Petition to the Earl of Dunmore, 12 June 1771
Petition to the Earl of Dunmore
[[New York], 12 June 1771]
To his Excellency the Right honourable John Earl of Dunmore Captain General and Governor in Chief in and over the Province of New York and the Territories depending thereon in America Chancellor and Vice Admiral of the same In Council
The Petition of John Jay of the City of New York Esqr.
Humbly Sheweth
That there are certain pieces of Vacant Land vested in the Crown on the East Side of Hudson’s River in the County of Albany part of which lie within the Bounds of a Township lately erected under the Great Seal of the said Province by the Name of Eugene described and limitted as follows, to witt, bounded on the South by a due East Line drawn from the point where the South East Corner of the Tract granted to Lieutenant Farrant meets the East Bounds of the Tract granted to Alexander Turner and others on Batten Kill and terminating on the West Bounds of the Township of Chatham bounded on the East by the West Bounds of Chatham and the East Bounds of the Lands granted to Lieut. Josiah Banks Surgeon Albert Minert Lubkener and sundry Non Commission Officers and Soldiers in the Patent constituting the said Township named On the North by the North Bounds of the Lands so to the Commission and Non Commission Officers and Soldiers last mentioned granted and a West Line continued from the same until it is intersected by a North Line drawn from the North East Corner of the Tract granted to John Tabor Kempe Esqr. and others and on the West by the last mentioned Line and the East Bounds of the several Tracts granted to the said John Tabor Kempe Esqr. and others Quarter Master Monroe Lieutenant Mervin Perry and the said Alexander Turner and others part of which said Township not being granted to the Officers and Soldiers mentioned in the said Letters patent remain vested in the Crown—Other parcels of the said Vacant Land hereby petitioned for lie to the Southward of the said Township of Eugene and between the same and the Stream of Water called Batten Kill on the South the Tract granted to the said Alexander and others and sundry Soldiers on the West and the West Lands of the said Prince-Town on the East.1
Your Petitioner therefore most humbly prays that your Lordship will be pleased to grant unto him and his Associates to the Number of Twenty five each one thousand Acres of the said several Pieces of Vacant Land so as the same shall not interfere with the Lands already petitioned for by sundry Officers and Soldiers by John Monier and John N Blicker and by Doctor Thomas Clarke2 and that the Lands so to be granted to your Petitioner and others and also the Lands which shall still remain Vacant to the Southward of the said Township Eugene to the Northward of Batten Kill to the Eastward of the Tract granted to Turner and others and to the Westward the said Prince Town may be erected into a Township with the usual Privileges.
And your Petitioner shall ever pray &c.
John Jay—for himself &
his Associates—
DS, N: N.Y. Colonial Mss., Endorsed Land Papers (EJ: 4364). Endorsed: “To his Excellency the Right honourable John Earl of Dunmore Captain General and Governour in Chief in and over the Province of New York &ca. In Council The Petition of John Jay Esqr. and his Associates praying for a Tract of Vacant Land on the East Side of Hudson’s River in the County of Albany. Presented June 12th 1771. N. 10. 1771 June 14 Read in Council & referred to a Committee. 1771 June 19. Read again and the Petitioners to exhibit a Map of the Vacancy—”.
1. The township of Eugene included portions of the modern towns of Pawlet, Danby, Rupert, and Dorset. In 1764, Henry Farrant, a retired lieutenant, received a grant on both sides of Batten Kill, bounded on the west by a grant made to Alexander Turner in the same year. A survey for the grant made to Lieutenant Banks and Albert Lubeken, a former surgeon’s mate, was returned to the New York Council 6 June 1771. The Banks-Lubeken tract lay in modern Rutland County, Vt. John Tabor Kempe and his associates were granted 30,000 acres north of Batten Kill in 1762. William Munro’s tract, adjoining Turner’s and Kempe’s, was granted in January 1764. The Perry grant has not been identified. Princetown was granted in 1765 to a group of associates who quickly conveyed the 26,000 acres in the Batten Kill valley to Kempe, James Duane, and Walter Rutherford. , 72 and map facing 71; Calendar of New York Colonial Manuscripts, Indorsed Land Papers in the Office of the Secretary of State, 1643–1803 (Albany, 1864), 330, 337–38, 360, 535.
2. The land sought by Monier, John Bleecker, and Dr. Clarke has not been identified, although Monier and Bleecker apparently claimed 6,000 acres held by James Duane in the Camden Valley north of Batten Kill. , 72n.