In the Middle of a Forgotten Spot: Elizabeth Hamilton’s Quest for Recompense
The Central New York Military Tract is the manifestation of an idea that sprang to life born of necessity. Perhaps it was destiny, that kind of Westward Expansion into continental North America foretold by the sibling English colonies at Jamestown, Virginia and Plimouth Plantation, Massachusetts. By the time of the American Revolution, there had been 150 years of warfare between the British, French, and a host of Indigenous peoples over the colonized lands. When King George III issued the Proclamation of 1763, it seemed that the land issue might finally have a solution. Coupled with the subsequent 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the line between the British colonies and the Indigenous Nations, especially the border between the Province of New York and the Haudenosaunee lands, was clear and unequivocal. The Revolutionary War irrevocably changed that.
In 1776, the Continental Congress advanced a land bounty scheme to attract men into the Continental Army. Their plan allotted 500 acres for a colonel and a graduated scale down the ranks ended with privates receiving 100 acres. Obviously, this was pure speculation, as the land in question was not in the possession of Congress and the war itself was years from its conclusion. But, by March 27, 1783, the New York State Assembly accepted this initial Congressional act and further granted eligible New York veterans between 500 (enlisted men) and 5500 (Major-General) acres. To be eligible, the veteran must have fulfilled one of a host of specified conditions, including to have been a member of the New York Regiments of the Continental Army at the close of the war.
The tract was initially conceived in this Assembly Act as a series of six-mile square Townships “divided into 156 lots containing 150 acres each” (Balloting Book, 6), with timetables relating to improvements. The plan for the tract reflected previous British colonial grants and an egalitarian, ordered approach to nation-building. An updated Act on May 11, 1784 sought to restrict certain lands eligible for grant by reserving much land for New York State, especially those adjoining waterways from Lake George in the east to Lake Erie in the west, and several other sites known to contain iron ore.
The issue of title to the lands in the western part of the state was addressed by Governor George Clinton in the late 1780s, so that an act passed March 20, 1788 mentioned specifically that if the Indian rights to land could be extinguished, “such lands shall be appropriated to such troops” (Balloting, 11). The February 1789 Act to Appropriate Lands declares “whereas the commissioners appointed to hold treaties with the Indians, have purchased of the Onondaga and Cayuga Indians, certain lands, being part of the lands so set apart for the use of said troops, whereby their right to the same is extinguished*” (Balloting, 11). This act updates the layout of the tract so that the townships shall each contain 60,000 acres of land laid out in 600-acre squares as much as possible. The resulting tract of 25 “townships” each comprised of 100 “great lots” was divvied up. In each township, New York reserved six lots to pay for improvements like roads, schools, and churches. The remaining 94 were placed into a double-blind draw so that each participant had the same odds of drawing any individual lot.
The act included provisions to protect Oneida land, specifying that the tract be located west of their reserved lands (but allowed to contain lands granted by the Oneidas to New York), and to protect the now-diminished reservation lands of Onondaga and Cayuga. Subsequent to the granting of the lots of the Military Tract the Cayuga, in a long-disputed action, did sell their entire reservation to New York and the Onondaga gave up additional lands around their current Nation. So, by 1791 the process of divvying and parceling out the Central New York Military Tract had seemingly been completed and the business of nation-building commenced.
One truth about these bounty lands remains to be told. Nearly all the men involved, 1900 or so individuals, sold their potential bounties well before the area opened for settlement. With the better part of a decade separating the veterans’ discharges and the drawings in 1790 for land, there’s no wonder most men sold their paper-only interests.
Additionally, the Townships of Junius and Galen (26 & 27) were added to the original 25 to make up for surveying errors, omitted claimants, and various other discrepancies. Once these lands were granted (and all 188 lots sold by their patentees), a further 100 were laid out in Township 28, Stirling. The lands in Stirling (spelling later changed to Sterling) were doled out well into the first decade of the 19th Century. Perhaps it was the fact that these lands were granted by the New York Assembly after the main body of bounties were awarded, but Sterling has the single highest number of veteran settlers with six men. I will write about those veteran settlers in a separate article, because for now, I will focus upon the lands awarded to Elizabeth Hamilton on behalf of her husband, Colonel Alexander Hamilton, formerly of a New York Artillery regiment and later aide-de-camp to General George Washington.
Above Reproach
In the years preceding Alexander Hamilton’s fateful duel with Aaron Burr, Hamilton plunged headfirst into the business of birthing the United States of America while setting aside the most pressing concerns of his own family’s finances. Creating the foundations for the future of the nascent country was critical work, and Hamilton found it exceedingly important that he not profit from his privileged position. Indeed, as early as 1782, Hamilton, writing to General George Washington, found it ethically imperative to “renounce from this time all claim to the compensations attached to my military station during the war or after it” (https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-03-02-0006).
As a member of the United States Continental Congress who found himself debating matters of recompense for Revolutionary Veterans, Hamilton felt he could not in good faith appear to gain financially from his own privileged involvement. This potentially extreme decision came after Congress in 1781 set into motion the payment of certain Continental Army officers like Hamilton who were technically unattached to State Lines. While Hamilton’s early commission was Captain in New York’s Artillery, his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and reassignment as General Washington’s aide-de-camp in 1777 muddied the relatively strict laws regarding post-Revolutionary remuneration. Giving up his pension and any claim to New York and Federal bounty lands was a radical maneuver, but one Hamilton felt necessary in order to rise above even the suspicion of financial underhandedness.
Changing Circumstance
In a March 1795 letter to Angelica Schuyler Church, his sister-in-law, Alexander Hamilton plainly stated his financial standing upon leaving Federal service and returning to private practice: “I am poorer than when I went into office” (https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-18-02-0181). By July 1, 1804, though, Hamilton had come to reconsider the plight of his family should he suffer an early demise, and laid out this recollection of events regarding his pension and bounty lands:
Indeed, I have not enjoyed the ordinary advantages incident to my military services. Being a member of Congress, while the question of the commutation of the half pay of the army in a sum in gross was in debate, delicacy and a desire to be useful to the army, by removing the idea of my having an interest in the question, induced me to write to the Secretary of War and relinquish my claim to half pay; which, or the equivalent, I have accordingly never received. Neither have I ever applied for the lands allowed by the United States to Officers of my rank. Nor did I ever obtain from this state [New York] the allowance of lands made to officers of similar rank. It is true that having served through the latter period of the War on the general staff of the UStates and not in the line of this State[,] I could not claim that allowance as a matter of course. But having before the War resided in this State and having entered the military career at the head of a company of Artillery raised for the particular defence of this State, I had better pretensions to the allowance than others to whom it was actually made — Yet has it not been extended to me. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-26-02-0001-0244
As we well know, Hamilton was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr less than a fortnight later. However, the matter of redress, should it be deserved, would not be taken up by his widow Eliza for several years. It appears that Eliza waited for the right political climate to press her claims.
“No amateur when it came to political timing, Eliza bided her time until [Thomas] Jefferson left the White House in 1809 and then immediately lobbied the apparently more forgiving President Madison for relief.” (Chernow, Epilogue).
The state of the Central New York Military Tract at the time of Hamilton’s death was one of great busyness and business. Originally, 25 townships of 100 lots containing about 600 acres each were laid out and patented as bounties for Revolutionary Veterans of New York’s Continental Army, nearly all of whom had sold or traded away their future land grants by time of the July 1790 disbursement of land. Instead, speculators, including quite a few of Alexander Hamilton’s colleagues and enemies, swooped in and purchased thousands of acres from needy veterans and their estates. Because of the enormity of this process, some of the lands granted were not viable, located under swamps or such, and some legitimate claimants were never entered into the patenting draw, so a 26th and then 27th township were surveyed and granted out. By 1794, the last remaining swath of unsurveyed and ungranted land bordering Lake Ontario west of Fort Oswego was surveyed and used to fulfill late claims. This 28th Military Township was named Sterling, and today the remains of that misshapen township stretch across northern Cayuga and Wayne Counties, including parts of the current Towns of Sterling, Wolcott, and Butler.
Though he was not an initial recipient of military bounty lands, Alexander Hamilton did speculate in real estate in the general area, buying land in the County of Oneida, which would later become part of Oswego County. The following image from the Oswego County land record indexes posthumously several of these plots in 1805–06. These lands had been purchased already by John Lawrance and John B. Church, and were probably sold to Hamilton below market value so he could resell them for a profit.
Perhaps in 1804 when he wrote his declaration, Hamilton regretted not having already taken advantage of the Act of Congress that would have allowed him bounty lands to add to his real estate holdings, with the thought that he could bank on this land as a kind of retirement account. Even Aaron Burr had purchased several lots in the CNY Military Tract. Certainly, engaging in real estate speculation was a way, for his peers as well as for Hamilton, to capitalize on the needs of the burgeoning nation.
The feared illiquidity of Hamilton’s estate in 1804 led to a series of drastic measures by his executors to pay for Eliza and the children’s living expenses. Still, just five years after her husband’s death, Eliza asked Congress for a pension based on Alexander’s Revolutionary War service. Her petition, dated May 30, 1809, was denied in January 1810 because the statute of limitations had run out. Next came an attempt at the New York State Legislature where she met with more success. The Petition of Elizabeth Hamilton was read on Thursday, November 5, 1812:
The petition of Elizabeth Hamilton, widow of the late General Alexander Hamilton, praying a grant of the bounty lands to which her said late husband was entitled for military services, was read and referred to the committee of claims.
— p. 12 Journal of the Assembly of the State of New-York at their Thirty-Sixth Session (3 November 1812)
At the 11 a.m. session that Saturday, November 7, the following bill was read and voted upon:
Be it enacted by the people of the state of New-York, represented in Senate and Assembly, That it shall be lawful for the commissioners of the land office, and they are hereby required to grant letters patent to Elizabeth Hamilton, and to her heirs and assigns, the like number of acres of land which have been granted to officers of the grade of Colonel in the line of this state, in the army of the United States, during the revolutionary war, in the tract set apart for the use of the troops of this state in the army of the United States, as a compensation for the services of the late Alexander Hamilton.
— p. 13 Journal of the Assembly of the State of New-York at their Thirty-Sixth Session
This particular wording failed to pass with 10 yea to 20 nay. An amendment inserting “Lieutenant” in front of “Colonel” met with agreement and the bill was put to the full Senate, then sent on to the Assembly.
On Tuesday, November 10, 1812, the 36th Session of the Legislature of New York enacted the law, signed by Governor Daniel D. Tompkins, that Elizabeth Hamilton be granted bounty lands similar to those granted to other lieutenant colonels of the New York Line. Accordingly the Land Office did grant her patents to seven plots in the Military Township of Sterling.
Grants in Township 28, Stirling, to Elizabeth Hamilton
Lot 2 — 150 Acres SE Corner
Lot 20 — 100 Acres S Part
Lot 25 — 600 Acres
Lot 64 — 600 Acres
Lot 84 — 150 Acres
Lot 87 — 550 Acres
Lot 93 — 100 Acres SE Corner
(Balloting Book of 1825, pg 142–7)
Lots 2, 25, and 64 are currently part of the Cayuga County Town of Sterling while the rest are part of the Wayne County Town of Butler, except for Lot 20 which is in Wolcott, Wayne County.
While the records for the land sales are spotty regarding several of the properties, we do have extant deeds involving five of the lots. In chronological order of the date of the recorded deed (which could easily vary by several years from the date of the actual sale):
Properties Sold by Elizabeth Hamilton from the Lots granted in 1812
2 July 1816 Elizabeth Hamilton deed to Daniel Cady 600 acres Lot 64 for $2100 (Book S, p. 564)
1 October 1816 Elizabeth Hamilton deed to Comfort Lewis 150 acres of Lot 87 for $675 (Book M, 294)
1 October 1816 Elizabeth Hamilton deed to Solomon Viele 490 acres of Lot 87 for $2205.09 (book S Aug 1816 p 490)
27 February 1817 Elizabeth Hamilton deed to Eleazar Smith 100 acres of the SE corner of Lot 93 for the sum of $500 (Book M, 278)
1 September 1817 Elizabeth Hamilton deed to William Shepherd & John Chester 600 acres Lot 25 for $3300 (Book V, p. 224)
1 November 1819 Elizabeth Hamilton deed to David Darrow 150 acres of Lot 84 for $600
25 March 1830 Elizabeth Hamilton deed to [her son] James A. Hamilton for $2100 including two lots in Albany and some unspecified piece of Sterling Lot 87
The variable complexity of these early transactions are reflected in the Lot 87 transactions. In 1813, the family of Comfort Lewis was sold apparently incorrectly labeled land, as 50 acres of that plot had been previously sold. For each great lot (roughly 600–640 acres), the veteran was entitled to 500 acres from New York. Each soldier was also due 100 acres from the United States, which set aside land in Ohio for this purpose. A veteran could trade his 100 Ohio acres for 100 New York acres and receive the full 600 acres in New York if he so chose. Many decided to sell the Federal patent separately, so the “extra” surveyed 100-acre pieces reverted to New York State, which auctioned them. In addition, each plot was assessed a 48-shilling surveyor’s fee which was required to be paid within two years or those 50-acre plots would revert to the State as well.
According to a petition before the NY State Assembly, the surveyor’s 50-acre piece had been sold from the north part of Lot 87 but the patent issued to Elizabeth Hamilton incorrectly specified the southeast corner as this plot. She sold 150 acres of the north part of the lot to Comfort Lewis, including 43 3/10 acres that overlapped with the original Surveyor’s 50.
The resulting compensation is not specified in the records, but the 1830 conveyance of land (unspecified amount) to her son James A. Hamilton probably included the mistakenly-labeled southeastern 50 acres. The sales of 490 acres to Daniel Cady and 150 acres to Comfort Lewis show that the Lots were laid out for 640 acres while the original grant itself for the “whole” Lot 87 was for 600 acres. The discrepancy was in favor of the patent grantee in this case, though it did happen that some patents were short-changed and were made up with additional grants in Military Townships 26, 27, and 28.
All told, not including the small piece of Lot 87 conveyed to her son, Elizabeth realized $9,380.09 that we can positively trace. If she sold the unaccounted-for 250 acres for the same $4.50 per acre she sold to Comfort Lewis, she would have realized an additional $1125, for a total of just over $10,000. Surely, some of this gross amount would have paid for attorney’s fees, taxes and the like, but it was still a major haul for Elizabeth, well worth the effort invested into the petitions before New York State.
There is no doubt that Eliza needed the money she fought for, including the eventual widow’s pension she would receive decades after being awarded this land. We don’t know much about Hamilton’s thoughts about these particular lands, though he did visit the Cayuga Nation in July 1795, accompanying his father-in-law Phillip Schuyler, who represented New York in an illegal land purchase from the Cayuga. Traveling by boat, he would have paddled up the Seneca River within 10 or 20 miles of the lands his wife would acquire in his name 17 years hence.
Who Tells Your Story?
This article reflects a side project from my main project of researching Revolutionary War Veterans who settled their own patents in the CNY Military Tract. That research was inspired by Albert Hazen Wright, who sought to answer a similar question posed in 1929. He spent the next four decades compiling the rosters of soldiers who participated in the Sullivan-Clinton Campaign of 1779. I started with the idea I could identify soldiers from the Sullivan Campaign who settled their own bounty lands, and this grew into the project as it is currently— identifying any soldier who settled his own bounty land in the CNY Military Tract. I have found about four dozen in the past seven or eight years, and I feel I have found nearly all of them. I will be publishing this main research hopefully in 2022, but I wanted the Eliza Hamilton story to be released in conjunction with the debut of Hamilton in Syracuse.
*Though it is beyond the narrow scope of this article, it must be noted that New York’s taking of Onondaga and Cayuga land for the Military Tract is tainted with ethical, moral, and legal problems. The United States has seen fit to largely ignore this injustice. New York Courts have contorted the law past recognition and have ruled against 20th-Century lawsuits brought by the Nations. This matter has languished in legal limbo since 2005.
