EARLY LAND GRANTS AND PURCHASES.

The history' of the forest lands of northern and eastern New York is punctuated by generous grants made in early days by the Colony and the State, by which individuals received tracts of property whose value they themselves did not realize. The greatest of these grants was Macomb's purchase. Alexander Macomb, in partnership with Daniel McCormick and William Constable, in January, 1792, purchased from the State of New York 3,934,899 acres of land for eight pence an acre. This tract occupied most of the territory now included in Franklin, St. Lawrence, Jefferson, Herkimer and Oswego counties. This Macomb was the father of Major General Alexander Macomb, commander of the American forces at the battle of Plattsburg, in the War of 1812, and subsequently commander-in-chief of the United States army. Macomb soon became insolvent and the principal ownership passed to William Constable. This man had been a member of the staff of General La Fayette in the War of the Revolution. He left the name of Constable to a town in Franklin County and to the village of Constable, in Lewis County. Harrietstown, in Franklin County, was named for his daughter and the town of Duane for her husband, James Duane. Hezekiah B. Pierrepont gave the name of Pierrepont to a town in St. Lawrence County.

It appears that the sale of such a great area at so low a price did not fail to create public scandal, even at that early date. Opponents of the State administration accused the land commissioners of being improperly interested in these transfers. April 20, 1792, Dr. Josiah Pomeroy, of Kinderhook, in an affidavit stated that he believed that a company composed of William Smith, Junior, Sir John Johnson and certain Tories living in Canada had been formed under the direction of Lord Dorchester, with the intention of purchasing a large tract of land upon the St. Lawrence for ultimate annexation to Canada, and he charged that Governor Clinton was a party to this arrangement. The Governor had little difficulty in disproving this charge of traitorism, but, nevertheless, it had its effect upon the subsequent election. Colonel Talbot, of Montgomery, offered violent resolutions in the assembly, intended to pave the way for an impeachment, but an official investigation cleared the commissioners and commended the sale. Aaron Burr, attorney-general, was absent at the time of the sale, but in after years was openly charged with official crookedness in the matter.

Modern manipulation of great interests in the acquirement of private wealth fails to overshadow the enterprise of the men who were concerned in the great Macomb purchase. It is said that Constable, whose name

1 For much of the detail of this chapter and for nearly all of its statistical contents the author is indebted to William F. Fox, Superintendent of State Forests, Albany, New York.

was not given to the purchase, but who afterward became its chief owner, was the commercial genius back of the transaction. While the purchase was not made until 1792, the scheme is said to have originated as early as 1786. In 1794, two years after the purchase was consummated, the buyers had secured the passage of a law fixing the minimum price of the remaining 2,000,000 acres of State land at six shillings an acre, thus bulling the price of their own land to that figure and increasing its value nearly 1,000 percent. Theoretically, an area which had cost $629,583.84 attained an immediate value of $5,272,764.66. The settlement of the area included in the purchase, however, was interrupted by the stirring events of the period. The surveyors proceeded no farther than Oswego, while at St. Regis the Indians succeeded in driving off the early settlers. Lord Dorchester declared in 1794 that the sword and not a legislative enactment must determine the boundaries of the country. It was proposed during the War of 1812 to make the Adirondacks, instead of the St. Lawrence River, the northern boundary of the State of New York.

Macomb was one of the greatest promoters in history. He was, perhaps, the largest owner in the Totten and Crossfield purchase and one of the authors of that transaction. His financial end came in the crash of the "Million Bank" in which Isaac Whippo, William Duer and Walter Livingston were concerned. In this bank a large number of persons were heavy losers and so angry were they that Macomb's incarceration April 17, 1792, was really the means of saving his life. The failure paralyzed temporarily the negotiations pending with the Holland Land Company, afterwards a heavy purchaser in western New York.

To Dr. Franklin B. Hough and Nathaniel Bartlett Sylvester the historian is indebted for much information concerning other land grants in New York. An idea of the enormous profits enjoyed by these early land speculators may be gathered from a letter written in 1798 by one of them to his agent in London. He confessed that it might be several years before a profit would be realized upon the original investment, but said that the eventual profit was certain to be large. In 1786 he obtained 3,000 acres in Bayard's Patent on the Mohawk for four shillings an acre, and in 1796 sold them at twenty shillings. Concerning the purchase of the 400,000-acre Boylston tract in 1794 at two shillings an acre, he said:

On my arrival here in 1795, I had it surveyed and explored, when, it appearing that, from the course of the river by which it was bounded, it comprehended double the quantity, or upwards of 800,000 acres, the purchase being so much larger than I had contemplated, I was under the necessity of proceeding immediately to sell a part of the tract. This I found no difficulty in doing, as the land was found to be uncommonly good. Messrs. Nicholas Low and his associates purchased 300,000 acres at eight shillings, or four shillings sixpence, sterling, one-fourth of the money payable down, the balance in five annual installments, with interest, the whole of the land remaining security on

mortgage. In 1796 I had the whole of the remaining 500,000 acres laid out in townships of 25,000 to 30,000 acres, and sold in that and the succeeding year about 100,000 acres from six shillings nine pence to nine shillings sterling, receiving one-fourth the money down and taking mortgage to secure the balance in five annual payments with interest at seven percent as is customary. I interested a Mr. Shaler in one-half of two townships, on condition of his settling on the tract, and selling the lands out in small farms of about 200 acres, he to be charged nine shillings per acre for his part, and to have half the profit on the sales. He, accordingly, went out and had the lands surveyed, made a road from Fort Stanwix into the midst of it and built a sawmill and a grist mill. His accounts last rendered show the disposal of about 10,000 acres for nearly $40,000, of which he has paid me all the money received, being $10,000, and has made an account of expenses for roads, buildings, etc., of about $4,000. He sells alternate lots at $4 the acre, the settlement of which will immediately give an additional value to the intermediate ones, which we mean to reserve.

These lands were the fertile slopes and bottom lands of the Black River Valley. There was a marked prejudice against lands covered with hemlock timber. Benjamin Wright described one township as "cold and hemlocky." This prejudice was a mistake. As soon as the foliage, with its laige amount of tannin, was removed from the ground, the land rapidly increased in value.

Brown's tract was a part of the original Macomb purchase. It embraced only 210,000 acres, although the name is often mistakenly applied to the entire Adirondack region, and also confounded with John Brown, the liberator, who lived in New York State for a time. November 25, 1794, Samuel Ward and wife conveyed this tract to James Greenleaf, who in the following year mortgaged it to Philip Livingston. The mortgage was foreclosed in December, 1798, the land being bid in for $33,000 by Col. John Brown, a Providence, Rhode Island, merchant, one of the founders and for many years the treasurer of Brown University. Nathaniel Bartlett Sylvester says of Brown in his historical sketches of northern New York:

"In 1799 he visited his tract, remaining there during the great part of the summer. He caused it to be surveyed and divided into townships. At a great expense he built three roads into the tract, one leading from Remsen, another from Boonville, and another from High Falls. He made a clearing on Township No. 7, built a grist mill, a sawmill, and several log houses. In that year, also, his agent, James Sheldon, moved with his family onto the tract. For two or three years thereafter John Brown made toilsome journeys to his forest possessions, but he died in 1803, leaving his lands a wilderness."

There were numerous other settlers and speculators who endeavored to force the settlement of Brown's tract, but in each case they were halted by the mighty forest and compelled to await the western march of civilization. The Nobleboro patent contained 40,960 acres and was located in