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Plaque placed by Chemung County D.A.R. |
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PRE-EMPTION LINE
DATED: JUNE, 1965
The Pre-Emption Road
Fraud, Error, or Hard Liquor
BY ALRED G. HILBERT
As Supervisor of Property Records for the New York State Electric and Gas Corporation, I work with records that show many locations with fascinating names—names that suggest a story in their origin. Along with such road names as Sing, Sing Road, Skunk Ranch Road, Power House Road and Forty Dollar Road. I became interested in the Pre-Emption Road.
First I looked up the work in the dictionary. "Pre-Emption"—"Act or Right of purchasing before others." This definition still did not satisfy my curiosity; so I investigated further and soon found myself involved in an early phase of our local history for geographically the Pre-emption Road followed the Pre-emption line—a line due north from the Pennsylvania border near Millerton which marked the boundary between New York and the western land rights of Massachusetts.
Some years ago, Thomas B. Bowlby, then County Clerk was asked by a school group to give a talk on the history of Chemung County. During the course of his talk he mentioned the Pre-Emption Line, its location and its connection with Massachusetts.
After the talk a teacher hurried up to him, thanked him profusely and said, "You have helped eliminate the skeleton in our family closet". One of my ancestors, an early settler in the area just east of Penn Yan had in his diary such entries as I "I arose early this morning and took a walk to Massachusetts before breakfast" and "Today I cut wood in Massachusetts". We all thought he must have been crazy!
Were I to ask you where you live, you would all probably answer New York State. But will you, like the school teacher, think me as crazy as her ancestor, if I now tell you that but for the constant changes in history, it might have been Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New France, New Netherlands or even an unnamed state? To show how this is possible let me go back to the early settlement days of our colonies.
Overlapping Claims
After some superficial exploration of our eastern coastline by daring mariners of the time, several European monarchs made simultaneous and overlapping claims to the new lands. They made generous land grants to favored individuals or merchant groups for the settlement and development of these territories. Their grants were always specifically defined as to north and south boundaries but very gauge when it came to western limits. Let us bear in mind we today live just north of the 42nd parallel which happens to be the present New York-Pennsylvania border.
Spain of course vaguely claimed all the land in the New World by right of discovery.
In 1604 Henry of Navarre, King of France, granted to a favorite, all the lands north of the 40th parallel (approximately Philadelphia) and called it New France. Two years later James I of England granted to the Plymouth Company, this same area which he called North Virginia. Thus our locality was already claimed by both England and France.
In 1621 the Dutch entered the picture by settling along the Connecticut and Hudson rivers, also claiming the lands to the west, which they called "Terra Incognita.". Later Charles I divided North Virginia by granting the territory north of the 42nd parallel to the Massachusetts Bay Colony’ and the area between the 41st and 42nd parallel to the Duke of Warwick both grants extending westward to the "South Sea".
In 1662 Charles II created the Connecticut Colony which took in the Warwick grant and westward for 3000 miles. Then he really "muddied the waters" by granting to his brother the Duke of York all the land between the Connecticut and Delaware Rivers and westward, completely ignoring the fact that this area was already included in the Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut grants and had been settled by the Dutch many years before. The Dutch claims, we know, were liquidated by war and treaty, but the other claims remained unsettled in spite of vigorous protests by Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Pennsylvania Withdrawal
In 1681 our respected ancestor, William Penn, was granted a specific tract of land west of the Delaware River for 5° of longitude, but extending northward to the 43rd parallel (about Syracuse). This grant infringed again not only on the claims of Massachusetts and Connecticut but on those of New York. This conflict existed for over 90 years, until in 1774 Pennsylvania re-drew its northern line to its present location on the 42nd parallel, leaving our area now claimed only by New York and Massachusetts.
Actually, in spite of these various grants, northern and western New York remained a portion of French Canada until 1760, when it was surrendered to the English. As a result of the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1783 and to keep the Indians from being cheated, the constitution of New York state forbade the sale of Indian lands to individuals. Sale could be made only through the state that held the pre-emptive rights.
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Map of Pre-Emption
Line from Pennsylvania Line to Rt. 17
Click Here for Larger Image |
After the war, in 1786, a special convention to settle these claims was held in Hartford, Connecticut. At this time Massachusetts was badly in need of money and New York needed a clear title for its soldier bonus land grants.
In return for clarification of the eastern boundary of New York, Massachusetts was granted the Pre-emption right to approximately 6 million acres of land in western New York.
This meant that New York would eventually have the political jurisdiction and sovereignty over the area, but Massachusetts was to have the right to the first purchase of land from the Indians. In other words, the Indians could hold the land as long as they pleased but could sell it only to Massachusetts or to people designated by Massachusetts. As soon as Massachusetts either bought or resold the land or sold their right of purchase, the land was to become a part of New York.
The boundary marking of this area became known as the Pre-Emption Line. The eastern line was to run due north from milestone 82 on the New York-Pennsylvania border to Lake Ontario. This approximates our present county Line between Chemung and Steuben Counties, extended northward to Lake Ontario. The western line to be 1 mile east of the Niagara River.
My story might have ended here except for one thing—there were two Pre-Emption lines in the central part of the state.
Having established this theoretical line, Massachusetts sold its pre-emption rights to a company formed by two merchants, Oliver Phelps and Nathanial Gorham, for 300,000 pounds (about 1 million dollars) payable in three equal yearly installments in Massachusetts Securities, these securities at the time being worth about 20 cents on the dollar (one authority says 10 cents).
Phelps and Gorham then purchased from the Indians 2,600,000 acres west of the Pre-Emption Line for a sum equivalent to about ½ cent per acre and prepared to resell it to individuals.
New York in the meantime, allocated a large tract east of the line as the "Military Tract" in which grants were made as bonus payments to soldiers of the Revolution. The original Pre-Emption Line was surveyed 1788-89 and land speculation began.
Before the three payments of the Phelps-Gorham contract came due, the Massachusetts Securities were guaranteed at full face value by the Continental Congress and the Phelps-Gorham Company could not meet its obligations. They were forced to sell about ½ of their land to Robert Morris, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and also to relinquish their pre-emption rights to the un-purchased lands.
Resurvey in 1792
In the course of this sale it was suspected that the original Pre-exemption Line was in error so a resurvey was started in 1792. This second survey established the fact that the first line was deflected about 2° west of north creating a controversial portion of land which became known as "The Gore" enclosing an area of approximately 140 square miles or about 1/3 the area of present Chemung County.
It also managed to place the entire present city of Geneva into New York State instead of Massachusetts. For the benefit of gentlemen in the audience not familiar with the work "Gore" it is a dressmaking tern for a wedge or pie shaped piece of material. This "gore" with its conflicting land grants and sales is a subject all in itself.
We must now leave the political aspects of this situation and study some of the individual actions. Many of the soldiers who had campaigned with General Sullivan to drive the hostile Indians out of this area, had fallen under the spell of the beauty of the Finger Lake area and the wealth of its forests and fertile valleys. They were therefore, very pleased to accept the soldier bonus grants in the New York "Military Tract" and also the opportunity to purchase lands in the Genesee country to the west.
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Leases from the Senecas
But, several Hudson Valley politicians and the very Canadian renegades who Sullivan drove out also coveted this land. However, being unable by law to buy the land they obtained leases to all these same western lands from their former allies, the Seneca’s. Known as the Leasee Company, they established a post at Geneva and hoped by political maneuvering to have their leases legalized by New York State.
They also had plans to create a new state which they would own and control completely. But the plans of these schemers, including Joseph Brant and Col. Butler, were frustrated by Governor Clinton and the Pre-Emption Line agreement. It made their leases valueless.In return for securing the treaty with the Cayuga’s, and on the assumption that the Pre-Emption Line lay entirely to the west of Seneca Lake, a trading firm of Reed and Ryckman obtained a land grant from New York as follows: "From a tree on the bank of Seneca Lake, westward to the Pre-Emption Line and southward along the lake shore until it contained 16,000 acres". This company contacted the Phelps-Gorham Company and offered to provide a surveyor to help establish the original line. Curiously enough the "Leasee Company" also offered to help finance this second surveyor. The original line was surveyed by the time-honored method of compass and plane table and as we now know was not an accurate, or even a true line.
Again starting at Milestone 82 on the New York-Pennsylvania border (near Millerton, Pa) a crew of axe man worked ahead of the surveyors clearing a line of sight 30 feet wide. When the shore of Seneca Lake was reached just north of Dresden, night signals and flares were used to re-establish the line at the north end of the lake. Checks and double checks were made to insure the accuracy of this second line, which has never been questioned.
Several stories have sprung
up about the Pre-Emption Lines.
The Pre-Emption Line
is a line drawn due north from Washington, D.C. This is incorrect as The
District of Columbia was still in the planning stage at this time. It was
pure chance, however, that the meridian of Washington almost coincides
with the original or false line. It actually falls 4 miles west of the
2nd or true line.The Pre-Emption Roads were designed as a projected
road to Washington. This is a variation of the first story. There are a
number of segments of Pre-Emption Roads both on the False and True Lines,
but no evidence of any plan to connect them. No evidences exists of a line
or road south of the New York Pennsylvania bord3er. The best known stretch
is the 18 mile paved road south from Oaks corners, near Phelps, along the
western edge of the present City of Geneva and southward to Bellona, where
it veers westward towards Penn Yan. Another 12 mile stretch is a gravel
road north from the Mud Lake Road (Watkins-Tyrone Road) passing to the
west of Dundee. Both of these roads are on the false line. North of Geneva
there are vestiges of roads on both the True and False but most are of
a secondary nature. Actually these roads were built along the lines to
open up the territory for development.
To summarize, the two traders, Reed and Ryckman, who had hired Jenkins had little to gain by fraud as they had as yet no established posts in the disputed area. All suspicion therefore has been focused on the Canadian Leasee Company, which stood to lose its Geneva area posts. This suspicion was further strengthened by an offer made by a prominent member of the Leasee Company to buy from Phelps-Gorham a tract of land which lay entirely to the east of the original false line.
No one has been able to furnish specific proof of fraud. To quote one historian, "We’ll probably never know whether the error was caused by direct fraud, faulty instruments, or too much hard liquor".
PHOTO
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Will
Try to Get new Photo
Four –milt stone on Pre-Emption Line (Dutch Hill) 1964, four miles north of Milestone 82 on New York-Pennsylvania Line.
Present-Day References
At this point some of you are asking yourselves, "Why should anyone even be interested in this line at this late date?" The line, although 180 years old, is still very much with us.
In 1915 in the vicinity of Rochester, a lakeside marsh was filled in to create a usable land area. A smart lawyer immediately sued on the basis that Massachusetts still retained the pre-emptive rights to this land as it had never previously been sold. It took several years of litigation and much money to have this claim thrown out of court.
In the 1940’s a man in the area just west of Rochester wanted to buy and remodel an old country schoolhouse for a home. He was finally told that he could buy the building but would have to buy the land from the State of Connecticut. This parcel was part of a 50,000 acre section taken over by the State of Connecticut from Oliver Phelps, original owner of the Massachusetts pre-emptive rights, in settlement of a bad debt. The land had been put aside for school purposes and had never been sold.
Present day lawyers, upon being hired to make a title search in the Central New York area, shudder when the wording "pre-Emption Line" appears as a reference in the deed. Which line is meant?
The original boundary between Seneca and Ontario Counties was the true Pre-Exemption Line in the middle of Seneca Lake. Some time later Seneca County claimed and obtained the right to the entire lake area, extending their line to the water’s edge on the western shore line. With the modern day problem of policing the lakes, Seneca County, finding the job awkward, costly and confusing and is as of March 1965 has introducing a bill into the New York Legislature to return the county line to its original Pre-Emption Line location.
For those of you who travel about this area, this line can still be identified in many locations. Milestone 82 or 82 miles west of the west bank of the Delaware River as measured along the 42nd parallel is a stone marker still visible alongside a dirt road about 4 miles northwest of Millerton, Pennsylvania. As the line comes northward along the present Chemung/Steuben county line there exists a 4 milestone marker near the Glenn Drake farm on Dutch Hill.
On the original Route 17 road between Big Flats and Corning at the base of the county line marker near the oil tank colony there is a stone marker with a bronze plate placed there by the Historical Society. From there northward the false line is unmarked until one reaches the Mud Lake or Watkins-Tyrone Road. From here northward a dirt road extends about 12 miles and passes to the west of Dundee in the vicinity of the cemetery just to the west of the village on the Dundee-Penn Yan Road. Northward from Bellona near Penn Yan to oak Corners near Phelps a paved road follows the false line and forms the western limits of the City of Geneva. This road is best known by its intersection with the Geneva-Canandaigua Road, Rout4es 5 and 20 at the Lafayette Elm and Lafayette Inn. Here a State Historical marker identifies the line.
Originally the false line was marked along its entire length by field stone markers but the progress of modern living, the road scraper, the bulldozer and the farm tractor have eradicated almost all of them. However, when you in your future travels cross one or both of the Pre-emption Lines and mention to your fellow passengers that they are passing either into or out of Massachusetts, let us hope that you have absorbed enough of this discussion to be able to convince them that you are not as crazy as the farmer in my original story.
Chemung County, however, can lay claim to the only 3 stone markers in its entire length that still definitely identify the line. Searches for other original markers to the north have been unsuccessful.
SOURCES:
History of Ontario County—G.
S. Conover
History of Chemung, Tioga,
Tompkins and Schuyler Counties—Pierce-Hurd
Short History of N.Y.—Ellis,
Frost, Syrett & Carman
History of Wayne County—George
Cowles
New York State—A History—Dr.
James Sullivan
History of Steuben County—Irwin
Near
A Brief History of the Pre-emption
Line & Roads—E. Everett Buchanan Jr., Elmira
Harry B. Kelsey and Clark Wilcox—Chemung
County Historians
Files of Chemung County Historical
Society.
PHOTO
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Photocopy
not of good enough quality to reproduce
"I HAVE NO DOUBT BUT THAT IN THE COURSE OF A VERY FEW YEARS THERE WILL BE MANY TOWNSHIPS—AND THE TIME IS NOT FAR DISTANT WHEN THIS WIDERNESS SHALL BLOSSOM AS THE ROSE."
From Col. Hugh Maxwell’s diary
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Poor quality photocopies
THE SIGNS SAYS IT: An historical marker at the intersection of Preemption Road and Routes 5 and 20 in Geneva reminds passersby of the controversy surrounding the Preemption Line.
The name usually attracts attention first.
Preemption Road. It sounds like it may be a route to redemption.
But the meaning isn’t Biblical. Preemption is the right to obtain something—in this case land—before anyone else.
The Preemption roads and Pre-emption Street in this area are physical reminders of a time when upstate New York was wilderness and the boundaries of the colonies fluctuated with the fortunes of those in power.
At various times, the Finger Lake Regions, an area inhabited by Indian nations of the Iroquois confederation, was claimed by Spain, England, Holland and France. It was subsequently claimed by the states of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York.
Virginia and Pennsylvania had given up their claims by the Revolutionary War. But even after the war, an area of central New York was claimed by both Massachusetts and New York. The issue was finally settled in 1786 at a convention in Hartford, Conn.
An agreement determined the land would be governed by New York, after it was bought from the Indians. But Massachusetts—or its agents—was in charge of obtaining the land and was allowed to profit from its subsequent resale to settlers.
In exchange for that concession, New York received clear title to 1.5 million acres to the east. New York had promised its Revolutionary War soldiers the land as compensation. New York was the only colony that promised and then paid its soldiers something of real value, Alfred G. Hilbert of the Chemung County Historical Society said in a research paper on the Preemption Line—the surveyed line between the Massachusetts and New York tracts.
The 1788 version of the Preemption Line became the boundary between the Schuyler County towns of Tyrone and Reading.
The 1792 line—the true line—forms the boundary between Steuben and Chemung counties. It is also the boundary between the Towns of Orange and Dix in Schuyler County.
It is supposed to be the boundary between Ontario and Seneca counties, but some maps still show Seneca County running to the western shore of Seneca Lake, rather than to the Preemption Line in the middle of the lake.
Finally, it is the boundary between several towns in Wayne County.
INSERT
PHOTO HERE
Poor
Quality Photocopy
THE BEGINNING: The Preemption Line 82 milestone at the New York and Pennsylvania border is hidden among the weeds on Widger Hill Road, Town of Caton. Lawmakers from New York and Massachusetts decided in 1786 that the sale of all land west of the 82-mile point would be controlled by Massachusetts.
| Driving the road
Walking along the Preemption Line, either the 1788 or 1792 version, would require more equipment than most hikers are willing to carry. However, any motorist who can read a map and follow signs can find fragments of roadway that still like along both lines. To drive the Preemption Roads. Start at the 82 milestone of Widger Hill Road in Caton at the border between Pennsylvania and New York, driving north about 1.3 miles. Widger Hill road then veers away from the Preemption Line. Follow it down to Sagetown Road and turn right.Take the next left onto Dutch Hill Road. Follow it north until it meets Hendy Hollow Road. Go north on Hendy Hollow until it intersects with Route 352. Go west of Route 352. The next accessible sign of the line is an historical marker at the Steuben and Chemung county line on Route 352 in Big Flats.To find the next segment of Preemption Road, drive to Watkins Glen.> Go west on Steuben Street until it runs into County Route 23, Mud Lake RoadGo west on Mud Lake Road about six miles, turning right onto Preemption RoadFollow Preemption Road north to Dundee. A bridge is out just south of Route 14A, so detour to Dundee and Route 14A. Turn right on Preemption Road at the big red barn north of Hillcrest Cemetery.Preemption Road veers west, ending at Chubb Hollow Road. This is as far as a driver can go following the 1788 line. Road fragments of the 1792 line, which has a true north bearing from the 82 milestone, only can be found starting in Geneva.Turn right onto North Street from Route 14. After about a half mile, North Street intersects with Preemption Street. The 46.5 miles of rural road, much of it dirt, are what remains of the 84 miles, 77 chains and 45 links of colonial history laid between the Pennsylvania border to Sodus Bay on Lake Ontario. |
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"I like to imagine what it would be like if I could drive on one road all the way to Washington," said Pat Wick, 16, who lives on the portion f the road west of the village of Dundee. The section is now closed because of an unsafe bridge.
"We like it closed," Wick said. "If they fix the bridge, we wouldn’t be able to use the swimming hole.’
Wick and his friend, Josh Havill, 15, who lives on the other side of Route 14A on Preemption Road, will be sophomores at Dundee High School in September. They both knew their road is on the line that once divided New York from Massachusetts.
Havill learned about the road’s history when a teacher gave him a ride home one day after school.
I though it was pretty neat," he said.
The true line, established in 1792 after a second survey, lies 1 ¾ miles each of the 77th meridian.
There really never were any plans to run a road from Washington north, said Alfred G. Hilbert, a historian at the Chemung County Historical Society who studied Maxwell’s original field survey book and has done other research to clear up some of the misconceptions about the line.
One misconception Hilbert would like to put to rest: the original line was in the wrong place because the surveyors were drunk.
"Col. Hugh Maxwell was considered an excellent surveyor, an honorable man," Hilbert wrote in his paper Preemption Line—Fraud, Error or Hard Liquor?
Whiskey was a staple item, like sugar and salt, on the wilderness surveying missions, Hilbert said. Hilbert’s research of the time found that "the food was poor, the game scarce, the work difficult, but otherwise, the life was endurable and enjoyable, for they had with them 120 gallons of spirits, 40 gallons of brandy and 80 gallons of Madeira wine."
Maxwell’s meticulously kept field survey book, which is a prized item at the Geneva Historical Society’s Prouty-Chew House on South Main Street, Geneva, counters the belief that a steady supply of spirits caused an unsteady line, Hilbert said.
The controversy surrounding the preemption Line is that fraud caused the original to drift west and leave Geneva out of the so-called Phelps and Gorham Purchase.
Oliver Phelps and his partner, Nathaniel Gorham, had purchased from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts the right to buy 2,600,000 acres of Iroquois confederation land west of New York’s military tracts.
In December 1786, Massachusetts and New York worked out an agreement that gave Massachusetts the first option on the Indian Land.
The partners agreed to pay Massachusetts 300,000 pounds—about 1 million—for the right to purchase 6,000,000 acres. But they paid the Iroquois only $5,000 for 2.6 million acres of their land—about 18 cents an acre.
Maxwell, who was from Heath, Mass., had the task of establishing the eastern boundary of Phelps and Gorham Purchase. The boundary was known as the Preemption Line.
Before starting on the official survey of the Preemption Line on July 25, 1788, Maxwell made a trial survey starting on June 11, 1788. Those who believe fraud moved the original survey line west of Geneva say it happened during a period in August when Maxwell was getting supplies. But the trial survey also laid the line west of Geneva.
Modern surveyors believe the error was a result of method, not malevolence or mait.
Maxwell’s party used the method common at the time—Jacob’s staff. This relied on a compass to establish the line of direction. Experts say compass surveying lacks precision.
Doubts about Maxwell’s survey continued until 1792, when a second was drawn by Joseph and Ben Ellicott. The Ellicott’s—fresh from laying out the nation’s soon-to-be capital, Washington, D.C.—used a transit, a newly developed surveying instrument that was the precursor to today’s methods.
The Ellicotts’ survey never has been questioned. But having two surveys has left its mark on the area.
Rick Wilson, a Yates County surveyor, pointed out that surveyors in the Finger Lakes need to know about the gore, the section of land between the 1788 and 1792 Preemption Lines.
He also noted that one of the peculiarities of the region is the application of common law in deeds.
English common law prevails west of the Preemption Line, since the original settling of the land was the responsibility of Massachusetts. But east of the line, the common law goes back to the Dutch, who also claimed all the land west of the Hudson River.
"It’s never caused a problem I’ve seen," Wilson said. "But we’re always warned about it."
Memories travel on Preemption Road
1788 project still controversial
By SALLE RICHARDS CROOKS
Star-Gazette
A tired Revolutionary War veteran had no idea the project he was starting in the spring of 1788 would reach not only across the frontier wilderness but also across the years.
Even today, the Preemption Line Col. Hugh Maxwell surveyed from the Pennsylvania border to Sodus Bay on Lake Ontario to settle land claims between Massachusetts and New York is a source of speculation and controversy.
The speculation is often about the fragments of the road that still exist along Maxwell’s survey route. "I understand that it’s an imaginary line from Washington, D.C. to Sodus Bay," said Alfred Howell of Preemption Road in the Town of Starkey, Yates County.
The road past the Howells’ farm is dirt. It hasn’t changed much in the 42 years he and his wife, Ida, have lived there.
"They were going to make it a four-lane highway once, I heard," Howell said, rocking rhythmically in his chair on a warm August day. "But it never happened."
James W. Branch, who raises feed corn and sweet corn on his farm at the corner of Preemption and beach roads in the Town of Reading, Schuyler County, also has heard the promises, but he noted the road is still dirt and full of potholes.
"I’ve got nothing good to say about it," Branch said.
He bought his property while working for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Erie Railroad in September 1950. "I also bought a cemetery, cut I didn’t know that," Branch said. He reclaimed the cemetery from the weeds and mended the headstones that lay in pieces beneath the fence.
The stones are for Andrew Eggleston, who died May 5, 1872, at the age of 73, and his wife, Martha Townsend, who died Sept. 5, 1886, at the age of 64. "You couldn’t seem them at all when I got here," Branch said.
He admitted his properly does have its attractions: I would rather live than here, even if the roads are bad and the dust will take me over."
A page from history
1792 map of central New York
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Old and New, Walking along the Preemption Line, either the 1788 or 1792 version, would require more equipment than most hikers are willing to carry. However, any motorist who can read a map and follow signs can find fragments of roadway that still like along both lines. To drive the Preemption Roads. Go west of Route 352. The next accessible sign of the line is an historical marker at the Steuben and Chemung county line on Route 352 in Big Flats. Road fragments of the 1792 line, which has a true north bearing from the 82 milestone, only can be found starting in Geneva. The 46.5 miles of rural road, much of it dirt, are what remains of the 84 miles, 77 chains and 45 links of colonial history laid between the Pennsylvania border to Sodus Bay on Lake Ontario. |
Star-Gazette, Sunday, August 28, 1988
INSERT PHOT0 OF THE SIGN
THE SIGN SAYS IT: An historical marker at the intersection of Preemption Road and Routes 5 and 20 in Geneva reminds passersby of the controversy surrounding the Preemption Line.
The name usually attracts attention first. Preemption Road. It sounds like it may be a route to redemption.
But the meaning isn’t Biblical. Preemption is the right to obtain something—in this case land—before anyone else.
The Preemption roads and Preemption Street in this area are physical reminders of a time when upstate New York was wilderness and the boundaries of the colonies fluctuated with the fortunes of those in power.
At various times, the Finger Lakes region, an area inhabited by Indian nations of the Iroquois confederation, was claimed by Spain, England, Holland and France. It was subsequently claimed by the states of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York.
Virginia and Pennsylvania had given up their claims by the revolutionary War. But even after the war, an area of central New York was claimed by both Massachusetts and New York. The issue was finally settled in 1786 at a convention in Hartford, Conn.
An agreement determined the land would be governed by New York, after it was bought from the Indians. But Massachusetts—or its agents—was in charge of obtaining the land and was allowed to profit from its subsequent resale to settlers.
In exchange for that concession, New York received clear title to 1.5 million acres to the east. New York had promised its revolutionary War soldiers the land as compensation. New York was the only colony that promised and then paid its soldiers something of real value, Alfred G. Hilbert of the Chemung County Historical Society said in a research paper on the Preemption Line—the surveyed line between the Massachusetts and New York tracts.
The 1788 version of the Preemption Line became the boundary between the Schuyler County towns of Tyrone and Reading.
The 1792 line—the true line—forms the boundary between Steuben and Chemung Counties. It is also the boundary between the Towns of Orange and Dix in Schuyler County.
It is supposed to be the boundary between Ontario and Seneca counties, but some maps still show Seneca County running to the western shore of Seneca Lake, rather than to the Preemption Line in the middle of the lake.
Finally, it is the boundary between several towns in Wayne County.
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