9. ^ McKeveley, Blake (1939). "Historic Aspects of the Phelps and Gorham Treaty of July 4–8, 1788" (PDF). Rochester History. 1 (1). Rochester Public Library. ISSN 0035-7413. Retrieved 2008-01-05. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  10. ^ a b c Hauptman, Laurence M. (editor) (1999). The Oneida Indian Journey: From New York to Wisconsin, 1784 - 1860. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0299161446. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  11. ^ Merrill, Arch. "Pioneer Profiles". Retrieved 28 December 2012.
  12. ^ Shilling, Donovan A. "Rochester's Romantic Rogue: The Life and Times of Ebenezer Allan". The Crooked Lake Review. Retrieved 28 December 2012.
  13. ^ "1794 Canadaigua Treaty Text". Retrieved 6 October 2012.
  14. ^ Chandler, Alfred N. (2000). Land Title Origins: A Tale of Force and Fraud. Beard Books. p. 568. ISBN 978-1893122895.
  15. ^ a b Robortella, John. "Why Canandaigua Was Chosen". Retrieved 3 January 2013.
  16. ^ "Oliver Phelps (1749-1809)". Retrieved 27 December 2012.

Added reading

  • Hauptman, Laurence M. Conspiracy of Interests: Iroquois Dispossession and the Rise of New York State (2001).

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