On the Seneca Indian Lands. 



131 



Governor Everett appointed, as sucli superintendent, Gen. Henry A. 

 S. Dearborn. He was son of Gen. Henry Dearborn, who had been en- 

 gaged in the battle of Banker Hill, and in Sullivan's campaign in 

 New York in 1779, had been Secretary of War from 1801 to 1809, and 

 finally had held command in the war of 1812, chiefly on the frontier 

 of the State of New York and Canada. His son the commissioner 

 also had been a public servant during a large part of his life, had been 

 Adjutant-General of the State of Massachusetts for ten years, from 1834 

 to 1843, and for five years was mayor of the city of Roxbury, from 

 1847 until his death in 1851. He was a man of large experience, 

 of high honor and integrity. 



He attached great importance to the functions which he dis- 

 charged in 1838 and 1839 as Massachusetts commissioner at the 

 Buffalo Creek council, to superintend the disposal of the Indian lands ; 

 and in his leisure hours in the following years he collected and person- 

 ally arranged all his original manuscripts connected with this mission, 

 and bound them into three quarto volumes of letter sheet size of about 

 three hundred and sixty pages each. 



Of these volumes, the first one contains eighteen original letters 

 from Gov. Everett, chiefly to Gen. Dearborn, and eighteen letters 

 chiefly to the Governor from Gen. Dearborn ; the treaty with the 

 several tribes; the official report to the Governor of his first mission 

 commencing August, 1838, with an appendix of documents, embrac- 

 ing statements of the chiefs. Judge Stryker's statement, in all about 

 one hundred and fifty pages ; a second report of his second mission 

 later in the same year, in November and December, with the docu- 

 ments, making about fifty pages ; several letters from Mr. Ogden of the 

 Ogden Company to Gen. Dearborn, and various other letters. I have 

 not found either of these reports in print among the documents of the 

 State of Massachusetts. 



The second volume bears a title given by Gen. Dearborn, the same 

 title which was given to all the three volumes in the printed catalogue 

 of the MSS. as sold at the auction sale, and which we quoted at the 

 beginning of this paper. 



If the preceding reports are not sufficient to give us a clear 

 view of the part taken by Massachusetts in a treaty which has 

 been said to compromise both her honor and that of New York, vve 

 have in addition for testimony in this volume, three hundred and 

 fifty-six pages filled with Gen. Dearborn's private Journal of a Mission 

 to the Senecas" as written down by him from day to day, containing 

 all the occurrences from the hour of his departure until that of his 



