It Happened Here-- Charles Williamson:  Covert Agent/       

                                                 Grandiose Promoter of the New York Frontier                                                                    

Covert communications, private deals, handshake negotiations and gentleman's agreements are often the engine of history, but the  bane of the historians existence, (or at least it certainly seems so from the observations of this non-historian-"historical tourist".)  Charles Williamson's biography is rife with unreported details and speculative "facts".

Charles Williamson  was born in  Scotland in 1757, the son of   Alexander  Williamson, the secretary to Lord  James Hope Johnstone into a class of  people who, though  not nobility,  enabled the aristocracy to function.  They were the managers, the secretaries, the keepers of the social calendar, the master gardeners, the mid-level diplomats.  In the army, they were the mid-level officers;  in Europe, the courtiers.  At the beginning of  the American Revolution the younger Williamson bought a commission in the 25th Regiment of Foot becoming a captain after three years, without serving in America.   He resigned his commission and was journeying to America with a letter of introduction to General Cornwallis when his ship was captured by a French privateer.  As a private citizen he was not sent to a prisoner of war camp but placed under house arrest in Boston, quartered in the house of Ebenezer Newell. There he fell in love with,  and eloped with Newell's daughter, Abigail.  After a prisoner exchange the couple returned to Scotland for nearly a decade where Williamson managed a farm/estate.  Bored with farming, Williamson secured a position in the government as part of a fact-finding mission that journeyed through Marseilles into the Balkans, Russia and Turkey.  Back in Scotland, his father arranged for him an introduction to Sir William Johnstone-- Pulteney.  Sir William had married  Frances Pulteney, heiress and cousin to the Earl of Bath, one of the riches men in all of Britain and when the Earl died Sir William (who took the last name of his wife) inherited a vast fortune.
                                                                                                    NYS 12, north of Waterville           

Meanwhile, in America the defeat of the British and their Iroquois allies and dependent tribes at the close of the Revolution had opened the possibility for American/European settlement.  Lands east of the 1763 Fort Stanwix Treaty line were designated the Military Tract and given to military veterans in lieu of cash payments owed them for their military services. In western New York, however,  the situation was much more murky.  There, the native peoples still claimed  the land. Complicating things were the claims several states made to Western lands based on grants British kings had given colonies in the early colonial period. Cavalierly ignoring any  rights native  peoples had to their  own land, Charles I and II had granted Massachusetts, Connecticut and William Penn's colony in Pennsylvania wide swaths of land defined, not  by any physical features but by lines of latitude, often contradicting one another or straight lines between poorly defined or even non-existent (!) landmarks.  Thus Massachusetts was given a swath of territory running from the undefined western border  of Dutch New Netherlands  to the Pacific.  Connecticut was given a similar swath of land spanning the latitudes of Connecticut, excluding Dutch Territory, running across the continent--a claim that would spawn conflict between Pennsylvania and Connecticut settlers in the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania before and during the Revolution.  And settlers from New York's Orange and New Jersey's Suffolk Counties would engage in similar but less deadly confrontations, on their shared border[1] 

                Co.Rte 42 and Canning Rd., Victor NY

The Hartford Conference of 1786 would settle the New York, Massachusetts dispute by establishing  a "Preemption Line."  Under this treaty a line would be established from the eighty second mile marker on the Pennsylvania border due North to Lake Ontario.  East of the line would be  governed (and taxed) by New York and west of the line would  also be governed (and taxed) by NewYork but Massachusetts would have the sole"right of preemption," the power to determine who could negotiate with Native Americans to buy that land from them--a right they could give, or sell!  The Preemption line was surveyed and and a group of New England investors headed by Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham bought this right for $1,000,000 to be paid to                                                                                                   Massachusetts in three installments.  

                

              Preemption Line

         Boundary Drawn Between

     Massachusetts and New York

              December 16,1786

        Cause of Long Controversy

               In Western New York
             

                         NYS Hist. Marker

                            US 20 and NY 5

                     (Long reported missing)

But the Seneca Indians who lived on most of these lands agreed to sell only the easternmost third of the land for $5000 and a perpetual  annuity of $500 per year. The lack of roads, and general remoteness of the areas made the homestead  plots  difficult to sell so by the second installment Gorham and Phelps defaulted on their payment to Massachusetts.  A wealthy investor, who had helped  finance the American Revolution, Robert Morris, stepped in to buy up Gorham and Phelps investment in hopes he could use his international and diplomatic contacts to find European buyers to turn a quick profit.  Morris turned to William Temple Franklin [2], grandson of Benjamin Franklin who hooked him up with Sir William Pulteney who joined with two other partners to form Pulteney Associates. After expanding the Genesee Tract , as it became to be known, and reserving a piece for his own future investment, by negotiating a second treaty with the Senecas (The Treaty of Big Tree), Morris prepared to sell his property to them.  But there was an obstacle.  At the time, a New York law forbade non-citizens from buying New York property!

Upon meeting Charles Williamson,  William Pulteney and his two associates must have been impressed because they made the young man a remarkable offer. Williamson was to become his principal sales agent for selling  the  1,264,000  acres of the Genesee Tract that Pulteney Associates were intending to buy, but first, he needed to go to America and become a United States citizen (not a difficult task given his previous "residency" in America, and being married to an American wife), then as the company's agent he could finalize the sale and begin making plans for the development and sale of the property.

After a long grueling crossing of the Atlantic, Williamson and his family were landed in Norfolk, Virginia instead of Philadelphia and while he and his family were recovering he got to know people of the Southern Plantation-owner class. The idea occurred to him that if he could market to these people instead of hardscrabble New England farmers he could sell larger parcels of land, faster.

The notion of large wheat growing plantations, worked by dozens--scores of black slaves and of  rafts of timber cut by negro lumberman  sent down  to Baltimore to supply Britain's chronic timber shortage stirred his imagination. But how to attract southern plantation-class owners?   

First,  he needed to improve the roads leading into the Genesee Tract.  Williamson realized the major reason Gorham and Phelps had failed was the obvious inaccessibility of their purchase,

         Williamson Rd.

Built in 1782--1796 by Land

agent Charles Williamson

to open the Genesee Lands                --Pennsylvania  Historical and Museum Commission

in N,Y.  from Trout Run. It                  Lycoming Creek Rd. (Old U.S. 15) and

cut through the Wilderness                  Dekman Hollow Rd.--Williamsport, PA

to Lawrenceville by the 

same general route as

the present highway

Pulteney Associates employed a  recruitment agent to hire German farmers to come to America to build or improve roads into the Genesee Tract in exchange for homesteads on the tract.  But few German farmers were willing to give up their farms for the rigors and uncertainties of developing farms in the American wilderness.  The recruiter was forced to recruit among  poor and underemployed townsmen, including a troop of  unemployed circus performers.  Woefully unprepared for what was probably one of the most difficult jobs in early America, road building in the wilderness, the Pulteney  Associates contract laborers  improved the Mohawk Trail through the Mohawk Valley developing what was little more than a foot path at the western end, into a carriage road leading to the former Seneca town of Kandesegea at the north end of Seneca Lake.   Williamson, impressed by the picturesque beauty of the handful of cabins tucked along the northern end of the scenic lake renamed the town Geneva, after the Swiss town. [3]

                                                                                                                  Abele Rd.,  2 miles  East of  NYS 63, Mt. Morris

A large project would be to develop a road from Williamsport, on East Branch of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania into the Genesee Tract, from the south, following the Sheshequin Indian trail.  The work proceeded slowly here with the immigrant disgruntled workers  often refusing to work and fearful of Indian attack, although by now there were few Indians in the area and their fears were largely baseless.  Meanwhile, Williamson laid out a town for them  to settle in,  he named Williamsburgh.  Eventually the road was completed and some of the road builders settled there but others left for Canada, becoming some of the founders of Toronto. Along the western side of the Tract,  not located on a lake, Williamsburgh struggled  on for  decades before being completely  abandoned in 1915.

                112 Washington St., Geneva

Land offices were built in Geneva and Bath. Next, if Williamson were going to host perspective buyers for his tracts of land he needed suitable places for them to stay,  so Williamson built inns/hotels at Geneva, Painted Post [4], near the southern end of the Genesee tract, Sodus Bay on the shore of Lake Ontario at the Northern extreme of the Pulteney lands and Bath, a town he founded south of Crooked Lake (Keuka), around which he hoped to attract southern planters.

Built by New England carpenters, the Geneva Inn displayed an unexpected richness for the frontier with guests welcomed by a former butler to the Duke of Wellington.

.

Williamson's main efforts were reserved for the southern part of the Genesee Tract.  More hilly and less fertile than the northern sections, on the Ontario Plain,  large tracts remained unsold but the new road and its connection to the Susquehanna  river system offered the dream of wheat shipments being loaded on flat boats, "arks" or rafts being floated annually to Baltimore.  There, their cargoes  could be loaded on ships for transport overseas, with the rafts, themselves, broken up for the valujable timber they contained. 

Washington St. and Park Place, Geneva

                                                                                                                                        Pulteney Park, Bath

Williamson  laid out Bath with a central square and streets radiating from it.  Within a few years Williamson had constructed  Pultney's Land Office, a court house , a jail,  and private post office with service to Canada, Philadelphia and Washington.  Nearby was  Metcalf'e's Tavern  offering food and lodging. Williamson himself, built a palatial  two story home with two attached wings  and formal gardens that Williamson used to entertain  important clients.   A grist mill,  five sawmills, and two schools  were located in the area.   Another feature of the town would be a proper cemetery laid out by Williamson.  One of its first occupants was Williamson's  young daughter, struck down by "Genesee fever", a                 mosquito borne type of malaria once prevalent along the boggy backwaters of the Genesee valley                                                                                                                                                                  E. Morris St. and Lackawanna St., Bath

                                                               cor. Morris St. and Ark St., Bath

                                                        West Steuben St., west of Exchange St., Bath

With this host of "improvements" in place the year 1796 became a year of festivities and events touting the properties available on the Genesee Tract.  Bath got its first newspaper that year and hundreds of broadside posters were printed and put up inviting people from across New York, New England, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland,Virginia, and English speaking Canada to come to Bath .  Bath held a fair, virtually the first in the United States.  Williamson built a half-mile track and  horse races were held.  (Williamson knew members of the southern planter class were especially fond of horse-racing!)  And he even built a theater (albeit made of logs) that put on some of the most popular current plays.  Some 2000 visitors flocked to the Genesee Tract, and Bath, in particular.

                                                                                        cor. W. Morris St and W. Steuben St., Bath

                                                                                                                                (sign now missing)

All of these "improvements" were tremendously expensive, however, but Sir William  Pulteney and his partners remained remarkably patient as a constant stream of bills and receipts for expenditures flowed to their desks in Britain.  Only after changes in the legal environment occurred were they led to re-examine their situation.  First, in 1798 the New York legislature revoked the law forbidding aliens from owning property in New York.  Second,  in 1799 the legislature began the phased-in gradual abolition of slavery.  Though it would not be until 1817 that all enslaved New Yorkers would be freed, the handwriting was on the wall.  No southern planation owners  would be investing in New York  large scale   plantations powered by enslaved men and women.  Much of Williamson's efforts were frustrated!  Sir William ordered an audit.  It revealed that Williamson had spent $1, 374.470 but had taken in only $147.974.  (Exact figures are difficult to determine because many properties were sold, but returned, as the result of defaulted mortgages or otherwise tied up in legal limbo.)  In  March 1800 Sir William had his American land agent transfer ownership  of his property to himself and Charles Williamson was dismissed.  After five years Williamson received compensation for his efforts, being given his Bath Mansion and other property, but no cash settlement.

Williamson returned to Britain.  In Britain he became involved in the British diplomatic service and participated in quasi-governmental plans to increase British influence along the Louisiana-Floridian coast by organizing militias amongst British settlers in that area which could be mobilized in the event Spain became involved in open warfare with Britain.  He also became a liaison to  Aaron Burr whom he had met in his previous business in New York State and appeared to be making some sort of colonization effort in that area.  (Burr would later  be tried  unsuccessfully for treason for his activities. The cases were dismissed for lack of evidence).  A few years later Williamson would deliver a packet of secret correspondence to the Governor of Jamaica, and then be dispatched to Cuba.  He would die suddenly in 1808 on his way home to Britain, of yellow fever, aggravated by the "Genesee Fever" he had contracted years earlier.

[1] See NYSHMs: It Happened Here.  Sept. 3 2018.  "The NewYork, New Jersey  Line War."

[2] William Temple Franklin was a brilliant choice for Morris' agent.  Benjamin Franklin as a U.S. diplomat had gained widespread respect and esteem both in Europe during the war and in Britain during the protracted peace negotiations at the war's end.  William Franklin had gained  respect as a a royal governor of New Jersey an as a steadfast loyalist.

[3] Undoubtedly, he also wanted to divorce the town from its Indian/wilderness association.

                                     *****

---the usual internet suspects

--- John H. Martin. "Charles Williamson, The Pulteney Estates in the Genesee Lands"  Chapter IV. in 

    Saints, Sinners and Reformers, The Burned Over District Revisited.  serialized in The Cooked Lake Review.  Fall 2005  An excellent review of the Williamson-Pulteney story.

----DAHs (Danville Area Historical Museum). "Charles Williamson"   dansvilleareahistoricalsociety.org/ charles-williamson/.    This short biopic gives a compact summary of Williamson's rather mysterious life post-Pulteney

 Marker of the Week  Fortnight -- Colonies?

                                                                 co. rte 14, Montour Falls
Most of the solders involved in the Sullivan/Clinton Campaign in the summer/fall 1779 might have objected to their states being referred to as "colonies" a full year after they had declared their independence.  In fact, the Second Continental Congress had begun acting as a national government  from nearly the start of the Revolution, raising a continental army, appointing generals, signing treaties, appointing ambassadors, allocating funds and issuing paper money.   On September 9, 1776 they had formally adopted the name "United State of America " to replace the "United Colonies."  

 

               It Happened Here-- Author of the Weird 

                                  & Signs of Spooks and Witches

Well, once again America's holiday that celebrates horror, the weird, the creepy and the spooky is fast upon us.  (No, I'm not referring to election day.) In Octobers past I have occasionally tried to showcase, or mention markers and stories associated with memes or things that "go bump in the night", etc., etc.[1]   In recent years the Pomeroy foundation has made this easier for me by producing a series of   "Legends and Lore" markers that celebrate New York folk lore. But first, let's begin at the summer home of a writer who made his mark by writing in genres of horror and "weird" stories.

On a quiet street in the quiet village of Broadalbin  NY is the former summer residence of Robert W. Chambers a literary beneficiary of Edgar Allen Poe and a literary contemporary of Mark Twain, Stephen Crane,  and Ambrose Bierce.  Chambers was scion of a wealthy family living in Brooklyn who was educated first at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, then, when he showed artistic promise enrolled in several of the most famous art schools in Paris but after he graduated  abruptly left art for writing, returning to it occasionally to  produce  some illustrations for magazines or to illustrate some of his own works.

North Main St., Broadalbin

( picture  taken in 2014 )

 Chambers was most successful in the genres of gothic horror, science and supernatural fiction and just plain "weird" stories, inspiring the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. His most popular work, The King in  Yellow is a collection of stories centered around the effects of a play ("The King in Yellow")  reputedly, so profound, so psychologically  engaging that readers cannot put it down with the effect that it ultimately drives them insane!  And it is this thread that links four of the collection's short stories.  Later in his career he would write romances and historical fictions that were less successful.

  Chambers, himself, was an avid sportsman who loved the Adirondacks and his home on the doorstep of New York's great wilderness.  Like some baronial hunting lodge, his home in Broadalbin was filled with hunting and fishing trophies, and  his extensive collections of exotic insects.  His stories are sometimes set in wild, outdoor-atmospheric landscapes, like the Scottish and  English moors that inspired his Victorian predecessors and contemporaries. The Sacandaga Vley out his back door was a large area of sunken meadows,  cattail swamps, vernal ponds, interspersed with tangles of thickets and patches of woods, before it was dammed  up creating the Sacandaga Reservoir in the 1930's. 

 Perhaps unsurprisingly, his work habits were a bit odd.  For most of the year he lived in New York City.   Six days a week he would arise, breakfast, and groom and dress himself immaculately before leaving for his office to write, precisely at 10am.  He returned precisely at 6pm.  No one, not his family, not his business associates, not his publishers  ever knew where this office was!  [2]

 I won't spoil any of his stories by summarizing any of his plot lines, but let me give you a little of flavor of his work by describing some of the characters he creates:

--A little, fussy tradesman, with wax ears held on by wires and no fingers on one hand, who repairs things  for people as a clock repairmen or shoe maker might, but the things he repairs  are reputations  and the tools he uses are an army of  henchmen who wheedle and bribe and threaten and intimidate.

--mysterious spectral maidens                                                                                                        -grey bipedal mur-men with with soft fleshy rubbery skin, red pulsating gills, slack open mouths, and lidless staring eyes

--foul smelling spidery, reptilian things

--a scientists that turns living matter into marble

--a church attendee who discovers he is being observed by the organist during the mass,  and from that person's expressions and supposed feigned indifference to him, he conjures up all sorts of malignant intentions the musician  must harbor towards  him.

-- a pale bloated driver of a two horse hearse.

                                               ***********

Within the last few years the Pomeroy Foundation has created a number roadside markers that are part of their "Legends and Lore" series--stories that lack verifiable documentation, but have persisted over time  in an area long enough to be considered part of the local folklore

                  Rt. 20, Esperance at Schoharie Creek

After the Napoleonic Wars a French Grenadier and his wife and two young sons came to live across the Schoharie Creek from the village of Esperance. The ex-soldier died and the women lived apart from the community, never learning english.  Rumors began to spread about her among the New England settlers of the town after several crop failures and unexplained deaths of livestock and children. One villager reported she had seen the women polling her way across the Schoharie  riding upon her apron and when she reached the other side she put on the apron, undampened by the crossing and continued on her way.  This revelation was enough to galvanize the New Englanders who assembled at the local meeting house and decided she must be put down/killed.  One of their number was chosen to cast a silver bullet from a table spoon and shoot her through an  open window of her home. She was buried with a stake driven through her head, buried  under a  tree so its roots would keep her from leaving her grave.  In later years one of her sons vividly told the story of her demise.

*******

Like many legends, the legend at Spook rock, a large angular boulder on the edge of the Claverack Creek has several versions. The features they have in common are that a star-- crossed pair of lovers escaping from their people who don't approve of their union, come together at the rock where they meet their demise but when the church bell  from the Claverack church can be heard echoing through the valley the pair reappear in spirit form at the rock or  in the surrounding woods.                                 Spook Rock Rd., Co.Rte 29, Claverack

The most "accepted" version, to which the Pomeroy marker alludes , is the version  reported by the Greenport Historical Society.  In this story a Mohican chief in his fortified  village on Becraft Mountain has a beautiful daughter.  A young handsome brave, from a rival tribe, scouting out the village, runs into her and they fall in love.  The pair plan a tryst in the woods  but then a huge violent storm develops.  They seek shelter under a rocky outcropping near the top of the mountain .  In the midst of the downpour and lightning the cliff side  collapses and they are carried down the mountainside ending up buried together under a huge boulder at the edge of the creek.  When the church bell tolls the boulder temporarily turns over releasing them briefly from their rocky tomb and they can be seen together in ghostly form.

A second version have the couple deciding to elope and coming to the rock with the creek at flood stage, deciding to cross, and both being swept away to their deaths. Ever after, the Princess is said to be heard moaning in the wind as she searches for her lost beau.

A third version has a young Mohegan princess and a young Dutchman meeting at the rock to carry on a romance but when the affair was discovered the local Dutch settlers  surprised the pair at the rock killing them both.  Their shadows can be seen in the moonlight and their screams faintly heard in the woods.

                                                            *********

A final story doesn't belong in this blog because it isn't located in New York State but it brings up a point I wish to make.  On vacation this summer, I was in York, Maine.  York is an old town first settled in 1624 and incorporated in 1652.  In its heart is a colonial cemetery and in the cemetery is a "witches grave".  In their signage the Old York Historical Society is quick to reassure us that this isn't  really the grave of a witch,  covered over with a very large stone to prevent said witch from reemerging and causing mischief.  Instead, it is a grave  covered by a thoughtful husband who wanted to make sure his wife's remains are undisturbed by wandering livestock.  Fair enough--but why is this grave the ONLY grave to receive such treatment?

                                                                    Old Parish Cemetery, Rte 1A, York , Maine

And then there is the "portrait". In a cemetery filled with cherubim and angels of death images conveying the standard dour warning "repent--for I am now what you soon will be", there is this singular lady, elaborately coiffed, in a flowing gown, sensual, bare-breasted!  Eyes staring forward, mouth pursed,  she seems ready to burst out with something --but What?

And she lies there seemingly alone, away from the other well marked graves. Actually there are probably plenty of graves nearby but they are unmarked or were once marked with wooden markers, long since rotted away. She's up in the cheap seats!  And where is her family?   

A final observation--she hasn't been totally forgotten by members of the  twenty-first century. Her grave is covered with mementos, tokens, gifts, coins, flowers, talismans, etc. What are the meanings of these "gifts" for the people who gave them?  Though I don't take seriously witches and ghosts and  the "things that go bump in the night" etc, etc.,  it  is well to remember, there are many that do.

Happy Halloween!

[1] see "New York State Historical Markers: It Happened Here.  October 26 , 2014, "With Halloween Approaching"--Indian Raid.

see also NYSHMS:It Happened Here.  October. 23,  2013. "The Ghost of Duncan Campbell"and Marker of the Week "The Mysterious Throne in Kingsbury"

[2]  Broadalbin Town Historian,  William Clizbe. (many thanks, Mr. Clizbe)  related an incident in which a local resident was hired to drive Chambers to New York and Chambers  asked him  to be let him off at a busy street corner  instead of his office or some address, giving some credence to secretiveness.  (Other stories  suggest the existence of a mistress.)

 

                                   It Happened Here--"The White Woman                                                                                    of the Genesee"

"Tne Genesee"--the heart of the homeland of the Seneca, the largest, most  powerful people of the Haudenosaunee (the Iroquois confederacy), the "keepers of the western door," and in their midst lived Mary Jemison.

Mary Jemison statue 

 Her grave site was relocated near here in 1874 from Buffalo Creelk to the Letchworth State Park, Council Grounds. The statue was erected here in 1910.

Mary Jemison was born in 1743  on board

 ship when her parents were immigrating from Ireland to America.  Her family settled and prospered on the Pennsylvania frontier for over a decade. However, with French and Indian War raging, a raiding party of Shawnee warriors and four French soldiers captured the, then, twelve year old Mary and her family.  Two of Mary's older brothers  escaped capture.  The raiders, fearing they would be overtaken by militia pursuers killed and scalped Mary's mother, father and other siblings but took Mary to the Ohio country where she was sold to a Seneca family living there who were mourning the loss of a son/brother killed in the  the war. Gradually their care for her, sympathy and kindness  won her over  as she was formally adopted into the family. [1]  Formally adopted, Mary was re named "Dickewamis," (pleasant girl, handsome girl or a pleasant, good thing .) [2] After a few years she was married to a Delaware man,  Sheninjee  with whom she had a son, Thomas, who she named after her father. The couple moved in with her clan mother , her clan sisters and brothers in a Seneca  town on the Ohio River.

The extended family probably lived in a traditional bark longhouse similar to this one

(longhouse reconstruction in Ganondagan, Seneca village near Victor, New York)

On a visit to the British Fort Pitt during an apparent truce, Mary was observed by British colonists there.  Fears that  they might attempt to  take her from them contributed to the family deciding to return to their Genesee homeland, moving into "Little Beard''s Town.  With peace at hand,  in 1768  a bounty was offered for the return of white captives.  A dutch trader and a local chief the "Old King" conspired to capture Mary to collect the bounty.  She successfully hid from them .   Away on a hunting trip, Mary's husband  became sick and died.  She remarried a Seneca man, Hiokatoo with whom she had two sons and four daughters.  She settled into the quiet life  of a native-American squaw, raising corn,beans and squashes and ,  dressing skins,  preparing and preserving venison, occasionally accompanying hunting parties to help carry back game, but more often working in close society with her clan sisters.  "Our labor was not severe, [and our] cares certainly not nearly half as numerous nor as great [as white women's]." [3]  The Seneca's material culture, however, was changing fast with native -Americans becoming increasingly dependent  on goods available only from Europeans and European Americans. The Little Beard's Town Mary moved to was in many ways indistinguishable from "white" frontier towns on the edge of the wilderness with log cabins, plowed fields [4]  and orchards.

Mary reported greed for these things led their chiefs to support the British over the rebels.

Mary's daughter's house from the Gaudeau Tract, at Letchworth State Park.  Mary's house in Little Beard's Town would have been similar.

At first, the Revolutionary War little impacted Mary and her sister's lives, as their warrior husbands and brothers occasionally left and returned from distant raids.  A major exception to this was the Oriskany Battle to which the Seneca were invited to "watch." and "smoke their pipes" while "Regulars" and "Loyalists" punished the upstart rebels.  Instead,  the Senecas became fully involved, fighting for their lives.   Dozens of warriors from Little Beard's Town were killed and wounded.  [5]  Mary also frequently hosted visits by Colonels Butler and Bryant in their travels to Little Beard's Town. Her peace, however, was shattered in 1779 when Washington,  fed up with constant Indian raids  directed armies led by Generals Sullivan and Clinton to crush the Haudenosaunee.  Meeting at Tioga Point on the Susquehanna the combined armies swept up through the finger lakes burning every Cayuga, Tuscarora and Seneca village before them, destroying crops and food stocks, and cutting down orchards. At the head of Conesus Lake  the Senecas and Butler's Rangers set up an ambush to try to stop Sullivan's forces before they could enter Little Beard's Town.  But before they could effect the ambush, a scouting party sent out earlier by the Americans blundered into the ambush and in a running skirmish the party's commander, a Lieutenant Parker, and a Sargent Boyd were taken prisoner.  The enraged and disappointed warriors took their prisoners to the village where they were tortured and beheaded, before a council of chiefs decided that, with the element of surprise gone, their only option was to withdraw before this much larger army.  Little Beard's Town, it crops and orchards was utterly destroyed. 

                        Letchworth Park Rd., Castile

While most of Mary's people crowded into towns untouched by the Sullivan invasion,  even seeking shelter in the shadow of the British headquarters at Fort Niagara, Mary took her family south, along the Genesee to an old abandoned village that would become known as the Gardeau Tract.  There she met a pair of escaped slaves who had raised a large field of corn.  They  took her and her family in, feeding and sheltering them, in exchange for help in shucking and shelling the corn, through a severe winter that devastated  the Haudenosuanee people through cold and famine.  Mary stayed with her family, after the former slaves moved on. Reunited with her husband, she built cabins, farmed and raised livestock.  Peace came and she became surrounded by a scattering of white squatter-settlers. 

                                                                                                                     cor. U.S. 20 A and Mary Jemison Dr., Geneseo

 In 1797 Robert Morris  an extremely wealthy investor,  and a major financier of the Revolution bought the rights to be the sole negotiator to buy land owned/occupied by the Senecas and other tribes in western New York, (the right of Preemption).  Morris arranged for a meeting with the Senecas at the town of Big Tree (near present day Geneseo).  Mary attended the meeting, as respected clan matriarchs often did, advising their tribes' chiefs. The meeting was contentious, and unsavory, dragging on for over a month, with American negotiators using alcohol and bribes to win over individual Indian delegates and with Native Americans realizing  the flood of white settlers would continue unabated unless they made concessions,  surrendered land for payments and got (some-hoped-for) legal protections for their established towns and "developed" lands. Mary was an outspoken advocate for her people.  Morris' company bought the entire Seneca lands west of the Genesee to the New York western border with the exception of twelve "reservations"--mostly settled Indian towns and farmlands for $100,000 (roughly $5 billion, today). The money was  invested stocks in the Bank of the United States with the stipulation that $6000 or  up 6% of the earnings of the stocks be returned to the tribe as an annuity.  Mary's Gardeeau Tract was one of the reservations.

For the next thirty four years Mary and her family lived on the Gardeau Tract but it was not without stress and tragedy.  The Gardeau Tract, whose boundaries  set out by treaty were thought to encompass about two square miles but when surveyed were discovered they encompassed 16,927 acres! This gave her ample land to lease acreage to neighboring farmers so she could live comfortably but it was also large enough to attract the attention of land speculators and land hungry neighbors who developed repeated schemes  to take land from her.  The stresses of living on the edge of the white society also effected her family.  Her oldest son Thomas and middle son John  frequently clashed in violent alcohol-fueled altercations.  In July  1811 John killed Thomas.  Hiokatoo died later that year from advanced age and consumption and her youngest son Jesse died in a fight with John in 1812.    Five years later, John was killed in a brawl with two other Senecas in a neighboring reservation.

Despite her losses and struggles Mary bore her personal disasters with grace and good humor, never turning away persons who came to her in need. Her neighbors encouraged her to meet with James Seaver who interviewed her in 1823 to tell her remarkable story.  The following year he published A  Narrative  of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison.   

In 1831 she moved to the Buffalo Creek Reservation with her remaining daughters and their children, selling the remainder of her lands. She died there in 1833 at the age of 91.

[1]  It is important to remember that Iroquois (Seneca) families are matrilineal so their extended families center around the clan mother.  Husbands essentially marry into their mother-in-law's family, thus throughout most of her life, Mary Jemison's life would center around her clan mother's life and her adoptive sisters.

[2] Later english renditions of her name represent it as "Dehgewanus" and translate it as "two falling voices".  One can imagine her as a young scared girl speaking English and learning the Seneca dialect-- starting to speak, but having her voice trail off in fear and uncertainty.

[3]  A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison.  Chapter VI.  James E. Seaver.  1824.

[4]  Living along the Ohio, Mary reported they used a short sharpened stick as a hoe-like instrument to plant their corn, but moving into her own piece of land, the Gardeau Tract, she brought a pair of horses and plowed her fields to grow her corn. 

[5] see also "NYSHMs: It Happened Here.  Apr. 11., 2025."

--A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison   is available  on line in text at "Project Gutenberg" and as an audiobook at "Librivox"

--The online "Exploring Letchworth State Park History " by Tom Breslin and Tom Cook is a wealth of articles and time lines about the park, the Gardeau Tract and Mary Jemison

--all the usual internet suspects.

Marker of the Week  Fortnight (!)  -- Diners

  7550 N. Broadway, Redhook

The descendants of "lunch wagons" and modeled after railroad dining cars, these prefabricated light-meal restaurants were popular in the 1920's, and after WWII.   Completely pre-wired with appliances, plumbing, booths, counters, and "bar stools" these original fast-food restaurants were virtually ready for business as soon as they were  delivered and connected up to public utilities. Known as the Village Diner or Halfway Diner  (because it was said to be halfway between New York and Albany ) , this Redhook restaurant was fabricated in Paterson, NJ and brought to Redhook  by flatbed rail car and truck in 1927. 

After the Taconic Parkway was built it was moved to the intersection of Rte.199 and the Parkway,  then moved back to Redhook after the building of the  mid-- Hudson Bridge redirected a greater flow of traffic through Redhook.  Like many other diners an extended kitchen was added in the rear.

 One of about ten diner manufacturers, Silk City Diners was a division of the Paterson Wagon Company that produced about 1500 diners from 1926 to 1966.  

Another Silk City Diner exists in Albany.  Built in 1941 it had a number of owners and operated under several names, Lill's Diner, The Miss Albany Diner and currently, Tanpopo Ramen and Sake Bar.

In 1987 it was featured prominently in the film Ironweed.

 

 It Happened Here-- The Schoharie County                                                           Seminary Mania

"During the 'seminary epidemic'  of 1850 and 1854 that swept over the county and excited the steady minds of the people and made sad havoc with the accumulation of years of economy and industry, the citizens of this place (Carlisle) erected a fine edifice for the accommodation of 200 boarding pupils."          --p.291 the History of Schoharie County , New York.  William E. Roscoe  1882

                                                                    Crommie Rd.   Carlisle
Incredibly, at the beginning of the middle decade 19th century the  little towns and hamlets in the very rural county of Schoharie erected no less than six boarding schools for higher (secondary) education of students, hoping, presumably to attract students from across New York State and southern New England.     By 1867, all of them had closed and most of them had burned--most under suspicious circumstances!

It was not as if Schoharie county had had no experience with the  financial difficulties of building and maintaining academies/seminaries.  The village of Schoharie had incorporated its academy in 1837, receiving Regents certification in 1839. Beginning with a principal teacher, and three assistants, with French and German branches, it grew and broadened its curriculum  until in 1881 it awarded its first regents diploma, the ninth awarded in the state. In 1904 the old Academy was replaced by a brick public  high school on its site.

The Jefferson Academy, at a central crossroads in  the township of Jefferson predated the Schoharie Academy.  Herman Hickok, a local school teacher began advocating for and soliciting subscribers for a fund to build an academy in 1812,  succeeding in 1817 after he convinced a local landowner to donate land for an academy along with a village green.  With $4000 a building was raised but the Academy struggled financially for years, being forced to close in 1851.

                       cor. N.Harpersfield Rd.  and Park Ave., Jefferson

While local communities struggled to finance   and maintain academies/ seminaries  for secondary education,  a statewide organization with national ties announced its intention to build a seminary in the remote little hamlet of Charlottesville, Schoharie County.  In 1850 the New York State Methodist  Conference began soliciting subscriptions and donations to build a seminary to house 300 students, in the "healthy countryside" away from the  corrupting distractions and vices of towns and busy thoroughfares. Quickly erected and in business, after two years, the seminary was examined by a committee that reported to the Conference that the seminary had "a career of unexampled prosperity" with 350 students,  and had to turn many away for lack of facilities. Extensions were added on the building and, in 1852, a new  three story building was begun to hold an additional 500 students across  the plank road, in front of it! By 1852 there were, besides the principal and preceptress. a staff of 17 teachers.

                                                                                                          cor.  Charlotte Valley Rd. and Meade Rd., Charlotteville

This degree of success and growth could not help but attract the attention of surrounding communities and within months the "Seminary Mania" was beginning.  But what explains the popularity of the Charlottesville Seminary?  First,  long periods of relative prosperity had seen the growth of the middle class with increasing numbers of wealthy farmers, tradesmen, and businessmen seeking education beyond basic literacy for their children in a safe, moral environment.  The Methodist church could ostensibly provide that.  Additionally, there were Methodist churches in nearly every town in New York and beyond. This new educational project was reported and promoted  to the congregations with ministers to  vouch for the new seminary and perhaps provide some charitable support for promising students.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             W. Main St., Richmondville

In the spring of 1852 a group investors from Richmondville  invested "a few thousand dollars" to build a seminary in Richmondville described by Roscoe as "palatial" but in December 1853 "an incendiary laid the whole in ashes" but because the investors had been encouraged by its prospects they raised more money to build a second building in the fall of 1853, investing $60,000 on the two buildings.  It too burned in 1854!

In the Fall of 1852 investors around Carlisle formed a joint stock company promoted by a "Colonel Sellers" raising  $32,000 for a 300  student seminary a short distance from the Great Western Turnpike that ran through Carlisle, with a large chapel, several recitation rooms and "all the conveniences of a first rate institution." By the end of 1854, however, it had become a financial failure, with the institution amassing unpaid bills. It would struggle on for over a decade. with the trustees blaming the investors for not supporting them; the investors blaming the trustees for profligate, unauthorized spending. Expensive litigation followed expensive litigation.  Several local businesses went bankrupt and their owners left for better prospects in the west; others labored on, mired in debt for years.  Eventually the building was sold, taken apart and re-assembled to build two hotels in Rockville and East Worcester, Otsego County.

NYS Rte. 7, Cobleskill

In the fall of 1853 at a cost of $30,000 the Warnerville Union Literary Seminary opened with accomodations for 200 students and a faculty of one principal and twelve assistants, but closed a short time later.  It would open, under a different principal as the Union Literary Institute in November 1861 but close  in a year and a half.  And again it would open in 1870 headed by Professor Dean Smith, as Dean's College,  closing after eighteen months.

                                                                                                       CharlotteValley Rd., Charlotteville

Meanwhile, Charlottesville Seminary soldiered on, buoyed by its popularity and aided by church donations. In 1855  a grand new building was built on the south side of the road.  Four  hundred and eighty feet long , four stories high with additional basement rooms, it was built to house 800 students and slated to transition into a college, "People's College".

But in 1856 tragedy struck.  The north complex of buildings burned. Twelve years later, the south building burned as well.  After the fires Professor  Solomon Sias continued the seminary with  small groups of about 120 students operating out of a local hotel until 1875.                                                            

The problem with seminary boarding schools was, that though popular, they were beyond the economic range of most middle class parents, and in the competition for pupils the seminaries of Schoharie were unprofitable.  The $3 per week, or so, generally charged students could not cover the room, heat, 21 meals,  washing and ironing services and salaries for a principal, preceptress, and dozen or more assistants, and cooks and maintenance personnel required to run such  institutions.  

While their fundamental unprofitability explains their ultimate demise, left unanswered are questions surrounding the fires that destroyed four of the six Schoharie seminaries.  Accidental fires were a constant threat to large  buildings in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries.  Large hotels, and resorts were always burning!  In nineteenth century Saratoga, for example, Broadway was lined with hotels, each one larger and more opulent than the last,  but today, only the Adelphi survives the frequent fires of the past.  Wooden construction, wood and coal burning stoves--vented with smoke pipes running up walls and across ceilings, the absence of smoke detection and sprinkler systems made large buildings vulnerable.  The  absence of fire companies, effective fire fighting equipment, and hydrants meant that any small fire would likely result in total destruction.  But beyond accidental fires, Roscoe clearly lays the blame for some of the fires on "incindiarists" but does not elaborate.  Besides Roscoe there appears to be few if any secondary sources/histories which relate the stories of the Schoharie Seminaries and their demise.  Perhaps this article will arouse some interest in  answering  the unanswered questions of  Why? and by Whom? were the disastrous fires started.

        Marker of the Week  Fortnight -- The Prize Fight        that Changed the Shape of New York!

Undermountain Road, Boston Corner  (marker lists the wrong date)

You may have never noticed,  but the border between Massachusetts and New York State runs  from  a point northwest of North Adams to a point  southwest of  Sheffield, MA  in nearly a straight line until it joins with the Massachusetts--Connecticut border at what you might expect to be about an 80 degree angle.  But about two miles north of that intended junction the borderline veers abruptly a few degrees to the east to give to New York a neat little triangle of land in which lies the tiny hamlet, Boston Corner.  Originally part of Massachusetts, the Corner was perhaps the most isolated hamlet in the Bay State, walled off by the Taconic Mountains.  While isolated from the rest of Massachusetts it became conveniently tied to New York City,  Troy and Albany by a spur of the Harlem River Railroad, providing regular  freight and passenger  service to the town.  It didn't take long for individuals pursuing  criminal business to see the Corner was a convenient locale for their shady enterprises--difficult for the local police from Great Barrington, MA  to reach, and thus often ignored, but easy for perpetrators to get to.  The hamlet often became a stash  for stolen livestock and other property, a discrete meeting place for wanted criminals and a venue for duels. Both states forbade dueling by this time. (One story has it that a successful racehorse was shipped to the Corner to be given a dye-job to disguise  it so when it was run again it would get better racing odds for its owner.)  The residents petitioned both states to get their town annexed to New York to get a measure of law enforcement.

 In New York City in the 1850s powerful Irish gangs competed with each other for prestige and power and  one source of bragging rights was the claim of who had the toughest gang members.  Bare-knuckle boxing matches were the preferred method of making and defending such claims, and though illegal,  boxing matches  were avidly followed and were the source of much small and high stakes betting.  In 1853, a young tough, John Morrissey challenged an older experienced battler, reputed to be the champion,  "Yankee Sullivan," a career criminal who had been convicted of theft in Great Britain and sent to an Australian penal colony but escaped and had made his way to NewYork.  A match was arranged; a prize of $2000 set for the winner; and Boston Corner was selected for the fight, where it was  expected no police would arrive to break up the event. 

 Overnight, on October 12, 1853 the little hamlet of some 200 souls was swamped with thousands of "sportsmen" carousing and camping in the streets.  The one local hotel and bar was overrun and drained of its spirits.  (But of course, "fortunately" the visitors had the foresight  to bring plenty of booze along with them.)   The boxing match was held in an abandoned brickyard in a natural bowl with sloping sides. The fight started when both fighters  "threw their hats in the ring", signaling they were ready to fight. The fight lasted an incredible 37 rounds. Each round lasted until a fighter was knocked down or fell to a knee.  The fight continued when each fighter swiped a starting line with his foot. The winner was declared if one fighter was unable to "toe the line." Throughout the fight, fist-fights broke out between spectators. Yankee Sullivan showed early on that he was a better fighter but according to some, Morrissey was declared the winner when Sullivan jumped out of the ring to come to the aid of a friend he saw being attacked on the sidelines, and could not get back to "toe the line" in time while Morrissey's supporters virtually carried the young contender to "toe the line".  When the fight was declared, intoxicated overjoyed supporters of Morrissey joined outraged indignant supporters of Sullivan  to essentially sack the town, stealing whatever valuables and food they could lay their hands on. There were reports of even pigs being stolen from farmers' barnyards, butchered on the spot, and roasted along the roadsides!  And then, the "sportsmen" were gone on the next train.  

The town picked itself up;  redoubled their efforts to get themselves annexed by New York, where they hoped to get better local law enforcement, and this time in 1855 they finally succeeded.  

--A quick perusal of the "Google Machine" will reveal there are a surprisingly large number of pieces written about this historical incident, each with their own set of "facts".  I particularly liked the pieces published  the Poughkeepsie Journal,  Sports Illustrated and The New England Historical Society.