Peter Penet among the Oneida Indians. 



295 



of the present village of Clayton, Jefferson county, N. Y. 

 The soil is excellent, although thin in some places, and 

 the harbor one of the best on the river. The square is 

 included in the present towns of Clayton and Orleans, 

 and was of course excepted from the great sale to Macomb 

 in 1791. 



The land commissioners ordered a survey of the tract, 

 on the 8th of August, 1789, 1 and a return was made in 

 November of that year. 2 Penet, by an instrument dated 

 January 23, 1789, having made Mr. Duncan his attorney, 

 the latter, on the 19th of November of that year, received 

 a patent for the tract. 3 On the 13th of July, 1790, Dun- 

 can conveyed to James Watson and James Greenleaf of 

 New York, for the nominal sum of five shillings. 4 



We cannot here trace the chain of title, by which it was 

 finally confirmed to the actual settlers. 5 The greater part, 

 after diverse trusts and conveyances, came into the hands 

 of the late John La Farge, formerly of Havre, but subse- 

 quently a prominent capitalist of New York city. 



But for many years after the settlement of the surround- 

 ing lands, there was no resident agent, and at length it 

 came to be regarded as the common property of whoever 

 might choose to settle upon it. This belief attracted a large 

 crowd of irresponsible squatters, who cut timber, cleared 

 lands and made potash, without regard for title, other than 

 that given by actual occupation. If to this, we add its 

 proximity to a foreign frontier, the absence of revenue 

 officers, and the facility afforded by the Thousand Islands 

 for a contraband trade with Canada, and we may readily 

 infer that the Penetters, as they came to be known, would soon 

 gain an infamous notoriety in the civil courts, and present 

 difficulties of no common magnitude in the quiet assump- 

 tion of title by those holding the legal right to the soil. 



But Mr. La Farge proved equal to the task, and did not 



1 Land Office Minutes, ii, 56. 2 Land Papers, xlvii, 109. 



3 Patents, xxi, 407. *Not recorded. 



6 See Hough's Hist. Jefferson Co., pp. 40 to 44. 



