Phelps and Gorham Purchase

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The Phelps and Gorham Purchase was the purchase of rights to approximately 6,000,000 acres (24,000 km² ) of land in western New York State . The purchase price was 1 million US dollars, which corresponds to a current (2005) value of around 20 billion dollars in terms of purchasing power. The area to the west of New York comprised all of the land west of Seneca Lake between Lake Ontario and the Pennsylvania border . The buyers were Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham , both from Massachusetts , and the seller was the Commonwealth of Massachusetts . (In some discussions of this matter, the Phelps and Gorham Purchase refers to the full 6,000,000 acres and in others to only 2,250,000 acres. This is because Phelps and Gorham have the rights to purchase bought the whole 6,000,000 acres (24,000 km²), they were only able to clear the Indian claims for the area east of the Genesee River and thus obtain clean claims.)

Colonial land claims

After the American Revolution , West New York was open to development as soon as New York and Massachusetts settled their competing claims to the area in the December 1786 Treaty of Hartford . The compromise was that while New York would have sovereignty over the land, Massachusetts would have the right to purchase the claim gained from the Indians.

The Massachusetts Legislature on April 1, 1788, confirmed the purchase between the Commonwealth on the one hand and Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham on the other for the purchase price of $ 1 million in three equal annual installments in certain Massachusetts securities (then Worth around 20 US cents) and the transfer of all rights and claims to the western territory described in the Hartford Treaty.

Advice at Buffalo Creek

Phelps and Gorham wasted no time exploiting their purchase. On July 8, 1788, Phelps met with Indians from the five civilized tribes of the Iroquois Confederation ( Mohawk , Oneida , Onondaga , Cayuga, and Seneca ) near Buffalo River to issue a charter or treaty over the rights to part of their land. It was finally agreed on approximately one third of the territory given to Massachusetts in the Hartford Treaty, namely on the eastern part, from the Genesee River as the western boundary to a point in the northern border line of the state of Pennsylvania, the 42nd parallel, and from there to a point located 82 miles west of the northeast corner of Pennsylvania on the Delaware River, the Preemption Line . The agreement also includes a small stretch of land west of the Genesee River that runs south from Lake Ontario approximately 24 miles (39 km) and extends west 12 miles (19 km) from the westernmost bend of the Genesee River, parallel to the course of the Following the Genesee Rivers. This 184,300 acres (746 km²) strip west of the Genesee River was known as " The Mill Yard Tract ", so named because Phelps and Gorham asked the Indians for the land west of the Genesse by the falls because they had a sawmill and gristmill there wanted to build. To clear the claim, Phelps and Gorham paid the Indians $ 5,000 plus an annual pension of $ 500. The area where the claim was cleared covers approximately 2,250,000 acres (9,100 km²) including the Mill Yard Tract .

Late payment

Phelps and Gorham Purchase

Due to the Phelps and Gorham late payment of the installment in 1790, the rights to the land from the Phelps and Gorham Purchase west of the Genesee River, covering approximately 3,750,000 acres (15,200 km², 5,860 square miles ), reverted to Massachusetts on March 10, 1791 . On March 12, 1791, Massachusetts agreed to the sale of the rights to the land west of Genesee to Robert Morris for $ 333,333.33. The land was transferred to Morris in five charter on May 11, 1791. At the time, Morris was the richest man in America, a signatory to the US Constitution and the financier of the American Revolution.

Morris then sold most of that land to the Holland Land Company (known as " The Holland Purchase ") in December 1792 and February and July 1793 . However, he retained for himself 500,000 acres (2,000 km², 780 square miles) in a 12 mile strip along the east side of the land that was acquired by Massachusetts, from the Pennsylvania border with Lake Ontario known as The Morris Reserve . The north end of the Morris Reserve , an 87,000 acres (350 km², 136 square miles) triangle tract (" The Triangle Tract "), was sold by Morris to Herman Leroy, William Bayard and John McEvers, while a 100,000 acres (400 km², 160 Square miles) west of the Triangle Tract went to the state of Connecticut . In September 1797, Morris canceled the remaining Indian claims for the entire country west of Genesee by the " Treaty of Big Tree " ( Geneseo ).

The Phelps and Gorham land east of the Genesee River, which had not already been sold, was also acquired by Robert Morris in August 1790 for approximately 1,200,000 acres (4,9100 km², 1,870 square miles) which were then resold to The Pulteney Association .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Blake McKeveley: Historic Aspects of the Phelps and Gorham Treaty of July 4-8, 1788 Archived from the original on December 3, 2007. Information: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Rochester Public Library (Ed.): Rochester History . 1, No. 1, January 1939, ISSN 0035-7413 . Retrieved January 5, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rochester.lib.ny.us 

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