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Show COLONIAL LAND SYSTEMS 43 Suits." Efforts were made by the Crown to limit grants to one or two thousand acres but all such restrictions as well as those requiring improvement had little effect.30 Some of the great landlords of New York devoted their efforts to settling upon their estates men who would either buy small tracts or agree to pay rent after a few years. George Clarke and Sir William Johnson and, later, William Cooper were among the more successful in the 18th century in thus developing large estates. But in spite of all such promotional efforts, New York, where no headrights or free grants were offered, fell far behind other Colonies in attracting and retaining population. Its splendid route into the interior was blocked until 1785 by the Iroquois Confederacy, and much of its richly promising land was held by speculators who would only sell at high prices or on quitrents. In 1790, at the time of the first national census, New York was far behind Pennsylvania (founded many years later than New York), Massachusetts, Virginia, and North Carolina in population and economic growth. Independence made no great change in land management in New York. Land continued to be disposed of in large blocks: 3,670,715 acres were sold to Alexander Macomb in 1792 for 8 pence an acre, and 800,000 acres were sold to Totten and Crossfield. Other speculative purchases were the Scriba patent of 490,000 acres; the Noble-borough patent of 40,960 acres; the Rosen-burgh patent of 48,000 acres; and the Adgate patent of 43,907 acres. Most spectacular of all, though not made by New York, was the sale by Massachusetts of its western New York lands. The conflicting claims of Massachusetts and New York had been resolved by the drawing of the famous Preemption Line through western New York, whereby Massachusetts was given 30 Alexander C. Flick (ed.), History of the State of New York (10 vols.; New York, 1933), III, 154. Very useful for the large grants in New York is David M. Ellis, Landlords and Farmers in the Hudson-Mohawk Region, 1790-1850 (Ithaca, N. Y., 1946). the ownership of the land west of the line and New York was given the sovereignty. Phelps and Gorham bought the entire tract of 4 to 5 million acres from Massachusetts but were unable to complete the purchase. It was then taken up by Robert Morris who sold 3 million acres to the Holland Land Company. Paul Evans' fine study relates the difficult problems of management with which this company struggled for years before the investors could recover even the original investment with simple interest.31 This emphasis upon very large grants in New York, which were only equalled or exceeded by the Fairfax estate in Virginia and the Granville estate in North Carolina, must not obscure the fact that many small grants of 200 to 2,000 acres were made. Furthermore, some of the large grants, like that to Alexander Macomb or to Totten and Cross-field, were really made to partnerships consisting of a dozen or more investors. As soon as patented, the land was quickly divided among the investors, many of the partners being anxious to start sales before taxes and interest jeopardized their equity. The large grants were easy to handle for a government that was reluctant to set up administrative machinery to retail the lands in small tracts, but it doubtless increased the cost of land to the actual farm maker.32 Township Grants of New England The New England land system differed markedly from that of the middle and southern Colonies in that, from the outset, the three leading Colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island had control 31 Paul D. Evans, The Holland Land Company (Buffalo, N. Y., 1924), passim. 32 For the many instances of direct grants of 200 acres or more see Calendar of Land Papers, prepared by the Office of the Secretary of State, New York (Albany, 1864), and the "Map Showing the Location of the Original Land Grants Patents and Purchases," in J. R. Bien, Atlas of the State of New York (New York, 1895). |