The History of Cayuga County 1789-1879 page 34
Commission of Awards

"Township No. fifteen, Fabius.
     "           No. sixteen, Ovid.
     "           No. seventeen, Milton.
     "           No. eighteen, Locke.
     "           No. nineteen, Homer.
     "           No. twenty, Solon.
     "           No. twenty-one, Hector.
     "           No. twenty-two, Ulysses.
     "           No. twenty-three, Dryden.
     "           No. twenty-four, Virgil.
     "           No. twenty-five, Cincinnatus.
     "           No. twenty-six, Junius."

" Galen " was added in 1792, to comply ,with the law requiring grants to hospitals, and " Sterling " in 1795, to meet the still unsatisfied claims for bounty lands, so that the military townships reached the aggregate number of twenty-eight.

On the first of February, 1791, the commissioners began to draw the lots for the claimants. There were ninety-four in each town. One lot was drawn for the support of literature ; one, near the center of the town, was set aside for the support of the gospel and common schools. The balance went to compensate the officers and to those who drew lots covered with water. This distribution extended at intervals over two years, and great embarrassments arose from conflicting claimants. The soldiers, in some cases, had sold their claims to different parties, and a large amount of litigation resulted, extending over many years. In January, 1794, an act was passed to prevent in the future the frauds, by which so many titles to the military lands had been decided to be illegal. It required all the existing deeds, conveyances and contracts for the military lands, to be deposited with the clerk of the county at Albany, and those not so deposited, after a specified date, were declared fraudulent. The names of the claimants were posted in the clerk's offices in Albany and Herkimer counties.

So general and widespread was the confusion and uncertainty as to the titles to lands, that the courts could not dispose of .the accumulated cases, and a commission was appointed by the Legislature consisting of Robert Yates, James Kent and Vincent Matthews, to hear and finally determine all cases of disputed military land titles. After years of tedious and laborious investigation, the docket was cleared and the military land titles finally settled.

The "balloting book" in which are entered the names and lots respectively drawn by the several claimants in the entire military tract ; the "book of awards," in which are entered the awards of the commissioners and the "dissents" therefrom, are all filed in the county clerk's office of this County, and date back to 1798.

CHAPTER VI.
FORMATION AND TOPOGRAPHY.

EARLY CIVIL DIVISIONS - FORMATION OF THE COUNTY - SIZE OF THE FIRST TOWNS - FIRST TOWN MEETINGS AND ELECTIONS - RAPID SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY - FIRST SETTLER-SITUATION - GENERAL TOPOGRAPHY - LAKES, RIVERS AND STREAMS - FORMATION OF THE SEVERAL TOWNS - TOPOGRAPHY OF THE SOUTHERN TOWNS - OF THE NORTHERN TOWNS.

FORMATION OF THE COUNTY.-The earliest civil division in this part of the State was Tryon county, formed in 1772, and changed to Montgomery in 1784. It included the entire State west of a north and south line drawn through the center of Schoharie county. Ontario county was next formed, January 27, 1789, and included all that part of Montgomery county lying west of a north and south line drawn through Seneca Lake, two miles east of Geneva. Herkimer county was formed in 1791, extending from Ontario county to Montgomery. Onondaga was formed from Herkimer, March 5th, 1794, and included the original military tract, the present counties of Cayuga, Seneca, and Cortland, and parts of Tompkins, Wayne and Oswego. Cayuga was formed March 8th, 1799, and then embraced Seneca and a part of Tompkins county.

The early towns were very large. Whitestown, formed in 1788, embraced the entire State west of Utica, and there were in it when formed, less than two hundred inhabitants. The town officers were scattered from Geneseo on the west to Utica on the east. This large town was afterwards divided into Mexico, Peru and Whitestown, Mexico embracing the eastern half of the military tract. The first town meeting in Mexico, was held at the house of Seth Phelps, in the

Return to the Index of The History of Cayuga County 1789-1879 by Elliott Storke
Return to the Cayuga County NYGenWeb Project Home Page