204 The Genesee Country. 
One year previous to the formation of this county, Oliver 
Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham, Esqs., purchased from the state 
and from the Seneca Indians, their right to that part of the coun- 
try which lies between the meridian line above mentioned and 
the Genesee river, forming a tract of country 45 miles from east 
to west, and 84 from north to south, containing about 2,200,000 
acres of land. It is to the history of this latter portion that more 
particular reference will be had. 
The settlement of this was began by Mr. Phelps, in 1788, and 
the proprietors, Messrs. Phelps and Gorham, having sold to Ro- 
bert Morris, Esq., of Philadelphia, nearly two-thirds of their 
lands, Mr. Morris resold them in England, and the purchaser from 
Mr. Morris having arrived in America, began in the summer of 
1792 to put in execution the plan he had formed for the improve- 
ment of the country. This tract of land was inhabited by a 
branch of the Iroquois or confederacy of the Six Nations. The 
branch which lit their fires and reared their wigwams among the 
noble forests of this beautinil country, were the Senecas, or, as 
they would be more properly termed, the Senegaws. They were 
the most numerous member of the great family who formerly held 
sway within the limits of this state, and where their graves may 
yet be traced among the cultivated fields, the bones of the unfor- 
tunate and persecuted red man. The advantages which this tract 
■ of country possessed in regard to position, the southern part being 
watered by tributaries of the Susquehanna, were soon percepti- 
ble to the settlers, and rendered that mode of communication with 
a market the most feasible, as it enabled them to reach the Ches- 
apeake by a water conveyance, in a moderate period of time, 
while the connection eastward to Fort Schuyler, now Utica, was 
nothing but an Indian path. Boats of 5 and 10 tons ascended 
the Susquehanna, while in the descent of the river they used 
those carrying from 200 to 500 barrels. At the time of the com- 
mencement of the settlement of this country, it was remote from 
all other settlements; on the south, the Allegany mountains; upon 
the west branch of the Susquehanna the mighty carboniferous 
outline of the north formed a formidable barrier, with the summit 
lying nearly 3000 feet above the ocean; on the east lay a wilder- 
ness of 100 miles, intersected with swamp and lake; on the 
north, lake Ontario spread her broad bosom; and on the west was 
the unbroken, primeval forest, extending to the Pacific. The only 
communication with the settlements upon the eastern coast was 
by an Indian path from the outlet of Senegaw lake, near the pre- 
sent village of Geneva, to Fort Schuyler, now the site of the city 
of Utica; its progress in improvement, owing to these circum- 
stances of position, was slow. In 1790, the whole number of in- 
