From Hoboken to the Genesee Valley to the shores of Lake Erie, the settling of Western New York is a long and intertwined tale.  It is a story that involves European monarchs and Haudenosaunee sachems, Dutch bankers and land companies, famous Founding Fathers and virtual unknowns. And it explains why the first name on every deed in Western New York reads, “the Holland Land Company.”

Though the name Holland Land Company is well known in Western New York, fewer may know its origin or that it was not the first European “owner” of the land west of the Genesee River.  In fact, many a proud New Yorker might be surprised to learn that the land west of the Finger Lakes was actually claimed by Massachusetts until well after the American Revolution.  

In 1628, King Charles II granted a charter to the colony of Massachusetts.  Though this charter delineated the borders, it did so only in the broadest of terms.  While markers were given for the northern and southern extents of the colony, there was no western limit to the land, as it was thought to extend, “throughout the Mayne Landes there, from the Atlantick and Westerne Sea and Ocean on the East Parte, to the South Sea on the West Parte.” In simpler terms, the western limit of Massachusetts was the Pacific Ocean.  In 1691, William and Mary authorized a revision to the charter, more specifically laying out the latitude of the colony between 42°N, which aligns with the northern boundary of Pennsylvania, and 44°N, aligning roughly with the Thousand Islands.  Thus, all of what is now Western New York lay within the Massachusetts land claim.  To make things more confusing, the Massachusetts claim was not contiguous.  Modern Massachusetts was separated from its western reserve by the New York colony centered around the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys.

European rulers and colonial settlers alike treated this nebulous western area as a blank spot on the map to be filled in at their whim, but this disregarded the last major player in the struggle: the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee).  Up until 1763, the Haudenosaunee had occupied the middle ground, playing off the French and English to their advantage.  But after 1763, the French were gone.  The American Revolution further diminished the position of the Confederacy.  First, the Six Nations fragmented during the war with four of the Nations siding with Great Britain, while the Oneidas and Tuscaroras allied with the Continental Army.  In 1779, the Clinton-Sullivan Campaign destroyed much of traditional Iroquoia, forcing many to seek refuge and supplies from the British at Fort Niagara.  At the war’s close, the Treaty of Paris made no mention of the Six Nations.  Diminished politically, diplomatically and military, the Haudenosaunee realized that they would be unable to resist the westward push of white settlers, and so sought refuge in a series of treaties to forestall the total loss of their lands.  For their part, the United States commissioners, realizing the weakened position of the Haudenosaunee, abandoned the tradition of the Covenant Chain and no longer sought to create a sense of equality during negotiations.

The states’ competing claims to the western lands were finally resolved after the Hartford Convention in 1786.  Massachusetts, needing funds to pay their Revolutionary War veterans, was given the preemption rights to purchase the land from the Haudenosaunee.  They immediately sold those rights to Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham for roughly $1,000,000.  New York, needing real estate to honor land grant promises made to their veterans, was given the administrative rights to the land.  In other words, as the land was sold by Massachusetts, it became part of New York.  A preemption line was agreed upon that stretched from the Pennsylvania border along the western edge of Seneca Lake to Lake Ontario.

Though Phelps and Gorham possessed the preemption rights, others were scheming behind their backs to reap financial gain from the same lands.  A group of Hudson Valley investors led by John Livingston sought to bypass Phelps and Gorham by seeking leases with the Haudenosaunee.  The Genesee Land Company (or the Livingston Company or the Genesee Company of Adventurers) negotiated leases with the “chiefs or sachems of the Six Nations of Indians,” for land west of the preemption line and a second lease with the Oneidas, each for a period of 999 years.  Governor George Clinton quickly intervened, asserting that land sales were the purview of the state and that such rights could not be circumvented by long term leases.  The leases were nullified, and Clinton invited the Haudenosaunee to a council fire at Fort Schuyler (formerly known as Fort Stanwix) to assure the Six Nations that New York State would, “prevent these things in the future.”  Of course, Clinton’s ultimate goal was to secure sale of the Onondaga and Oneida lands east of the preemption line to New York State.  It also allowed Clinton to assert that New York State, not the United States had the right to negotiate with the Haudenosaunee.  While that may have been true in that moment, it was only until the Constitution went into effect, stating, “The Congress shall have Power To… regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

It now fell to Phelps and Gorham to extinguish the Haudenosaunee rights to the lands west of the preemption line. Phelps had some initial success meeting with the Haudenosaunee at Buffalo Creek in July 1788.  The chiefs agreed to part with approximately 2,600,000 acres in return for $5000 and $500 annually, but Phelps could not extinguish all of their rights.  While feeling pressured to work with land speculators, the Haudenosaunee chiefs quickly became skeptical about the reliability of Phelps’ negotiations. In a letter to President George Washington, the Seneca chiefs wrote, “For this land, Phelps agreed to pay us Ten thousand dollars in hand and one thousand dollars a year for ever…but instead of paying us the remainder…he offered us no more than five hundred dollars, and insisted he had agreed with us for that sum only to be paid yearly.”  The United States agent, Timothy Pickering, reported a similar account of Seneca dissatisfaction to Secretary of War Henry Knox.  Phelps and Gorham were quickly in arears with Massachusetts and promptly sold their preemption rights to Revolutionary War financier, Robert Morris.

Robert Morris had made his fortune before the war and used it to almost single handedly finance George Washington’s army.  In the final years of the conflict, “Morris Notes” actually supplanted the official Continental currency.  Following the war, Morris expected that Europeans would flood into the fledging United States, pushing the country westward. So, he began engaging in a series of land speculations that stretched from New York to Georgia.  Often, this was done on credit and with the expectation that his good name, and service during the war, would see him through any difficult financial straits.

Now in possession of the preemption rights, Morris had to extinguish Haudenosaunee claims to this land.  To facilitate relations, he dispatched his son Thomas to reside in Canandaigua, but the chiefs were not in a hurry to do another deal.  In December 1790, Seneca Chiefs Cornplanter, Half Town and Great Tree sent a detailed letter to President Washington, describing a multitude of issue arising in their lands, “We could bear this confusion no longer, & determined to press thro’ every difficulty, and lift up our voice that you might hear us, and to claim that security in the possession of our lands which your commissioners so solemly (sic) promised us, and we now entreat you to enquire into our complaints and redress our wrongs.”   Further emboldening the Senecas was the continued presence of British troops at Fort Niagara. In clear violation of the Treaty of Paris, the Crown had not withdrawn from a number of wilderness outposts in United States territory, including most of those on the Great Lakes.

Unable to make inroads with the Haudenosaunee, Morris began to use his “Genesee Lands” to cover some of his debts.  He sold off the eastern portion of his holding, which became known as the Pulteney Purchase, while retaining a portion that became known as the Morris Reserve.  In 1792, he purchased the farm of Ebenezer Allan, one of the first white settlers and neighbor of Mary Jemison.  The settlement became known as Mount Morris in his honor. About the same time, he began discussions with Théophile Cazenove, regarding the lands that lay west of the Genesee River. Cazenove was the agent for several Dutch banking houses who had begun doing business with the United States during the war. The houses of Stadnitski, Van Staphorst, P. & C. Van Eeghenand Ten Cate & Vollenhoven, W.J. Willink and Jan Schimmelpenninck combined in 1795 to form the Holland Land Company (Hollandsche Land Compagnie). Their interest in acquiring land coincided with Morris’ need to turn his land holdings into cash.  

Yet the Haudenosaunee still stood in the way of his expected profits.  Morris had promised Cazenove that, “no Money shall be paid but in exchange of the Indian title only & authentically agreed to signed by the tribes of Indians whose property is to be bought.”  Since the elder Morris had never visited the Genesee Lands, the responsibility of extinguishing the Native rights fell to his son, Thomas.  This was an uphill battle, as Red Jacket had already expressed his concerns about Robert Morris and his land acquisitions.  “We are much disturbed in our Dreams about the great Eater with a big Belly endeavoring to devour our Lands.”  Hoping to allay his fears, Thomas Morris travelled to Buffalo Creek. Morris assured the Senecas that any land sale council would include everyone with a potentially vested interest. However, Morris was not operating in a vacuum. He needed George Washington’s support.  Funded by Morris, Cornplanter journeyed to Philadelphia, and this convinced the President to provide Federal support for a meeting. By the summer of 1797, Morris was beginning to hear whispers from Buffalo Creek that leaders like Red Jacket and Farmer’s Brother might be willing to attend a council to discuss land sales.

Encouraging though this may have been, there were further complicating matters surrounding property law. Morris was hamstrung by a New York State ordinance that forbade foreigners from owning land in their own name.  In the short term, many land companies worked around the law by using a third party to hold title for foreigners, but with millions of acres at stake, a more permanent solution would be needed to finalize things between Morris and Cazenove’s backers.  In addition to clouding relations with Cazenove, the prohibition on foreign land ownership created a series of interesting, if somewhat convoluted interactions that would eventually involve Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton and the Holland Land Company.

Morris’ connection to Cazenove, Phelps, Hamilton and a man named John Barker Church traced back to the efforts to supply and finance the Continental Army, and many of those relationships continued into the land speculation boom of the early Republic.  Alexander Hamilton was related to John B. Church through marriage.  Church was married to Hamilton’s sister-in-law, Angelica (née Schuyler).  Church, however, was English, and as such designated Hamilton to handle his financial affairs in the United States.  In this capacity, Hamilton loaned Morris $10,000 based on Church’s assets.  By now, Morris was in a dire financial situation.  He tried a number of things to discharge the debt but finally wound up mortgaging land in the Morris Reserve to Hamilton.  In 1799, the mortgage was foreclosed, and Church bought the land in his own name.  He was able make this purchase because of Aaron Burr.  

Since foreigners were prohibited from owning land in New York State, Burr, as a member of the New York State legislature, had been approached to lobby on behalf the Holland Land Company for a revision to existing law.  And it just so happened that Burr already had a relationship with the company.  In 1796, he had taken an option to buy 100,000 acres along Oak Orchard Creek in Orleans County.  But in correspondence with Théophile Cazenove, Burr expressed his displeasure that “Tonawanta (sic) Bay” was included in his property total, even though it was water.  He concluded his letter, “It will be necessary therefore, that Mr. Ellicott ascertain the figure and superficial contents of the Bay, which will enable us to determine the propriety of considering it as land.” Now the company needed Burr’s help in Albany, however.  So when they reached out to him again, they cancelled a $20,000 bond on the Oak Orchard land.  Burr also helped Cazenove oversee the disbursement of $10,500.  Of this amount, $5,500 was a “loan” to Burr directly.  The other $5,000 was promptly shared with other key players, including Thomas Morris, for “counsel fees.”  Perhaps predictably, Burr’s new-found largess gave many legislators a positive opinion of the Alien Landowners Act, and its passage smoothed the way for the Holland Land Company.

In discussing the transaction, Church (perhaps rightly) called Burr’s actions “bribery.”  Presaging the more famous events of 1804, Burr challenged Church to a duel, but unlike the Burr-Hamilton duel, no one died.  Both missed, and as the seconds were reloading, Church stepped forward saying he had been indiscreet and was sorry for it.  No further shots were fired…that day.  In a story rife with ironies, it should not be surprising to learn that the day before their duel, Burr, Hamilton and Church had launched a joint business venture called the Manhattan Company.  Matters of business and matters of honor were not necessarily mutually exclusive.  

Ultimately John Barker Church’s son, Philip, moved to the lands that were held in Allegany County. As the first settler in the area, he left an indelible mark, creating the town of Angelica—named for his mother, Angelica Schuyler Church—and the settlement of Philipsville (now Belmont).  For his own home, which he christened Belvidere, he selected a plot of land along a sweeping curve of the Genesee River. The plans for the large, Federal-style house are attributed to Benjamin Latrobe, who designed the Capitol Building in Washington, DC.