296 



Peter Penet among the Oneida Indians. 



hesitate to employ the legal remedies suited to his need. 

 Although hitteiiy opposed, calummiated, and threatened 

 he, at length, succeeded in compelling the settlers to 

 acknowledge and respect his title. 1 A man less scrupu- 

 lous, or less artful, would have certainly failed in thi s 

 undertaking. 



Among the conflicting titles that arose in this litigation, 

 were some derived from Hippolite Penet, a brother of 

 Peter Penet, residing in Andes, Delaware Co., ~R. Y. but 

 there were never confined. 2 



Of the subsequent history of Penet, we have no authen- 

 tic data. About 1821, the question of this title came 

 before the legislature, and the attorney general was ordered 

 to examine and report. There were then about three 

 hundred and twenty families who had been induced to 

 locate on the tract, and were interested in this decision. 

 In the report upon this memorial, it is stated that Penet 

 returned to France, and died there. So far as ever appeared 

 in the trials before the courts, he died without heirs, and 

 probably unmarried. 



Plan of Government adopted by the Oneida Nation. 



[Printed three weeks as an advertisement in the Albany Gazette, Feb- 

 ruary 1789.] 



Art. 1. To fix the bounds and limits of the sovereignty 

 of the Oneida nation, to let their vacant lands be properly 

 surveyed, laid out into lots and numbered, and have an 

 exact map made of the same : 



Akt. 2. Two men shall be appointed by the Grand Coun- 

 cil, that are known to be men of principle and interest in 

 the nation : they shall be invested with power to act and 



1 History of Jefferson Co., 135, 208., etc. 



^History of Jefferson Co., 210. The final title of Mr. La Farge upon 

 •which he chiefly relied, is believed to have rested upon a comptroller's 

 deed on a tax sale, which forever set at rest any doubts that might have 

 been previously entertained concerning it. 



