The Cheesecock, or Cheesecock Patent, was a vast tract of land that seven English colonists bought from

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

Indians in 1702. It included the southern part of what became

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

New York State New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...

, that now covers the towns of Monroe and

Tuxedo Black tie is a semi-formal Western dress code for evening events, originating in British and American conventions for attire in the 19th century. In British English, the dress code is often referred to synecdochically by its principal element fo ...

and extends over part of

Rockland County Rockland County is the southernmost county on the west side of the Hudson River in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. It is about from the Bronx at their closest points. The county's population, as of th ...

, which was separated from Orange County in 1798. A variant of the name is still applied to Cheesecote Mountain, Rockland County. As derived from Unami/Delaware (Algonkian) language, its source was formerly reported as unclear, but William Bright, in ''Native American Placenames of the United States'', suggests, for the related name ''Cheesequake'' (some miles south in New Jersey) ''chiskhake'', "land that has been cleared". The Patent was purchased from the Indians under terms of a land grant of Queen Anne, the warrant for its "drawing" signed in Common Council of the Colony of New York, 20 March 1707, confirmed by letters patent in the name of Queen Anne dated 25 March 1707. The patentees applied to

Charles Clinton Col. Charles Clinton (1690 – 19 November 1773) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and politician in colonial America. A colonel of the French and Indian War, he was the father of General James Clinton and George Clinton, and the grandfather of DeWi ...

to make a survey of the tract and to allot it among the owners. This survey was begun in 1735 and not finished until 1749. The lots were partitioned. 23 February 1737/38. The “marble covered field book” of the surveyor, Charles Clinton, contains a record of the partition of the lots of Cheesecocks among the owners in 1738, divided in sevenths: William Smith (2/7 interest); James Alexander (1/7 interest); Smith and Alexander (1/7 interest); Philip Livingston (1/7 interest); John Chambers (1/7 interest) and John McEvers and Catherine Symes (1/7 interest). The lots were surveyed into lots approximately each, and a description of the quality of the land and the availability of water was included in the description of each lot. The town of

Monroe, New York Monroe is a town in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 21,387 at the 2020 census, compared to 39,912 at the 2010 census; the significant fall in census population was due to the secession of the town of Palm Tree in 2019 ...

, was laid out in 1799, as Cheesecocks. Unluckily, Clinton's survey laid out allotments four and a quarter miles southward of the line. "Clinton's Old Line", as it came to be called, occasioned disputes between New York, to the northeast, and

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

to the southwest, though Clinton's line was never intended as a division line.

New-York Historical Society The New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library in New York City, along Central Park West between 76th and 77th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The society was founded in 1804 as New York's first museum. ...

The Papers of John Jay, deposition, 14 September 1769
The division of the original tract among patentees is conserved in the

New York State Library The New York State Library is a research library in Albany, New York, United States. It was established in 1818 to serve the state government of New York and is part of the New York State Education Department. The library is one of the largest ...

, among the Sterling Iron and Railway Company records.

Notes

{{Reflist, 2 History of Orange County, New York Rockland County, New York Aboriginal title in New York

See also

Notes