The Holland Land Company was an unincorporated syndicate of thirteen Dutch investors
from
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
who in 1792 and 1793 purchased the western two-thirds of the
Phelps and Gorham Purchase
The Phelps and Gorham Purchase was the purchase in 1788 of of land in what is now western New York State from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for $1,000,000 ( £300,000), to be paid in three annual installments, and the pre-emptive right to th ...
, an area that afterward was known as the
Holland Purchase
The Phelps and Gorham Purchase was the purchase in 1788 of of land in what is now western New York State from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for $1,000,000 ( £300,000), to be paid in three annual installments, and the pre-emptive right to th ...
. Aliens were forbidden from owning land within New York State (except by special acts of the New York State Legislature), so investors placed their funds in the hands of certain trustees who bought the land in central and western New York State. The syndicate hoped to sell the land rapidly at a great profit. Instead, for many years they were forced to make further investments in their purchase; surveying it, building roads, digging canals, to make it more attractive to settlers. They sold the last of their land interests in 1840, when the syndicate was dissolved.
Initial purchase
The tract purchased in
Western New York
Western New York (WNY) is the westernmost region of the U.S. state of New York. The eastern boundary of the region is not consistently defined by state agencies or those who call themselves "Western New Yorkers". Almost all sources agree WNY i ...
was a 3,250,000 acre (13,150 km
2) portion of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase that lay ''west'' of the
Genesee River
The Genesee River is a tributary of Lake Ontario flowing northward through the Twin Tiers of Pennsylvania and New York in the United States.
The river provided the original power for the Rochester area's 19th century mills and still provides h ...
. It was purchased in December 1792 and February and July 1793 from
Robert Morris. Morris was a signatory of the
Declaration of Independence
A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of th ...
and a financier of the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
, and at the time was the richest man in America. Morris had purchased it from
Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
in May 1791, after Phelps and Gorham failed to extinguish
Indian
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
title to this tract and had defaulted on payment in 1790.
Morris purchased all lands west of the Genesee River
[Kirby, C.D. (1976). ''The Early History of Gowanda and The Beautiful Land of the Cattaraugus''. Gowanda, NY: Niagara Frontier Publishing Company, Inc./Gowanda Area Bi-Centennial Committee, Inc.][''Historical sketch of the Village of Gowanda, N.Y. in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of its incorporation, August 8, 1898''. Buffalo, NY: The Matthews-Northrup Company, Leonard, I.R., Reprinted 1998, Salem, MA: Higginson Book Company.] except for the
Mill Yard Tract, which Phelps and Gorham retained, along with their other lands ''east'' of the Genesee. Morris paid Massachusetts
$333,333.34 (about $ today). Morris' purchase from Massachusetts was for some , but Morris kept back some for himself in a tract wide and running the breadth of Western New York from Lake Ontario to the Pennsylvania. This tract was known as the
Morris Reserve.
Treaty of Big Tree
Before Morris could give the Holland Land Company title to this land, however, it was necessary to extinguish the Indians' pre-emptive right to the land.
This was achieved at the 1797
Treaty of Big Tree
The Treaty of Big Tree was a formal treaty signed in 1797 between the Seneca Nation and the United States, in which the Seneca relinquished their rights to nearly all of their traditional homeland in New York State—nearly 3.5 million acres. In ...
, executed on the
Genesee River
The Genesee River is a tributary of Lake Ontario flowing northward through the Twin Tiers of Pennsylvania and New York in the United States.
The river provided the original power for the Rochester area's 19th century mills and still provides h ...
near modern-day
Geneseo, south of
Rochester, New York
Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...
.
Representatives of the Holland Land Company, Robert Morris, and the Seneca (led by
Mary Jemison
Mary Jemison (''Deh-he-wä-nis'') (1743 – September 19, 1833) was a Scots-Irish colonial frontierswoman in Pennsylvania and New York, who became known as the "White Woman of the Genesee." As a young girl she was captured and adopted into a Se ...
, who proved to be an able negotiator
), and a commissioner for the United States gathered at Big Tree in August, 1797 and negotiations began.
Chiefs and Sachems present included
Red Jacket
Red Jacket (known as ''Otetiani'' in his youth and ''Sagoyewatha'' eeper Awake''Sa-go-ye-wa-tha'' as an adult because of his oratorical skills) (c. 1750–January 20, 1830) was a Seneca orator and chief of the Wolf clan, based in Western New York ...
,
Cornplanter
John Abeel III (born between 1732 and 1746–February 18, 1836), known as Gaiänt'wakê (''Gyantwachia'' – "the planter") or Kaiiontwa'kon (''Kaintwakon'' – "By What One Plants") in the Seneca language and thus generally known as Cornplant ...
,
Governor Blacksnake
Tah-won-ne-ahs or Thaonawyuthe (born between 1737 and 1760, died December 26, 1859), known in English as either Chainbreaker to his own people or Governor Blacksnake to the European settlers, was a Seneca war chief and sachem. Along with other I ...
, Farmer's Brother and about 50 others. Red Jacket and Cornplanter spoke strongly against selling the land. They held out for "reservations," that is, land which the Indians would keep for their own use.
After much discussion, the
Treaty of Big Tree
The Treaty of Big Tree was a formal treaty signed in 1797 between the Seneca Nation and the United States, in which the Seneca relinquished their rights to nearly all of their traditional homeland in New York State—nearly 3.5 million acres. In ...
was signed Sept. 15, 1797. The native Indians were to receive $100,000 (about $ today) for their rights to about 3.75 million acres (15,000 km
2), and they reserved about 200,000 acres (809 km
2) for themselves.
In 1798, the New York Legislature, with the assistance of
Aaron Burr[Bernard C. Steiner and James McHenry, ]
The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry
' (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers Co., 1907). authorized aliens to hold land directly, and the trustees conveyed the
Holland Purchase
The Phelps and Gorham Purchase was the purchase in 1788 of of land in what is now western New York State from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for $1,000,000 ( £300,000), to be paid in three annual installments, and the pre-emptive right to th ...
to the real owners. It was transferred to two sets of proprietors, and one of these sets soon divided into two, making three sets of owners altogether. Each set of proprietors owned their tract as "joint tenants" with right of survivorship, which means as proprietors died off, the surviving proprietors took the deceased's share, and that share did not pass by will or inheritance, except in the case of the last survivor.
Investments
The first transfer by the trustees was all of the Holland Purchase
except 300,000 acres (1,200 km
2), which went to
Wilhelm Willink
Wilhelm Willink (sometimes Willem, Wilheim or Wilhem) (1750 – 1841) was a wealthy Amsterdam merchant, and one of the investors in the Holland Land Company,Evans, Paul D (1924). ''The Holland Land Company.'' Buffalo Historical Society Public ...
,
Nicolaas van Staphorst
Nicolaas van Staphorst (January 1742 – 14 June 1801) was a Dutch banker and financier. Nicolaas and Jacob van Staphorst were involved from 1782-1794 in a total of eleven loans to the United States with a value of 29 million guilders. Van Staphor ...
, Pieter van Eeghen, Hendrick Vollenhoven, and
Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck
Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck (31 October 1761 – 15 February 1825), Lord of Nyenhuis, Peckedam and Gellicum, was a Dutch jurist, ambassador and politician who served as Grand Pensionary of the Batavian Republic from 1805 to 1806.
Education ...
. The 300,000 acre (1,200 km
2) remainder was conveyed to
Wilhelm Willink
Wilhelm Willink (sometimes Willem, Wilheim or Wilhem) (1750 – 1841) was a wealthy Amsterdam merchant, and one of the investors in the Holland Land Company,Evans, Paul D (1924). ''The Holland Land Company.'' Buffalo Historical Society Public ...
, Wilhelm Willink, Jr., Jan Willink and Jan Willink, Jr. About two years after the first transfers, the proprietors of the large tract reconveyed title to the original five, plus Wilhelm Willink, Jr., Jan Willink, Jr., Jan Gabriel van Staphorst, Roelof van Staphorst, Jr., Cornelius Vollenhoven, Hendrick Seye and Pieter Stadnitski. The members of the Holland Land Company never travelled to
America.
In 1789 the Holland Land Company sent a
general agent,
Theophile Cazenove, to oversee land purchases and keep them informed. Cazenove was located in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
. They bought American funds, including the South Carolina Funded Debt and the Massachusetts Deposit, and shares in the Pennsylvania Population Company. On the advice of Cazenove, the Dutch bankers and investors also obtained shares in canal companies in the years 1791–1792, including the
Patowmack Canal
The Patowmack Canal, sometimes called the Potomac Canal, is a series of five inoperative canals located in Maryland and Virginia, United States, that was designed to bypass rapids in the Potomac River upstream of the present Washington, D.C., ...
,
James River and Kanawha Canal
The James River and Kanawha Canal was a partially built canal in Virginia intended to facilitate shipments of passengers and freight by water between the western counties of Virginia and the coast. Ultimately its towpath became the roadbed for a ...
,
Santee Canal
The Santee Canal was one of the earliest canals built in the United States. It was built to provide a direct water route between Charleston and Columbia, the new South Carolina state capital. It was named to the National Register of Historic Plac ...
, Western Canal and the Connecticut Canal.
Land surveyed
In 1798, they hired
Joseph Ellicott
Joseph Ellicott (November 1, 1760 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania – August 19, 1826 in New York City) was an American surveyor, city planner, land office agent, lawyer and politician of the Quaker faith.
Life
Ellicott was born in Bucks Co ...
and he, along with his brother
Benjamin and 130 men, surveyed the purchase for the next three years at a total cost of US$70,921.69½ (about $ in today's dollars).
Land sales
In 1799,
Paul Busti
Paul Busti, or ''Paulus Busti'' or ''Paolo Busti'' (baptised 17 October 1749 – 23 July 1824), was the chief operating officer of the Holland Land Company from 1797 until his death. He was one of the first prominent real estate operators in the ...
(Paolo Busti) succeeded Cazenove as General Agent. Busti was a native of Milan, Italy, who had made his career in Amsterdam where he married Elizabeth May, a sister-in-law of one of the syndicate members, Isaac ten Cate. Agents with Dutch roots were
Gerrit Boon
Gerrit Boon (May 15, 1768 in Delft – December 2, 1821 in Gouda) was the son of a Lutheran minister Johan Michiel Boon. His father studied in Helmstedt and moved in 1752 from Amersfoort to Delft and in 1774 to Rotterdam. Gerrit Boon becam ...
and
Adam Gerard Mappa
Adam Gerard Mappa (Tournai,Kernkamp, P.M. (2005) "Tussen Reformatie en Revolutie. De familie Paspoort te Delft". In: "De Nederlandsche Leeuw" jg. 122 nr. 1. 25 November 1754 – Barneveld, New York, 15 April 1828) was a Dutch type-founder, Pat ...
, plus Mr. Busti's assistants
Harm Jan Huidekoper and
John Jacob Vanderkemp. Vanderkemp succeeded as Agent General after Busti's death in 1824 and served until the liquidation of the Holland Land Companies assets in the 1840s.
David A. Ogden
David Aaron Ogden (January 10, 1770 – June 9, 1829) was a U.S. Representative from New York and a member of the prominent Ogden family.
Early life
Born in Morristown in the Province of New Jersey, he was the son of Sarah Frances (Ludlow) ...
and his brother Thomas Ludlow Ogden were legal advisors to the company.
The Holland Land Company opened a main land office in 1801 in
Batavia, New York;
and in
Danby, Vermont
Danby is a town in Rutland County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,284 at the 2020 census.
Name origin
According to the ''Vermont Encyclopedia'', Danby was most likely named for Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby and Duke of Leeds."Dan ...
.
They selected Batavia because the land purchased was located within
Genesee County and Batavia was the county seat. Busti also appointed local agents at other offices within different parts of the area. They located subagents in
Mayville,
Ellicottville,
Buffalo,
Meadville, Instanter (a small village of German settlers in McKean County, Pennsylvania), two districts in Eastern
Alleghany,
Lancaster,
Cazenovia, and
Barneveld. From the very beginning the agents were urged to keep the records in stone fireproof safes or to deposit them with banks. By 1840, all the land in Western New York was sold off to local investors and settlers. Around 1846, all the affairs of the company in the United States were liquidated and the company dissolved.
The town of
Holland, New York
Holland is a town in Erie County, New York, United States. The population was 3,401 at the 2010 census. The name is derived from the Holland Land Company, the original title-holder to most of the land of Western New York.
Holland is one of the ...
bears its namesake.
Ogden Land Company
David Ogden purchased the
pre-emption right for the remaining Seneca reservation lands from the Holland Land Company in 1810, and transferred the right to a new syndicate called the Ogden Land Company in 1821, led by
Robert Troup
Robert Troup (1757 – January 14, 1832) was a soldier in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of New York. He participated in the Bat ...
, Thomas Ludlow Ogden, and Benjamin W. Rogers. In 1826, the syndicate negotiated a treaty to purchase several reservation lands, including the Caneadea Reservation, Canawagus Reservation, Big Tree Reservation, Squawky Hill Reservation, and portions of the Gardean,
Tonawanda,
Cattaraugus, and
Buffalo Creek Reservations, for $48,216.
["Indian Appropriation Bill (H.R. 8479)" ''Congressional Record'' 27 (1895) pp. 3186-3190. (Text from: ''Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection''); Accessed: December 24, 2022.] The treaty was never ratified by the Senate, and in 1896 the Seneca Nation unsuccessfully attempted to recover the land in ''
Seneca Nation of Indians v. Christy
''Seneca Nation of Indians v. Christy'', 162 U.S. 283 (1896), was the first litigation of aboriginal title in the United States by a tribal plaintiff in the Supreme Court of the United States since ''Cherokee Nation v. Georgia'' (1831). It was th ...
.''
In 1895, the sole surviving trustee of the Ogden Land Company, Charles Appleby, claimed ownership over the
Cattaraugus and
Allegany Reservations, and attempted to sell the lands to the United States government for $300,000. This measure was supported by Senator
David Hill but opposed in the House of Representatives and ultimately defeated.
References
{{reflist, 2
External links
* "The Holland Land Company in Western New York", by Robert W. Silsby, Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, Adventures in Western New York History, volume VIII, 1961, (downloadable from http://bechsed.nylearns.org/, click on Adventures in WNY History)
Joseph Ellicott and the Holland Land Companybibliography of books and manuscripts in the library collection at the
Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society
The Buffalo History Museum (founded as the Buffalo Historical Society, and later named the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society) is located at 1 Museum Court (formerly 25 Nottingham Court) in Buffalo, New York, just east of Elmwood Avenue and ...
.
Visiting the Holland Land Office Museum in Batavia by Donovan A. ShillingHolland Land Company: Selected ResourcesAdvance Information on an American Land Speculation, by Peter Stadnitski, Amsterdam, 1792A HISTORY of the TOWN of AMHERST, NEW YORK* ''Beschrijving van het archief'' (description) i
Archive of the Holland Land Company* New York Heritage
Holland Land Company Maps
Early American land companies
Pre-statehood history of New York (state)
Patriottentijd
1846 disestablishments in New York (state)
American companies disestablished in 1846
Aboriginal title in New York
Dutch-American culture in New York (state)
Cazenovia, New York