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Captain Charles Williamson was responsible for developing much of the Genesee Country between Preemption Line and the Genesee River. Source: Main, William, Charles Williamson, Cowan & Co., Ltd., Perth, 1899, frontpiece
He was a proud Tory and Captain in the British army who volunteered to fight for King George III against the rebellious colonists. She was a proud Patriot whose father graciously saw in this prisoner of war a common human element.
Before we get into this backstory, let’s review why it’s so important.
In December 1786, the states of New York and Massachusetts agreed to resolve a conflict started by the kings of England. Those monarchs made a royal mess of Western New York, at one time or another granting rights to all or portions of it to no less than five colonies.
By the end of the American Revolution, three states had claims to the Greater Western New York region: New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut (a sliver along the southern tier). With Connecticut quickly quitting its claim, New York and Massachusetts stood nose-to-nose. With the Articles of Confederation dissolving, the two states decided to circumvent that ineffective parchment and meet in neutral territory. Ironically, this meeting took place in the state of Connecticut’s capital city.
Those meetings in Hartford proved fruitful. New York and Massachusetts signed the Treaty of Hartford on December 16, 1786. The agreement gave New York political jurisdiction over Western New York but granted the State of Massachusetts preemptive economic rights.
In other words, anyone wishing to develop the land for settlement needed to do two things. They had to purchase the land from the Seneca. Before they could do that, they needed to purchase from Massachusetts the right to negotiate with that member of the Iroquois Confederacy.
Oliver Phelps and Nathanial Gorham were the first to purchase those preemptive rights. By November 1790, they had sold about a third of the tract between Preemption Line and the Genesee River. When they failed to make payment on the lien Massachusetts held, the rights of the land reverted back to that state. Robert Morris bought the remaining 1,264,000 acres of undeveloped land. He then turned around and sold it to Sir William Pulteney, a British citizen1.
Only not quite. First, Morris didn’t sell to Pulteney. He sold to an “Association” which included Pulteney, William Hornby, and Patrick Colquhoun.2 Second, because the members of this Association were non-resident aliens, they could not hold deeds to the land. For this, they hired an agent, Captain Charles Williamson. Captain Williamson came to America, became a naturalized citizen, and took the deeds from Morris, putting them in his own name on behalf of the members of the Association.3 And the rest, as they say, is Western New York history.
How did this boy from Balgray, Scotland, find his way to America?
This wasn’t his first time on our continent.
At the outbreak of hostilities in the colonies, Williamson joined the British army. He was officially pronounced an ensign to the 25th Regiment of Foot, commanded by Lord George Henry Lennox. He must have impressed the leaders of the so-called “Edinburgh Regiment” because on June 4th, 1777, he found himself promoted to lieutenant. In 1778, he earned the rank of captain-lieutenant. Finally, on January 17, 1781, the government publication announced he had become a captain.4
His unit finally assigned to combat in America, Williamson immediately set sail for the rebellious colonies. He never made it.
Well, he did, but not in the way he intended.
Within sight of the New England shore, his ship ran into a French privateer, which quickly overwhelmed the British crew. The French took them all prisoner, including Captain Williamson. The soldier was brought first to Newburyport before being transferred to Boston. A severely wounded prisoner of war, Williamson was held at the home of Abagail Newell’s family. Apparently, it didn’t matter that he was an enemy combatant. What mattered was that he was a fellow human being who needed nursing. Abagail was more than obliged to offer such and Charles was more than happy to accept.5
There had to be more to what they found in common with each other because, when released on a prisoner exchange in 1781, Abagail went with the captain. The two were very shortly married and spent the next ten years living at his father’s estate in Scotland.6
A decade later, when thoughts of war had been replaced by thoughts of making money, the British financiers of The Association turned to Williamson to act as their agent. For Charles and Abagail, there was no “us against them.” Their actions proved this. They eagerly returned to the United States.
Upon accepting the deeds from Morris, Williamson wrote to Colquhoun. In his letter, he told his backer, “These disinterested accounts, from different people, put the quality of the land in the fairest view. The next object then is to take some liberal and decisive steps to bring them to their value.”7
After reviewing the land himself, Williamson opened land offices in Bath and Geneva. The former was to be a new settlement, which he laid out in 1792. That same year he forged a crude road to the then unknown territory.8 To show others it was safe for their families, he built a small log hut there and moved his wife and children into it.9
For Geneva, he saw other potential. It already had the crude beginnings of a major east-west road. The Genesee Trail of the Iroquois offered some means of common travel, and settlements had already sprung up on the waterways it crossed. The first few houses of Geneva on Seneca Lake provided one such example.
Williamson took one look at this and immediately decided it wouldn’t do. He preferred the much higher bank on the west side of the lake and laid out a street at its summit. To preserve the pristine view, he prohibited the building of any houses between the road and the lake.10 This was in 1793. There was only one problem. It wasn’t clear that he owned the land.
Oh, he bought it. The State issued the land patents and Williamson bought them all. But the State did this before formally accepting the new Preemption Line. The Line, as originally drawn by Colonel Hugh Maxwell in 1788, veered too far to the west. When Joseph Ellicott resurveyed the Line, he determined it should be shifted to the east by a few miles on the shore of Lake Ontario. This triangular slice is known as “the Gore.”11
Until the State approved the new line, Williamson’s deed could not be acted upon. This would inhibit development in the two settlements he aimed to improve: Geneva and Sodus. Fortunately, the State passed legislation favorable to Williamson and Robert Morris released the land to Williamson (a total of 84,000 acres).12
With the thumbs up from the State, Williamson wasted no time in developing Geneva. To encourage settlement, he built a spacious hotel there. He set aside two rooms in that hotel for his use. To gauge the success of his efforts in Geneva, one need only look at the population statistics. In 1792, the year before he began to lay out a new version of Geneva, the settlement had no more than three or four families. By 1800, it had at least sixty families, with more coming.13
At the same time he was making plans for Geneva, Williamson set his eyes on Sodus. There, he would prove he had more in common with America than with the British army.
While his London employers may have left the war behind, the same could not be said for others. In this case the “other” was John Graves Simcoe, Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, who felt Western New York ought to remain in British hands. Other Tories residing in Canada (and their allied sympathizers in America, including the Seneca) plotted to create a new state by having Western New York secede from New York State (but that story could fill a book). Simcoe took a more direct—and military—approach.
You can hardly blame Simcoe’s demeanor. Britain was still at war with France. If America would ally itself with the French, that meant Britain would also be at war with America. He had to be prepared.
Upon finding out Williamson sought to establish a settlement on Sodus Bay, Simcoe dispatched his underling Lieutenant Roger Hale Sheaffe with a message for Williamson. Here’s how Williamson recounted that exchange:
Lieutenant Sheaffe: “I am commissioned by Governor Simcoe to deliver the papers, and require an answer.”
Williamson: “I am a citizen of the United States, and under their authority and protection, I possess these lands. I know no right that his Britannic Majesty, or Gov. Simcoe, has to interfere, or molest me. The only allegiance I owe to any power on earth, is to the United States; and so far from being intimidated by threats from people I have no connection with, I shall proceed with my improvements; and nothing but superior force shall make me abandon the place. Is the protest of Gov. Simcoe intended to apply to Sodus, exclusively?”
Lieutenant Sheaffe: “By no means! It is intended to embrace all the Indian lands purchased since the peace of 1783.”
Williamson: “And what are Gov. Simcoe’s intentions, supposing the protest is disregarded?”
Lieutenant Sheaffe: “I am merely the official bearer of the papers; but I have a further message to deliver from Gov. Simcoe; which is that he reprobates your conduct exceedingly for endeavoring to obtain flour from Upper Canada; and that should he permit it, it would be acknowledging the right of the United States to these Indian lands.”14
To show his teeth, Simcoe stole a barrel of flour from Williamson. His ire inspired, Williamson set off a nasty dialog between the former British captain and those representing the current British General. The Washington administration stepped in (with President George Washington drafted his own snarky letter to the British Embassy) and Williamson was told to “make preparations for defense.” At the same time, the Governor of New York State gave him a colonel’s commission.15
After a brief skirmish not involving Williamson, war was averted, at least for another generation.
Williamson added more to Western New York than simply a colorful story or two. He helped to develop most of the empty space left by Phelps and Gorham. He represented Ontario County in the New York State Legislature from 1796 to 1798.16 The State appointed him a commission to lay out and open various state roads, including the main road from the Genesee River to Buffalo Creek and to Lewiston.17
The Association originally contracted Williamson for a seven-year term, but he served beyond that. When he finally closed the books with them in 1800, the parting was amicable. Sir William Pulteney instructed Williamson’s successor to deal with the former agent in a most honorable way. The financier left Williamson with farms, property in both Geneva and Bath, as well as other assets and personal property. Williamson remained in America for several years before returning to Scotland no later than 1804.18.
Details of Williamson’s death vary. General Peter B. Parker, in an address he prepared to deliver in Geneva, stated that Williamson died in route from England to South America with the idea of participating in the “dawnings of liberty and symptoms of revolution.”19 Another story says the British government appointed him “governor of one of the West India Islands” and he died aboard ship on his way there.20
Perhaps it’s best to leave with the following summary of Captain Charles Williamson, courtesy of Guy H. McMaster’s 1853 biography of him:
“Captain Williamson having, toward the close of the last century; fairly established himself at Bath, was the greatest man in all the land of the West. His dominion extended from Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario; a province of twelve hundred thousand acres owned him as its lord; Indian warriors hailed him as a great chief; settlements on the Genesee, by the Seneca, and at the bays of Ontario, acknowledged him as their founder; and furthermore, by commission from the Governor of the State of New York, he was styled Colonel in the militia of the Commonwealth, and at the head of his bold foresters, stood in a posture of defiance before the Pro-Consul of Canada, who beheld with indignation a rival arising in the Genesee forests, and taking possession of land which he claimed for his own sovereign, with a legend of New Englanders and Pennsylvanians, mighty men with the axe and rifle, and with colonies of Scotch and Irish boys, who cleaved to the rebellious subjects of the King.”21
How ever he did it, Captain Williamson found the commonalities in everyone he met. In a life lived constantly with two sides, he saw the unity of one. When confronted with those too arrogant to see how we are all alike in some way, he never backed down from challenging them. That spirit not only forged a new frontier, it saved it in its infancy.
Emphasizing his commonality with them, Charles Williamson successfully bridged the many different cultures he dealt with. In this manner, he displayed the same ability (and bravery) as Lafayette. And while he would not live long enough to meet the Frenchman, Williamson was instrumental in establishing the many places General Lafayette would travel on and to in the Greater Western New York Region.
Next Week: Pomp, Circumstance, Before Lunch In Geneva
1 O’Reilly, Henry, Settlement in the West, Sketches of Rochester, William Ailing, Rochester, 1838, p. 150
2 Turner, Orsamus, Pioneer History of the Phelps and Gorham’s Purchase and Morris Reserve (Monroe), William Alling, Rochester, 1851, p. 244
3 Ibid., p. 252
4 Main, William, Charles Williamson, Cowan & Co., Ltd., Perth, 1899, p.5
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid., p. 6
7 Turner, 1851, p. 252
8 O’Reilly, p.151
9 Ibid., p.152
10 Walker. John, Elements of Geography and of Natural and Civil History, 3rd ed., Darton & Harvey, London, 1800, Supplement by Charles Williamson, p. 1229
11 Turner, 1851, p. 261
12 O’Reilly, p. 163
13 Ibid. p.153-154
14 Turner, Orsamus, Pioneer History of the Phelps and Gorham’’ Purchase and Morris Reserve, (Ontario, Yates), William Alling, Rochester, 1852, p. 317
15 McMaster, Guy H., History of the Settlement of Steuben County, R.S. Underhill & Co, Bath, NY, 1853, p.104-106
16 Turner, 1851, p. 273
17 Turner, Orsamus, Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase of Western New York, Jewett, Thomas & Co., 1849, p. 417
18 Turner, 1851, p. 277-78
19 Turner, 1849, p. 665
20 Ibid., p. 330
21 McMaster, p. 99
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