38 



HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



the Niagara company had got the Indians assembled at Buf- 

 falo Creek. He was not long in deciding what to do. Taking 

 the Indian trail, he proceeded to Niagara, where he met But- 

 ler, Brant, and Street, and secured their co-operation, they 

 agreeing to procure with him a treaty with the Indians at 

 Buffalo Creek. Mr. Phelps rejoined his friends at Geneva, 

 where he remained until a deputation of chiefs waited upon 

 him to conduct him to the appointed council-fires. Red 

 Jacket was at the head of this deputation. Afterwards, 

 in 1790, at a council in Tioga, when complaining to Mr. 

 Pickering, Indian agent for Massachusetts, of some wrong 

 in reference to Mr. Phelps' treaty, he said : " Then I, Billy, 

 and the Heap of Dogs went to Kanadesaga and took Mr. 

 Phelps by the hand, and led him to the council-fires at 

 Buffalo Creek." Alluding to the commission which Mr. 

 Phelps produced at the opening of the council, which had 

 been given him by the Grovernor of Massachusetts, Red 

 Jacket also said : " Then all know, and Mr. Street knows, 

 that Mr. Phelps held up a paper with a seal on it as big as 

 my hand. When he opened his mind to us, we took it 

 hard." 



Rev. Samuel Kirkland was present at the council, having 

 been appointed by a law of Massachusetts to superintend 

 the treaty, and see that no injustice was done to the Indians. 

 His assistant superintendent, Elisha Lee, Esq., of Boston, 

 was also in attendance. The interpreters were James Deane, 

 Joseph Smith, William Johnstone, Mr. Kirkland, and sev- 

 eral others. Of the other side, there were present John 

 Butler, Joseph Brant, Samuel Street, and the officers from 

 Fort Niagara. The lessees, following up Mr. Phelps, were 

 represented by John Livingston, Caleb Benton, and Ezekiel 

 Gilbert. Several Onondaga, Cayuga, and Mohawk chiefs 

 were present. 



Mr. Phelps, on the opening of the council, had his com- 

 mission or patent from Massachusetts read and explained, 

 and made a speech explaining to the Indians the object of 

 the treaty and the right he possessed to purchase the land. 



Most of the Seneca chiefs, of whom there was a pretty 

 full delegation present, were for selling a portion of their 

 lands ; but it was evident that they had come with the de- 

 termination of making the Genesee River the western 

 boundary of their cession, and this position they maintained 

 for several days, but finally yielded and fixed the western 

 boundary, as it was afterwards established. The negotia- 

 tion then turned upon the price to be paid. Mr. Phelps 

 and the Indians could not agree, and therefore mutually 

 appointed John Butler, Joseph Brant, and Elisha Lee as 

 referees, who agreed that Mr. Phelps should pay for the 

 tract purchased Jive thousand dollars and an annuity of 

 jive hundred dollars forever. " The Indians had consented 

 to take for the quantity of land they were conveying, a sum 

 which would amount to a fair proportion of what the lessees 

 had agreed to pay for their whole country, and this was 

 the basis upon which the price was fixed." 



The 'lands thus ceded constituted what is now known as 

 Phelps and Gorhara's Purchase, and included the county 

 of Steuben, and a considerable portion of Western New York. 

 The eastern boundary of this tract was the Massachusetts 

 pre-emption line ; its western boundary, '' a line beginning 

 in the northern line of Pennsylvania, due south of the 



corner or point of land made by the confluence of the 

 Genesee River and the Canaseraga Creek ; thence north 

 on said meridian line to the corner or point at the con- 

 fluence aforesaid ; thence northwardly along the waters of 

 the Genesee River to a point two miles north of Cana- 

 wagus village ; thence running due west twelve miles ; 

 thence running northwardly, so as to be twelve miles dis- 

 tant from the western bounds of said river, to the shores of 

 Lake Ontario." The tract contained by estimation two 

 million six hundred thousand acres. 



The history of this tract or purchase will be given in 

 another chapter, our present object being simply to treat 

 of the extinction of the Indian title to these lands. We 

 will therefore finish what we desire to say upon that sub- 

 ject. 



Mr. Phelps says, " the council was conducted in a friendly 

 and amicable manner." The Niagara company, or the Can- 

 ada lessees, Butler and his associates, had an independent 

 claim for the assistance rendered Mr. Phelps in convening 

 the Indians and enabling him to accomplish his purpose. 

 This was probably arranged by a promise on the part of 

 Mr. Phelps to give them an interest in common with him- 

 self and his associates, for soon after the sale to Robert 

 Morris, Samuel Street and others (the Niagara Lessee Com- 

 pany) filed a bill in chancery, setting forth that they were 

 entitled to the proceeds of sales of '' fifteen one hundred 

 and twentieth parts" of all of Phelps and Gorham's Pur- 

 chase, by virtue of an agreement made by Mr. Phelps at 

 the treaty of Buffalo Creek. Upon the bill of complaint 

 an injunction was issued against Phelps and Gorham, their 

 associates in interest, and their grantees ; but how the matter 

 was finally disposed of we are not informed. 



There has been a very common mistake as to where Mr. 

 Phelps held his treaty with the Indians, many supposing 

 that Canandaigua was the place. Mr. Turner remarks that 

 the very spot has been pointed out upon which it was held, 

 and that " the error has been perpetuated by historians and 

 essayists, who have added a fancy sketch of the scene of the 

 treaty-ground, with Red Jacket eloquently invoking the 

 war-cry, the tomahawk, and the scalping-knife, and Farmer's 

 Brother opposing him. The whole story is spoiled by Red 

 Jacket's own assertion, that ' he and Billy and the heap of 

 dogs' led Mr. Phelps from Kanadesaga to the treaty at 

 Buffalo Creek. The idea of a land treaty of Mr. Phelps 

 with the Indians at Canandaigua must have come from a 

 gathering which was held there in 1789, when Mr. Phelps' 

 payment became due." 



Mr. Phelps, on returning to New England, reported by 

 letter to his principal associates the result of his embassy, 

 saying, " You may rely upon it that it is a good country. 

 I have purchased all that the Indians will sell at present, 

 and perhaps as much as it would be profitable for us to buy 

 at this time." It proved, at least, all that they were able 

 to pay for. At the session of the Massachusetts Legisla- 

 ture, in 1789, they found themselves unable to fulfill the 

 engagement they had made for the payment of the pur- 

 chase money. They had predicated payment upon the 

 supposition that they could purchase the public paper of 

 Massachusetts at its then market value, which was about 

 fifty cents on a dollar. But the paper rose during that 



