History of New York
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For a history of the city see: History of New York City.
The Dutch were the first European settlers in the colony known as New Netherland (Nova Belgica in Latin). Fort Nassau was founded near Albany, New York in 1614 and abandoned in 1618. About thirty Walloon families settled on the shores of the Hudson River near what is present day New York City and on the Delaware River around 1624. The Dutch also established Fort Oranje near present-day Albany in 1624. New Amsterdam was established on the island of Manhattan a year later by Peter Minuit. After the English took over in the 1660s, the colony was renamed New York, after the Duke of York, the future King James II of England.
On November 1, 1683, the government was reorganized into a pattern still followed, and the state was divided into twelve counties, each of which was subdivided into towns. Ten of those counties still exist (see below), but two (Cornwall and Dukes) were in territory purchased by the Duke of York from the Earl of Sterling, and are no longer within the territory of the State of New York, having been transferred by treaty to Massachusetts, Dukes in 1686 and Cornwall in 1692. (Cornwall County became a large portion of the State of Maine when that state was detached from Massachusetts in 1819; Dukes County is still a county in Massachusetts.) While the number of counties has been increased to 62, the pattern still remains that a town in New York State is a subdivision of a county, rather than an incorporated municipality as in most (but not all) other States.
New York was one of the thirteen colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution.
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Upstate New York
Upstate New York (as well as parts of present Ontario, Quebec, Pennsylvania, and Ohio) was occupied by the Five Nations (after 1720 becoming Six Nations, when joined by Tuscarora) of the Iroquois Confederacy for at least a half millennium before the Europeans came. At the onset of the Revolutionary War, there lay a vast tract of land from the upper Mohawk River to Lake Erie, that was thinly occupied by the Iroquois and virtually unknown to the colonists. Since the colonial charters of both Massachusetts and New York granted unlimited westward expansion, the claim to this tract was disputed. There were also many tensions between the original Dutch settlers in the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys and the English who were rapidly arriving in Eastern New York, and the Germans who were also establishing settlements in the Mohawk area.
Upstate New York was also the scene of fighting during the French and Indian War, with British and French forces contesting control of Lake Champlain in association with Native American allies.
During the period prior to the American Revolution, a territorial dispute developed between New York and the Republic of Vermont that continued until after the war. Ultimately, the colonial counties of Cumberland and Gloucester were lost from New York after 1777.
The Revolution began with the Six Nations officially neutral, but this quickly broke down as British and Tory agents courted them on the one hand, and the American rebels on the other. In fact the Revolution effectively broke the Iroquois confederacy forever, with the Oneida Nation and Tuscarora Nations supporting the American side, and the Mohawk Nation, Onondaga Nation, Cayuga Nation and Seneca Nations going with the British and Tories. It was a strategic error for the latter four nations, as they picked the eventual loser in the Revolution.
The Iroquois were thus a serious problem to the Americans fighting for independence. In July of 1778 a force of perhaps one thousand Iroquois and Tories led by the Tory Colonel John Butler and the Seneca war chief Cornplanter overwhelmed a few hundred Americans in the Wyoming Valley (along the Susquehanna River near present Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania), which came to be known as the Wyoming Valley Massacre. Whether or not a massacre took place in the Wyoming Valley is a matter of historical debate. However, a massacre occurred at Cherry Valley in November, when about 33 civilians (including women and children) were murdered and scalped by the Iroquois who accompanied a British and Tory raid.
As the Americans gained control of more and more of Eastern New York in 1779, Congress decided to end the Iroquois threat and General George Washington sent Major General John Sullivan in June northward from Wilkes-Barre. Sullivan's troops only had one serious engagement at Newtown near present day Elmira, where they decisively routed a force led by Colonel Butler and the Mohawk captain Joseph Brant.
The Sullivan Expedition moved northward through the Finger Lakes and Genesee Country with a "scorched earth" policy. All Iroquois communities were burned, their crops destroyed, and their orchards hewn down. They found an incredibly beautiful territory. The area between Seneca and Cayuga Lakes was maintained by annual burning as a grassland prairie, and it abounded in wild game including grazing American Bison herds. Orchards contained apples and peaches. There were fields of corn and gardens with potatoes, turnips, onions, pumpkins, squashes and vegetables of various kinds. The Iroquois did not live in simple hovels as expected, but had handsome multi-family houses, often called castles. The community of Seneca Castle is derived from one such Iroquois village. Fish were abundant, and the natives also had herds of milk cows and hogs for meat. They were amazingly prosperous.
As Sullivan's army devastated the Iroquois homeland, refugees were forced to flee to Fort Niagara, where they spent the following winter in hunger and misery, sustained by gifts of salted meat given to them by British at the fort community. Hundreds died of exposure, hunger and disease.
Sullivan's men returned from the campaign to Pennsylvania and New England to tell of the enormous wealth of this new territory. Some carried huge ears of corn in their knapsacks as proof of the fertility of the land. Many of them returned to land grants later in western New York, given by the government in gratitude for their service in the Revolution.
Opening Western New York
Following the American Revolution, western New York was opened up for American development as soon as New York and Massachusetts compromised and settled their competing claims for the area in December 1786 by the Treaty of Hartford. The compromise was that, while New York would have sovereignty over the land, Massachusetts would have the "preemptive" right to obtain title from the Indians.
Following this treaty, there were various groups attempting to circumvent the treaty and directly obtain title from the Indians. For example, in 1787 John Livingston, Col. John Butler, Samuel Street, a Capt. Powell, and Lt. William Johnston attempted to circumvent the Treaty of Hartford by purporting to purchase a 999-year lease of about 8 million acres (32,000 km²) from the Iroquois. This lease, however, was promptly declared void by both the New York and the Massachusetts legislatures.
On April 1, 1788, the entire Massachusetts preemptive right -- comprising some 6,000,000 acres (24,000 km²) -- was sold to Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham, both of Massachusetts. The sales price was $1,000,000, payable in three equal annual installments of certain Massachusetts securities then worth about 20 cents on the dollar. This sale was of the preemptive right for all land west of a line running from the mouth of Sodus Bay on Lake Ontario, due south to the 82nd milestone on the Pennsylvania border near Big Flats (the "Preemption Line") all the way to the Niagara River and Lake Erie. Phelps and Gorham would not, however, own the land outright until they extinguished all Indian titles.
Phelps and Gorham wasted no time in treating with the Indian tribes. On July 8, 1788, by the Treaty of Buffalo Creek, they extinguished Indian title to all land from the Preemption Line west to the Genesee River, as well as to lands west of the Genesee running south from Lake Ontario approximately 24 miles and extending west from the river 12 miles from "the westernmost bend of the Genesee," with this western boundary paralleling the course of the Genesee. This 184,300 acre (746 km²) tract west of the Genesee was known as The Mill Yard Tract, so named because Phelps and Gorham asked the Indians for land west of the Genesee at the Upper Falls so they could build a sawmill and gristmill. For this extinction of title, Phelps and Gorham paid the Indians $5,000, plus an annuity of $500. The area to which title was extinguished comprised some 2,250,000 acres (9,100 km²), including the Mill Yard Tract.
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Phelps and Gorham, however, ran into financial difficulties, and after making the first installment payment in 1789, they defaulted in 1790. After extensive negotiation, proposals and counter-proposals, all parties agreed that the preemptive right to lands of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase west of the Genesee River, comprising some 3,750,000 acres (15,200 km²), would revert back to Massachusetts, which occurred on March 10, 1791. On March 12, 1791, Massachusetts agreed to sell its reverted preemptive right to lands west of the Genesee to Robert Morris for $333,333,33. The land was conveyed to Morris in five deeds on May 11, 1791. At that time, Morris was the richest man in America, as well as a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a financier of the American Revolution.
Morris then re-sold most of these lands in December 1792 and in February and July 1793 to the Holland Land Company (known as The Holland Purchase). Morris was obligated, however, to extinguish Indian title to these lands before the sale would be final and he would be paid in full. In September 1797, Morris extinguished the remaining Indian title for all the lands west of the Genesee at the "Treaty of Big Tree" (Geneseo). The Holland Land Company opened a land sales office in Batavia in 1802, and sales of the tract commenced. The phrase "doing a land office business," which denotes prosperity, dates from this era. The land office still exists and is a museum today.
Morris did not convey to the Holland Land Company all of the lands he received from Massachusetts. He reserved for himself 500,000 acres (2,000 km²) in a strip twelve miles wide along the east side of the lands acquired from Massachusetts. The strip ran from the Pennsylvania border to Lake Ontario, and was known as The Morris Reserve. At the north end of the Morris Reserve, a 87,000 acre (350 km²) triangular shaped tract ("The Triangle Tract") was sold by Morris to Herman Leroy, William Bayard and John McEvers, while a 100,000 acre (400 km²) tract due west of the Triangle Tract was sold to the State of Connecticut.
The Phelps and Gorham lands east of the Genesee River that had not already been sold were also acquired by Robert Morris in August 1790 -- some 1,200,000 acres (4,900 km²) -- who re-sold them to the Pulteney Association.
Settlement of Northern New York
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Macomb's Purchase: Laid out ten townships in 1791 of a purchase by Alexander Macomb from the state. One row of 5 townships along the St. Lawrence River, the second row back from that, included a large segment of northern NY.
Settlement of the Catskills
The development of the Catskills was delayed due to conflicting land claims and lack of surveys. For more information, see The Hardenbergh Patent. Much of the higher land was never settled and cleared and is today part of the Catskill Mountain Forest Preserve.
The Erie Canal
Since navigation was primarily by water, there were limitations on the settlement of western New York. One could navigate up the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers to Central New York, but then had to pass overland to reach the west. Likewise one could come up the St. Lawrence River to Lake Ontario but had to move overland from its southern shore, and the way westward to the remaining Great Lakes was also blocked by Niagara Falls. From 1807 there was discussion of a canal, or series of canals, all of which came to naught, until Governor DeWitt Clinton put all his weight into the proposal, and in 1817 the first portion of a canal was begun, to connect the Hudson River with Lake Erie (and thence to the rest of the Great Lakes). The easy part was built first, a series of bypasses of rapids on the Mohawk River.
Though there was opposition, and the canal was derisively called "Clinton's Ditch" or worse, "Clinton's Folly," the canal was finally completed in 1825. Officially the event was celebrated by cannon shots along the length, and by Governor Clinton ceremonially pouring Lake Erie water into the New York Harbor in the "Wedding of the Waters." The Erie Canal proved to be a stroke of genius, as settlers now poured from New England, Eastern New York and Europe into the central and western part of the state. Others went on to Ohio and Michigan. The Canal was the first serious route for settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains, which had previously been a geographic barrier. Now upstate farms and industries could easily ship their products to the large and growing market of New York City and beyond. Had the Welland Canal, which bypassed Niagara Falls to connect Lakes Ontario and Erie, been built first, instead of in 1833, the history of North America could have been far different, with Montreal, Quebec becoming the main eastern port, instead of New York City.
The Erie Canal, though no longer so important a trade route (it is supplanted by railroads and highways) still defines the central commerce belt of New York State. The port city of Buffalo, Lockport, where the canal crossed a great limestone ridge, mill-town Rochester on the Genessee, and many smaller cities owe their growth, perhaps even their existence, to the Erie. Connecting canals were also built to Lake Ontario and the larger Finger Lakes.