§4 The Earlier Years

For an understanding of the early history of the area which became the town of Pine Plains and which included the hamlet of Mt. Ross, we must become familiar with the type of land owner­ship practiced by the English government with their colonies at the end of the 17th century. In 1683 the New York Colony was divided into counties, and licenses called patents were issued to individuals or groups to take title to specific tracts of Indian land, the new owners being called patentees.

In this manner by 1700 most of Dutchess County had been acquired by groups of individuals with the only tract remaining located in the northeastern part of the County. In 1677 a portion of land to the south had been taken up by nine men and consequently was referred to as the Great Nine Partners Patent. Then in 1706 a petition was granted to Samson Broughton, Rip Van Dam, Thomas Wenham, Roger Mompesson, Peter Ffauconier, Augustine Graham, Richard Sackett and Robert Lurting, addressed by Queen Ann as “our loyal subjects” and allowing them to acquire the remaining land from the Indians who occupied it.

A ninth Englishman, George Clarke, who held the office of Secretary of the New York Colony, soon became one of the investors by buying a share from each of the original patentees. This transaction proved to be of concern to future generations of Pine Plains townspeople since descendants of George Clarke held title to the “Clarke Land” for generations, long after any of the other patentees. Restrictions placed on its use limited development until the early 1900’s.

With an unfortunate lack of originality this final division of the County was designated the Little Nine Partners Patent, thus creating confusion for many future generations of local history researchers.

The Little Nine Partners patentee most closely associated with the Mt. Ross area was Roger Mompesson who while in England had been a member of two Parliaments and upon coming to this colony was appointed Chief Judge of New York. It is likely that as was the case with most of his fellow patentees Judge Mompesson was an absentee landlord. A well-known exception to this practice was the family of Augustine Graham, who was another of the Little Nine Partners and whose descendants have made a lasting impact down to the present day.

In 1744 the Little Nine Partners Patent was divided into sixty-three lots and a map delineating the distribution of these lots among the patentees has been preserved in Huntting’s history. From it we learn that the area of our interest here, the hamlet of Mt. Ross, was covered by lots 51, 50 and 49, the latter belonging to Roger Mompesson. Huntting refers to the location again in his account of the survey of the Patent made in 1743 by Charles Clinton. As we try to bring to life the early days of Mt. Ross, we are brought to the realization that it is only through our conceptions of its people that we can accomplish this end. Here however we must rely heavily on our imaginations. Philip H. Smith in his “General History of Duchess County” tries to enlighten us as to the Indian tribes represented there when white men arrived to take over their woods and streams. But he is concerned chiefly with the off-shoots of the Wappingers, who were found largely in the southern part of the County, and with smaller tribes nearer to the Hudson River. Of course his account of the Indian village of Shekomeko, home of a settlement of Mohegan (Mohican) Indians and the Moravian Mission established there at the site of the present hamlet of Bethel, is complete and well documented.1 Of Indians at Mt. Ross we have learned a little and presume they were there in the woods and rocky hills.

We can learn considerably more about the operation of government in Little Nine Partners Patent, better known as North East Precinct, from records of town meetings and of other groups such as Overseers of the Poor. Philip Smith, quoting from records in the Town Clerk’s office in Pine Plains, reports on a ­town meeting held in April 1771 when a number of Precinct officers were elected, giving their names and titles, and mentions other such meetings held in the 1740’s. Of greater interest and usefulness are the full, detailed lists Isaac Huntting provides of ­those heads of households who signed (or refused to sign) the General Association, a pledge to uphold the actions of the Continental Congress, an indication that war with England was looming. Since the signatures on these lists were gathered by districts it might be possible with some research to learn what families were then living in Mt. Ross.

However, to go back to an earlier period we are able to discover much about a body of people whose coming to the North East Precinct in the early 1700’s had a significant influence for good on the character and ethos of the Town of Pine Plains, an influence which is apparent even today. The Palatines have an important part to play in the history of Pine Plains in general and of Mt. Ross in particu­lar. Palatine is the name given to the German people living in the Lower Palatinate, a section of Germany, located in the lower Rhine River valley, and where in the early 1700’s poverty, religious persecution and on-going wars with France had made life very difficult. As a consequence, an appeal was made to the English Queen Ann for England to finance their removal from their homeland to help settle new land in the colonies. This was arranged, and the first several families came in 1708. With a second immigration from Germany the following year, settle­ment along the Hudson was established.

But the expense which the British government incurred in taking in these “poor Palatines” soon became a considerable burden. It was apparent the immigrants must somehow become a source of income to the British crown or at least become self-supporting. A plan was devised, in view of the seemingly limitless supply of pine woods in the New York Colony, to put the new settlers to work producing naval stores. England’s navy had an insatiable demand for materials such as tar, turpentine and resin and was exhausting their availability from sources on the Continent. Elaborate provisions were made to set the plan in motion but in the long run it proved unsuccessful. This was not the agricultural type of work the Palatines were good at. But still the immigrants continued to arrive with over ten thousand recorded as having reached New York by 1710.

Eventually the new settlers began to move away from the Hudson River with a considerable movement to the east where they settled in part along the Shekomeko Creek and the Roeliff Jansen Kill. The latter location brought them to the area of our present focus. Its proximity to the Manor of Livingston directly north where a large number of Palatines had found refuge had perhaps also influenced this trend, and we can see its reflection in the establishment in 1747 of the German Reformed Church in the Columbia County Town of Gallatin. In his Pine Plains history, Isaac Huntting relates in considerable detail the story of the Palatine immigration and states that probably nine-tenths of the settlers in the towns of Pine Plains and Stanford previous to 1777 were Palatine descendants.

With the Roeliff Jansen Kill providing a valuable source of water power, it was only natural that industry would follow settlement bringing with it mill owners and workers to further the growth of this historic hamlet.

Notes:

1. << See LNPHS publication “Out of the Wilderness”. -ed.

Foreword	Table of Contents		Chains & Links
© Copyright 2003, 2014 All Rights Reserved The Little Nine Partners Historical Society P.O. Box 243 Pine Plains, NY 12567 USA		Fri Jul 11 2014 at 11:12:49am File: /V6/4.htm Electronic contacts: Secretary: [email protected] Webmaster: [email protected] Home page: www.L9PHS.org