Wikisource:New York/Edmeston/1760s
From Wikisource
The history of Edmeston, New York: 1760 through 1769
Contents |
[edit] 1763
| On February 10, the Treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian War and France ceded Canada to Great Britain. |
[edit] 1765
| British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, the first direct tax levied from England on the American colonies. |
William Edmeston served in America as a captian of the British 48th Regiment during the French and Indian War, (1754-1763), the King, by proclamation, bestowed land upon his loyal soldiers as a kind of a bonus. The amount of land given varied with the rank of the soldier and ranged from 50 to 5,000 acres. Both William Edmeston and his brother, Robert Edmeston, a lieutenant in the same regiment, received the mandamus of the king in council in 1765 entitling each of them to 5,000 acres.
As a usual thing, the soldiers sold their claims to land speculators for a few shillings on the pound, but the Edmestons determined to develop theirs. They first tried to locate their tracts in eastern New York among the river Indians or in the New Hampshire grants but finally had their claims laid out and surveyed in 1770, just to the East of the Unadilla River and West of George Croghan's Patent. Both of these tracts are contained today in the Town of Edmeston. — Dr. Edward P. Alexander
At first they [William and Robert Edmeston] tried to locate their tracts in Eastern New York among the River Indians or in the New Hampshire Grants, today's Vermont, then in dispute between Yorker and Yankee speculators. But they came to understand the warning of John Watts not to settle in these places lest "one take your scalp, the other your estate in law suits."
The Edmestons finally had their claims laid out and surveyed in 1770 just east of the Tiendurran, or Unadilla River, west of George Croghan’s Otsego Patent. Both tracts are contained today in the Town of Edmeston, Otsego County.
The negotiations described above were conducted for William Edmeston by Parsafor Carr, who had been a sergeant in the 48th regiment. Carr became Edmeston's agent in administering the new tract, called Mount Edmeston, and in securing its settlement. Edmeston sent Carr settlers from Britain and in 1773 the proprietor came over personally to develop his buildings. — Mary E. Cunningham
[edit] 1767
| The Townshend Acts were passed by British Parliament, placing a tax on common products, such as lead, paper, paint, glass, and tea. |
Colonel William seems to have been the only one to do anything about developing the patent. — Hazel L. Jones
[edit] 1768
| Boston citizens refuse to quarter British troops |
The frontier line could soon move to the "Line of Property", set at the Fort Stanwix treaty in 1768 to separate the areas of white and Indian occupation. This line ran along the west branch of the Unadilla River, the whole length of the stream, then overland to the Northeast corner of Pennsylvania. Almost at once thereafter the remaining Otsego lands were almost entirely taken up and settlements were begun on them in a dozen or more years. — Roy L. Butterfield
The Treaty of Fort Stanwix between the English and the Iroquois Indians, established the Unadilla river as the Western boundary of the New York colony.
[edit] 1769
| Famine in Bengal kills 10 million people, a third of the population, in the worst natural disaster in human history (in terms of lives lost). |
