HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



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steps were taken to hold a treaty witli the Indians, — the 

 Senecas, in whose portion of the State the lands were situ- 

 ated. Mr. Phelps made a trip to Geneva, then Kanade- 

 saga, and failing, with the aid of Mr. Livingston, to con- 

 vene a council of the Indians at that point, hastened by 

 the old Indian trail to Buffalo Creek, where he found the 

 Indians had been assembled by the Niagara Lessee Com- 

 pany, and through the aid of the latter, in July, 1788, 

 he effected a purchase of the Senecas of the tract of land 

 known as Phelps and Gorham's Purchase. This treaty was 

 not held at Canandaigua, as some suppose, but at Bufialo 

 Creek.* Mr. Phelps during this first trip made his head- 

 quarters at Geneva, not at Canandaigua. Before leaving 

 the county he set surveyors at work under the direction of 

 Col. Hugh Maxwell, to divide the newly-acquired country 

 into townships, and, having fixed upon Canandaigua as the 

 focus of intended enterprise, returned to Suffield, Mass. 

 All retired as winter approached, and left the whole region, 

 except the small settlement at Geneva, in the possession of 

 its ancient owners. 



Mr. Walker, after having remained in the country till 

 nearly the setting in of winter, returned, and was present 

 at a meeting of the associates, in January. He reported 

 that he had sold and contracted about thirty townships. 

 At this meeting a division of the land took place, the lar- 

 gest portions falling into the hands of Phelps and Gorham 

 and a few other leading associates, who purchased the 

 interests of the smaller shareholders. The most of the 

 early sales of townships were to those who held shares, 

 which will account for the very low price, the shareholders 

 paying about what the lands cost the association. 



Mr. Phelps, although his residence in all the earliest 

 years of settlement was still in Massachusetts, spent most 

 of his time in Canandaigua, and was the active and liberal 

 patron and helper in all the public enterprises of the region 

 which he had opened for settlement. He may appropri- 

 ately be called the Father of the Genesee country. Of 

 ardent temperament, active, able, and ambitious in all that 

 related to the new country, the pioneers found in him a 



* I find in an article by Judge Goldsmith Denniston, on tho source 

 of land title in Steuben County, the statement that 'Uho chiefs and 

 warriors of the Six Nations were assembled, and Mr. Phelps met 

 them in conference near the Canandaigua Lake. After a negotiation 

 of two days, and after every preliminary was about being arranged, the 

 celebrated Red Jacket arose ; drawing his blanket around him and 

 surveying the assemblage, he addressed them in a language and style 

 peculiar to himself. He represented to them the effect of giving the 

 pale-faces any further foothold within their territories; depicted to 

 them their former simplicity a-nd happiness and the wrongs they had 

 suffered from the whites, until his Indian auditors were roused and 

 excited almost to vengeance." This is an error. Red Jasket himself, 

 in his speech at the Tioga Council (1790), alludes to the treaty be- 

 tween Mr. Phelps and the Senecas as having been held at Buffalo 

 Creek, and that he and his friends took him (Phelps) by the hand 

 and led him thither from Kanandesaga (Greneva). Mr. Phelps, also 

 in the same year, in a speech to the Indians in answer to their com- 

 plaints, refers to the treaty as follows: "I wish in a friendly manner 

 to state to you the particulars of our birgain. When I arrived at 

 Buffalo Creek, O'Bail (Cornplanter) had leased all your country to 

 Livingston and Benton." He says, " Brothers, you remember we 

 sat up all night. It was almost morning before we agreed on the 

 boundaries. After breakfast we returned to agree on the price you 

 should have." — -Phelps and Gorhanis Purchase, Appendix, p. 476. 



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friend indeed, and when disease, privation, Indian alarms, 

 created despondency, he had a word of encouragement and 

 a prophecy of a '' better time coming." He was useful to 

 a degree that no one can realize who has not seen how 

 much one man can do in helping to smooth the always 

 rugged path of backwoods life. 



Oliver Phelps was born at Windsor, Conn., and was a 

 young man at the breaking out of the Revolution. He 

 was among those who gathered at Lexington and made the 

 first military demonstration of intended separation and in- 

 dependence : and, although but a youth, was enrolled in 

 the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. Upon the or- 

 ganization of the Connecticut troops, he became a con- 

 tractor in the army, and was soon advanced to the com- 

 missary department, in which he did faithful service till 

 the close of the Revolution. Settling in Suffield, Mass., 

 he was sent to the Assembly, and then to the Senate, and 

 was also a member of the Governor's Council. During 

 the Revolution he became intimate with Robert Morris, 

 the great financier of that eventful period, and whose name 

 is indissolubly associated with his in the extensive and 

 beneficent land operations in Western New York, of which 

 we shall speak more particularly hereafter. 



A considerable shareholder in the original purchase from 

 Massachusetts, Mr. Phelps became, eventually, the chief 

 owner, by the purchase of shares, reversions, and other 

 means ; so that in a few years after the settlement of the 

 Genesee country was fairly under way, he was reputed one 

 of the most successful and wealthy of all the founders of 

 new settlements of that period. In 1795 he was regarded 

 as worth a million dollars. 



A mania of land speculation prevailed in this country 

 during the year 1796 and about that period, which ex- 

 tended through all the then settled parts of the Union. 

 Philadelphia was its principal focus, its leading capitalists, 

 among whom was Mr. Morris, being the principal opera- 

 tors. Among the devices of the times was a gigantic 

 " American Land Company." Elected to Congress, elated 

 with his success in the Genesee country, Mr. Phelps was 

 thrown into the vortex of rash adventure, and became 

 deeply involved. One of his adventures was in connection 

 with the " Georgia Land Company," a well-known specu- 

 lation of that period. He was obliged to borrow largely, 

 and execute mortgages upon his Genesee lands. The titles 

 under him became involved and created distrust, which 

 brought upon him a great deal of censure. These troubles, 

 it is supposed, undermined his health, so that he gradually 

 declined, and died in 1809, at the age of sixty years. He 

 had removed to Canandaigua in 1802 ; was the first judge 

 of Ontario County, upon the primitive organization of its 

 courts, and an early representative in Congress for the then 

 Western District of the State. 



Nathaniel Gorham, who was an associate of Mr. Phelps, 

 never was a resident upon the purchase with which his 

 name stands identified. He was a prominent merchant of 

 Boston, and resided in Charlestown, Mass. His son and 

 representative, Nathaniel Gorham, Jr., settled in Canan- 

 dai^fua in 1789, amono; the earliest settlers. He was an 

 early supervisor of Canandaigua, a judge of the county 

 courts, and president of the Ontario Bank from its first 



