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Speculators and Settlers in the Genesee Country of New York, 1788-1800 William H

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Speculators and Settlers in the Genesee Country of New York, 1788-1800 William H University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 1-1-1978 A vision of wealth: speculators and settlers in the Genesee Country of New York, 1788-1800 William H. Siles University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1 Recommended Citation Siles, William H., "A vision of wealth: speculators and settlers in the Genesee Country of New York, 1788-1800" (1978). Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014. 856. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1/856 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A VISION OF WEALTH: SPECULATORS AND SETTLERS IN THE GENESEE COUNTRY OF NEW YORK, 1788-1800 A Dissertation Presented By WILLIAM HERBERT SILES Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts in partial lfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 1978 History William Herbert Siles 1978 All Rights Reserved A VISION OF WEALTH: SPECULATORS AND SETTLERS IN THE GENESEE COUNTRY OF NEW YORK, 1788-1800 A Dissertation By WILLIAM HERBERT SILES Approved as to style and content by: Gordon F. Sutton, Member Gerald W. McFarland, Chairman Department of History May 1978 To Dorothy D . Siles PREFACE This is a study of the relationship between speculators and the development of village society in the frontier region of central New York between 1788 and 1800. This area, referred to as the Pnelps-Gorham Purchase, was developed by Oliver Phelps, a man of capital and enterprise, who organized the land into townships, created a village called Canandaigua in the center of the purchase, and helped finance the construction of transportation net- works from that place eastward. Phelps believed that a centrally located trading center promoted frontier settle- ment. By stimulating village settlement, land values increased throughout the area, helping speculators to realize substantial profits on their investment. On the Phelps-Gorham Purchase, village settlement was the moving force behind the rise of a permanent American society. The main trading village of Canandaigua, located at the north end of Canandaigua Lake, possessed every feature desirable for agricultural and commercial growth. Rich soil, well stocked lake and streams, timber, and direct water connection to eastern markets made this parcel of land a prize among frontier locations. But it required entrepreneurial skill and vision to turn this wilderness site into a frontier Eden. Phelps understood that set- tlers were attracted to frontier regions which were struc- v vi tured in familiar ways and possessed natural qualities likely to produce a prosperous livelihood. He developed Canandaigua because of its potential as a trading area. Phelps promoted settlement by transplanting to Canandaigua familiar economic and social institutions. By 1800 Canan- daigua flowered as a prosperous, attractively built town- ship and village. The process of settlement and development of Canan- daigua reveals that Phelps, working through the Phelps- Gorham land company and as an individual, opened, organized, settled, and developed this town and the surrounding lands into a new commercial society modeled upon eastern American culture. Men of wealth, not poor farmers, were responsible for making a viable society out of a forbidden and dis- organized wilderness. And village rather than rural growth was the agency promoting frontier settlement. By studying the policies and procedures of Oliver Phelps and his associates, we can understand the significance of commer- cial growth in western settlement and the role wealthy entrepreneurs played in its development. Historians have tended to view frontier settlement principally as an agricultural movement; and, development in terms of farming activity rather than in terms of entrepreneurial activity. Frederick Jackson Turner's ground breaking essay "The significance of the frontier in American history," suggested several ideas for including . vii town development in a study of westward expansion. Turner believed that the origin of American land policy was found in colonial land practice; and, that the so-called "Atlantic frontier" was "compounded of fisherman, fur trader, miner, cattle raiser, and farmer," suggesting the idea of urban frontier growth."'" These suggestions were lost in the larger debate generated by Turner's frontier theory, however In 1941, Bayrd Still wrote a suggestive essay on "Patterns of mid-Nineteenth Century Urbanization in the Middle West," which stated that cities and towns actually facilitated settlement of the frontier area. 2 But not until 1959, was there a full length study of the signifi- cance of the role of the city in frontier development. Richard C. Wade's The Urban Frontier: the rise of western cities, 1790-1830 (Cambridge, Mass., 1959) clearly shows that cities grew well before the surrounding countryside was settled. 3 Cities were the children of commerce. They correctly anticipated trade routes used by pioneers, and wherever they were founded the adjoining territory was quickly settled. More recently, studies by John Francis McDermott in The Frontier Reexamined and Robert R. Dykstra, and refined the role in the The Cattle Towns , have amplified of cities on the frontier and have shown the commercial 4 nature of frontier development in the far west. The development study of urban influence on America's westward Vlll is now an important field of scholarly investigation. A fundamental part of the history of frontier develop- ment is the process of migration, the introduction of institutions, and the role of speculators in frontier settlement. But these factors are missing from modern studies of frontier growth. This dissertation is an attempt to shed light on the founding of a village or "city" in the middle of a wilderness, and to analyse its economic and social growth over a period of ten years. This study might also suggest that a market-place mentality underlies the growth of both eastern and western societies. The westward spread of this American value may well be a central unifying influence in the growth of American civilization. Beneath regional differences Americans share a common commercial ethic reflected in a drive for profits and a strong need for social respect- ability. This ethic was clearly present during the pioneering of central New York and does not seem to have abated as the west was populated. In western settlements as in eastern cities, the drive for wealth was a central theme of life, making the west similar to, if not indeed an extension of, eastern American society. Since this study focuses upon diverse topics such as frontier migration, town-building, and proprietary settle- ment policies, an explanation of my approach and data used is in order. Oliver Phelps was a central figure in ix Canandaigua' s growth, but he was also important in the settlement of the entire Phelps-Gorham Purchase. His activity with the Phelps-Gorham land company, his role in state and local politics, and his vast land speculating interests made a study of village growth based upon the chronological activities of one man impractical to do. But I had no desire to obscure the remarkable contributions of Phelps and several others connected with town-building, so a compromise was struck. The first four chapters deal with the period from 1779 to 1790 in chronological fashion. Emphasis is placed upon Phelps 1 activities in discovering, purchasing, organizing, and developing the Phelps-Gorham Purchase and the township of Canandaigua. The last four chapters treat Canandaigua development topically. These chapters describe the process of migration, barriers to settlement, and the economic growth and social development of the village, between 1788 and 1800. Proprietary contributions are described when appropriate, but the main theme is the impact of speculators and the frontier environment on the early growth of Canandaigua and its outlying area. Data for this study was gathered from diverse sources. Much of it came from letters, land records, maps, surveys, and financial records found in the Phelps-Gorham Papers held by the New York State Library, Albany, New York. Additional data bearing upon the construction of Canandaigua township and the entire Phelps-Gorham region came from Phelps 1 papers found in the Princeton University Library, Princeton, New Jersey, and in the Detroit Public Library. A considerable portion of the work of identifying settlement patterns and pioneer settlers, determining currency values and currency exchange rates, and computing land values was accomplished by using these papers. The computations and values appearing in this study were taken from the records left by Phelps and constitute as precise an accounting as one can give without resorting to the use of a computer. The time limits of this work were set after determining the period during which Canandaigua developed into a fully mature community possessing all the institutions marking it as an urbanized society. After comparing its frontier settlement with later growth patterns, I discovered that by 1800, Canandaigua, as well as a large portion of surrounding territory, had achieved viability. Although in some instances this work draws
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