HISTOKY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



33 



to the New York Company several who for a long period 

 had been Indian traders. Thus organized, by such appli- 

 ances as usually forwarded negotiations with the Indians, 

 the company, in November, 1787, obtained a lease "/or 

 nine hundred and ninety-nine years' of all the lands of 

 the Six Nations in the State of New York, except some 

 small reservations, the privilege of hunting, fishing, etc. 

 The annual rent was to be two thousand Spanish milled 

 dollars, together with a bonus of twenty thousand dollars. 



" In March, 1788, John Taylor had been appointed an 

 agent of the New York Board of Commissioners, or Super- 

 intendent of Indian AiFairs. In that month he was sent 

 to the Indian country to counteract the unlawful proceed- 

 ings of the lessees. On his return he reported that he 

 had fallen in with the clerk of an Indian trader just from 

 Tioga, who told him that ' Livingston had sent fourteen 

 sleighs loaded with goods into the Indian country; that 

 they got within fifty miles of Tioga, and would proceed no 

 farther ; that the Senecas were exceedingly dissatisfied with 

 Livingston and would not abide by the bargain, charging 

 him with having cheated them ; that they threatened 

 Ilyckman for having assisted him in cheating them ; that 

 one hundred and sixty families were at Tioga, with a con- 

 siderable number of cattle, in order to form a settlement on 

 those lands, but were very much at a loss, as they had 

 heard that the State intended that no settlement should be 

 made.' Governor Clinton issued a proclamation, warning 

 purchasers that the lessee's title w^ould be annulled, and 

 sent runners to all the Six Nations, warning them of the 

 fraud that had been practiced against them. 



" It was a formidable organization, embracing men of 

 wealth and influence, and those who, if their own plans 

 could not be consummated, had an influence with the In- 

 dians that would enable them to throw serious obstacles in 

 the way of legal negotiations with them for their lands. 

 The lease' consummated, the next object of the association 

 was to procure an act of the Legislature sanctioning the 

 proceedings, and for that purpose an attempt was made to 

 intimidate by threats of dismemberment and the formation 

 of a new State embracing all the leased territory. But the 

 whole matter was met with energy and promptness by Gov- 

 ernor Clinton, who urged upon the Legislature measures to 

 counteract the intended mischief. In March, 1788, an act 

 was passed which authorized the Governor to disregard all 

 contracts made with Indians not sanctioned by the State, 

 and to cause all persons who had entered upon Indian lands 

 under such contracts to be driven off by force, and their 

 buildings destroyed. Governor Clinton ordered William 

 Colbraith, then sherifi* of Herkimer County (which em- 

 braced all of the present county of Herkimer and all west 

 of it to the west bounds of the State), to dispossess in- 

 truders and burn their dwellings. A military force was 

 called out and the order st^rictly executed. One of the 

 prominent settlers, and a co-operator of the lessees, was 

 taken to New York in irons, upon a charge of high treason. 



Thus bafiled, the managers of the two associations de- 

 termined to retaliate and force a compromise, if they failed 

 to carry out their original design, by meeting the State 

 upon treaty grounds^ w4iere they could bring a stronger 

 lobby than they could command for the halls of legislation. 

 5 



SECOND TREATY OF FORT STANWIX. 



At the treaty held at Fort Stanwix, in September, 1788, 

 with the Onondagas, for the purchase of their lands by the 

 State, Governor Clinton took the field in person, backed by 

 all the official influence he could command; and yet he 

 found for awhile extreme difficulty in effecting anything. 

 Little opposition from the lessees showed itself openly, but 

 it was there with its strongest appliances.. In after-years, 

 when preferring a claim against the " New York Genesee 

 Company" in behalf of the " Niagara Genesee Company," 

 a prominent individual among the claimants urged that 

 the Canada Company had kept the Indians back from the 

 treaties, and when they could no longer do so, baffled Gov- 

 ernor Clinton for nearly three weeks. Still, treaties went 

 on until the State had possessed itself of the lands of the 

 Six Nations east of the pre-emption line. The lessees, see- 

 ing little hope of accomplishing their designs, finally peti- 

 tioned the Legislature for relief; and, after considerable 

 delay, in 1793, an act was passed authorizing the commis- 

 sioners of the land-office to set off* for them from any of 

 the vacant unappropriated lands of the State a tract equal 

 to ten miles square. The allotment was finally made in 

 township No. 3 of the old military tract. Thus terminated, 

 so far as the State was concerned, a magnificent scheme, 

 which contemplated the possession of a vast domain, and 

 perhaps, as has been alleged, a separate State organization. 

 It marks an important era in the early history of our State. 

 The influence brought to bear upon the Indians from 

 Canada, by which the extraordinary lease was obtauied, 

 was stimulated by the prospect of individual gain; but 

 may we not well infer — without an implication of the 

 many respectable individuals who composed the association 

 in this State to that extent — that it looked forward to the 

 maintenance of British dominion, which was afterwards 

 asserted and reluctantly yielded ? It was long after this 

 before the potent influence which the Johnsons, Butler, and 

 Brant had carried with them, even in their retreat to 

 Canada, was counteracted. They were yet constantly in- 

 culcating the idea among the Six Nations that they were 

 under British dominion, — the Senecas at least. What could 

 better have promoted this pretension than such a scheme, 

 especially if it contemplated the extreme measure of the 

 dismemberment of this State, — such, as was alleged at the 

 time, was embraced in the plan of the two organizations? 

 ... As late as November, 1793, James Wadsworth and 

 Oliver Phelps received a circular signed by John Living- 

 ston and Caleb Benton, as officers of a convention purporting 

 to have been held at Geneva, urging the people to hold 

 town-meetings and sign petitions for a new State to be set 

 off" from New York, and to embrace the counties of Otsego, 

 Tioga, Herkimer, and Ontario. 



TREATY OF FORT SCHUYLER. 



Early in the spring of 1788 another council of the Six 

 Nations was contemplated by the New York commissioners. 

 In answer to a message from them requesting the Indians 

 to fix upon a time, some of the chiefs answered in writing 

 that it must be " after the corn is hoed." Massachusetts 

 not having then parted with her pre-emption right west of 

 Seneca Lake, Gov. Clinton wrote to Gov. Hancock to secure 



