The Chesekook patent was included in a purchase from five Indian
proprietors to Dr. John Bridges, Henry Ten Eyck, Derick Vandenburgh,
John Cholwell, Christopher Dean, Lancaster Syms and John Merritt.
The Wawayanda patent was a purchase from twelve Indians by the same
parties, and five more, namely, Daniel Honan, Philip Rokeby,
Benjamin Aske, Peter Mathews and Cornelius Christianse. The
Minisink patent was to Mathew Ling, Ebenezer Wilson, Philip French,
Derick Vandenburgh, Stephen De Lancey, Philip Rokeby, John Corbett,
Daniel Honan, Caleb Cooper, William Sharpass, Robert Milward, Thomas
Wearham, Lancaster Syms, John Pearson, Benjamin Aske, Petrus Bayard,
John Cholwell, Peter Fanconier, Henry Swift, Hendrick Ten Eyck,
Jarvis Marshall, Ann Bridges, George Clark.
This last purchase was of parts of Orange and Ulster Counties,
beginning in Ulster at Hunting House, on the northeast of Basha's
land, running thence north to the Fishkill River, thence southerly
to the south end of Great Minisink Island, thence south to the land
granted John Bridges & Company (Wawayanda), and along that patent
northward and along the patent of John Evans to the place of
beginning. There is no record that the purchasers received a deed
from the Indians, and it was reported, probably correctly, that when
Depuis obtained the Minisink lands from the Indians, he got them
drunk and never paid them the money agreed upon--treatment which
they resented for a long time afterward in hostility to the white
settlers.
The Chesekook patent was bounded north by the patent line of Evans,
west by Highland Hills, south by Honan and Hawdon's patent, and east
by "the lands of the bounds of Haverstraw and the Hudson."
The Wawayanda patent was bounded eastward by "the high hills of the
Highlands" and the Evans patent, north by the division line of the
counties of Orange and Ulster, westward by "the high hills eastward
of Minisink" and south by the division line of New York and New
Jersey.
The boundary lines of the three patents were defined in such general
terms that for a long time they caused trouble as to titles, and in
the final adjustment the territory claimed by the Wawayanda
patentees was cut off, while on the west a tract called the Minisink
angle, embracing 130,000 acres, was formed.
The English government began investigating the patents of such
immense tracts in 1698, and the next year caused the Evans patent
to be annulled, after which the territory covered by it was conveyed
in small tracts issued at different times up to 1775. These
conveyances, exclusive of those outside of the present county, were
as follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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