Previous: Lafayette Prepares To Enter The Greater Western New York Region
WNY portion of 1825 map published by H.S. Tanner, 177 Chestnut St. Philadelphia.
Remember how excited you were when you began a new school year, started a new job, or moved to a new place? Life fills you with promise and anticipation. You can’t wait to wake up and start the next day. Everything is sunshine and roses.
Then reality inevitably interrupts. Things get overwhelming. Despair and sometimes desperation set in. It seems as if you’re trapped. You can’t see a way out.
But, somehow, you find a way. You get over that hump. (Because, when you get over things, what once seemed like an overbearing mountain now appears as nothing more than a mere bothersome bump.)
Again, you look forward to tomorrow with an enthusiasm you thought you’d never again have.
Such was the state of Greater Western New York. It began as an enthusiastic rush into the Continue Reading “Lafayette’s Farewell Tour: The State Of Greater Western New York In 1825”
Competing Dreams For The Genesee Country—Part I: John Livingston and the Lessees
Before Hartford, uncertainty reigned. Competing state claims clouded ownership and discouraged investment. The treaty transformed a disputed wilderness into a marketable asset. Speculators, investors, politicians, and settlers quickly recognized the opportunity.
While Hartford settled one argument, it spawned several new ones.
By the beginning of 1787, two roads stretched westward across a region that would one day become the Crossroads of America. Each promised prosperity. Each attracted ambitious followers. Yet each offered a very different vision for the future of the Genesee Country.
With the ink on the Treaty of Hartford barely dried, ambitious men set out along both roads.
The race to the future had begun.
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Why has history forgotten John Livingston? While his accomplishments pale in comparison to Continue Reading “Competing Dreams For The Genesee Country—Part I: John Livingston and the Lessees”