INTRODUCTION

Many place names in western New York State--for example, Bath, Pulteney, Henrietta, Pultneyville, Caledonia, and Williamson--are vestiges of a little-known period of British land speculation in the United States, shortly after the end of the Revolutionary War and before the War of 1812. The episode is all the more curious because, at the time, British soldiers were stationed not only across Lake Ontario in Canada, but they also continued to hold forts at Oswego and Niagara, and the Americans were very wary of the British. Many of the major actors in this unusual drama were Scots, mostly from Dumfriesshire.

After the Revolutionary War, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts claimed the vast Indian territory south of Lake Ontario that is now western New York State. New York disputed the claim, and in 1786 Massachusetts and New York finally entered into the Treaty of Hartford, which settled conflicting land claims in relation to a north-south line running near the present city of Geneva on Seneca Lake, and extending north to Lake Ontario and south to the Pennsylvania border. New York State received land to the east of this "Preemption Line" and Massachusetts received the land to the west of it.

In 1788 Massachusetts sold the right to develop virtually the whole of what is now western New York State to two New England entrepreneurs named Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham. Phelps and Gorham proceeded to enter into the Treaty of Buffalo Creek with the Seneca Indians who resided there, and thus obtained clear title to develop the land for settlers from New England.

Within a few years, Phelps and Gorham ran into financial trouble, and they were forced to sell out. In 1790 Robert Morris--signer of the Declaration of Independence, financier of the American Revolution, and then the wealthiest man in the United States, although he later languished in debtors’ prison--acquired title to the "Phelps and Gorham Purchase" bounded by the Preemption Line on the east and extending to the most westerly bend of the Genesee River on the west. At this time, there were fewer than nine hundred settlers west of the Preemption Line in the Genesee country. Morris hoped to sell the land for a quick profit. In 1792 Morris’s agent, William Temple Franklin, grandson of Benjamin Franklin, sold approximately 1.2 million acres to a partnership of British investors known as Pulteney Associates. The Pulteney Purchase, or Genesee Tract, comprised all of the present counties of Steuben, Ontario, and Yates, the eastern portion of Allegheny, much of Livingston, most of Monroe and Wayne, and part of Schuyler.

The major British investor was Sir William Johnstone Pulteney, an elderly Scottish lawyer and Member of Parliament, who held a nine-twelfths interest in Pulteney Associates. The other partners were William Hornby, former Governor of Bombay, who held a two-twelfths interest, and Patrick Colquhoun, a Scottish merchant, statesman and philanthropist, who acquired a one-twelfth interest in exchange for putting the deal together. The activities of these men would have a profound influence on Anglo-American rapprochement and some of their heirs continued to own land in western New York until the1920s.

SIR WILLIAM JOHNSTONE PULTENEY

Parentage

Sir William Johnstone Pulteney is little remembered today, and consequently it is difficult to piece together a coherent biography. The multi-volume Dictionary of National Biography does not even have an entry for him, although it has one for his younger brother, Commodore George Johnstone. Nevertheless,in his own day Sir William Johnstone Pulteney was one of the most influential men in the British Empire. He was born in October 1729, as William Johnstone, at Westerhall, his family’s ancestral home in Westerkirk Parish, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. He was the third son of Sir James Johnstone, third Baronet of Westerhall, and Barbara Murray of Elibank, and he may have been named in memory of William Johnstone, first Marquis of Annandale, Chief of his clan. Miss Catherine Laura Johnstone, author of History of the Johnstones, has published a letter of congratulations on the birth of a son dated April 21, 1720, from the first Marquis of Annandale (died January 14, 1721), to Sir William Johnstone Pulteney’s father:

Either the date of William Johnstone Pulteney’s birth is earlier than commonly reported, or, more likely, his parents had an earlier son named William who did not survive.

The Johnstones of Westerhall

The Johnstones of Westerhall are probably an early offshoot of the Johnstones of Annandale in Dumfriesshire, Scotland--the main branch of the family. The first member of the Westerhall family was Matthew Johnstone, who received a grant of land in Lanarkshire around 1455. The Westerhall family claims that Matthew was a son of the Chief of the Johnstones of Annandale, and that he received land called Westraw in Pettinain Parish, Lanarkshire, which the King had given to the Johnstones for service in the Battle of Arkinholm in 1455. That battle, near the present town of Langholm, Dumfriesshire, was the final episode in the Black Douglas revolt. The Black Douglas family was the most powerful family in southern Scotland and had become a serious rival to the Stewart Kings of Scotland. King JamesII took measures to weaken the Black Douglas threat with fire and sword, and the Royal forces at Arkinholm were led by a rival branch of the Douglas clan, known as the Red Douglases. Among the many smaller clans that helped the Red Douglases to put down the Black Douglases at Arkinholm were the Johnstones, who soon became one of the most powerful Riding Clans of the Anglo-Scottish border. The destruction of the Black Douglases was a major turning point for the Scottish monarchy. History records the King rewarded the Johnstones with land for their role at Arkinholm, but it has never been proven conclusively that Matthew Johnstone, founder of the Westraw (later Westerhall) branch, was a son of the Chief of the Johnstones of Annandale.

Around the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Johnstones of Westraw sold their land in Lanarkshire, and purchased an estate in the parish of Westerkirk, Dumfriesshire, not far from the site of the Battle of Arkinholm. They named their new estate Westerhall and henceforth have been known as Johnstones of Westerhall. The family prospered and intermarried with the Johnstones of Annandale. In 1700 Sir John Johnstone of Westerhall was created a baronet of Nova Scotia. Many representatives of the family served as Members of Parliament, for Dumfries and other seats.

Early Life and Marriage

Sir William Johnstone Pulteney, a scion of the Westerhall family, began his life as "a penniless younger son," and in his youth he developed habits of extreme thrift which he maintained for the rest of his life. He was educated in the law, became a member of the Scottish Bar in 1751, and went on to become an eminent advocate. On November 10, 1760, he married Frances Pulteney, cousin and heiress of the first Earl of Bath. In 1767, when his wife came into her enormous inheritance, he agreed to add her name to his own.

Associations with the Scottish Enlightenment

In 1762, while he was still known as William Johnstone, Pulteney was appointed secretary of the Poker Club in Edinburgh, where men of learning and wit mingled with members of the nobility. He was a patron of both science and the arts and was personally acquainted with many of the giants of the Scottish Enlightenment. He was a friend of the philosopher and historian David Hume (1711-1776) and was an intimate friend of the political philosopherand economist Adam Smith (1723-1790) from 1748 until Smith’s death. In 1752 Adam Smith wrote to James Oswald of Pulteney that he possessed

Sir William Johnstone Pulteney carried out public spirited projects in his ancestral district and in Edinburgh. He personally bore the cost of eight miles of the coach road that ran from Langholm to Annan, planned the coach road in the Ewes valley, and in 1763 obtained an act of Parliament to carry out the plan. He also funded the Agricultural Professorship at Edinburgh University.

Beginning of Parliamentary Career

Even before his wife succeeded to her fortune, Pulteney had expressed his desire to enter Parliament. In the 1760s he left Edinburgh for London and Bath. He unsuccessfully contested the parliamentary seat for Shrewsbury in 1768, but soon was returned for the city of Perth and also for Cromartyshire, and he chose to represent the Scottish county rather than the city. In Parliament, he voted independently--with the administration on the expulsionof Wilkes in 1768, but with the opposition on the Middlesex election of 1769. He continued this pattern for the rest of his life. Pulteney also spoke frequently in Parliament on a wide variety of matters, especially financial ones, and published a number of pamphlets. In 1774 he again contested the seat for Shrewsbury, and although he was defeated, he was returned on petition the following March.

Interest in America

Sir William Johnstone Pulteney maintained an interest in affairs in India, as did his brothers. He also had a strong interest in America’s financial possibilities. While his younger brother, Commodore George Johnstone, was serving as Governor of West Florida, Pulteney invested both in the West Indies and in mainland North America. After the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Pulteney published a pamphlet entitled Thoughts on the Present State of Affairs with America, and the Means of Conciliation, which sympathized with the resistance of the American colonies to taxation without representation, while urging a continuing union of Great Britain and its American Colonies. In March of 1777, he expressed his interest in possible one-on-one negotiations with Benjamin Franklin, and in December of that year he wrote to Lord George Germain:

Patronage of Thomas Telford

In 1783, Pulteney began working with a young stone mason from his home parish of Westerkirk, Dumfriesshire, to make some renovations to his family’s ancestral mansion of Westerhall. The young stone mason had walked to London from Edinburgh in search of more interesting work and had become acquainted with Pulteney there. He was Thomas Telford (1757-1834), who became the famous civil engineer. Sir William Johnstone Pulteney was Telford’s friend and patron, and he played a key role in furthering Telford’s career. Around 1787, he commissioned Telford to design and supervise the remodeling of Pulteney’s occasional residence of Shrewsbury Castle. In 1787, Pulteney was instrumental in helping Telford obtain the post of Surveyor of Public Works for the County of Shropshire (also known as Salop). At this time Telford was such a protégé of Pulteney, that he was referred to as the "young Pulteney." Around 1796, when he was Governor of the British Fisheries Society, Pulteney was responsible for obtaining Telford’s services to build the world’s largest herring-fishing port at Wick in Caithness. Telford built the harbor and a new settlement for herring fishermen. The fishing village was named Pulteneytown in Sir William Johnstone Pulteney’s memory and is currently the location of the Old Pulteney whisky distillery.

Public Life

A member of seven successive British parliaments, Pulteney served for Cromartyshire from 1768 to 1774, and for Shrewsbury from March 1775 to May 1805. He was also an astute man of business who used his power and enormous fortune liberally and wisely in both public life and the management of his vast estates. He never abused his power, and in Parliament he had a reputation for scrupulous honesty and integrity. According to Sir John Sinclair, a Member of Parliament and architect of The Statistical Accountof Scotland:

More than once, Sir William Johnstone Pulteney refused a peerage. In 1792, George, third Marquis of Annandale, Chief of the Name and Arms ofJohnstone, died unmarried and without an heir. By this time, the Westerhall Johnstones had become the most influential branch of the family. Pulteney’s older brother, Sir James Johnstone, fourth Baronet of Westerhall, immediately petitioned for the Annandale peerage titles. After James’s death the following year, Pulteney succeeded as the fifth Baronet of Westerhall in September, 1794, and acted in character by promptly dropping the proceedings to gain the Annandale titles. When it became known that Sir William Johnstone Pulteney did not intend to pursue the dormant Annandale peerage, James Hope Johnstone, third Earl of Hopetoun and a descendant of the daughter of the first Marquis of Annandale, petitioned for them. The Earl of Hopetoun had long served as conservator of the vast Annandale Estates in Dumfriesshire owned by his great uncle the third Marquis of Annandale. Hopetoun’s petition was unsuccessful. In June 1805, shortly after Pulteney’s death, his nephew Sir John Lowther Johnstone renewed the Westerhall petition to the House of Lords claiming the dormant titles of the Johnstones of Annandale, but he was likewise unsuccessful, as were other claimants.

Death and Burial

In 1804 Sir William Johnstone Pulteney, fifth Baronet, Member of Parliament, married, as his second wife, Margaret, widow of Andrew Stewart of Torrance and Castlemilk, daughter of Sir William Stirling. The marriage did not last long. Pulteney died intestate at Bath House, Piccadilly, on May 30,1805, and his family held a grand funeral and interment at Westminster Abbey. In America, James Wadsworth of Geneseo wrote to Robert Troup, Pulteney’s second American agent, in September 1805:

Character

Despite being one of the wealthiest men in the British Empire, in his private life Sir William Johnstone Pulteney’s frugality had remained extraordinary, although he showed generosity to his old friends. According to Sir John Sinclair:

Agency in America

Sir William Johnstone Pulteney never saw his enormous territories in what is now western New York State. As aliens, the Pulteney Associates--Pulteney, Hornby, and Colquhoun--were not at that time legally permitted to own land in the United States. They needed a representative who would become an American citizen and hold title to the land for their benefit. To serve as their land agent, they chose a member of the gentry from Pulteney’s ancestral district, Captain Charles Williamson. Williamson was born on July 12, 1757, to Alexander Williamson, secretary to James Hope Johnstone, third Earl of Hopetoun, and his wife Christina Robertson, who lived on the estate of Balgray in Applegarth and Sibbaldbie Parish, Dumfriesshire.

Charles Williamson

Although Charles Williamson had served as an officer in the 25^thRegiment of Foot in the British Army, he did not serve in the Revolutionary War. He had resigned his commission and was traveling to America with letters of introduction to Lord Cornwallis, when an American ship captured him. For the duration of the war, he lived in the home of Ebenezer Newell, near Boston. During this time, Williamson married an American, Abigail Newell. After the war, Williamson returned to Scotland, where he resided for the next ten years. Sir William Johnstone Pulteney and his associates selected Williamson to become their agent, in part because of his extensive knowledge of the United States.

In July 1791, a thirty-four year-old Charles Williamson sailed with his family for America from Annan, Dumfriesshire, to assume his new role as land agent for Pulteney Associates. To assist him in America, Williamsoni mmediately employed two other Scots, John Johnstone, who may have been a relative, and Charles Cameron. Williamson was an enterprising, tireless, and visionary land promoter. His first planned community, called Williamsburgh after Sir William Johnstone Pulteney, was intended as a German colony but was unsuccessful due to causes beyond Williamson’s control. He later planned Bath, named for Pulteney’s daughter, Henrietta Laura, Countess of Bath, for whom the town of Henrietta in Monroe County is also named. Williamson’s most successful settlement was Geneva, where Pulteney Park remains the center of the city’s South Main Street Historic District. He also developed the port of Sodus Bay and extended trade south to Pennsylvania. He established a village called Hopetoun, named for the Earl of Hopetoun, on the outlet of Keuka Lake, between the present villages of Penn Yan and Dresden.

Captain Williamson sent messengers throughout New York, New England, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and British Canada. The messengers plastered the walls with posters touting the Pulteney lands and inviting everyone to great fairs and horse races. Williamson built the first good roads, taverns and hotels, mills, theaters and racetracks. He supported schools and churches, arranged for regular mail delivery, established the first livestock markets and fairs, established the first newspaper, and contributed to charity.

Founding of Caledonia

Williamson attempted without success to induce a group of Scottish highlanders, led by Donald Stewart, to settle on the Pulteney lands. However, he recognized that his native countrymen possessed the qualities of industry, thrift and ambition essential to successful pioneers. In 1798, he heard that a group of emigrants from Perthshire in Scotland had landed in New York City and had stopped at Johnstown, near Albany, to consider where to settle. Williamson traveled to Johnstown to meet the Scots, and he encouraged them to settle at Big Springs, which he later named Caledonia. He made the Scots an offer with very generous terms: He agreed to donate land for a church and a school, to accept payment in wheat, to provision the settlers until the first harvest, and to provide money for transportation. In March 1799, the first twenty Scottish pioneers arrived at Caledonia by sleigh over the winter snow. Others followed over the next few years. In 1803, the community built the first schoolhouse in New York State west of the Genesee, and in 1805 it formed the first permanent church in New York State west of the Genesee.

Direct Ownership of American Land

Although Williamson was a very energetic and enterprising agent, his reports and financial dealings were not up to Sir William Johnstone Pulteney’s exacting standards. As time went on, Pulteney became increasingly interested in owning his American properties directly. In a letter to Robert Troup, dated September 28, 1799, he wrote:

By 1800, Sir William Johnstone Pulteney had become very impatient with the lack of profits on his American investment and with Williamson’s heavy expenditures. The American political scene was also changing, and the Federalists who favored good relations with Great Britain would soon to be out of office. In March 1800, Charles Williamson conveyed the lands which he had held in trust to Sir William Johnstone Pulteney under authority of the 1798 act enabling aliens to hold title to real property. In 1801 Williamson resigned his land agency. Finally, in 1805, after protracted negotiations, he reached a settlement with Sir William Johnstone Pulteney, which left him with Springfield and White Hart Farms, 13,085.5 acres of land in Steuben County (worth a total of $93,298), and practically no cash, for fourteen years of work. Charles Williamson returned to Britain, later entered government service, and died at sea of yellow fever on August 28, 1808, while returning to England from Havana, Cuba.

SUBSEQUENT SCOTTISH INFLUENCES ON WESTERN NEW YORK STATE

The course of events that Sir William Johnstone Pulteney had set in motion stamped a lasting Scottish imprint on western New York State. When Rochesterville (later Rochester) was established in 1812, the Scots colony at Caledonia brought needed grain to, and furnished trade with, the newcommunity. Charles Williamson’s assistant, John Johnstone, persuaded another Scot, John Greig, to seek his fortune in America. Greig was a native of Moffat, Dumfriesshire, where his father was factor to the third Earl ofHopetoun. Greig became a prominent lawyer in Canandaigua, President of the Canandaigua Bank, and a member of Congress. He succeeded as the agent for the Hornby and Colquhoun Estates on the death of his friend John Johnstone in 1806. John Greig also laid out and promoted the Greig Tract, a pioneer Rochester subdivision on the west bank of the Genesee. The Greig Tract was along Caledonia Street, the southern extension of Plymouth Avenue.It centered on Caledonia Square (now Plymouth Circle), which was framed by Edinburgh and Glasgow Streets. From then on, Scottish families took an active role in the development of Rochester and became leaders in many fields.

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