APPENDIX NO. 13. [See page 449.] DISTRIBUTION OF THE THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS PAID BY VERMONT AMONG THE NEW YORK LAND CLAIMANTS. On the 6th of April, 1796, the legislature of New York passed an act by which Robert Yates, John Lansing, Jr., and Abraham Van Veghten, were appointed commissioners to examine and decide upon the claims of all persons to lands under New York grants, which had been ceded by that state to Vermont, and to make "a just and equitable distribution" of the money which had been paid into the treasury by the latter state. The commissioners in compliance with the provisions of the act, having given the requisite public notice to the claimants, met in the city of Albany on the 10th of July, 1797, and continued their sittings from time to time until the 23d of April, 1799, when they made their final report, dividing the thirty thousand dollars among seventy-six different claimants, assigning to them proportionate shares according to the number of acres to which they had respectively shown themselves entitled. The whole number of acres to which the New York title was held by the commissioners to have been proved was 600,100, for which the claimants would receive $49.91 for every thousand acres, or a very small fraction less than at the rate of five cents per acre. The quantity of Vermont lands which had been granted by New York besides confirmatory grants, exceeded two millions of acres, more than three times the quantity for which allowances were made by the commissioners. This deficiency in the allowance of claims was owing to several causes. First, to the length of time, from twenty to thirty years, which had elapsed since the making of the grants, during which, from the deaths and removal of parties and changes in business, the knowledge of the existence of a portion of the claims or of the evidence of them would be likely to be lost. Secondly, the smallness of the amount which could be expected under the award of the commissioners would induce many, from various motives, to withhold their claims. Thus some were doubtless withheld in the hope of obtaining a greater allowance from the liberality of the New York legislature, to which many petitions were presented some with a view of prosecuting them before the federal courts, in which suits were repeatedly threatened, while the politicians who had taken an active part in opposing the independence of Vermont might omit presenting their claims, to avoid the imputation of having acted from personal motives. But thirdly, a very large portion of the deficiency may be accounted for by the fact that most of the original grants were made for the benefit of government officials, and their favorites and friends, a majority of whom joined the enemy in the revolution, and generally left the country at the close of the war. Many of them had indeed been attainted by the New York government, and their claims had thus become forfeited to the state. Of this latter class were Governors Dunmore and Tryon, and Attorney General Kempe, whose extensive claims have already been mentioned. Many other officials and government favorites were also attainted and their property confiscated, including no less than seven of the twelve members of the governor's council, whose claims were probably large. It seems not improbable that one-third of the original claims were held by the adherents of the crown, and in consequence were left unpresented. The commissioners kept a journal of their proceedings, in which were entered the date and description of the patents, and of the several conveyances under which the claimants derived their titles, by which the purpose and character of the original grants can to a considerable extent be ascertained.1 This journal has been frequently referred to in the body of this work, and the character of several of the grants, founded on the facts it discloses, has been sufficiently stated. A further examination of the report of the commissioners and their journals, shows very clearly in accordance with our former account, that the great mass of the grants was obtained, not as the form of the applications to the governor stated, " with intent to cultivate the same,” but for mere purposes of speculation. With very few exceptions, the claimants were residents of New York city, mostly lawyers, merchants and professional land jobbers. Of the 600,100 acres for which allowances were made, over 500,000 acres were granted to nineteen of the seventy-six claimants, whose average quantity exceeded 26,000 acres each. The claims of eight parties covered 376,000 acres, nearly two thirds of the whole, the smallest quantity of this number being 22,000 acres. A brief notice of these eight claims will serve to explain and illustrate the character of the whole. Taking these in their alphabetical order, the first claim is that of Samuel Avery, who was for a considerable time a resident of Westminster, in Cumberland county. He appears to have been one of the favored inhabitants of the New Hampshire Grants, to whom patents were freely issued by the New York government. His grants were of a late date when it had become an object for the earlier city speculators to strengthen their interest in the territory, in order to overcome the formidable resistance of the settlers to their iniquitous claims. One of Avery's claims was founded on a patent issued to him and twenty-three associates for 24,000 acres, bearing date August 16th, 1774. On the 17th and 18th of the same month, these twenty-three associates conveyed their shares to him. Another claim was for 28,000 acres, patented to Humphrey Avery and twenty-seven others, in September, 1774, all of whom on the 29th of that month, conveyed their titles to him, thus vesting in him the whole 52,000 acres, and showing very clearly that the grants were made for his sole benefit. These two tracts adjoined each other, and were in the easterly part of the present county of Addison. These with a claim for 200 acres in Durham and 1,000 in another town of which Samuel Avery was a grantee, made up the 53,200 acres, for which he was allowed the sum of $2,655.03. These grants were made by Lieut. Gov. Colden. Avery continued his applications for land, for some months into the revolutionary period, and on the 28th of October, 1775, obtained a patent for 40,000 acres from Gov. Tryon, after he had fled for safety on board a British man-of-war lying in New York harbor. The land was situated in the vicinity of his former 1 The original journal is found in the office of the secretary of state at Albany, and there is a copy in the secretary of state's office at Montpelier. grants, but his claim for it was disallowed by the commissioners, for the reason that it was made after the date which had been prescribed in the New York constitution, as the time when the colonial grants should cease to be valid.1 To Goldsbrow Banyar, in his own name and that of his son William, for 150,800 acres of land, was awarded the sum of $7,528.36, being over one quarter of the whole amount paid by Vermont into the New York treasury. Banyar was secretary to the governor and council during the whole period in which grants of Vermont lands were made. His grants were in numerous patents, made in the names of other persons from whom he at once took conveyances.2 The next claim in order is that of William Cockburne for 30,070 acres for which he was allowed $1,495.95. He was a resident of New York, and a deputy surveyor general under Alexander Colden, son of the lieutenant governor; was arrested and dealt with by the Green Mountain Boys for attempting to survey lands under New York patents, that had been previously granted by New Hampshire, and by threats prevented from completing that of Socialborough, as related in the previous part of this work. His allowance was for lands in several different tracts, and it is unnecessary to state, were entirely of a speculative character.3 The claim of James Duane was for 52,500 acres, for which his heirs were allowed the sum of $2,621.29. It was for 10,400 acres in the patent of Princetown, 15,000 in Socialborough, 4,741 in Durham, 12,750 in Chatham and the residue in Eugene, the two last being selected by him in satisfaction of military warrants, which he had purchased. All these grants were of lands which had been previously chartered by New Hampshire, and all the patents except that of Princetown, were issued in violation of the king's order of July, 1867, forbidding any further grants.* To the executors of Simon Metcalf, a New York surveyor, was allowed $1,417.47 for 28,400 acres, all but about three thousand of it being in the patent of Prattsburg, granted July 6, 1771 in violation of the king's prohibitory order, covering lands in Swanton and Highgate, both of which had been chartered by New Hampshire in 1763.5 The next claim is that of William Smith for 23,600 acres for which he was allowed $1,181.69. He was a member of the New York council from 1778 to the end of the colonial government, and participated in the advice of that body given Lieutenant Governor Colden on the 20th of October 1769, under which the order of the king, forbidding further grants of land in the controverted district, was ever afterwards violated. A few weeks after giving the advice (November 13th) he became the proprietor of 6000 acres of land in the patent of Royalton, and he continued, from time to time to obtain further grants, until he acquired the New York title to the quantity for which the above allowance was made. Mr. Smith, who was the author of the history of New York, became a tory at the revolution, was called before the council of safety in June 1777 and ordered to be confined to the Manor of Livingston. Being connected by marriage with the powerful Livingston family, he escaped being included in the attainder act; and more 1 Albany Records, Land Patents, vol. 16. Jour. of Com'rs, p. 10, 11, 12, 13, 64, 121, 130. 2 Land Patent Records, vols. 14 to 17, and Jour. of Commissioners. Index, Banyar. 3 Albany Patent Records, Journal of Com's, p. 61, 62, 63. 4 Journal of Coms., p. 42, 45, 85, 88. 5 Journal of Coms., p. 53, 54, 90, 91, 124, 130. fortunate than most of his associate members of the council, was in consequence enabled to share in the distribution of the sum received from Vermont for the benefit of the land claimants. Mr. Smith was sent within the enemy's lines at New York, where he remained until the evacuation of the city in 1783, when he repaired to England. He was afterwards appointed chief justice of Canada, and died there in 1793. Besides the above quantity of land a patent was issued May 3, 1770, to the same William Smith and others, for 25,000 acres called Mooretown, 22,000 acres of which were for his special benefit, and of which he received conveyances from his nominal associates. This 22,000 acres he conveyed in 1788, to his son-in-law John Plenderleaf of Scotland, and for which Plenderleaf was allowed by the commissioners the sum of $1096.68.1 A claim was allowed to Brook Watson of $1197.76 for 24,000 acres, as assignee in trust for one William Kelley to whom in his name and twentythree others the tract had been patented May 10, 1770, by the name of Gageborough. Kelly was a resident of New York city, and Brook Watson an English merchant, who has been previously mentioned (p. 216) as figuring in New York and Canada, in the character of a deceitful and bitter enemy to the American cause.2 There were six other allowances which exceeded 10,000 acres each, and fifty of the seventy-six exceeded 1,000 acres each. Few or none of the claimants, for either large or small quantities, ever expected or desired to occupy their lands. Their grants were all, with trifling exceptions, if any, of a purely speculative character. The applicants to the New York governors knew that the lands were either already occupied or rapidly settling under grants from New Hampshire, which they had been taught to believe were defective, and they sought the New York title, for the large gains they expected to obtain by the sale of it to the New England emigrants or to others, wholly regardless of any equitable claims to the lands which parties might have who wished to cultivate them. Some claims were presented to the commissioners, which for various reasons were disallowed, one of which was of sufficient magnitude to deserve a brief notice. It was a claim of John Kelly, an Irish lawyer of New York city. Kelly was a tory within the enemy's lines, during the war of the revolution, but was lucky enough to escape being attainted, and thereby to save his land claim from forfeiture. His claim, included in numerous tracts, was for 115,119 acres, 78,619 of which were presented in his own name, and 36,502 in the names of Robert Troup and four others as assignees for the benefit of Kelly's creditors, his excessive land speculations, by the failure of his Vermont titles, having rendered him insolvent. His original title to the lands does not appear to have been controverted, but the whole claim was rejected; that part of it presented by his assignees, for the reason that he had stated in his assignment that he had received a grant of other lands in Vermont in lieu of those assigned, and the larger claim in his own name was disallowed, because he had also averred in his assignment that he was "not seized or possessed of any real estate," other than that included in the assignment. See the manuscript report of the commissioners. Index to the names of the claimants. 1 Jour. of Coms. Smith's N. Y., vol. 1, Introductory Memoir. Col. Hist. N. Y., vol. 7, p. 909. 2 Jour. Coms., p. 27. The following Table shows the names of the claimants among whom the $30,000 |