146 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



character and morals. James Wadsworth's ambition was more wisely directed. 

 He did not see in his superior education the means of escaping from the pursuits 

 of his forefathers, as if rural toil were disgraceful to the man of intelligence, but 

 rather the instrument by which intellect and mental energy might be substituted 

 for rustic manipulation. At that moment, the adoption of the Federal Constitu- 

 tion promised a Government of sufficient strength to maintain supremacy over the 

 Indian tribes bordering upon the settlements of more ancient date, and large 

 tracts of land hitherto held as Indian hunting grounds lay open to purchase under 

 unquestionable titles, derived from cessions by the aborigines to the States within 

 whose chartered limits they lay. Massachusetts and Kew-York had com- 

 promised their claims to the country west of the Seneca Lake ; the former acquir- 

 ing the right of soil, the latter that of jurisdiction ; and Massachusetts, in a happy 

 hour for the prosperity of New-York, had sold her wide but apparently valueless 

 estate to the copartnership long conspicuous on the maps of the State of New- 

 York under the name of Phelps and Gorham. This firm, buying at a price which, 

 estimated by the acre at the present day, would be called nominal, contracted 

 from the vast extent of the tract to Avhich they had acquired a title, engagements 

 large for the time, and both for the purpose of diminishing the amount at stake, 

 and realizing early profits, sought to embark others in the speculation as pur- 

 chasers from them. Among these was Col. Wadsworth of Hartford, Conn., 

 who from his wealth, and public services in the war of the Revolution, was 

 looked up to by those of his name as their chief The young Wadsworths, 

 while they were unable to count kin with him, were acknowledged as the de- 

 scendants of a common ancestor, and he, with the patriarchal feeling which has 

 now become almost obliterated, was willing to extend his patronage to those 

 who bore the same patronymic as himself. To James and his brother William he 

 gave not only sound advice, but what proved to be the most useful aid. He pro- 

 posed to them that they should take an interest in his remote and almost mac- 

 cessible estate, by purchasing a part and becoming his agents for the management 

 of the remainder. It has rarely happened that young men of intelligence, edu- 

 cation and sure, although limited capital, have been induced to make such 

 obvious sacrifices for the attainment of a certainly distant, and possibly unattain- 

 able benefit. What difficulties beset and long attended them will be understood 

 from our narrative. 



The patrimonial property of the two Wadsworths was worth some $12,000 or 

 $15,000. It consisted in lands in the township of Durham, Ct. for which 

 there was but little demand, and served rather as the basis of credit than as a 

 moneyed capital. Their purchase was situated in what are now known as the 

 townships of Geneseo and Avon, on the eastern bank of the Genesee River. In 

 the year 1790, when their enterprising journey commenced, the Little Falls of 

 the Mohawk formed the extreme limit of continuous cultivation in the State of 

 New- York. Small clearings were beginning to appear on the German Flats and 

 at Cosby's Manor. The Indian trade enabled a couple of white families to earn 

 a scanty support at each of the two places where Utica and Geneva now stand, 

 and Canandaigua was the seat of the land office of Phelps and Gorham. With 

 these exceptions the whole region was a wilderness, rendered more dreary by 

 the necessary ravages of Sullivan's army, and more dangerous by the rancor 

 which those ravages had excited in the breasts of the warriors of the Five Na- 

 tions. This rancor was kept up by the promptings of traders issuing from the 

 fortress of Niagara, over which the British flag still (luattd, and had for its only 

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